*I'm sympathetic to this anti-totalitarian sensibility, but if history doesn't help you to predict the future, why is history even written or read? It's as if you here to say that mathematics would never possibly encompass the chaotic Gestalt of all reality, and therefore there shouldn't be any predictive equations.
*Also, if you're a politician and you have any kind of platform for governmental action at all, aren't you, at the very least, maintaining some historical structures and believing that your actions will bring some future situation into being? You don't have to be on Hegelian Marxist-Leninist iron rails about it, but if you get all Washington Consensus and deregulatory about governance, history doesn't actually stop. Events still occur, and your lack of planning for them turns problematic; for instance, the ice caps melt. Also, the physical infrastructure of society will decay entropically if you don't plan ahead for maintenance.
*Also, imagine raising a child with this philosophy. "Well, it would be mere historicism to harshly predict to you that you're going to grow up and become a big man some day, so we'll just wait patiently for the natural flow of events to reveal if you ever reach puberty." Also: trying to figure out if the child gets an education or not? An "education" with what historical canon? To prepare for what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poverty_of_Historicism
Publication
The Poverty of Historicism was first written as a paper which was read in 1936, then updated and published as a book in 1957.[1] It was dedicated “In memory of the countless men and women of all creeds or nations or races who fell victim to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny.”
Synopsis
The book is a treatise on scientific method in the social sciences. Popper defines historicism as: “an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim…”. He also remarks that “[t]he belief … that it is the task of the social sciences to lay bare the law of evolution of society in order to foretell its future… might be described as the central Historicist doctrine.”
He distinguishes two main strands of historicism, a “pro-naturalistic” approach which “favours the application of the methods of physics”, and the “anti-naturalistic” approach which opposes these methods. (((Nowadays he'd probably toss in some "Silicon Valley Solutionism.")))
The first two parts of the book contain Popper's exposition of historicist views (both pro- and anti-naturalistic), and the second two parts contain his criticism of them.[6] Popper concludes by contrasting the antiquity of historicism (which, for example, Plato is said to have espoused) with the claims of modernity made by its twentieth century adherents.
Popper's criticisms of historicism
Popper’s criticisms of the poverty of the idea of historical prediction can broadly be split into three areas: fundamental problems with the idea itself, common inconsistencies in the arguments of historicists, and the negative practical effects of implementing Historicist ideas.
Fundamental problems with historicist theory
i) A description of the whole of society is impossible because the list of characteristics making up such a description would be infinite. If we cannot know the whole of the present state of mankind it follows that we cannot know the future of mankind.
“If we wish to study a thing, we are bound to select certain aspects of it. It is not possible for us to observe or to describe a whole piece of the world, or a whole piece of nature; in fact, not even the smallest whole piece may be so described, since all description is necessarily selective.”
ii) Human history is a single unique event. Knowledge of the past therefore does not necessarily help one to know the future. “The evolution of life on earth, or of human society, is a unique historical process… Its description, however, is not a law, but only a singular historical statement.” (((He's saying that the experimental method doesn't work in history, and I agree with that, but you can try small-scale social experiments in governance and see if they work; you don't necessarily have to turn Adolf Hitler and absolutely tackle the totality of the world order all at once.)))
Study of history may reveal trends. However, there is no guarantee that these trends will continue. In other words: they are not laws; “a statement asserting the existence of a trend at a certain time and place would be a singular historical statement and not a universal law.”
In addition, given that historians are interested in the uniqueness of past events, it may be said that future events will possess a uniqueness that cannot be known in advance.
iii) Individual human action or reaction can never be predicted with certainty, therefore neither can the future: “the human factor is the ultimately uncertain and wayward element in social life and in all social institutions. Indeed, this is the element which ultimately cannot be completely controlled by institutions (as Spinoza first saw); for every attempt at controlling it completely must lead to tyranny; which means, to the omnipotence of the human factor – the whims of a few men, or even one.”
Popper asserts that psychology cannot lead to a complete understanding of “the human factor” because “’human nature’ varies considerably with the social institutions, and its study therefore presupposes an understanding of these institutions.”
iv) A law, natural (i.e. scientific) or social, may enable us to exclude the possibility of certain events but it does not allow us to narrow down the range of possible outcomes to only one. This follows from Popper’s theory of science: a hypothesis is proposed (it does not matter how the hypothesis was derived) and is then subjected to rigorous tests which aim to disprove the hypothesis. If no tests disprove the hypothesis it may become known as a law but in fact remains simply a so-far-unfalsified hypothesis. (((I'm kind of okay with this state of provisional knowledge. It's never bothered me much. If I knew everything perfectly, how would I learn anything? Wouldn't life lack all savor? Also, if we get some Copernican Revolution that demonstrates that most everything we knew was wrong, what's the big deal? Historically, that happens repeatedly, so if you know History and read Popper you need to be at relative ease with the idea of paradigms shattering. They're just paradigms; it's not like the factual Earth physically lurched in a different direction when we figured out that it goes around the Sun.)))
Equally, examples of where theories are correct are useless in proving the validity of the theory.
v) It is logically impossible to know the future course of history when that course depends in part on the future growth of scientific knowledge (which is unknowable in advance). (((In a world where this gets commercialized, this is all about "pivoting business models." Man, those are traumatic.)))
Common inconsistencies in the arguments of historicists
i) Historicists often require the remodelling of man to become fit for the future society or hasten the arrival of this society. Given that society is composed of mankind, remaking man for a particular society can lead to any type of society. Also, a need to remodel man suggests that without this remodelling, the new society may not come about, and is therefore not inevitable. (((Also, what if you're a New Model Man, but the Restoration comes back, and you have to take off your Cromwell uniform and grow your hair out again like some goddamn cavalier? Man, what a drag.)))
ii) Historicists are bad at imagining conditions under which an identified trend ceases. Historical generalisations may be reduced to a set of laws of higher generality (i.e. one could say that history depends upon psychology). However, in order to form predictions from these generalisations we also need specific initial conditions. To the extent that conditions change or are changing, any ‘law’ may apply differently and trends may disappear.
iii) Historicism tends to mistake historical interpretations for theories. When studying history we can only examine a limited aspect of the past. In other words, we must apply a ‘historical interpretation’. It is necessary to appreciate a plurality of valid interpretations (although some may be more fertile than others). (((Here I'm pretty much with the program. This is why history is one of the humanities and also why "design fiction" makes some kind of sense.)))
iv) Confusing ends with aims: historicism tends to foster the idea that the aims of society are discernible in the trends of history, or what will inevitably come to pass becomes that which should come to pass. The aims of society may be more usefully thought as a matter of choice for that society.
Negative practical effects of implementing historicist ideas
i) Unintended consequences: the implementation of Historicist programs such as Marxism often means a fundamental change to society. Due to the complexity of social interaction this results in lots of unintended consequences (i.e. it tends not to work properly). Equally it becomes impossible to tease out the cause of any given effect so nothing is learnt from the experiment / revolution. (((There's some kind of problem with this level of cautious rationality. The birth of a child is risky, unpredictable, shattering and very painful, but if no woman ever has a second and sometimes a third one, then the human race is gonna die out. Also, no civilization ever "works properly." Sooner or later they all collapse and turn into something else, they either stumble or leap.)))
ii) Lack of information: large scale social experiments cannot increase our knowledge of the social process because as power is centralised to enable theories to put into practice, dissent must be repressed, and so it is harder and harder to find out what people really think, and so whether the utopian experiment is working properly. This assumes that a dictator in such a position could be benevolent and not corrupted by the accumulation of power, which may be doubted. (((Ponder the relevance of this to "surveillance marketing" and the management of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Tencent, Baidu & Alibaba.)))
(...)
The positive side to historicism
Popper concedes that historicism has an appeal as an antidote to the idea that history is shaped by the actions of ‘great men’.
Popper's alternative
As an alternative to historicism Popper puts forward his own preference for “piecemeal social engineering” whereby small and reversible changes are made to society in order to be best able to learn from the changes made. The unpredictability of the future makes the effect of any larger changes random and untraceable. Small changes enable one to make limited, but testable and therefore falsifiable statements about the effect of social actions... (((Or you could just write novels that have "piecemeal social engineering" in them, which sounds like a lot of fun, as long as they have enough elves and dragons.)))
