History Is Actually Possible

Sublating Fact-Memorizing and Mistake-Avoidance in Connecting History with “Social Imagination” and Pragmaticism as a Creative Source of Concrete Possibilities.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust

We are often told to study history to avoid its mistakes, but what if instead it would be better for us to read history to understand what is possible? What if the mistakes of history repeat because we don’t read history open to creative possibilities we might implement? What I mean by this is that if the Nordic Bildung managed to educate children without a curriculum (as Lene Andersen argues, discussed in II.2), then it is possible for schooling to work without a curriculum. If it is possible for a change in ideas to lead to great wealth, then we cannot say that philosophy cannot be good for the economy (considering McCloskey). And so on: if x happened, then x is possible. This in mind, we can’t really say what is “practical” without knowing what is historical.

What people determine is “practical” or “a good idea” is often from a standpoint of the economy; it is not from a standpoint of history. Though economically it might not seem like a good idea to try a school system without a curriculum, if it has happened in history, in what sense can we say “it is not practical?” Again, “pragmaticism” reflects economics more often than it reflects history, and that is perhaps because what is “economically practical” is more “at hand” than what occurred in history, for the second would require us to search and read (and there is so little time and always more history to learn…). What is practical is mainly what is “at hand” to us, and history is not; at the same time, we shouldn’t demonize “practice,” for as Javier Rivera stresses with Heidegger, we are beings constituted engagement. The issue rather is that we suggest “the practical” from an economic standpoint versus a historic one, and this greatly limits creative thought and courage.

Michel Bauwens is an example of a man who studies history to know what is possible, and more and more I think our “emphasis” in reading history should be about learning “conditions of possibility” in which x is possible (as I discussed with Matthew Stanley, Ep #209). I’ve always been struck by how some of my favorite historians like Vico, Hume, and Hegel were also historians, and I think a reason for that might be that if they find x occurring in history, then a possibility is possible that can be philosophically considered. History provides case studies which don’t have to be invented, for they occurred. And these case studies suggest “what can happen,” and so what might happen again in a new way (the excess of repetition, alluding to Deleuze). In a sense, history repeats because we don’t try to repeat history, which is to say we don’t try to create from history: we try to avoid mistakes versus create better ways. We act out of fear, perhaps, and what we fear can come unto us.

Perhaps we misinterpret events, of course, but there is good reason to believe the events at least happened. And if we don’t use history as the basis of our thinking (and arguably current events that “happened” yesterday are now “like history”), we either must come up with “thought experiments” (which can be deconstructed and/or easily serve ideology), defer to morality (which can be a power move), or employ our immediacy and “what is practical,” which likely puts us in service of materialism or economics. Now, materialism and economics are not necessarily bad, but almost by definition they will be more bound to “what is” while history can more err on the side of “what is possible.” And critically, history provides “practical possibilities” (“concrete creativities”), for historic episodes occurred but are not occurring now (at least in the same way). And so in history we can find creativity that is concrete versus abstract (especially considering that even a repetition of a historic occurrence would still be new).

Also, a historic episode is something other people can study, meaning the material of social imagination can be more “open” and democratic. Historic examples and interpretations can be scrutinized by “no one in particular” (to allude to Jonathan Rauch in Kindly Inquisitors), whether a college professor, a construction worker, an ISTP, a person from India—the basis of our creativity is “open source,” we might say. “Principles” and thought experiments can more insular and even rationalizable, shutting out “the other” (to place history at the basis of our thought helps us avoid “indestructible maps,” as I like to discuss) and employing axioms that ultimately prove wrong. Again, we could be wrong in our interpretation of history, but the very “openness” and transparency of history makes it more likely (though ultimately not perfect) that others can help correct us, providing valuable “checks and balances.”

Historic examples are also more dynamic, which is to say they can help us avoid shortcomings of models that are overly-linear and not “complex” enough. We learn from Hayek the dangers of models, but how can we think without something like models? Well, “historic episodes” can function like models without us having to make so many assumptions, without “bracketing out” variables, and while seeing “the experiment play out in real time,” per se, across numerous people of different types, dispositions, occupations, etc. (“historic episodes” are more like “the actual world”). History gives us results of what happened, meaning the data is uniquely valuable, whereas if we try an entirely new model, we have the problem of not having data for or against it until after the experiment, which could cause a lot of suffering and unintended consequences (bringing to mind “Incentives to Problem-Solve” by O.G. Rose). For this reason, people can be hesitant to try anything, but this could be a “giving up” that means power becomes more entrenched.

Anyway, if we emphasize “studying history to avoid the mistakes of history,” we might end up just learning that we shouldn’t try to create anything new, because history can be a long story of people trying things that failed. Studying history is then positioned to be a conservative act, which isn’t necessarily bad, but if the present system is oppressing or controlling us, we will basically study history to maintain and serve its power. In my experience, the examples in history where a creative attempt succeeded were small and narrow in scope, which don’t tend to be studied in history classrooms, where “national history” or “global history” are emphasized. From this scope, most creative attempts will show not only failure but horrific failure. This will bias us to be too conservative, whereas if we studied historic episodes or experiments like the Nordic Bildung discussed by Lene Andersen, we could find creative possibilities and hopes in history.

We often study history too abstractly and not concretely enough: our scope takes us to a scale where failure is likely. This is perhaps because “the greater the scale” the more likely it fails, as we learn in Leopold Kohn, which means if we only study “big things” in history like nations or kingdoms, we will (by necessity of the structure-size) often study collapse and mistake. But if we study smaller-scale things or more specific occurrences, we might see more examples of creative success. Yes, creativity is dangerous, but it’s not always best to assume new “social imagination” or “conditions of possibility” will fail. That could benefit the Capital-Nation-State too much, and perhaps sets us up for replacement by AI (Land waits).

Why don’t we learn to create from history? To emphasize, one reason might be because we learn “the history of America” versus “the historic of modes of exchange” (Karatani) or “the history of schools in Denmark” (Andersen): our study is too broad. This could be because we typically learn history in a classroom that gives us general accounts; we don’t read history from within and while working to resolve a specific problem, which history can provide case studies of what we should do. If we are trying build a new computer, and from this problem read history, our study will be more focused and a source of inspiration. But if we read “The History of Europe,” we run the risk of just learning about happenings and facts, which will do us little (especially if we don’t “feel history,” as discussed in Second Thoughts). On this point, we can see how school hurts our understanding of history in another way: in training us to be “extrinsically motivated” versus “intrinsically motivated,” since it is from and within a project that history is best studied, we are orientated by school to not be best postured for studying history. This is because we likely don’t have individual projects if we aren’t intrinsically motivated: my disposition is general, and so I read history generally and likely see a lot of failure (make it seem wise not to try our own project…).

Again, if I am driven to make a better computer, then I might read the history of computers; if I am not driven by anything, the history I will read is likely general, which will bias me to learning from history that trying to do something new leads to terrible, unintended consequences. Yes, trying to make a new world can be a disaster, but trying to make a better classroom can make the Nordic Nations rich between 1850 and 1950. History entails examples of small and specific changes leading to dramatic changes (a point of “complexity theory”), but these tend to be missed if we don’t read history from a project or only read “big history,” where efforts to make a better world from big and general changes leads to horrible outcomes. A lesson of history is that scale matters, but if we mostly learn from a large scale, we absorb an impression that there is only one scale and so no scale, which means creative attempts in general are disasters. But innovating a classroom is not the same as inventing a new government, and paradoxically the small changes can actually be the big ones (a lesson easily missed if we only study “big changes” that fail).

Also, when we read “big history,” we might not so intimately read about the personal struggles and lives of the small individuals like Hannah More (say in Karen Prior’s work) who contributed to the abolition of slavery. We don’t encounter “others” versus “lessons” and “facts,” and then history as a profound way to “encounter otherness” and “get outside of ourselves” is missed. We argue in O.G. Rose that “empathy” and “critical thinking” are strongly connected, and history can be “an encounter of otherness.” But if all we do is read history to find mistakes, we might just encounter people we want to avoid, which can problematically train us into pride. History then doesn’t teach us to get outside of ourselves; history enclosures us.

In reading history, we might have a sense that “we know what happened” and so feel we will not repeat the mistakes—but we easily will. No one intends the mistakes of history, and yet the people of history made the mistakes all the same. There are many reasons for why (say because “ideas are not experiences”), but one of the reasons (I think) is because “autonomous rationality” without nonrationality and creativity ends up in the same Game Theory problems time and time again: if we can’t create something new, we will end up in the same places. But how do we “create something new” without repeating the horrors of something like the French Revolution? With history, for one, however hard it might be (there might be no greater mistake than trying to make a new world by first wiping history away). But won’t that eventually regress into nothing? Someone at some point had to create from pure imagination, yes? Well, sort of: a moment is always passing, and so there is always a history. I would wager most successful creations were informed and inspired by experience and practical experimentation: perhaps no great ideas have been utterly uniformed by the world. We can in history choose to start from “a blank slate” in our thinking, but no moment is “a blank slate”: we never must create without history. History is always there for us: we just need to care to look versus ignore it as we put our fist under our chin and think alone.

Approaching a conclusion, we don’t tend to associate “creators” with “historians,” but I think we need to start making that connection. This also suggests the importance of study for “changing conditions of possibility,” a point emphasized by communities such Theory Underground and Philosophy Portal. We can culturally think that “studying” and “creating” are exact opposites, but this might be a notion that power and “The Capital-Nation-State” want us to absorb precisely so that we prove ineffective in changing much. History is power, but it is not mainly the power to avoid error, which for Hegel could suggest a fear of history, but a power of knowing what is possible.

As we don’t often realize our notion of practical reflects the economy versus history, so we don’t often realize our “social imagination” reflects immediacy, pragmaticism, and economics. Sociology at its best encourages us to think of “what kind of world we want to live in,” but how can we come up with such ideas and not fall into utopian risks that make the world a worse place? Well, by studying history: those who study history can provide “concrete possibilities” to what is the case, which is a much more positive role of history than the negative “avoiding mistakes” or lifeless “memorizing facts.” To read history can be to learn what is plausible to try.

Historic data is unique data. What we learn in history can be the basis of new possibilities that are grounded in what happened, meaning there is a concreteness to these possibilities which can be a basis for “practicality” and “social imagination” that are not indirectly “captured” by economics and our immediacy. To study history can be like an empirical investigation for creativity, as Thomas Jockin put it, and to borrow an example from him (noted in “The Net (139)”), if we study history we can see how often great thinkers weren’t isolated geniuses but had great tutors and social relationships. Javier made the point that studying history is how he learned of poets being trained by sculptors to write poetry — a counterintuitive direction that would be easy never to consider. What else might be out there? To ask, “What else is possible?” should inspire us to the past. Possibility is found in what happened.

O.G. Rose has been curious on the question of why history repeats, especially since no one intends to repeat history, and here we might see another reason why: it is because we have read history from a standpoint of avoiding error and/or memorizing facts versus with a heart to create (with which I think it is easier to fall in love with history). Yes, if we study history, we will also know what happened and possibly avoid mistakes, but this should not be the emphasis. History can inspire imagination, while the mistakes of history are easily ahistorical dreams, “castles in the air” made from a place of historic disregard. History is actually possible, for it is actually possible for us to make history. History might repeat because we don’t learn history to create.

.

.

.

For more, please visit O.G. Rose.com. Also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram and Facebook.