Progress is a declaration of the belief that history is of no account

Progress does not elevate or enoble history. 'Progress' is a declaration of belief that history is of no account and of the resolve to leave it out of account.

[...]

This is the point: 'Progress' stands not for any quality of history, but for the self-confidence of the present.

Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Polity Press, 2012) p. 132