Age for Developing Historical Theories Over?

Developing theories in the social science in parallel to those of science emerged early in the human social history of ideas. Ancient man having ate of the tree of knowledge inquired into the nature of everything and asked how it worked, and why? Historians also developed that characteristic. famous Historians like Toynbee, Spencer and others developed theories that explained cycles in human history-such idea even made it into science fiction with Isaac Asimov's Seldon Plan in 'The Foundation' trilogy. The age of developing macro-historical causal theories may be over now.

This is an era where micro-history and macro-introspection has supplanted viewing the world over-all with detachment for the purpose of analysis, except perhaps as cold scientific objectivity regards society with a sociopath's eye. In what has been called the age of fracture modern technology and the smallness of the globe have made historical theories of mass human behavior with recurrent cycles seem quaint; obsolete. In live real time, reality TV drones with optics and dark pool computer generated quantitative trading cyclical history seems absurd-as do any long cycles in nature such as those scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere.

The demise of historical theory ended a grand trend that could be said, rather inaccurately, to have started with the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel's epic 'Phenomenology of Mind'. Hegel brought secular history into a theistic evolution. Inspired by the paradigmatic structure of the Bible where God's teleology has a purpose for human existence extending through history, Hegel's viewpoint might be construed as being a sort of first cousin of post-millennialism wherein God's plan to grow a majoritarian Christian society through time following the tribulation of the first century and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus established on the foundation of the Lord's securing of the kingdom of God for mankind of faith to enter. In Hegel's post-millennialism God is realizing himself in history and the German state of his day was the highest realization yet attained by mankind.

Hegel did not preclude other societies of the day from being of equal standing in regard to comparative theistic realization; it was simply that Hegel had himself become aware of the post-millennial advance and teleology of God, so he therefore appropriately viewed that state of knowledge as of the first spiritual rank among mortals. Philosophers and historians have almost never viewed Hegel's philosophy as being post-millennialism, yet to me now it seems to be purely so, rather than theistic evolution detached from a scriptural context. After all, Hegel was writing in post-Lutheran Germany.

Hegel's Phenomenology infused with post-millennialism was learned by Karl Marx and converted into pure secular material evolution devoid of spirit. Following the end of the cold war American Presidential administrations led away from spirituality toward materialism with rash military engagements, reallocation of world political order so far as they could to benefit Wall Street investors, and whole-hearted support from Hollywood for an immoral new world order beyond good and evil as a synthetic version of corporatist atheism borrowing much of the Marxist premises of social equality in spiritless meaninglessness. If Karl Marx could be transmogrified into a Libertarian corporatist he would fit well in modern American society as a broadcast journalist.

If modern America was too willing to throw out macro-historical analysis and dispose of objective reason in line with Dewian principles of the relativity of truth theory so far as to negate it, along with reality as a subjective experience solely without an objective for-itself status, it was ready to accept science and elite opinion and paradigms in there stead.

In the 18th century scientific and historical theory were not so far apart as they latter developed. It was reasonable to create hypothesis about mass social behavior as it was about gravity. In a contemporary litigious era where expert and fine, mathematically precise opinion can be proven or defended but historical generality cannot, there is a natural de-emphasis upon general social and historical theory, however that does not preclude the possibility of the formation of accurate historical or social generalities.

While Aristotle might be regarded as the first extra-scriptural writer of historical cycle theory in his treatise Politics, in an era where democracy still breaks down through lack of mass democratic participation with intelligence and determination to maintain democracy in health, it is a reciprocal fact that too few discern the applicability of the doctrine to the present time.