![]() ![]() ![]() And in that imperious style, the work of charities around the world is dismissed. He praises these protagonists because they “did not descend on those communities with the usual imperious style of many foreign aid groups” (p 21). As if to rub our noses in his rejection of incrementalism, SBJ tells a story about foreign aid workers Jerry and Monique Sternin, and their work in Vietnam. The truth in his introductory pages, that the value of incremental progress will inevitably be overlooked, is ironically confirmed. SBJ now adopts the very disillusionment that so upset him, turns away from incremental progress, and never looks back, taking on the more romantic mantle of the revolutionary. The institutions that he was praising just a few short pages ago are now caricatured with Big Capital Letters, labelled as relics of old-style thinking (see also p 51). SBJ writes of his peer progressives that “In an age of great disillusionment with current institutions, here was a group that could inspire us, in part because they had attached themselves to a new kind of institution, more network than hierarchy – more like the Internet itself than the older models of Big Capital or Big Government” (xxxvii). Only a few pages further on, the switch takes place, unremarked. The progressives that so dismay him, of whom I am one, turn out to have a more positive attitude to history than the “peer progressives” that the book celebrates. The author criticizes “progressives” for being too “ambivalent about actual progress” (xxxiii), yet soon the boot will be on the other foot, and SBJ will cast aside this optimistic tale of progress. In its opening pages, FP tells the story of air traffic to highlight the unappreciated, steady, incremental progress of living conditions over the course of the 20th century, brought about by a combination of private enterprise and government regulation, rightly highlighting the overlooked role of public sector in improving quality of life. ![]() Starting with a promise that it does not keep.It will lead instead to an increasingly polarized world, with centralization of information on an unprecedented scale. First, and the reason I am writing this: Claiming that the “peer progressive worldview” stands for decentralization and egalitarianism.From here on, the author is “SBJ” and the book is “FP”. We interrupt the posts on identity and uprisings to bring you this not-so-handy print-off-and-keep companion for readers of Steven Johnson’s new book Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age. ![]()
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