A word from Officer K: "Has History Any Meaning?" Asked Mr. Popper (And So Did I)

[A note from the author: This essay is long and has many quotes in it, but I have tried to break them up a little to make them less monolithic. I encourage you to read each section separately so you don't get cross-eyed.]

I've written before, in these pages, about Sir Karl Raimund Popper, the philosopher of science who upended our thinking about what it means to learn more about our world.

He also did not believe in fate.

He was also a vigorous and outspoken defender of democracy, as he believed true science was impossible without it. For men to test their ideas against each other required a society where open and good-faith debate was a foundational credo. All this and a great deal more he argued in his work The Open Society and Its Enemies.

An open society, he argued, could not be guided by the idea that our future was written exclusively in our past. That there was no such thing as "destiny" -- and absolutely not in the national, social, or racial sense. Historicism, as he called it, was the idea that some things were inevitable, and that it was scientifically possible to demonstrate so -- that one could have a science of the human future, a way to make ironclad predictions about where we were all going the way one could predict the orbits of planets.

All this, Popper rejected. And it was in the last section of the book where he framed the problem nakedly as a question in its title:

Has History Any Meaning?

History Vs. Science

Over the last decade, I've been asking myself some variation or another of that question. How did we end up in this timeline, as it were? Were we doomed by things we could never have known were working their foul little machinations against us? Or was all the evidence right in sight, and we were just too self-absorbed to notice any of it?

Popper's reason for asking this question, and framing it the way they did, stemmed from his motives for writing the book: to trace the history of the ideas that seemed to have most directly informed the anti-democratic convulsions of WWII, and to show how those ideas came from some of our best and brightest thinkers across history. Not from people we would consider the enemies of reason. And he did not do this out of contempt for those thinkers -- Plato and Marx among them -- but to show how veneration of anything, even the most brilliant minds across time, is a mistake.

The first few parts of "Has History Any Meaning?" revolve around Popper's notions of how scientific theories, and historical theories, do not map well to each other. All description of the world is necessarily selective: we have to choose a vantage point from which to look at anything, and we cannot include all the details, only the ones that matter. Scientific theories require only as much accuracy as a given problem demands. And history is also selective, as there's no way to write a total history of anything.

But the two part company in a key way:

... if we compare the part played by a ‘point of view’ in history with that played by a ‘point of view’ in physics, then we find a great difference. In physics, as we have seen, the ‘point of view’ is usually presented by a physical theory which can be tested by searching for new facts. In history, the matter is not quite so simple.

The problem is not studying history as such; that is invaluable. The issue is when we study it as if it were a science that could make testable predictions about our future -- or offer total explanations for past events.

... those universal laws which historical explanation uses provide no selective and unifying principle, no ‘point of view’ for history. ... In a very limited sense such a point of view may be provided by confining history to a history of something; examples are the history of power politics, or of economic relations, or of technology, or of mathematics. But as a rule, we need further selective principles, points of view which are at the same time centres of interest. Some of these are provided by preconceived ideas which in some way resemble universal laws, such as the idea that what is important for history is the character of the ‘Great Men’, or the ‘national character’, or moral ideas, or economic conditions, etc.

[Note: all bold emphases in quotes have been added by myself.]

So what's wrong with such ideas? For one, that they tend to be so universal as to be meaningless:

... it is a very dubious argument in favour of a certain interpretation that it can be easily applied, and that it explains all we know; for only if we can look out for counter examples can we test a theory. (This point is nearly always overlooked by the admirers of the various ‘unveiling philosophies’, especially by the psycho-, socio-, and historio-analysts; they are often seduced by the ease with which their theories can be applied everywhere.)

They also ignore that any reading of history, is just that -- a reading, an interpretation. And like any interpretation it's subject to debate, the kind of debate that only future generations of men (about whom we know nothing) can perform. Any "total explanation" is not going to be amenable to that kind of debate.

... there can be no history of ‘the past as it actually did happen’; there can only be historical interpretations, and none of them final; and every generation has a right to frame its own. But not only has it a right to frame its own interpretations, it also has a kind of obligation to do so; for there is indeed a pressing need to be answered. We want to know how our troubles are related to the past, and we want to see the line along which we may progress towards the solution of what we feel, and what we choose, to be our main tasks. It is this need which, if not answered by rational and fair means, produces historicist interpretations.

If we inspire history to be an open debate, we get the evolution of ideas. If we leave history to dogmatists, we get dogma.

... the historicist does not recognize that it is we who select and order the facts of history, but he believes that ‘history itself’, or the ‘history of mankind’, determines, by its inherent laws, ourselves, our problems, our future, and even our point of view. ... the historicist believes that in our desire for historical interpretation, there expresses itself the profound intuition that by contemplating history we may discover the secret, the essence of human destiny. Historicism is out to find The Path on which mankind is destined to walk; it is out to discover The Clue to History (as J. Macmurray calls it), or The Meaning of History.

But is there such a clue? Is there a meaning in history?

History's Great Vanishing Act

I do not wish to enter here into the problem of the meaning of ‘meaning’; I take it for granted that most people know with sufficient clarity what they mean when they speak of the ‘meaning of history’ or of the ‘meaning or purpose of life’. And in this sense, in the sense in which the question of the meaning of history is asked, I answer: History has no meaning.

... I wish to make it clear that ‘history’ in the sense in which most people speak of it simply does not exist; and this is at least one reason why I say that it has no meaning.

History, as Popper notes, is always about the distillation of some near-infinite trove of facts through some specific point of view. Hence a "history of", say, electricity, or fishing, or diseases. SO there is no such thing as history as a single thing; it's always something we construct to examine the past in some form.

But more often than not our talk of history is framed by one specific thing:

What people have in mind when they speak of the history of mankind is, rather, the history of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires, and so on, down to our own day. In other words: They speak about the history of mankind, but what they mean, and what they have learned about in school, is the history of political power.

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes.

(Side note: the first time I read this paragraph, I stood up out of my chair and applauded.)

But is there really no such thing as a universal history in the sense of a concrete history of mankind? There can be none. This must be the reply of every humanitarian, I believe, and especially that of every Christian. A concrete history of mankind, if there were any, would have to be the history of all men. It would have to be the history of all human hopes, struggles, and sufferings. For there is no one man more important than any other. Clearly, this concrete history cannot be written. We must make abstractions, we must neglect, select. But with this we arrive at the many histories; and among them, at that history of international crime and mass murder which has been advertised as the history of mankind.

The reason for this selection, Popper argues, is that politics decides so much of the shape of our lives. That's reasonable. But one of the consequences of this kind of history being the default is the tendency to justify it from that viewpoint -- to see the successful amassing of political power as its own end, to show that the violence of such a history needs no apology.

... the only rational as well as the only Christian attitude even towards the history of freedom is that we are ourselves responsible for it, in the same sense in which we are responsible for what we make of our lives, and that only our conscience can judge us and not our worldly success. The theory that God reveals Himself and His judgement in history is indistinguishable from the theory that worldly success is the ultimate judge and justification of our actions; it comes to the same thing as the doctrine that history will judge, that is to say, that future might is right; it is the same as what I have called ‘moral futurism’. ... It is what one of our worst instincts, the idolatrous worship of power, of success, has led us to believe to be real.

History As Apologia For Power

Over the last decade this set of ideas has enjoyed a gruesome rehabilitation in the democracies of the world. One finds it in men like Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon, whose mixture of moral futurism and amoral opportunism is unmatched, and who use each of those credos to fuel and justify the other. And they are also only too happy to exploit spiritual culture -- the trappings but not the substance of Christianity -- as part of their mission.

... J. Macmurray, who, in The Clue to History, finds the essence of Christian teaching in historical prophecy, and who sees in its founder the discoverer of a dialectical law of ‘human nature’. Macmurray holds that, according to this law, political history must inevitably bring forth ‘the socialist commonwealth of the world. The fundamental law of human nature cannot be broken … It is the meek who will inherit the earth.’ But this historicism, with its substitution of certainty for hope, must lead to a moral futurism. ‘The law cannot be broken.’ So we can be sure, on psychological grounds, that whatever we do will lead to the same result; that even fascism must, in the end, lead to that commonwealth; so that the final outcome does not depend upon our moral decision, and that there is no need to worry over our responsibilities. If we are told that we can be certain, on scientific grounds, that ‘the last will be first and the first last’, what else is this but the substitution of historical prophecy for conscience?

What sort of men devise such a morality, and who finds themselves drawn to it? Those who want never to be held responsible by their fellow men, or for that matter by history. This last part is easy if you can corrupt the concept of history -- either by erasing it entirely, or by destroying any other reading of it except the one that serves you best.

The most dismaying thing about the worship of success as the justification for history, as Popper finds, is that it manages to be anti-rational, anti-scientific, anti-democratic, and anti-ethical all at once. It destroys any actual past or future in the name of a fake. It makes impossible true debate about the meaning of past events or future possibilities. It robs us of both the idea of and the practice of our autonomy. And it gives license to plunderers, murderers, charlatans, conmen, and opportunists to make our world over in their image. All this under the guise of history, of ideas, of intellectual achievement.

At this point in his essay Popper makes a number of lamentations that at first I thought were dated:

... our intellectual as well as our ethical education is corrupt. It is perverted by the admiration of brilliance, of the way things are said, which takes the place of a critical appreciation of the things that are said (and the things that are done). It is perverted by the romantic idea of the splendour of the stage of History on which we are the actors. We are educated to act with an eye to the gallery. ...

The whole problem of educating man to a sane appreciation of his own importance relative to that of other individuals is thoroughly muddled by these ethics of fame and fate, by a morality which perpetuates an educational system that is still based upon the classics with their romantic view of the history of power and their romantic tribal morality ...

Admittedly, Popper wrote these words in the 1940s, and education has drastically changed since then. But then I thought: haven't we seen a resurgence of such ideas lately, in a vulgar (in the sense of popularized) form? The transformation of Stoicism into a bro-culture "aesthetic" comes to mind, as it sits near the center of a whole galaxy of similar ideas designed to appeal chiefly to disaffected men who want to feel special. Are not such people just as ripe for tyrannizing, just as tempted by a "romantic view of the history of power"?

And then came this:

Since it is felt, and rightly so, that we have to aim at something beyond our own selves, something to which we can devote ourselves, and for which we may make sacrifices, it is concluded that this must be the collective, with its ‘historical mission’. Thus we are told to make sacrifices, and, at the same time, assured that we shall make an excellent bargain by doing so. We shall make sacrifices, it is said, but we shall thereby obtain honour and fame. We shall become ‘leading actors’, heroes on the Stage of History; for a small risk we shall gain great rewards. This is the dubious morality of a period in which only a tiny minority counted, and in which nobody cared for the common people. It is the morality of those who, being political or intellectual aristocrats, have a chance of getting into the textbooks of history. It cannot possibly be the morality of those who favour justice and equalitarianism; for historical fame cannot be just, and it can be attained only by a very few. The countless number of men who are just as worthy, or worthier, will always be forgotten.

In other words, it is the morality of those who seek cannon fodder and dupes; the morality of those who are certain it's always someone else who's going to take one for their team.

We need an ethics which defies success and reward. ... We must find our justification in our work, in what we are doing ourselves, and not in a fictitious ‘meaning of history’. History has no meaning, I contend. But this contention does not imply that all we can do about it is to look aghast at the history of political power, or that we must look on it as a cruel joke. For we can interpret it, with an eye to those problems of power politics whose solution we choose to attempt in our time. We can interpret the history of power politics from the point of view of our fight for the open society, for a rule of reason, for justice, freedom, equality, and for the control of international crime.

Reclaiming History

And then come words that are echoes, and deeply reverberant ones, of the Existentialist and Absurdist thinkers who came to attention during and after WWII, amongst the freshly steaming ruins:

Although history has no ends, we can impose these ends of ours upon it; and although history has no meaning, we can give it a meaning.

Life's meaning is ours to choose (said the Existentialists, like Sartre); and even if we can't give life our own meaning, we can still choose to live well despite that (said the Absurdists, like Camus).

Some cursory searching on my end turned up nothing as far as what Popper thought of Sartre or Camus. I wasn't surprised. Popper tended to disdain other philosophers who were not specifically focused on epistemology (that is, how it is we know things). But the sentiment is of the same stripe.

History is ours to make meaningful. It is ours, or it will be someone else's.

This is what the power politicians know, which is why they set about erasing history the minute they can do so.

To further erase all doubt:

Neither nature nor history can tell us what we ought to do. Facts, whether those of nature or those of history, cannot make the decision for us, they cannot determine the ends we are going to choose. It is we who introduce purpose and meaning into nature and into history. Men are not equal; but we can decide to fight for equal rights. Human institutions such as the state are not rational, but we can decide to fi ght to make them more rational. ...

Facts as such have no meaning; they can gain it only through our decisions. Historicism is only one of many attempts to get over this dualism; it is born of fear, for it shrinks from realizing that we bear the ultimate responsibility even for the standards we choose.

Historicism is born of our despair in the rationality and responsibility of our actions. It is a debased hope and a debased faith, an attempt to replace the hope and the faith that springs from our moral enthusiasm and the contempt for success by a certainty that springs from a pseudo-science; a pseudoscience of the stars, or of ‘human nature’, or of historical destiny.

... we need hope; to act, to live without hope goes beyond our strength. But we do not need more, and we must not be given more. We do not need certainty.

Those last words -- "We do not need certainty" -- tie back into Popper's bigger worldview. We do not need to know absolutely, for there is no way to do that. We can guess, and we can test our guesses, and through that process tack closer to truth and away from error. But we can only do that in a world where that kind of ambiguity, that kind of trial-and-error as a way of life, has the support of the society around it. And a society that believes in some cruel and great destiny is not that society.

[T]o progress is to move towards some kind of end, towards an end which exists for us as human beings. ‘History’ cannot do that; only we, the human individuals, can do it; we can do it by defending and strengthening those democratic institutions upon which freedom, and with it progress, depends.

Instead of posing as prophets we must become the makers of our fate. We must learn to do things as well as we can, and to look out for our mistakes. And when we have dropped the idea that the history of power will be our judge, when we have given up worrying whether or not history will justify us, then one day perhaps we may succeed in getting power under control. In this way we may even justify history, in our turn. It badly needs a justification.

With those words, the book ends.

The Meaning Of Our History

I'm using that word our very deliberately here.

I am one of a generation that self-identifies through cynicism, and one of the objects of that cynicism is the feeling we are mere passengers in history.

I've asked my peers about this feeling, and it seems to them it manifests because of a kind of betrayal. Over the course of our lives we've seen technology give each of us what seemed like tremendous power -- the kind that made us feel, if only fleetingly, that this time it would be different, that we could use the tools we had almost thrown at us by consumer culture to take command of our future. And then we found it was never really ours to begin with -- that history remained in the hands of others, and that we were still only the passengers contenting ourselves with inflight movies (or Twitter doomscrolling).

The real technology, the real power -- the power that only political leverage and capital at scale can give -- always felt out of our hands.

To that end, some of us turned to leveraging moral power to sway history: to become part of a protest movement, an organizing campaign, a pressure group. But too many of those things became performative and ineffectual: noise for politics's sake. The real and difficult work did exist and many people were engaged in it, but it did not have the glamour of a street parade; it was people pulling all-nighters in volunteer law offices, or phone banking for crucial House seats. It was all that invisible history Popper talked about.

It was invisible, but it mattered, and it mattered in ways everyone who only saw sea-level history -- the headlines, the Big Men -- could never see.

Faced with that kind of disillusionment, is it any wonder so many of my peers decided it was better to subscribe to the idea of the inevitability of certain things? Because, as Popper noted, that way provided one with a convenient liberation from moral obligation to the future. If the future was always and ever in someone else's hands, why tax ourselves with trying to be seen well by it? Why not just buddy up with it and be done with it?

I think often about the nature of evil, and I believe it takes no one form but many. And one of its ghastlier forms is when we induce people to believe their choices mean nothing -- when we afford them countless ways to not have to choose at all, because it's too painful to make choices we believe mean nothing anyway.

We have been led to believe we have no right to choose the meaning of our history. That it is only others who, through their persuasiveness and ubiquity, have that right -- whether by high credo, or just fiat.

But the point is not: do we have the right? The point is: Do we choose, or shrug? Because it is only through choosing that we have the right to begin with.

We suffered a historic loss as a society the other week. Millions of people shrugged at the chance to choose the meaning of their history. The exact reasons, we could be debating those forever: misogyny, certainly; poor strategy, perhaps; sabotage, maybe. But at the end of the day, enough people stepped up and chose a meaning for things that wasn't our meaning.

The dilemma here isn't that they are wrong about the choice they made, and we are right. It is that they bothered to make the choice at all, and not enough of us did.

History is made, and given meaning, by those who bother to show up for it. Only by showing up can we give it meaning, and maybe also justification.

For as Brother Karl said, it badly needs one.