Deterministic History

Synopsis

ChaosThis book is the most important among those that are presented by this Homepage. It is purely theoretical, so it may have a misfortune to be misunderstood or understood only partially. The most important step to its understanding is to separate the theory of Historical Determinism from that of Historical Inevitability. Both start from an identical starting point in seeing the basic moving principles of history in natural causes. However, from here the similarity ceases. Historical inevitability continues on its path, claiming that the process of history advances to a point in time, when it can be stopped, corrected and redirected somewhere, where the previous errors will not occur again. Provided, of course, that those in the know will be in charge of future actions.

Thus, in the 20th century the world had to struggle with Nazism, which saw the problems of the world as a result of twisted biological and racial theories, and claimed that it found the path to earthly paradise through a process of murderous ethnic cleansing. Then the world had to cope with Communism, which saw the problems of the world through twisted logic of economy and sociology. Similarly to Nazism, it saw the path to a blissful future through the management of the world by an enlightened elite, which will prevent backsliding to the previous problems.

It is very easy to point out the logical contradictions that were at the base of political theories based upon historical inevitability. Historical determinism claims that human history is not depending on human free will but on outside factors. If it is so, and even granting that the natural factors have directed human history to wrong directions, there is no way to redirect history to whatever new direction we would like it to take, as any human action, including that of the redirection and further management, is powerless to change anything.

Therefore, any political theory based upon Historical Inevitability, which is supposed to be a derivative of the theory of Historical Determinism, is a logical impossibility, a form of political 'perpetuum mobile'. It is only a pity that the way of convincing them of the absurdity of the theories cost the world uncounted dozens of millions of victims. But, it seems that not only Nazism and Communism belong to the false theories; there are also more modern variations, as Liberal Democracy, Global Trade, and Wired World, which promise a better world, like their predecessors. Hopefully, it will be less costly to prove them wrong.

This book has nothing to do with historical inevitability. Furthermore, it does not advocate pet ideas and easy solutions. It is maybe a historical injustice but there are no easy solutions. Moreover, this book is convinced that there cannot be any solution, which does not conform to the basic principles of the theory of determinism. In this respect, it is worth while to write a few lines about interesting developments in the fields of social sciences, neuroscience and molecular biology. Charles Murray, the co-author of The Bell Curve wrote an article in the National Review in January, 2000, that the development in all those sciences is so fast and deep, that quoting E.O. Wilson, he writes that we are on the edge of understanding how human nature in individuals produces social and political institutions. He also wrote that:

"…the speed with which that knowledge is expanding is so fast, and accelerating, that it is reasonable to expect that we are going to know a great deal about many, many aspects of human nature and their social implications within just a few more decades. By the end of the 21st century, we will be approaching biological truth about these topics."

Still, we are at the beginning of the 21st century and not at the end. Therefore, the implications of the quotation above are disregarded in the book, although they are exactly in its spirit. It is obvious that if Murray's prediction will come true then history will be changed into a science from being an art. However, we are not there yet.

Historical determinism explains the past and does not preach solutions for the future. If it has predictions, it says that whatever form any future political system will take, it will be according to the principles of Deterministic History, and according to the contents of the principles, as they will be at that time. Indeed the main principle of Historical Determinism is that everything moves, and everything changes. The basic laws of history are permanent and identical; the contents and the ratios between the forces are constantly changing. Herakleitos said:

"You cannot step twice in the same river".

* * *
History is deterministic. In simple words it means that there is no free will in the outcome of historical processes, at least in such a measure that it would influence the outcome of a process. It is a difficult theory to prove scientifically; although it is easier to prove empirically. The problem of proving the theory scientifically is that history is not recognized as a science but as an art. The basic difference between the two is that one can formulate laws, which should be valid for all times, including the future, while being an art, sees history through the eyes and the mindsets of historians. In simple words, each generation writes its past history based on its understanding.

The prediction of Charles Murray will hopefully change that predilection, which in a paradoxical way provided a great deal to world of art, and the world, will certainly be poorer by its elimination. However, one cannot stop science, and this book is a small step in that direction. In order to do so, the study of history is analyzed in order to prove that:

there is an innate difficulty in defining historical terminology and processes. The difficulty lies in the impossibility of bringing institutions and processes into a common denominator. Identical concepts may have different names and identical names may cover different concepts. As an example, can anyone bring the million uses of the word senate to a common meaning? In addition, there are the problems of either the scarcity or abundance of reporting, and the well-known problem that there is no objectivity in reporting.
Because of these innate difficulties, historians at all times attempted to solve the problems by defining systems of history, which can cover the missing parts. So during the last two and half millennia that writing of history is part of western civilization, two major schools of writing history have developed
The first sees in history a string of events. It records history in an annalist way, related to some focal point, as period, country, individuals, political or religious affiliations. The way of writing history attempts to record the events, as they happened or as the existing documents show them.
The second method sees history as a continuous process, where civilizations are treated as slabs in a thread mill, with developments and demises following a common pattern in a cyclic way.

The theory of Historical Determinism claims that history is not entirely random and it certainly is not a cyclic process. If there is a graphic way to present history then the seemingly random pattern at the top of this page shows it. It is the famous fractal pattern, as developed by Benoit Mandelbrot. If one compares the first pattern with the last, then both are entirely random. However, if one looks more closely then one can see that the same patterns are repeated all over again. So randomness and common pattern can coexist within the same system; and the same for history.

The principles of Historical Determinism, as developed in this book, claim that:


History has started about 7000 years ago. It cannot be cyclic; in fact it is uni-directional.
Whatever has a beginning may have an end too. This does not mean that this theory predicts a general catastrophe, it only states that as present history is the result of a random climatic change, another similar change may direct it to direction where it will not qualify as a history anymore.
The present world is the result of interactions of a number of factors, none of them under human control. The factors are the general geography of the world, the last major environmental change and human nature. Human nature in this sense means that behavioral pattern which has developed in hundreds of thousands or millions of years, and as far as human history is concerned, they are permanent and unchangeable.

There are a number of comments that should be added here:

The obvious objections that most people have against the principles of Historical Determinism are rooted in a number of factors. One of the factors is the feeling of self-importance. It is difficult to accept that one has no control over one's fate. There is no way to dismiss this idea; still deep down everybody knows that he is powerless when it comes to real forces.
The second factor is that people wish to know that there are historical details that are connected to people and not to natural forces. It is difficult to accept that events like the Holocaust resulted because of impersonal historical vectors; it is simpler to hang them on some person.
Finally, people are looking around and see the technological changes and assume that human nature change as fast and as easily as technology does.

The answers to the three major points of objection are really simple and self-evident.

People do know that there are no real defenses against natural catastrophes. Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, droughts, tornadoes, typhoons and hurricanes are stronger than anything man can do against them. One can hide, even escape the worst, but it is a question of luck.
There are events in history, which are in human control. However, the question is whether they are events that happened against history or not. That in the last millenium and half there were umpteen wars between France and Germany, and in some of those wars the victors were French and in others Germans, Those wars were normal historical processes, exactly conforming to basic human nature. If those two peoples had been in peace during that millennium and half, it would have to be seriously investigated, as it would have been against human nature. So, whether the name of the leaders were Louis XIV, Napoleon, Bismarck or Hitler is utterly irrelevant. There are independent actions, and those actions are always following a predetermined pattern.
Evolution has not stopped. There is no doubt that evolutional processes continue all the time. However, evolution is a slow process. Our genes developed in the last two-and-half million years, or rather more. The length of the period of literal history is about 5500 years, less than ¼ % of the larger period. Cultural changes are faster, but even they are slower than our anticipation. Human behavior was shaped in the caves of prehistory, a few tens of thousands years ago. The effects of present technological changes may appear in a few tens of thousands of years. Hopefully, humanity will still be around.

Approximate date of publication: April 2002

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