What does History tell us?
I don’t think history “tells us” anything in the sense that human activities happen in the flow of time — there are patterns and tendencies, but it is not a wise old man telling us wisdom. At any moment in time, individuals and groups just have to figure out where present circumstances stand in the flow of sequences and tendencies, and work with them. I prefer how Marx put it in the start to the The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances exiting already, given and transmitted from the past.”
Ultimately, I want to suggest how historical institutionalism and our inheritances provide a good starting point in thinking about present dangers and opportunities.
This is a response to this Mr Stone’s “History tells us what may happen next with Brexit and Trump”. Mr Stone has a concept about history that differs from mine. I don’t think “History” is cyclical. I think there are sequences of events that have particular tendencies, and that we can’t know what they are. Mr Stone says that small events can spark catastrophes. While I think that is true, I have to add the qualifier that those small events have to happen in a system that is on the verge of a threshold. In that sense, small events can tip the entire system over and cause catastrophes. The rest of this piece is an elaboration of these two broad points.
History doesn’t Care
Mr Stone has a few theories (in the social science/humanities sense) about what history is. For Mr Stone, history seems to have cycles, and events appear to repeat themselves. He asserts that wars are the norm for people, and that occassionally, “something big” comes along, such as the Black Death, or the World Wars. He suggests that historians have very good hindsight, in saying that “later it all makes sense.” He then posits a fictional scenario involving Brexit, the election of Trump, the weakening of NATO, and Putin’s brinksmanship leading down the road to nuclear war.
His thoughts are certainly interesting, even if only somewhat plausible. I’m not going to respond to him point-by-point directly, because some of the facts and the ideas are still contentious, but I want to highlight the notions about history that I share with him, and which ones I don’t, and suggest another way about thinking about history that differs from his.
I’m not going to go as far with him to say that “history repeats.” The sequence of human events appear to have some structure, in part because of the inheritances that we have as creatures, and as the result of geology, as Yuval Harari writes about in Sapiens. Historical institutionalism tells me that there are long-running tendencies and patterns, and that we need to look at the role of organisations and individuals and how they stand in that sequence of patterns.
While we tend to think that Brexit and Trump seem to herald something ominous, a more detached view of things suggest that they are the result of particular trends, and that those trends can change. I have suggested that Brexit was the result of the British people being frustrated about the de-industrialising that had been happening in the UK for some time. The nomination of Trump (as of July 2016) is a similar result of neoliberalism in the United States, although now mixed in with the concerns of white plurality that feels left out from the economic developments in the US.
But Brexit and Trump are events in themselves. The actual driver appears to be neoliberalism. As a set of ideas, that seems to run its course as voters and businesses realise its limits. Ideas are now taking a different turn: how to redistribute resources more equitably. The ideas of Bernie Sanders have been adopted by Hillary Clinton. We might see a shift in how we think the role of markets and states should be. This is why historical institutionalism is a useful framework. It helps us see the flow of interactions between trends and current organisations.
In geopolitical terms, Russia and China project the impression of power outwards because they are weak within. Within this framework, it is not likely that Russia and China will want to extend their military influence in their neighbours. China’s leaders are aware of the nationalism they have built up over the years and are cautious about how to handle it. Yet they continue to do so because nationalism is still the only way to protect the legitimacy of their rule in China. Russia is suffering under the effects of low oil prices, and will not have the stomach for more military adventures. Besides, Putin has done enough to urge NATO to stop expanding to Eastern Europe. Russia is fragile not strong. At some point, Russia/Putin will stop the violence.
In the longer span of time, Steven Pinker has argued that rates of human violence has dropped. While wars might seem inevitable, their scale and conduct isn’t. Right now in the international system, there is little stomach for war. Sabre-rattling — yes, but not war, let alone full-scale nuclear war. People might balk at the statement, referring to terrorism. Let me be clear. Terrorism is not an existential threat to civilisation. Terrorism feeds on civilisation. The current spate of attacks of Daeesh sympathesizers in Europe need to be compared with the Communist groups inciting violence in Europe during the Cold War, or the IRA in the UK. Within countries, communities need to reduce their level of antagonism towards each other. The overall trend remains the same — war is not something that the powers want, and no leader wants a repeat of the nuclear confrontations that we saw.
Mr Stone and I see very different things with the lens of history. He sees an inevitability in the repetition of war and peace. He thinks that small events can spark a catastrophe. I take a very different view. I see sequence of events unfolding, some with more tendencies than others. I want to look at the dynamics within countries and organisations, and how they are primed to respond to contingencies that occur. War might be inevitable, but it need not be catastrophic. I think that those small events can spark catastrophes because of other reasons. And this is the next point I want to address.
Sparks cause Catastrophes (but only when the system is at a tipping point)
It might seem that I agree with him that small events spark catastrophes. But a more considered view is that small events spark catastrophes only when sequences of events have reached a threshold. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 sparked war because the various powers in Europe had made serious preparations for war in the years before. There was already a nervous confrontation of the European states and a fragility in the balance of power that made war easily possible.
Another way to think about is to consider these years: 1962 and 1983. 1962 saw the nervous confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba. 1983 saw a fragile Soviet Union wary of American nuclear exercises. In those years, tensions were already high that made the tendency of nuclear war seemed inevitable. Fortunately for all of us, JFK struck a deal with Khrushchev, and in 1983 Lieutenant Colonel Petrov dismissed alarms of a nuclear attack. Even though there was a tendency, individuals still can act and turn away from those trajectories.
I think ever since the world got connected — ever since we accelerated the flow of finance, people and goods — we have reached the threshold for which small events can now trigger catastrophes. This is the price that we payed for the global connectivity and the flow of bad things. Think about the 1918 Spanish Flu. If the flu happened again today, the world would grind to a halt, leading even perhaps to the collapse of civilisation. It appeared really serious. And that is just a natural consequence of our connectivity. If this kind of global collapse were to happen, then we would have to physically disconnect ourselves from the wider world. Rather than a global interconnected civilisation, we would be more regional or very local. It would undo the decades of connectivity that we have accomplished so far. The larger point though, is that this global connectivity and catastrophes are two sides of the same coin. Ever since we connected the world, we have made it prone to catastrophes. Bad things, and good things will have equally powerful tendencies to spread. Our hope is that we can stop the bad things before it becomes really bad.
(I just said that wars between major powers won’t happen now, while also saying that catastrophes are inevitable in our globally connected system. What gives? The overall point remains true. The major wars will happen when the system of power balance reaches a point of tension. Right now, that has not happened yet, and the connectivity we have today can still prevent big power wars from happening. The broader meta-point remains. There is a structure and a sequence to events, and that things unfold in the flow of these sequences. History does not ‘repeat’ but has variations on a common theme.)
What do we do then?
What does all of these analyses mean for us, engaged active citizens of our country? This means that we have to ACT. We have to formed linkages with other like-minded citizens, and engage in the civic act of dialogue with those we disagree with, and then respect them. We have to get people engaged in their communities, and to find channels for their frustration. People left out by de-industrialising and the loss of status will have to find ways to act to. Make the government care. Get involved in local groups and organise.
There is nothing inevitable about history or the trends that are unfolding. People and organisations have to insert themselves into this flow and turn the trajectories that we don’t like. It is our responsibility alone that history does not ‘repeat’ in tragedy.
