Historicism Resurrected
The philosopher of science Karl Popper didn’t like historicism. He defined it as a misguided attempt to work out mathematical formulae by which history progressed, using history as a means of divining the future. Trying to make the study of history into a mathematical science in the Newtonian mechanistic model would not work, since the events were impossible to define and quantify subjectively. Even worse, theories about history could not be falsified by the scientific method, which requires experimentation to defeat flawed hypotheses.
The evolutionary biologist and statistical complexity scientist Peter Turchin, on the other hand, believes he has found a key for unlocking deep trends in the statistical data on human civilization. He has resurrected the scientific approach to studying history mathematically as a means of predicting the future. This would probably annoy Karl Popper greatly if he were alive today—but he was often described as ardent anyway.
Bari Weiss interviewed Turchin on her Honestly podcast several weeks ago, and it made for an interesting discussion about whether measurable social trends had baked political upheaval into the cake, as it were, which popped out of the oven for us all to consume in 2020. Turchin makes a persuasive case for the validity of his approach, and a lot of his ideas are compelling. The question that stuck in my mind, nonetheless, was that “chaos” and “crisis” when applied to politics can be very subjective terms. Sure, the year 2020 looked especially chaotic in the United States and other rich industrialized Western countries thanks to the George Floyd and similar riots and then the election insurrection, just barely over the calendar line into 2021. But how much of that was made to look larger than it really was due to saturation coverage on cable TV and social media?
Several of Turchin’s ideas have superficial merit, imprecise definitions notwithstanding. For instance, he has promoted a theory that periods of historical instability and upheaval come about when there too many elites competing for a fixed number of leadership positions. The phenomenon, known as “elite overproduction,” holds that there are many prominent Americans—here he singles out Steve Bannon—who would like to be elites, but having no direct access to national leadership through traditional means. They instead set up alternative power centers to challenge and undermine the legitimacy of the established structures.
Turchin also suggests that inequality is a large driver of social unrest and a revolutionary mood. I would have been interested to hear what he thinks of Karl Popper’s critique of applying mathematics to historical analysis to predict the future. Or what he thinks of the analysis from Eric Hoffer discussed recently. It would seem that Turchin would agree with Hoffer’s sense that patterns of historical unrest are recurring phenomena. But Hoffer would seem to put more emphasis on unique circumstances and unique individuals rather than statistical forces beyond anyone’s control.
I had long been interested in learning more about Turchin’s approach, and the interview with Weiss is a good start.
I just wanted to note that even when I don't post, I always try to read your pieces Marque at least...
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