DEI, Critical Race Theory language in sci-pubs increases by 4,200% between 2010 and 2021: study

a reply to: Maxmars

I may never be wise enough to fully unravel the intersection (or perhaps harmonic feedback) of effect and cause when it comes to this superimposition of identity-driven ideology over the existing less constrictive institutional model.

No-one is, which is why history is not a science.

There are two theories of history: the Great Man theory and what may be called the social or History from Below theory.

Professional historians don't have much time for the Great Man theory. Its heyday was the nineteenth century -- which was, in fact, full of great men (and women). ‘The history of the world is but the biography of great men,’ wrote Thomas Carlyle. The Great Man Theory is quasi-religious; Carlyle thought such men were the unwitting instruments of God. The phrase ‘man of destiny’ has a similar meaning.

The Great Man Theory is, of course, very old; it is embedded in the writings of Suetonius, Plutarch and other Classical authors. Social-history theory began, like socialism itself, with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Enlightenment. It only became dominant, however, in the twentieth century, which has often been dubbed ‘the people’s century’. That was the epoch in which democracy took hold in many places around the world, populist ideologies like Communism and Fascism enjoyed huge success and the working classes, through communal organization and protest, finally achieved some real victories. The mass media became a key factor in culture and politics, and consumer capitalism became the basis of the world's most successful economies. Marxist economics was less successful in the end, but for much of the century it looked like a serious, more humane rival to capitalism. The welfare state, invented in 1880s Germany by the highly conservative German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (whose ideas, amusingly and misleadingly, were dubbed Staatssozialismus or State Socialism), also became integral to most modern societies in the twentieth century.

I am not entirely unsympathetic to the Great Man theory; I think a synthesis with social-history theory is possible. After all, an Alexander, a Mohammed, a Newton or a Napoleon does appear on the stage of history from time to time, to turn the plot of the drama in an unexpected new direction. Not even the best historian in the world can predict their rise or foresee its consequences. But these appearances are rare and always occur within the context of their times. Aware of this, what I have been proposing in our conversation is that social and cultural movements are more important as historical forces than great and powerful individuals are, but I am not denying the influence of great men and women. I only argue that they, too, are driven by the same social and historical forces. Sometimes, when they become leaders, they can temporarily direct those forces -- but ultimately, the control they can exert over the course of events is limited.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. The French Revolution was ultimately the consequence of centuries of economic stagnation, social inequality and exploitation of the masses by the French hereditary elite. I don’t think anyone can seriously contest this. But the Revolution had more immediate social and political causes, too: the gradual collapse of Europe's gold- and silver-based economy due to inflation, which sealed the demise of Spain as the leading world power -- which in turn permitted the rise of shareholder capitalism in Holland (and later, England). The Spanish collapse also destroyed the power of the Holy Roman Empire, thus ensuring the success of Louis XIV's concept of absolute monarchy, which in turn destroyed the power of the French aristocracy, which in turn made life for the peasantry even harder and more impoverished and froze the structure of French society, killing what little potential there was for class mobility. The collapse of absolutism followed, thereafter, as a natural result of its triumph.

All this fits the social theory. But then, look at the great men and women who were the principal actors in the drama of the French Revolution. On one side, the decayed French crown, still pretending to absolutism -- Louis ‘l’etat, c’est moi’ XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Necker and Calonne the financiers, Lafayette the hopeful architect of compromise; on the other, Danton, Robespierre, Corday and the other revolutionary leaders; enfin, Napoleon Bonaparte who rang down the curtain on the whole affair and set off a new phase of French and world history. Might the Revolution not have happened if these people had never lived, or never risen to the positions of prominence they came to occupy?

I don’t think so for a moment. Except for the case of Napoleon, who was a true wild card whose advent no-one could have prophesied, the others were just creatures of the times. The Revolution would still have happened without them, only with a different cast of characters. The details of its progress and ultimate triumph might have been different, but the final outcome would still have been the same.

In our present state of knowledge, it is impossible, I think, to deny this. The Victorians and their predecessors could put their faith in great men because they had no understanding of the masses and paid little attention to their views and demands. The world was still divided up neatly into the ruling classes and the ruled, and the former did not feel the need to take the latter very seriously; they were, at best, low-cost, easily replaceable economic assets or pawns to be used and discarded in the chess-games of statecraft. But the French revolution was followed by many others; by the middle of the nineteenth century it was already obvious that things would have to change, though matters had to come to a head in the civilisational catastrophe of the First World War before they actually did so. I agree with the late Eric Hobsbawm; the twentieth century was a short one, running from the beginning of WW1 to the collapse of the USSR.

* * *

Some ATS members, reading this, may wonder why I have not mentioned the American Revolution, which obviously does not fit the above analysis. That is because the American Revolution was in no sense a people’s revolution; it was a power-struggle between elite British subjects over representation in government: on one side, the landowners and slaveowners of America; on the other the British aristocracy and squirearchy. Bear in mind that in eighteenth-century Britain only a few rich people had the vote. The whole affair could have been settled quite easily if a compromise could have been effected on the question of Parliamentary seats for American magnates, but the British lords were too greedy. Of course, this is not how the matter is represented to American schoolchildren.