meliorism

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“
Apologism stands solidly in opposition to the metaphysics of meliorism, which states that absolute "progress" is the desirable goal of all human endeavors.

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Definitions (5)

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  1. noun The belief that improvement of society depends on human effort.

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Examples (16)

  • Apologism stands solidly in opposition to the metaphysics of meliorism, which states that absolute "progress" is the desirable goal of all human endeavors. —  Althouse
  • The resistance to Enlightenment ideas that began three hundred years ago still shapes resistance to transhumanist meliorism today. —  Ethical Technology
  • There were still strains of transhumanist meliorism, however, in ideas such as psychedelic liberation, alternative technology and post-scarcity anarchism. —  Ethical Technology
  • Jack Beatty summed up Irish opposition to radical social reforms in his biography of Boston machine politician James Michael Curley: "To the Irish, pessimists by history and religion alike, such meliorism was impious, a prideful tinkering with a Creation that it was the task of humankind to accept, not set right." —  National Review Online
  • Those opponents of Fabianism who desire something more revolutionary than its political 'meliorism' and 'palliatives' accuse it of alliance with bureaucracy. —  The History of the Fabian Society
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin melior, better; see mel-2 in Indo-European roots + -ism.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Latin melior, better (see meliorate), + English -ism.
 

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/ˈmiljərɪzm/
by American Heritage

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