The post-progressive condition: Meta-critical theory and the rebalancing of knowledge

This paper contends that western societies are entering a post-progressive intellectual era. This calls for a new sociology of knowledge which problematizes the taken-for-granted assumptions of our progessive episteme. That is, we inhabit a knowledge-production system whose description and analysis of social reality is to a significant degree socially constructed by a left-liberal weltanschaung. Post-progressivism argues for a critical approach to progressive social science’s ‘critical’ claims. That is, a meta-critical stance which deconstructs concepts such as systemic racism, sexism and heteronormativity, asking questions about the motivations behind their construction and the power dynamics they give rise to. The boundaries of these progressive concepts have been constructed in increasingly expansive and moralized manner, narrowing viewpoint diversity while refracting social reality through a distorted lens. As a result, today’s social science only partially captures social reality. Consequently, this calls for a post-progressive research programme to recover omitted topics and perspectives, rebalancing social scientific knowledge. Finally, post-progressivism builds upon middle-range analytic and behavioural theories, proposing a reunification of grand theory with positivist social science.