But it helps explain why progress is so slow.
And that, researchers say, is one reason why progress is so slow.
Progress is so slow that Afghans often wonder aloud whether the United States actually wants the Taliban to win.
The reform has been a long time coming - and evidence of progress is so thin as to be practically non-existent.
Its belief in progress is so hard-wired that at times it has a retro-futuristic 1950s flying-cars-and-rocket-packs air about it.
However, as National Energy Action argued before Christmas, current progress is so slow that this target won't be met for 80 years.
And the economy's progress is so tenuous that the president seems wary of boasting about whatever he's done to improve it, for fear of seeming indifferent and out of touch.
It doesn't mean we are post racial, but it does give us a glimmer of hope, even if progress is so much more modest than many of us would like it to be.
Behind the entrancing story there are some meaty ideas about the nature of storytelling, chance, the achievements and cruelties of Empire, the way what we term "progress" is so often destructive and the fragility of dreams.
But that, says Sharon Rosen, could be a reason why progress is so scant.The trick in all peacemaking is to find new commonalities, says Ms Rosen, an adviser to Search for Common Ground, a non-government body dedicated to conflict resolution and prevention.
His likely years to become a world title candidate are 2017 and 2019, but his current progress is so fast that he should not be ruled out for the 128-player World Cup at Baku this September, whose two finalists will become candidates in 2016.
