I have a friend who rails against progress and her main point is that progress erases indigenous culture. A progress-believer looks at a pre-Colombian Native American type culture and thinks how this culture could be improved with sanitation, compulsory education, rational thinking, modern medicine and a progress denier wants to protect this culture from the “dirtying” effects of modern culture. I see the point. Progress-believers have been overly zealous in their proselytizing in the past. Tribes have been pulled off their lands and the children indoctrinated in modern schools.
Here is a thought experiment. What if a new continent appeared in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean populated by a hunter gatherer type people. What is an ethical way to interact with them? Should we interact with them at all? How could we offer them progress today better than Europeans ago centuries ago. This is a question progress-believers need to answer. I believe in progress but it is wrong to impose progress by force.
I am sure you know this, but there are dozens of different kinds of feminism, some which contradict one another. To say that one supports or opposes feminism does not make any sense unless one is specific about the kind of feminism. I think anyone who says that “Feminists believe X” is either ignorant or dishonest because there are very few things in which all feminists agree. This doesn’t mean feminism is bad, just confusing. I saw Emma Watson once say she was an egalitarian because she was so tired of the man-hating rampant in some forms of feminism. That might be going too far. I don’t think you have to throw out the word “feminism”. My preferred type of feminism is liberal feminism. This is about giving women more rights and protections: Ruth Bader Ginsberg style feminism.
There has been an explosion of new scrutiny of police brutality since the George Floyd protests. Does anyone have data on police brutality going up or down over time?