Well, I wouldn't say that that enlightenment would suffice for progress. It's more like a necessary than a sufficient condition. But my point is that that is the humanistic promise, as utopian as it might prove to be. Society is supposed to get better if its members improve their ways of thinking and feeling. That's the promise that connects the Axial Age reforms to the Christian mystery cult, to the Scientific Revolution, to the civil rights revolutions, to social justice wokeness. We're supposed to be capable of fixing our minds, of elevating our perspective, at which point we'll make better choices, such as at the voting booth and in our daily interactions.

Of course, there are material challenges, too, to overcome, as you point out. Progress wouldn't magically fall from the sky. But it's hard to see society improving or us escaping from our self-made looming ecological catastrophes without an inner conversion to philosophical nobility.