Les illusions du progrès

by Georges Sorel

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Theory, Nonfiction

350 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1908

Reviews

[Aurélien Mir]

Sorel's best work and definitely his most underrated. His understanding of the philosophy of history was far more accurate than the conception of modernity that was held by Orthodox Marxists at the time, especially in France and Germany.

[Tvrtko Balić]

This is a great book that I very much enjoyed. What Sorel is writing about is the myth of progress. The myth is propagated by the bourgeoisie in the modern period because it makes them out to be the culmination of history, better than anything that came before and the system in power one that can adapt and bring about improvement in people's lives. On top of being used to maintain the status quo, this myth is also opposed to the Ancient's ideas about history as cyclical, which Sorel views as much more favorable, it owes more than it likes to admit to its predecessors that it evolved from, it confuses various different ideas of progress with various extents of validity, it isn't even all that effective as a progressive force since it breeds reactionary views and romanticizations of the past... Of course, it is ironic that Sorel writes this work as a Marxist and that in parts he even celebrates technological progress. The translator's preface in my edition explains it nicely, he was not so much opposed to the idea of progress as much as he was to the idea of progress. It's one thing to accept the narrative of progress in the works of Marx as either true or useful, it is another thing to accept the idea of progress as it is popularly propagated, or to think that people should believe in the idea of progress at all. All of this effort from Sorel is focused on his old enemies, the bourgeoisie, parliamentarism, social democrats, pacifism...
The book is not without its problems though. Most of it is related to his style of writing. The book is not really well organized. It reads more like an anthology of different essays in which he traces the development of different ideas of progress in fields like literature, science, politics... from the age of enlightenment to the time of writing, just after WW1. This has a drawback of at parts not being exactly a page turner, a reader might get lost in the lists of French names that are thrown at him. But it also has a drawback of not expressing his main point very well and making him seem like he is contradicting himself (assuming he isn't actually contradicting himself). This has naturally led to a lot of confusion in interpretation of Sorel and the debates of whether he was a heterodox Marxist or rejecting Marx, if he was a traditionalist primitivist or a celebrator of technological development, if he was the first fascist or if certain fascists twisted his ideas to serve their own ends... All of this confusion is partly due to the complexity of his thought, partly due to him not fitting certain boxes and partly due to him simply not being clear or even being contradictory.
Another gripe I have with him are his criticisms of Marx. He tries to reconcile him with Proudhon who he's a fan of and in criticisms of Marx he projects a lot of his own idealism, seemingly missing the point of Marxism criticism of Proudhon. He also criticizes Marx's determinism or what he perceives as such and blames Hegel's influence for this. By doing so he neglects the key aspect of Marx, which is really frustrating.
Third problem with the book really isn't the authors fault and that is that the parts that put forth syndicalism as a solution aren't as relevant a hundred years later. Maybe it isn't even a problem, it is just a shame that things have deteriorated so much since then.
Still, those criticisms don't take away too much from the value of the book. Taking away more than one star from a perfect rating would be too cruel. Sorel is a brilliant and unique thinker, his works still worth reading and for me personally it was great going back to him years after reading Reflections on Violence and I am glad that I still enjoy him.

[Tomasz Wnuk]

I gave up after 30 pages