I believe the whole idea of Progress is ambiguous in our society. I am not referring to, in particular, social programs or science. I am talking about what makes Progress “progress.” In other words, how can we determine what true Progress is? Some sort of social contract? Whatever best advances the goals of evolution? To love your neighbor as yourself? These points all still lack definition. Who’s to say what the social contract is? Who possesses a clear knowledge of the goals of evolution? What kind of love do we owe our neighbor? Even if something “feels right,” we cannot tell if it “feels right” because it is right or because it is a part of what our social fabric determines to be right. We have no way of knowing whether our current pursuit of Progress furthers it or deadens it. Only a omniscient being can deliver answers to these questions.
Progress is as ambiguous as it is non-binding in our society. What obligates us to follow a social contract? If we cannot tell that the contract furthers Progress or deadens it, then how can we require people to bind themselves to it? Even if were able to say that the social contract furthers Progress, we would have as much trouble requiring people to follow it as we would in requiring people to believe the truth – as ridiculous as that sounds. Only an omniscient authority can mandate that we progress.
These points are important because they show us how important morality is to the idea of Progress. We cannot relegate morality to the relativist and then call people to a revolution of social or evolutionary Progress. We have no basis on which to stand. Until we gain proper moral grounding, the debate over what Progress is and why we should care will continue to be drowned in a deluge of rhetoric and spin. I do not merely mean, that we need to change the laws of the land. I think that Progress begins with individual hearts and minds that are dedicated to understanding morality’s source (i.e. God) and living according to that morality. Until then, we live as the Israelites did without a king, “each did what was right in their own eyes,” and the result is that we regress as a society – intellectually and morally.
nathanielcooley 
Good post! Man, we talkin’ ’bout “progress”, not a game, not a game! (Sorry, just couldn’t resist!)
The whole idea of what we “ought to do” or “ought not do” is undergirded by a concept of right and wrong (morality). I have not heard of any adequate system of explaining morality apart from God. So few seem to realize it, however, and continue to speak in these kinds of terms already having undercut the only basis for morality out from under themselves.