My book! The Betrayal of the Enlightenment: Why We Need A New Progress Movement

And some thoughts about the first Progress Conference

Things have been relatively quiet here for some time, but I have a good excuse—or so I like to think: I just finished writing a book! Over the past few months, I've been working on a manuscript titled The Betrayal of the Enlightenment: Why We Need A New Progress Movement. I originally wrote it in Dutch, my native language, and just this week, I submitted the entire manuscript (80,000 words excluding notes) to my publisher, Prometheus. It is scheduled for publication in January or February.

Since most of you of course don’t speak my mellifluous mother tongue, I am currently in the process of translating some chapters into English, as well as crafting essays based on the book. My ultimate goal is to translate the entire book. Below is a blurb I wrote for the English edition, which should provide some insight into the content of the book:

The Betrayal of the Enlightenment: Why We Need A New Progress Movement

Western civilization seems to have lost its belief in the Enlightenment project—the ambition to continually improve the world through science, technology, human reason, and the free exchange of ideas. For two centuries so-called “progressives” were the main champions of these Enlightenment ideals. Today, however, many progressives have grown disillusioned with the revolution of ideas that first burst onto the scene in Western Europe, and with the whole idea of “progress”.

Industrial modernity, they claim, is destroying our planet. Globalised capitalism is a force of ruthless exploitation and leads to an ever widening gap between rich and poor. Endless economic growth is a dangerous fantasy. And the Enlightenment project was never more than a fig leaf for cultural supremacy and colonialism.

How did we reach this point? In this passionate defence of Enlightenment ideals, philosopher Maarten Boudry traces the roots of this disillusionment and argues for a renewal of progressive ideals. We need a "progressive" movement that lives up to its name, striving for growth, abundance, openness, and technological innovation.

(English summary of Het verraad aan de verlichting)

A rough table of contents:

• Prologue – Progressives Against Progress

• Chapter 1 – The Enlightenment's Unruly Child: The Disaster of Postmodernism

• Chapter 2 – The Tyranny of Victimhood: How Progressives Declared War on Western Civilization

• Chapter 3 – The Green Assault on Modernity: How a Reactionary Ideology Disguised Itself as "Progressive"

• Chapter 4 – Biting the Hand That Feeds You (Because It Won’t Punch You in the Face): How The Enlightenment Brings Forth Its Own Gravediggers

• Chapter 5 – How We Can Regain Our Belief in Progress and Enlightenment

I plan to undertake the translation myself, as this will allow me to revise the book and tailor it for an English-speaking audience. In fact, the long read on The Tyranny of Victimhood that I published here in August is a condensed version of one of the book's chapters, exploring the intellectual roots of victim vs. oppressor binaries. This essay will also appear as a chapter in an anthology edited by physicist Lawrence Krauss ( Critical Mass), titled The War on Science, which addresses current threats to academic freedom. (My essay begins with the infamous U.S. Congressional hearings on antisemitism.)

I’m now working on another long essay called ‘Biting The Hand That Feeds You (Because It Won’t Punch You In The Face)’, which deals with the tendency of western intellectuals to disparage freedom and trash the very society that enables their unfettered criticism. In my piece on the Seven Laws of Pessimism (see 7th law), I argued that the very openness of free societies amplifies the visibility of their flaws, fostering the illusion of decay and decline. Although the essay is not yet published, I already did an interview about it with Chelsea Follett for the Human Progress podcast of the CATO Institute. Stay tuned.

I’m very excited about this new book, and I’d love to hear what you think! (Do you like the dark cover of the Dutch version, or is it too ominous for a book in defense of progress?). I’ve published several books for the general audience in Dutch, but until now, I have only published essays and op-eds in English, mostly for Quillette and The Independent (in addition to my academic papers and edited books, which are all in English).

But after the Roots of Progress writing fellowship last year, I resolved to start writing more in English, also for the general audience. Now that I’m part of the burgeoning progress movement, I feel that I have finally found my true calling!

The final chapter of my book argues that we need a new “progressive” movement that lives up to its name, which turns out to be the progress movement kick-started by Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison five years ago in The Atlantic, and spearheaded by people like Jason Crawford , Steven Pinker, and Johan Norberg , along with a whole host of other progress thinkers.

Jason Crawford at the Progress Conference

Well, you all know who this guy is, right?

Unlike most self-proclaimed “progressives" today, this movement is unabashedly calling for material abundance, indefinite economic growth, and technological innovation. I write about the awesome first Progress Conference in the final chapter of my book, but in the meantime, check out these write-ups and impressions:

• Dean W. Ball: As a Beethoven aficionado and amateur musician (there was a piano at the conference!), I love the angle about the performance minutiae of the 9th symphony, and the application of Schiller’s poem to the progress movement. Oh Freunde, nicht diese Töne!: “We also are sick of the old tones. We, too, seek a new melody.”

• Scott Alexander from Astral Codex Ten covers various discussions at the conference such as AI regulation, economic stagnation, supersonic flight, and the nuclear vs. solar divide among progress thinkers. Scott is on the fence, but eventually getting down on the latter side. I respectfully disagree about nuclear, but I love this yucky but uplifting metaphor summing up the current moment: “It feels like the United States, after a fifty-year binge on over-regulation, has woken up, wiped the vomit off its chin, noticed it’s lost half its net worth, and started to consider doing something else.”

• Benjamin Parry writes about why the progress movement is more about a “vibe” than about a full-fledged program or discipline, and why this is actually a good thing: “Many fundamental questions about progress are still open.”

• Noah Smith. I had no idea Noah was at the conference! I wish I had talked with him, as he’s one of my favorite Substackers, but I didn’t know what he looked like—only the pet rabbit in his profile picture. If only he had brought his bunny! Here are his reflections (I can fully relate): “I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to an event where the ideals and ideas of the other attendees so closely aligned with my own. Everyone was thinking and talking about how we could accelerate economic growth.”

• Packy McCormick on the question of our self-inflicted slowdown since the 1970s, and why ideas are NOT getting “harder to find” despite some famous economics paper (we’ve just made it harder to use them): “It was awesome. A group of my favorite progress thinkers and doers from the internet came to Lighthaven in Berkeley to discuss the question: how do we make more progress?”

If you want to support my work and the English translation of my book (I still have to find a publisher!), consider recommending my Substack, just liking this post, or becoming a paid subscriber. I won’t put anything behind a paywall unless I have a contractual obligation with a publisher or magazine.

Thanks a lot, and stay tuned for more!

Maarten