While many have given easy answers, we believe the complexity of this question has rarely been fully addressed.

The question of progress resolves itself along the following axes:

i) Scientific/technological. It is unquestionable that an accumulation of knowledge has been achieved in these fields, effecting the fundamentals of man’s phenomenological relationship with the world. While this has led to an improvement in the conditions of life for some, it is unclear whether these benefits are structurally expendable to the entire human population – the growth of which is no small factor itself. Environmental degradation, as well, threatens to remap this terrain.

ii) Organizational. Not only has the entire world occupied now for some time an approachable space for human imagination, a process merely enhanced by developments in communication and transportation technologies, but also the world has come to be largely organized around similar political principles – the nation-state / global power structure. Convergence in such areas has increased over time.

iii) Emancipatory. The rights of man, and of minorities, have increased both in the United States and Europe; globally, the end of colonization brought an increased level of freedom to the peoples of the third world.

iv) Destructive/counter-emancipatory. The twentieth century witnessed by far the bloodiest wars in history, as well as the rise of the phenomenon of genocide. Moreover, many of the political freedoms won have not been accompanied by economic betterment – as testified by ghettoization and post-colonial exploitation. Moreover, while the post-WWII era has been marked by relative peace, it is unclear to what extent this phenomena is related to the development of the Nuclear Weapon – and what the future of the Bomb will be.

v) Subjective. The possibility of thinking the individual – as the possibility for individual choice – has greatly increased over the last half-millennium, as witnessed most spectacularly by the rise of the novel and the discipline of psychology.

The above contentions are not meant to be indisputable – rather, they represent at least reasonable claims that can be made to progress (a term which, for our purposes, is clearly not yet normative) in the recent history of man (whether such narratives can properly extend back through the Middle Ages – and how the European story that has gained such prominence relates to the experience of the rest of the world – remain two glaringly open questions). The space between these axes of concern also remains ill-defined.

To the above concerns must be added two overarching themes. The first – which, as YOUNG Hegelians, it is our place to adopt – is where economics might fit into the above developed scheme. Is it possible – or productive – to observe an economic motor behind the varies patterns of world history? The second – which we adopt as young HEGELIANS – is the question of the history of thought: how do the ideas and principles which govern in the current age relate to the thought of the past?

These axes and themes are to be thought in relation to three problematics presented by Hegel: the problems of consciousness; the problems of self-consciousness; and the relation between the two.

Finally, our exploration cannot proceed without reference to God – and the history of God – by which so much of our readings are defined.

It may not be possible to satisfactorily resolve any of these questions – it may certainly not be possible to resolve the future through will – but it is our (human) position to move forwards.

Welcome.