“Social evolution is just a modern myth”

[robbo203]

So says John Gray in this thought provoking article….

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29951222

 

He  reminds me a bit of Franz Boas, the cultural anthropologist , and  "Father of  American Anthropology" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Boas) who set out to debunk evolutionary and often racist inspired models of socio-cultural change at the time (e.g. social Darwinism) which were firmly linked to the whole imperialist project of the late 19th early 20th century when Boas was writing.  Boas' "cultural relativism" and emphasis on the uniqueness of distinct cultures resonates with contemporary post modernism which eschews all grand metanarratives (such as Marxism).  I have always thought there was something paradoxical about this whole development towards cultural relativism because, while it started out questioning the kind of universalistic values  that the Enlightenment sought to emphasise (we are all human beings under the skin) the logic of cultural relativism , taken to its extreme, could lead to a condoning of all sorts of abhorrent cultural practices including racism itself!

 

But what of John Gray?  Setting aside his questionable comments about so called Soviet "central planning" as somehow implying the antithesis of capitalism, does his observation ring true that "Social evolution is just a modern myth. No scientific theory exists about how the process is supposed to work". 

 

Is this a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Can  one subscribe to a theory of social evolution that is not teleological. By "teleology" is meant simply " explanation by reference to some purpose or end; also described as final causality, in contrast with explanation by efficient causes only" http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/585947/teleology.  Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is non teleological but can a non teleological form of explanation be applied in the case of social evolution? Or is social evolution necessarily teleological?

 

There are certainly traces of teleological thinking in Marxism in such talk of socialism being "inevitable" or the proletariat being endowed with a "historic mission" to end capitalism. Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto reverberates  with the ringing teleological  declaration that   "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable"  (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm).

 

However, I think, the weight of evidence clearly supports the view that Marx  (and Marxism) did not accept a teleological view of history.  Marx welcomed Darwin's Origin of the Species  precisely because "it deals a death blow to teleology in the natural sciences" (Marx's letter to Engels , January 16, 1861 Selected Correspondence Moscow 1975).  In The German Ideology he scornfully dismissed the notion that "later history is…the goal of earlier history" as a "speculative distortion". This was a decisive rejection of Hegel's idealist teleology which posited the goal of history as the mind becoming completely aware of itself.    Statements such as these seem to me to unequivocally suggest an anti-teleological perspective.

 

Neverthless, that still leaves unresolved the question of "social evolution".  One can hardly understate the importance of this argument  to socialists.  As principle 4 of the SPGB's own declaration of principles puts it :

That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex

 

[Dave B]

Obviously a lot is made this teleological stuff by the philosophers and social scientists. It revolves around and analysis or philosophy of change; any change. It is in my opinion better expressed by the often common expression used by pragmatic people; is some process being pushed or pulled? The current theory as to the end of the universe will be that it will continue to expand with all matter eventually dissipating towards some defined and specified end of some homogenous uniform lot of photons; or something. Is that potentially teleological? The Entropy laws say something like everything tends to, or is 'pulled towards'  a ‘maximum disorder’ ; even if the end of the universe could be viewed as a perfect and pure platonic order.{there are big rows going on about that being merely a 'statistical 'phenomena' ie push or pull } I think there is a natural bias in the way we look at things in an attempt to predict events from the starting or present position. Whether that is an accurate reflection of ‘reality’ is another matter. I think chemists are maybe the most teleological of beings as we often can see reactions almost just as much being pulled in a particularly direction as being pushed. My objection to 'teleology' is mainly that usually it isn’t very practical.

[robbo203]

Dave B wrote:

I think there is a natural bias in the way we look at things in an attempt to predict events from the starting or present position. Whether that is an accurate reflection of ‘reality’ is another matter.

 DaveThere is great quote from J.B.S. Haldane for you to savour“Teleology is like a mistress for a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public”  (https://biologistsmistress.wordpress.com/) 

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