I hear this a lot. Mostly from corrupt politicians, regardless of stripe, while they are railroading something through against wishes of the local public…
Then the media repeats the lie. And then idiot NPCs all chime in to back it up, usually either because they have a vested interest, or alternatively no skin in the game, and so lose nothing as a result of the decision being made (my parents do this all the time, too, which is frustrating)…
“Progress” can be anything the politician/bureaucrat/developer//corporation wants it to be.
Drag story time is “inclusion”, so it is “progress”. Destroying a forest for a wind farm is “progress”. Or alternatively, knocking down a whole row of houses using “eminent domain” can be “progress”, if you can somehow argue that replacing them with high density tower blocks, to fill with immigrants, is “good”, and should not be questioned… Because it’s “progress”…
Of course, progress in reality is not linear. It is not about endless growth. And just because you claim to be “progressive” doesn’t mean you have a monopoly on fucking human “progress”…
Progress used to be about going to the moon, or scientific achievement, or fucking inventing something useful. Now it’s “free abortion clinics” on one side, and a completely useless new highway bypass (with the associated eminent domain destruction of housing, *of course) on the other…
It’s all “progress” to someone, and of course most of the public just laps it up. Because the media tells them to, naturally…
As someone posted earlier, a large proportion (but still a minority, thankfully) of Americans support drag queen events for kiddos now…
How the fuck did we “progress” to that point, hey?
Modern “society”. Woo-fucking-hoo.
Anyone making the progress argument reminds me of Picard talking to Q, and frankly Q's answer is the one you should take:
"You wanna review your 'rapid progress'?"
or:
Data: "Objection, your honor. In the year 2036 the New United Nations declared that no Earth citizen could be made to answer for the crimes of his race or forebearers."
Q: "Objection Denied! This is a court of the year 2079, by which time more 'rapid progress' had caused all United Earth nonsense to be abolished."