Sunday, April 20, 2008
Historicism
I started exploring modern philosophy about a year ago, trying to find out if there is some alternative to the nihilism that is dominant in intellectual circles and now in the larger culture as well. As I stated over on the Geopoliticus forum, the Friesian school of philosophy has met all of my philosophical expectations, even as it leaves me necessarily unsatisfied. One of the main points of this philosophical system is that there are limits to provable knowledge, which to many, including myself, seems intuitively true. Once we accept that, we have to accept the fact that we will never be able to win an argument against someone who does not accept that point of view, because we cannot build a logical system on unknowable first principles. We simply cannot compete with pure rationalism, though that fact does not say anything one way or another about the validity of our belief system. There really is no point in even having a discussion with a pure rationalist, since the entire Friesian system of metaphysics is invalidated by their insistence on an entirely internal consistent set of axioms and proofs. The issues and contradictions inherent in their own belief system are glossed over, of course.
What I find interesting is that the Friesian system of philosophy leads somewhat naturally toward a traditionally conservative system of political and social belief. Once we assert (without proof) that morality exists and that the Judeo-Christian version of morality is more-or-less correct, we are led down the path toward advocating traditional liberalism, self-determination of peoples, and a general concept of freedom.
Lately, I’ve been reading the political and social philosophers that fleshed out the political implications of the Friesian philosophers. These men mostly wrote in the 1930s and 1940s, usually directly in opposition to foreign fascism or communism, and frequently also in recognition of the significant socialist turn of American and British society of that same era. F. A. Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, warned the British people in 1944 that the Naziism they were fighting was a natural evolution of the socialist society they were asking for themselves. What I am reading now, The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper, takes a more theoretical bent, and tries to break down into several broad categories the basic theories of societal evolution, while focusing on the implications of each.
Popper’s main division of social theories is into those he calls historicism, and those he calls social engineering.
The historicists are those that believe that societal evolution has an inevitability to it - societies evolve predictably from one thing to another, and there isn’t anything we can do about it. His main example is Plato and his Republic, where a city’s government starts like the “form”, or idealized case, of a government, and slowly degenerates into progressively more corrupt institutions. Interestingly enough, Plato saw this de-evolution progressing from the rule of philosopher-kings, to a communist hereditary aristocracy, to a wealth-driven oligarchy, to democracy, to tyranny, with Plato ranking the relative goodness of these forms of government by how closely they corresponded to his ideal government, the original enlightened despotism ruled by philosopher-kings. As you can see, Plato didn’t think much of democracy. He much preferred the rule of those he considered better prepared to lead from an intellectual and educational perspective, and he advocated strict class divisions to make certain that the rule of the upper class was secure against incursions by the masses. He was advocating a government like Sparta over that of Athens, a rigid military dictatorship as opposed to a reasonably open democracy. By our modern liberal standards, this sounds like a recipe for oppression. In fact it was, as Plato called for in essence a caste system, with the lower castes oppressed as a matter of principle. He is clearly using a different standard of value in evaluating these political systems than what we believe in today.
Popper’s writings on historicism were largely aimed at the Marxists and other socialists of his day, who loudly and repeatedly declared that just as Darwin’s theory proved that more simple species evolved into more complex and “better” species, societies evolve from capitalism to a better, more advanced form of government in socialism. Socialism isn’t just a good idea, it is an inevitable evolution into something greater. In that case, those who stand in the way are not only fools, but are also nefarious advocates of a by-gone era, desperately trying to preserve the privileges of those who unfairly exploited others under capitalism. Popper’s intent was to show that socialism is not inevitable, and that claims that it is inevitable are merely attempts to marginalize the classical liberal opponents of socialism.
What’s interesting to me about the whole argument is how Popper’s arguments about the invalidity of historicism impact not just the leftists that claim a historical inevitability for socialism, but also those on the right who feel there is a historical inevitability about other things. Many conservatives feel that there is a certain historical inevitability regarding the progression of government as well, similar to Plato’s, as despotism becomes formalized in a monarchy, monarchies are replaced by democracies, democracies eventually become socialist, which then degenerate back into despotism of some form. I myself believe that it is very natural for a young, ambitious upstart culture to explode onto the world stage, only to become decadent and fall apart as wealth and complacency replace the previous drive and ambition. There are lots of examples from history that follow this trend. Other examples of non-leftist historicism come in the form of a belief in historic cycles. For example, in Why We Do Not Behave Like Human Beings, by Ralph Adams Cram, it is stated without proof that history ebbs and flows in five-hundred year cycles. The validity of this claim, as well as the distinction between it being a general rule rather than a curiosity, is left up to the reader to determine. Given all of this, I was honestly surprised to see a blanket condemnation of historicism from Popper.
Like most other extremely general statements, I think Popper’s claims are generally true, except for the inevitable exceptions. I think Popper, in aiming at Marxism, may have cast his net too widely in condemning historicism. On the other hand, I haven’t finished the book yet, so there may be some qualifying statements later on. I suspect that Popper’s intent may have been simply to condemn historicism as a political motivator, rather than to deny the existence of historical patterns in the evolution of societies. Whether he will make that point explicitly at some point is yet to be determined.
Popper’s other main division of social theory, that of social engineering, is further subdivided into utopian social engineering and practical social engineering. Social engineers all believe that society is changing and that the future is malleable, in great contrast with historicism, but they disagree on what our goals should be and on how that change should be managed. Utopian social engineers, like the Russian, Chinese, and Cambodian communists, believed that society can be torn down and rebuilt to make it better in some way. Most of us are familiar with how that usually turns out. Popper doesn’t have much nice to say about these folks. Practical social engineers, the only branch in this scheme that Popper supports, are the conservatives of the world. All changes are analyzed carefully to determine what the likely effect of those changes are, and the changes are only supported if they represent a net positive to society. Some modern liberals would claim to fall in this category as well, but usually their proposals hinge upon being able to educate man into some better version of himself, therefore making possible a society and government that is impossible today. Sounds suspiciously like utopianism to me. I may be reading a bit into Popper here in equating practical social engineering with conservatism, as he hasn’t fully fleshed out the concept as he sees it. However, his introduction to the topic immediately made me think that this is what he meant.
In any case, I’m finding the whole concept interesting and enlightening, especially as Popper focuses much on Plato and his criticism of Greek society, helping to fill another gap in my knowledge. I would recommend to anyone interested in how we got to where we are today do a survey of early twentieth century philosophy and economics writings. Hayek, Popper, and Nock are great places to start, and I’m going to hit von Mises one of these days as well. I find it interesting that today many of these writers are considered libertarians - Samizdata.net even has Popper in its masthead. I think that is partially because conservatism has evolved to some extent to mean something involving religion, as opposed to bring a purely political concept. All of these authors, though modern libertarians have claimed them as their own, have much to say to any secular conservative interested in political theory and history.
Comments
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Well, since libertarians concerned more with justice and a good society than the right to get stoned already count themselves as in essentially the same camp as conservatives (at least with regard to questions of politics), this ought not be surprising.
Libertarianism is about the proper relationship between citizens and government...and that’s all it’s about. To the extent that these writers concern themselves specifically with that subject, they are libertarians. (Some libertarian writers, von Mises most prominently in your list, are far too utopian to be credibly called “conservative”...but some, such as Hayek and Popper, are firmly in the practical and conservative mold.)
If you seriously claim that conservatism is “purely a political concept”, then I think we must mean very different things when we use the word “political”.
Matt | 4/21/2008 12:48 AM CDT -
You are right, that was probably a poorly chosen phrase.
I personally think of conservatism as much more than just politics. However, when setting conservatism along side other political doctrines (liberalism, libertarianism, etc), all of those other elements of conservatism are secondary to the political elements. Political conservatism to me defines an algorithm of political decision-making, and just as you claim for libertarianism, a proper relationship between citizens and government (which of course is different from that defined by libertarianism). What I intended to convey there is that many people look at political conservatism as a back-door for theocracy, which really isn’t what it is about at all. Therefore, any secular conservative writers get pushed out of conservatism, to be claimed by something explicitly secular like libertarianism.
I think these folks (except maybe von Mises, I don’t know enough about him to say) have political philosophies that walk the line between secular conservatism and libertarianism. And yet, they are never referred to as “conservative philosophers”, only “libertarian philosophers”. I also find it very interesting that Nock was libertarian to anarchistic early in life, much more conservative later in life, and yet as far as I can tell libertarians completely ignore his later writings, which in my mind were much more mature and well thought out. And again, he is always the “libertarian” writer, never a “conservative”.
American Farmer | 4/21/2008 06:32 AM CDT -
I prefer the term “classical conservatism” which is similar to “classical liberal.”
The problem, of course, is that liberal has been usurped to mean something entirely different from what it used to mean. Libertarian is also a new fangled term/idea, either from the school of Rousseau (for those who wish to destroy established institutions) or Thoreau (who made himself politically irrelevant). I have no time for either.
But back to the point…
I think the problem with the inevitability thing is that it is like folks who say that there will be a 8.x magnitude earthquake every 150 years in California. That’s absolute bollocks, yet people believe it, in the same way they believe that a “100 year flood” means that if it floods this year, it will be 99 years before it floods again… as if nature uses a calendar.
Socialism is a new thing, in the political sphere. It was an invention of larger societies, and is recent in the sense of man’s time on earth.
It is a label given to a political philosophy to justify greed by the lazy. It is, in essence, the political pphilosophy of storming the castle.
There will always be greed. There will always be sloth. How that transforms civilization when they become complacent and comfortable isn’t necessarily socialism, but all forms of socialism (old and new) require infrastructure to leech upon, and are temporary, as it denies the human instinct to better oneself. When you remove the benefit of bettering oneself through hard work, bettering oneself stops (temporarily). Hoarding replaces that, in whatever form that takes.
I’ve never been a fan of Plato, for exactly the reasons you mention, but that doesn’t mean I think he got in wrong.
If we accept that there will always be some sort of ruling class (either by heredity, education, or money) then there will always be a group of people who feel put upon and oppressed by whomever the ruling class happens to be.
What is always astonishing to me, however, is that they think that once they become the ruling class (by whatever mechanism they choose to claim it) that they will someone behave benevolently and have the admiration of all… never becoming the oppressors.
HA! What a bunch of maroons.
Mrs. du Toit | 4/21/2008 06:50 AM CDT -
Where do I begin. It is refreshing reading someone who thinks. I have found it most frustrating that people usually don’t.
I think this stems from Hegel and german idealism. We have a lot owing to the state of our society from his dialectic process.
We also are becoming a sound-byte society where personal analysis serves no useful function. Yes I know that truth is truth. I know that people most often view life highly subjectively. This usually works for those who do not seek too many answers.
Concerning subjective perceptions of truth. To lend a left handed homage to german idealism, it is true that we view the world from our own perspective. That we see truth as it is in our own eyes. Ultimately how that plays out is how close our paradigms match reality. If one has wisdom, being a thinking man in a savage world has advantages.
I enjoyed your post.
fidalgoman | 4/23/2008 01:45 AM CDT
