Pip: If you’ve ever wondered whether your society is making progress and just felt vaguely uneasy about the answer, Mont Redmond has been sitting with that question too — and brought Epictetus along for the conversation.
Mara: This episode follows one sustained argument about what progress actually means — and whether the way we measure it is quietly steering us away from the things that matter most.
Pip: Let’s start with what it means to develop an inspired idea about progress itself.
Developing Inspired Ideas: What Progress Are We Pursuing?
Mara: The central tension here is whether progress means advancement in measurable, material terms or something harder to quantify — a condition of the soul that secular discourse barely has language for.
Pip: The post opens with Epictetus. He’s asked why, given how much more reason has been cultivated now, progress was greater in former times — and his answer is simple: “At present it has been cultivated for the purpose of resolving syllogisms, and progress is made. But in former times it was cultivated for the purpose of maintaining the governing faculty in a condition conformable to nature, and progress was made.”
Mara: So the upshot is that you get the kind of progress you train for. Sharpen your logic and you’ll win arguments. Cultivate your inner life and you’ll become a better human being. The two aren’t interchangeable.
Pip: And the question put directly to Muslim readers is whether “progressive” Islam means recovering prophetic values — faith, virtue, wisdom — or whether it means importing the latest framework from psychology, political activism, or business strategy. That’s not a rhetorical trap; it’s a genuine fork in the road.
Mara: The post is honest about why spiritual progress loses the rhetorical battle. It doesn’t advertise itself. It doesn’t show up in a skyline or a quarterly report. Material progress, by contrast, is embedded in the visual fabric of everyday life — a highrise next to a slum requires, as the post puts it, “little or no mental effort to imbibe.”
Pip: Whereas explaining why daily prayer or reduced working hours constitutes progress requires a whole argument. The asymmetry is real, and it’s structural, not just a marketing problem.
Mara: The post doesn’t stop at diagnosis. It proposes that material progress and spiritual progress aren’t mutually exclusive, and that modern tools, such as psychological research and social media, could be redirected toward spiritual ends. The goal is Muslim communities less dependent on government programs and secular education systems, with “clear intellectual alternatives to scientism and secularism.”
Pip: The closing note lands on Q37:99 — Ibrahim saying “Truly I am going to my Master; He will guide me” — framing the Qur’an itself as both the manual and the destination.
Mara: The argument is that asking “what progress are we pursuing” is not a retreat from ambition. It’s the precondition for any ambition worth having.
Pip: The question underneath all of this is what we’re actually optimizing for, and whether we’ve ever stopped to ask.
Mara: That’s the thread to carry forward. What counts as progress, and who gets to define it.
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