Progress as ideology differs fundamentally from becoming as philosophy

Evidence

Progress is an ideology: becoming is a philosophical conception. “Progress” depends on a specific mentality, in the constitution of which are involved certain historically determined cultural elements: “becoming” is a philosophical concept from which “progress” can be absent. In the idea of progress is implied the possibility of quantitative and qualitative measuring, of “more” and “better”. A “fixed”, or fixable, yardstick must therefore be supposed, but this yardstick is given by the past, by a certain phase of the past or by certain measurable aspects, etc. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1275

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s key distinction between ‘progress’ as historically-conditioned ideology and ‘becoming’ as a pure philosophical concept.
• XREF: Connects to the toolkit’s interest in ideology generally; the progress-vs-becoming split resembles the Marxian view of bourgeois categories as historically contingent. — connects to: The ideology of scientific progress legitimated class hierarchy rather than lifting the poor — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 712; Ideology critique reveals that unfree philosophies converge in philosophical idealism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 564
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1275