FREE WILL AND HISTORY
By Frank Forman
1995 November 26Mystical factors are second in popularity [among explanations of the collapse of complex societies] to those that postulate class conflict (an interesting fact in this age supposedly dominated by rational science). Their essence is that they contain no reference to empirically knowable processes, and often make value judgments about particular societies. Mystical explanations rely on concepts like 'decadence,' 'vigor,' or 'senility'; societies are ranked according to these subjective factors, and collapse is explained accordingly. 'Decadent' societies, in this view, are seen negatively, and are axiomatically liable to disintegrate. Many, many such theories have been developed, of great diversity, indeed often of diametrically opposite views. They are united in their lack of concern with empirically knowable or observable factors, and in their reliance on an author's subjective assessment of individual societies.--Joseph A. Tainter, _The Collapse of Complex Societies_ (Series: New Studies in Archeology) (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 74, a fabulous book.
This mode of history writing is at least as old as the Old Testament, which is a tale of cycles of Israel's obedience to Yahweh (with its subsequent rewards) followed by Israel's turn to false gods and decadent behavior (with its subsequent punishment). Today, of course, we would replace the divine element with mundane processes, but even on its own terms, the Old Testament is flawed as an explanatory device, for there have always been sinners, and an explanation for any decay can be readily had merely by pointing to the sinning. What would have to be shown is a decided correlation between the *magnitude* of the sinning and the *magnitude* of God's wrath. The latter is completely unobservable, and estimates of the former are bound to be biased.
And yet, and yet--behavior is regulated by the will and ought to constitute part of any explanation of the fate of societies. And certainly societies where decadent behavior abounds will be less stable than those where it does not. We need a better concept of decadence, and this is something historians building upon Objectivist concepts of rational behavior might supply. But the prime mover itself, a rise of irrationality, is left unexplained. We are simply told that societies prosper when their members uphold rational, this-world patterns of thought, such as in ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and early America. They decline in the absence of a rational world view, as in the Middle Ages and the Soviet Union.
Accept all this, though Ayn Rand's connections between mysticism, altruism, and collectivism need greater working out. (This is especially the case with her thesis that altruism is the *default morality* that comes with mysticism.) But irrational ontologies do not have to be accepted by anyone, and why they get accepted _en masse_ is a far, far greater puzzle.
Let me explain: we all know from physics that there are random processes at the atomic and subatomic levels. We know that any individual atom's motion cannot be predicted, but that movement of atoms in the aggregate can, thanks to various laws of large numbers. It is possible that all the atoms will move to the right side of the room at once, though the probability that such will occur within the expected lifetime of the visible universe by more than a few million atoms at a time is ridiculously small. No one would ever accept chance as an explanation for such an event, were it ever to occur.
In the same way, volunteer firemen can plan for their annual Fireman's Ball by predicting how many buyers of tickets will show up but being ignorant of whether a particular buyer will. Likewise, if many more than the expected number of attenders at the Fireman's Ball showed up, some explanation would be looked for. Perhaps the attendance of some celebrity more impressive than the mayor had been rumored.
So what about the mass turn to irrational world views? Are not these just as in need of explanation as too many people showing up at the Fireman's Ball? Surely, it is a matter of my own choice whether to go to the Ball. (We've contributed regularly to their fund drives but have yet to attend. Maybe next year; I'm curious about what happens there....) And the rationality of the world view one adopts is equally a matter of choice, since there never has been an absence of world views to choose among, some more rational than others, though the perfect world view is only something that will be approximated.
What needs to be explained is why, sometimes, the world views that people adopt get progressively more rational and why, at other times, they get progressively less so. Ayn Rand offered something of an explanation: the *philosophers* themselves matter, for ultimately they set the tone for everyone else. So instead of explaining the choices of *millions* of individuals in adopting progressively more rational philosophies (or less rational ones, depending on the historical epoch concerned), we need only inquire into the choices of a few philosophers. This places Ayn Rand in the "great man" school of history, and indeed _Atlas Shrugged_ depicts the disintegration of the world brought about by the withdrawal of only a very few great men. Her innovation was to place philosophers at the head and not politicians and generals.
She had other theses, too: irrationality begets irrationality and small flaws can set off this downward spiral. She has cited the few flaws that our Founding Fathers had as providing an opening wedge for the welfare state. And she famously said that Immanuel Kant's professed political philosophy of freedom stood for naught against the irrationality of his metaphysics and epistemology. What is surprising is that all is not decay and that sometimes progression toward rationality is made. But her explanation, that a few key philosophers appear on the scene expounding a philosophy of reason, would strike Joseph Tainter (quoted at the beginning) as mystical. (Any *why* were Aristotle's writings *ignored* for so long? Why were no translations "available"?)
Ayn Rand held, as I have said, that altruism is the *default ethics* that goes with mysticism. But she also said-this is quite insufficiently dwelt upon by students of her philosophy--that reason requires a constant supply of effort. Indeed she devoted most of her own non-literary exercising such effort. I can't cite any statement of hers that mysticism is the *default ontology*, but it is surely something she would have believed, or rather that the default ontology is whatever mixture of reason and mysticism is "in the air."
I may have given the impression, when talking about the movement of atoms or attendance at the Fireman's Ball, that I think free will is something wholly independent of heredity and environment, at right angles to it, as it were, or random with respect to it. Of course I don't, and neither did Ayn Rand, who upholds above all else the influence of the great philosophers on everyone else (and that this influence, if it is of the right sort, leading to egoism and freedom). But, I ask the readers, are these philosophers themselves at right angles to their heredity and environment, or are they also to be explained as *partly* their products. More importantly, as this "partly" moves toward "largely" as our historical explanations improve, are we eviscerating the importance of the will entirely? Whatever free will there is left over after heredity and environment will occur primarily in the form of a statistical residual.
I know something of what I am talking about here, since I have done several econometric studies, where the great object is to reduce the residual as much as possible. I have learned that there is always a great deal of noise in the data, that some factors you just *know* ought to be important are not, and that you not at all infrequently get perverse results. I can also say, with complete confidence, that historical data on moral behavior is going to be so much worse than any economic data that detecting the impact of free will above the noise level will require a first-rate imagination. (Note to myself: reread Crane Brinton, _A History of Western Morals_, now in paperback.)
Let me venture this: Incentives matter, as any economist knows, and under a system of capitalism, the incentives are to use your brain, since such use is rewarded more completely than in other social systems. Such use does take work, but it can become habit forming, a positive addiction, not unlike jogging. You may go to church, and there will be that contradiction in your world view that could grow to monstrous proportions, but it is unlikely to. You are more likely to enlarge the spheres where you uphold objectivity and reason and keep confined and in equilibrium whatever spheres of irrationality remain. (I have often gotten into conversations with people who officially are Creationists, telling them about recent theories about our behavior as result of our evolutionary past, but only rarely do they bring up the fact that they do not believe in evolution, unless I confront them directly with the issue of evolution.)
Let me make bold and conclude further that the world has reached at least one plateau as far as rationality goes. Life requires so much exercise of reason now that a descent to the world of _Anthem_ is less likely that all ticket holders going to the Fireman's Ball. I note that no "collapse" of civilizations ever entailed the abandonment of one of its key features, agriculture. And I further predict that no local "collapse" will result in the abandonment of industry. With only less great confidence can I predict that the world of _Atlas Shrugged_ is not going to come about either. But have these predictions eviscerated the importance of the will? Or do only do what needs to be done, to integrate the will with heredity and environment as joint explanations? I leave these questions to the readers.