Ah yes. “They shall run in great circles and be known as big wheels.” { 8^)
I don’t know that the progress v motion issue you raise is necessarily attributable to any particular discipline or dogma. A great deal of it, I suspect, is simply attributable to the contrariness of human nature itself.
As progress (opposed to mere ‘motion’) what I specifically had in mind was certain self-evident truths, such as all men being created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. The clamour and scandal has not ceased since Mr. Jefferson first had the effrontery to utter these thoughts aloud. I’m sure others, of much greater intelligence than I, can think of many more examples.
Progress as implying improvement, a school of thought among historians that died out about 1930. The sociologists also implied improvement by Progress, and that school of thought disappeared by 1950. Darwin was mystified by the extension of his insight to things other than biological species.