You complain the question of debate (which I did not compose) is an absolute unanswerable mess, then you also complain when someone proposes an answer. I would say, as Chinese premier Zhou Enlai famously maybe said: “It’s too early to tell”.
We self-evidently have not arrived at Utopia (by anyone’s definition). We also have not (yet) been cast on the ash-heap of history. We always have been, are now, and shall continue to be, a work in process wobbling unsteadily into a better future.
As a Progressive myself I agree that we are performing far below what I believe is our current (much less maximum) potential. I don’t / won’t label that situation “failure” with all the finality that word entails. Less patient people might.