Oh boy, we're doing Peter Turchin 'Cliodynamics' (which I almost typed 'Cliomancy' which seems about as accurate) discourse again.

So my views on the matter were expressed here, from the last time we did Cliodynamics-Discourse:
Do note that Turchin appears himself in that thread and somewhat moderates the 'tone' of how the press frequently presents him (but then one wonders why that tone appears unaltered in the recent Guardian story theguardian.com/us-news/2021/j…)
Also note Dr. Fafinski @Calthalas response to the current Turchin/Cliodynamics discourse here: (also a thread).
Fafinski points to some of the real weaknesses in the ancient history parallels that are drawn in the Guardian's treatment of Turchin. I have to admit, I find the equation of the populares with today's populists weak as well.
Also note Dr. Lecaque @tlecaque on the use and abuse of evidence in cliodynamics in this thread:
Lecaque is really blunt here (as is his style) but as a historian, I had roughly the same reaction to Turchin's treatment of the evidence and the way that it flattens and essentializes complex things.
To put my own views out here, I think the problem ehre is essentially a Hayekian knowledge problem. The idea behind cliodynamics is that human societies "change in a somewhat predictable way" because "societies are systems."
But just as economics, as it has matured, has had to accept that the systems it studies are too complex (in part because they are systems where individuals can view the system and understand the system as a system) to predict perfectly, the same goes for societies.
Part of the reason history may rhyme but not repeat is that humans make future decisions with past historical knowledge. Thus, to go even further back, to Heraclitus, "you could not ever step into the same river twice" when it comes to decisions and processes.
Turchin's very confident predictions lack this sense of uncertainty, instead presenting a front of unjustified confidence, based in turn on evidence which often doesn't exist.

It isn't "a more mature social science" but rather (borrowing C.S. Lewis' phrase) "a boy's philosophy."
Cliodynamics reminds me most of the deterministic progression of 'historical modes of production' in early Marxist historiography (mercifully all but abandoned even by far-left historians); another "boy's philosophy" pretending to offer the 'solutions' to historical study.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Bret Devereaux

Bret Devereaux Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @BretDevereaux

20 Jan
Oh yeah, also shout out to Micah 4:4 getting into the inauguration, being quoted by Amanda Gorman (via George Washington (maybe also via the musical Hamilton, but it was famous before)) in her amazing poem (and what delivery!)
The full verse goes:
"Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the Lord Almighty has spoken" (NIV)
In its context, the verse contemplates a future world at peace under God's rule.

But Washington, most famously in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, took the verse as an ideal for the American republic, where people of every stripe "shall sit...
Read 7 tweets
18 Jan
Just to give a sense of how lacking in rigor this thing is, I submitted an article for peer review of about 80% the length a bit back. Where this 'report' seeks to answer vast questions about American principles over 200+ years of history... 1/5
...my question was a little one - the date and impact of a single piece of Roman armor. Just one piece, over a limited time-span.

To do that, I cited a little more than 110 modern works (in 6 languages) and a dozen ancient authors in two ancient languages... 2/5
...in the course of just under 130 footnotes.

All to answer a simple question about a single piece of armor.

That is not me bragging about how great I am. That is merely how history is done, the level of rigor we expect in our discipline.

Every good historian does this. 3/5
Read 5 tweets
18 Jan
Looking over the so-called 1776 commission, the thing I find most disappointing are the missed opportunities created by just how clownishly incompetent a document this is, from stem to stern. whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…

1/6
History is about evidence (which makes one question why this document lacks a bibliography or notes), but it is also about selection & interpretation. Two historians, working in good faith, may look at the same body of evidence &, because they look from a different angle... 2/6
...or at a different part, come up with different, but equally valid conclusions.

Consequently, I think there is good and valuable history to be written by people whose views and values differ greatly from mine. I want to welcome those people into the discipline. 3/6
Read 6 tweets
17 Jan
This is a great question, so let's get into this in more detail!

The question here is is essentially, "what did Philip II (father of Alexander) do to the Spartans, and how do we know that?"

A thread! 1/25
First off, our sources for the life of Philip II are really poor. Unlike the multiple biographies we have of his son Alexander III ('the Great'), we have no sustained biography of Philip II. Consequently, we're left to piece together his reign from disparate sources. 2/25
There's a strong tradition that Philip II just left the Spartans alone. That tradition comes from Plutarch, who preserves that classic Laconic reply where Philip threatens that if he enters Spartan territory he would destroy them and they respond 'If' (Plut. De Garr. 17). 3/25
Read 26 tweets
17 Jan
Alright, going back to live-tweeting my way through Steven Pressfield (author of 'Gates of Fire)'s rather...frustrating?...video series on the 'warrior archetype.'

You can see the two previous threads (which covered episodes 1-6) here:
So last time we worked through Ep. 6, "Come and Take Them" which was an account of Thermopylae that demonstrated a remarkably poor grasp of the historical battle or its sources and a general unwillingness or inability to read those sources critically as a historian ought.
This time it looks like we're sailing out of the Spartan-hagiography-by-way-of-gullible-readings-of-Plutarch and into Pressfield's actual theory tying this all together, with 'Episode Seven: What is an Archetype."

So here we go.
Read 93 tweets
13 Jan
Alright, going to pick up again live-tweeting my reactions to the next few videos in Steven Pressfield's 'The Warrior Archteype series.' I looked at the first five videos last time here:
The short summary of the first five videos is that they presented a utopian Sparta, almost entirely from Plutarch, read very uncritically & thus fell prey to the Myths of Spartan Equality and Spartan Military Excellence, which I have already exploded here: acoup.blog/2019/08/16/col…
Now I want to change up my tone a little bit because in the first posts I was rather flip and dismissive and I want to offer a bit more intellectual charity here.

Now on to 'Episode Six' which is...oh good heavens...which is "Come and Take Them." Because of course it is.
Read 38 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!