Overdetermination : Contingency in History

[@chickensandwich8808]

I remember one of my history professors saying, "History is not a series of facts. It's a collection of perspectives that everyone must learn how to interact with."

[@jurtra9090]

That's actually one of the better ways to learn history, especially ones that had multiple perspective

[@TheWipeout32]

I always find the tension between "big" and "small" interesting, because you see it across a wide variety of fields. You see it in economics especially, with macroeconomics and microeconomics being in tension with one another, and you see it most obviously with general relativity and quantum theory. An interesting idea that I borrow from the philosophy of science when approach these things is the idea of "low resolution" and "high resolution." Systems is low resolution; it offers a broader picture, but at the loss of sometimes meaningful detail. Individual history, meanwhile, is high resolution - you get a lot of detail, but only in a specific area or on a specific individual. The low-resolution nature of systems can sometimes lead people to conclude that agency isn't real, while the high-resolution nature of individualism can sometimes convince people that nothing else besides this individual exists. It's possible for a theory to be so hi-res that it's useless because it explains only one thing, just like it's possible for a theory to be so low-res it explains everything poorly, and so therefor is useless as well. The hallmark of a bad theory is that attempts to do both ultra hi-res and ultra low-res at once ("Atlantis," "aliens", and other pseudohistory and pseudo-archaeology does this; when hi-res, it's obfuscating and pretending other things don't exist. When low-res, it's papering over very significant differences in the way that groups operated, through hyper-diffusionism and logical fallacies). Hi-res and low-res are not bad. You just need to remember that depending on which you lose, you're sacrificing something in exchange for gaining something else. Any telescope big enough to see everything will actually see nothing.

[@williamcfox]

I love your meta historical content! Demonetize police coming after me currently for showing an image related to the French ‘code noir’. A related challenge for people doing public facing stuff, is that the passive voice tends to make for boring writing. But if we don’t know where the action lies on the agency scale, we shouldn’t use the active voice. Love hearing your thoughts, as always. Keep it up.

[@CynicalHistorian]

I wish these kinds of more historiographic episodes were more popular, but they always do poorly. People generally don't want to see how the sausage gets made

[@Catmint309]

@@CynicalHistorianI love the videos! I had to drop out of college due to money, and I’ve always missed the historiographic classes and discussions. I’ve watched a few of them multiple times, I really appreciate it.

[@roberthamilton9263]

Another great video

[@typrus6377]

Nothing is inevitable.... Except King

[@MrInthefriendzone]

And Thanos.

[@ResponseChecker]

A+ comment. King is forever, King is all there is and will ever be. Praise be to his highness. -checked

[@ResponseChecker]

​@@MrInthefriendzone.... B+ It's an old meme but it checks out -checked

[@chrisolmsted5678]

Choosing between individuals and systems is much easier when you acknowledge that every individual action requires opportunity to commit the act, motivation before the fact and an expectation that the act will be justified afterwards. In other words, often both systems and individual motivations are required. It's even easier when mutually reinforcing contributing causes are dealt with as a single motivation. How people make decisions fully justifies this treatment of causation.

[@maciek_k.cichon]

0:45 "...a lot more depth to anything than we can possibly bring out in even the most lengthy of a monograph". Challenge acepted.

[@history_by_lamplight]

Great talk, Cypher. ❤ Having majored in history myself, it's academics like you that *keep* me an academic.

[@EricaCalman]

There is a balance between understanding systems and individual agency, and technically the best thing to do would be take in the life story of everybody who ever lived plus the conditions of the earth during those times, but (a) most of those details are not recorded and (b) there's no way a human brain could process it all even if it were. Systems analysis goes a long way in understanding things we can't see al the details of but as much as it's important to see the proverbial forest and its scale and grandiosity at a certain point you're actually ignoring the individual tress right in front of your face.

[@Maxaldojo]

Thanks, Cypher!

[@CynicalHistorian]

Thank you very much

[@bluegizmo84100]

This reminds me of when I brought up Guns, Germs, and Steel in my History and Theory class and my professor went on a RAMPAGE about how it was too deterministic.

[@Blochr379]

I disagree that materialism reject individual agency. Materialism is more like « in this situation individual based on their material conditions are more favorable to take one choice over the other one, but not that the other choice is impossible to makes even with bad material conditions » . Its more like material conditions increase or decrease the probability of a behavior, but dont generate them directly. Human are influenced by their matetial conditions, but they are not slaves of them

[@thomasridley8675]

Individual agency is restrained by the economic, religious and political realities of the local area. Maximizing your ability to act is the driving force behind progressive idealism.

[@Blochr379]

@@sisterraysson i prefer lukac and lucien goldman over althusser’s materialism

[@antipanglossian]

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Marx writes it thus: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weights like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

[@Blochr379]

@@antipanglossian absolutely

[@thomasridley8675]

@@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty We have made a lot of progress in removing some of these systemic issues. And, within reason, maximizing individuality. To live our lives with the least amount of gov or social controls. Unfortunately, some people think that individuality is something that should be severely restricted.

[@jurtra9090]

1:40 if that's the case, can you teach us about the history of Pandora, Handsome Jack, and the Vault Hunters?

[@Information-plz]

Appreciate the amazing content. I always learn a lot watching your vids. This stuff is needed. Thank you for putting in the all effort to make these.

[@TheRealE.B.]

It is amazing how influential a single person can be. So many things are the way they are because some guy did something a long time ago. Sure, "Great Men" do not exist per se, but if take the time, you can easily touch hundreds, thousands, or millions of lives.

[@cheesydawg371]

Really like this video. Nothing is ever 100% one thing or unbiased. That's why I think it's important to get your information from different sources. Even something like the specific word an author chooses to title an event can change the entire perception of a work.

[@1973HST]

The phrase “voting against their own best interests” isn’t belittling their agency, it’s belittling their intellect. Purposely.

[@HealthyThinkingsubstack]

Thanks for putting those ideas into words

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

Living in the UK I seem to be living through a wave of this with Reform/The Conservatives benefiting . However in most cases it seems that there is a demagogue whipping up their passions and fears, dangling tempting baubles in front of them (while not talking about what they will take away) as encouragement for them to do so. As most people do not have the 'bent' to be aware of history/politics or the time on their hands to get that, they wind up falling for it.

[@dxcSOUL]

​@@jon-paulfilkins7820fear has always driven people to conservatism. It's a powerful tool for people in power

[@imacds]

I find it clearer to specify the lense, rather than using the word "best". For example, saying someone is "voting against their own class interests" makes it clear that you are using a Marxist lense to judge their behavior. Meanwhile, if you hear someone argue that someone is "voting against their own race's interests", you should become weary as that person is using the lense of ethnic conflict/racial supremacy.

[@JeanValjean875]

Maybe not their intellect so much as their education or awareness. To quote a certain political candidate, "I love the poorly educated!"

[@undeadfrak]

I feel that one of the main appeals of "The Great Men of History" is how that view of history plays out like a good story: there is a main character, they face obstacles, they have enemies, they overcome them or fall before them. On the other side, instead of a good story, you have a boring textbook talking about statistics and numbers with no hero to root for or villain to root against. Over determination often feels like an attempt at correcting "The Great Men of History" narratives that go too far and end up over correcting.

[@mjvajda]

Loved the Royster book. Read it for my War and American Society comps. Edit: As someone whose doing a biography of Ralph Van Deman (the Father of American Military Intelligence), one of the big things I am doing is trying to demonstrate what Van Deman was doing is based on a variety of factors from the past: legal view about intelligence/counterintel, subversion, treason, what role in having professionals do their job in the army and the importance of intelligence as a necessary component, and what were the actual fears that were going on to cause him to act the way he did in the Philippine-American War, World War I (where he earns the distinction), and through WWII (even when he retired in 1929). Biography is an art and not just about telling people about their life, that is too much, but it’s about their life and times. It total looks at the various context and contingencies.

[@K0r0n1s]

Such an underrated concept! In political science as well (this is where I've been introduced to it).

[@thegreatcollector4548]

You inspire me to be a historian dude I just need to get done with my pre-reqs then I can choose which path in history I want to learn, I also will probs need to be a teacher to pay the bills.

[@CynicalHistorian]

Glad to hear it. I'm currently getting my teaching license, since I've been an adjunct professor, especially since I can't rely on KZbin income to make up the deficit. Only make history if you're passionate about it, because there isn't much money in it for most historians. In terms of figuring out which path, the way I went was basically following what I had experience in and what I talked about the most with friends (having fought a war and caring deeply about state/local history) - which inexorably led to American violence in the Southwest. For most historians, they kinda just find themselves specializing in a topic. There's a path, but you don't realize you're on it until you're halfway to your destination

[@edspace.]

Fascinating video and sorry its been a while. Don't know if it would be based on a true story but I once made a puppet show about historiography (with musical numbers) which compared agency, circumstance and a variety of overarching threads. Its interesting for me to see how actual historians operate the historical method and of course the bonus of King Richard providing a Royal Audience to the video.

[@georgenelson8917]

Misanthropy should be one of the C ‘s . We misanthropes don’t have a hog in the fight .

[@albarrus3906]

nice, i been getting into asimov myself. just finishing I, Robot.

[@pjk9225]

I disagree with your take on materialism, but you obviously have a solid understanding of what it’s about. Could you make a video unpacking that point a bit more? To me “agency” seems like such a minute detail compared to the ways societies incentivize certain behaviors. For example, stealing is broadly speaking, bad. If someone steals a loaf of bread to feed their family, you could say it was their choice to act and attribute it to agency. However, I would say that it is completely understandable that someone would steal rather than let their family starve. That’s not a true ‘choice’, since no reasonable person would let their children starve. If I’m looking to stop crimes like theft the , this explains why no amount of punishment will stop the crimes from occurring, because people’s material conditions dictate their real choices. Obviously this is a super simplified example to the point of essentially being a false dichotomy, but I’m trying to understand what you mean by agency here. Even if I don’t walk away convinced I’m sure I’d learn something Edit: this is what I get for posting the comment partway through the video, but I would still love for you to expand on your point specifically RE materialism

[@CynicalHistorian]

You should check out my EP Thompson episode

[@bobcornwell403]

I think technology is a major driver of history. For instance, I think the internal combustion engine invented the automobile and the airplane. The early internal combustion engines produced about 1 hp per 100 lbs of engine. This was not good enough for anything other than stationary use or use in boats. But because those two purposes alone were sufficient to guarantee widespread use, the technology had the opportunity to advance. By the time the hp to weight ratio dropped into slightly more than 12 lbs per hp, automobiles became a real possibility along with crude airplanes. Likewise, I believe that improvements in steam technology made the showdown over slavery in the USA all but inevitable.

[@zainmudassir2964]

Hope you make video on US Presidents running again after losing re-election. As non-american I'm curious why US presidents usually retire when many countries Prime Minister can come back after a period

[@CynicalHistorian]

There's only 2 previous examples: Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt

[@ineednochannelyoutube2651]

@@CynicalHistorian Martin Van Buren also ran under the anti-slavery Free Soil party in 1848. Edit: though I highly doubt he planned to win, he got something like 10% of the vote.

[@somedragontoslay2579]

Just a comment on your demonetisation. As someone who worked at a similar review system I cannot confirm nor deny to be the one we are talking about, I can say that the human who reviewed you most likely did not want to censor educational content. They most likely only had a couple of seconds to check how appropriate the video was and there is also the issue that who decides what is appropriate is not common sense. It is "would I like MY add to be displayed next to this?". Reviewers are crushed by the machine the same way you are (actually worse). So don't hate reviewers, hate the game.

[@ZIEIaou]

are you maybe doing a bit of overdetermination about youtube demonetization. im not actually diagreeing but since its the point of the video, the system of youtube content moderation is ultimately led by people and even the people just doing the reviews habe some power to make flawed, biased descisions.

[@GilTheDragon]

New viewer here. Love the cat, a+ table knocking. Also: This is a good example why "the arts" (& "postmodernism" in particular) are necessary. We need that critical eye, not just naive aesthetics but a dogged & shameless "but why?"

[@ianfitzpatrick2230]

I’m for the 6 Cs. Cynicism is a solid lens for the past

[@HealthyThinkingsubstack]

Agreed

[@HealthyThinkingsubstack]

At the very least, considering cynicism acts as a check and balance on the overall narrative

[@ianfitzpatrick2230]

@@HealthyThinkingsubstack better cynical than nostalgic as far as learning from the past. As you said the checks and critical rationale helps create restraint

[@defennia]

Have you ever thought about starting up a members only subscription to nebula where you don't get heavily demonized?

[@ResponseChecker]

A- minus comment. Lacking an Only Fans joke has only slightly impacted your comments effectiveness. -checked

[@defennia]

@@ResponseChecker I see

[@VooshSpokesman]

Love from a Xanderhal and Vaush fan!

[@danmorgan3685]

Marxism does take agency into account. The purpose of the analysis is promote class consciousness and, hopefully, drive positive change.

[@tomhalla426]

Really?

[@CynicalHistorian]

Materialism, not the whole of Marxism

[@danmorgan3685]

@@tomhalla426 Yes, really.

[@discdoggie]

Long live the king❤

[@ResponseChecker]

A+ No notes -checked

[@jerameesikorski7519]

Is there a playlist with those 5 concepts? I looked but didn't see one.

[@CynicalHistorian]

There's a short

[@arrownibent5980]

I love story telling and I see narratives as a sort of quantum description of reality in the sense that you can have two conflicting narratives develop and account for the same facts and they work as long as they arrive to the same conclusion, as does the universe when it corrects itself after a subatomic particle splits into two different spaces that then go to the same end result. If you believe quantum mechanics seem like impossible nonsense well narratives are quite worse but they are systems that allow us to get closer to the truth and in both cases we can't really know for sure what happened but we have educated guesses that have some solid value

[@shockwave2617]

I’m probably the fifth person to have a take like this but cynicism would most logically be a subcategory of either context or complexity as it’s a very common motivation for individuals irrespective of context, however it can also be very difficult to discern as the primary motive of some people.

[@michaelreynolds8204]

Love the cat love over determination

[@HealthyThinkingsubstack]

1:54 yeah I totally relate to you on the censorship because I have three doctorates and I wrote at least 10 good books and 100 scientific articles and I can’t talk about nutritional treatment of viral infections even though I was 20 years ahead of the game with an effective clinical protocol. I’ve been shadow banned or completely eliminated from most social platforms, and Amazon removed all but about three or four of my books. Just because I talk about nutrition supporting immune function.

[@MagdaleneDivine]

I love all my kitties too. Such sweet little fur balls ❤❤❤

[@cameronmclennan942]

Love to hear your thoughts on the book 'Determined' by Robert Sapolsky. Would be a great crossover of domains

[@lonjohnson5161]

I will summarize my comment from the Great Man Theory episode, but with the terminology I learned here. I think it is never just one or the other, but a somewhat variable mix of both (which is pretty much what I heard in this episode). World War II had examples of the Great Man, systems and a mix of both. Winston Churchill leans toward the Great Man side, given that there were few, if any, who would have had the patience to wait for America to join the war as opposed to making peace with Hitler (or in some cases, joining him). FDR leans toward the systems side, given that most American presidents given his circumstances would see war as inevitable, but still be reluctant to join when there was political risk. Hitler seems to me to be a mix. He was particularly skilled at playing the emotions of the masses. He would have been nothing but a failed artist if the German people were a content and peaceful people at the time, but since they were dissatisfied, he was able to amp that up to eleven. I could be wrong, but this is the way it seems to me.

[@thomasridley8675]

For some reason telling real history scares them. But telling out right lies to whitewash history is just fine.

[@matthewbittenbender9191]

I think there are enough content creators on KZbin who have the same problem with their capricious and inconsistent rules about demonetization and Free speech. I do believe it's time for content creators who have been demonetized for the use of proper nouns or factual history have a class action suit.

[@efffvss]

I thought 'overdetermination' was used more to describe 'anti alt-history events', stuff that had enough prior pressures that changing event X doesn't change the overall flow of history? The classic example being WW1, where Franz Ferdinand not getting killed might have prevented a General European War breaking out in August 1914, but there were more than enough underlying political/military pressures that 'something' would've kicked off a very similar 'General European War in the early 20th Century'.

[@be1tube]

It seems that the crux of the problem is an inability to express the degree of causal contribution in a narrative. Border violence was determined in part by the lack of duty to retreat and in part by the personalities of the participants. However, our language is inadequate to simultaneously hold these truths and the other myriad factors governing border violence while still remaining accessible.

[@jamesrice2510]

Such an important topic as it relates to public conceptions of history.

[@jadefalcon001]

Bonus kitty!

[@genericfabricrefresher3163]

We support u bruddah keeper goin

[@dwc1964]

You do a good job of summarizing what's referred to as "vulgar Marxism" but not, imho, the way Marx actually wrote about history. Marx's materialist analysis is _precisely_ what you refer to in the very next bit about sociology, being about how _large groups_ (particularly socioeconomic classes) behave. The bit about "voters voting against their interests" is a line trotted out by shitlibs, _not_ Marxists. I wonder how one could have read The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and come away with this take on Marxist history.

[@H3ntaig33K]

King after the Tekken character?

[@lXBlackWolfXl]

Not really related, but can I ask you this: is there any overlap between fascism and communism? I've heard its common for people to claim that the far-right in america is honestly closer to communism than the left is, despite their accusations. I thought though, that to be fair, perhaps there is some overlap between the two? They are both populist movements that originated around the same time. I tried to ask this on stack exchange a couple years back, but it got deleted for 'asking about current politics'. So, the history of fascism and communism is 'current events'? Wtf? Of course, I know team youtube probably won't let you make a video about that, but I still would like to know an answer to this. All you've said in a video about communism is that its not easily defined, which obviously doesn't help me much...

[@nathanpetrich7309]

When everyone starts to lose faith in the present system, they look for alternatives and seek to hold someone responsible. What we tend to see is one camp that looks to blame marginalized groups like immigrants, sexual deviants, religious unorthodoxy, etc. vs another camp that instead blames those who wield the most power and hold the most wealth. They'll both say they support the working class, but that means protecting the freedoms of all workers, not cultivating culture wars. The only real similarity is populism. It's over whether the political class can convince enough workers to blame each other vs blame the political class. If they blame each other, the workers will suffer under a Fascism. If they blame the political class, they will unite in revolution and gain freedom, but there will be a cost. Exactly what form that will take is up in the air, it could just be another Fascism with a different name.

[@Oxtocoatl13]

I think the similarities are mainly due to the historical context during which the two ideologies emerged: the kind of totalitarian control of society that was exhibited in both Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR, wasn't maybe even technologically possible until the 20th Century, and people wouldn't have found it appealing enough to support one until WW1 threw the world upside down and ushered in an age of uncertainty and normalized political violence. But even then I think fascism developed as a response to the popularity of far-left movements. Both Italian fascists and German Nazis built their popularity by viciously attacking the commies in their home countries. And although the resulting states looked very similar, I think the ideological backgrounds of the two groups were polar opposites. Fascists believe in inherent hierarchies of people: our nation above other nations, our race above others, men above women, soldiers above civilians, etc. Communists at least claim to believe that all people (at least all working people) are essentially equal and deserve the same rights. Of course this hasn't stopped various communist groups from creating elaborate justifications for concentrating all power to themselves as soon as they had the chance. I do want to caveat this by saying that, at least to me, fascists seem the more unified group, and the totalitarian states they built can only be compared to the Bolshevik-inspired totalitarian communist governments, and that the comparison doesn't work with Utopian or Anarcho-communist groups, because they wouldn't seek to control the state in the first place. As far as I know there aren't any significant fascist movements that are peaceful, because a militaristic outlook is essential to fascism. As to your original question, I think the phenomenon you've encountered has more to do with Americans using "communist" vaguely as a rhetorical bogeyman to throw at each other than anything concrete.

[@adb4522]

👍

[@ProjSHiNKiROU]

I thought this video is about linear algebra for a second

[@CynicalHistorian]

I'd definitely be the wrong person to come to for math content, LOL

[@theprimalpitch190]

Interesting. Wondering if you've ever explained the psychological models, implicit or explicit, that historians tend to use. Are these models coherent with respect to modern day neuro-sience and psychology or are we analyzing historical figures based on outmoded models of physiology? We non-specialists want to know.

[@CynicalHistorian]

Historians don't have a single interpretive framework. We use whatever we see fits

[@daemonspudguy]

#TrustBustGoogle

[@MurderousEagle]

oh no, you've rejected modernist materialism, putting in the post-modernist camp soon you'll have Peterson fans screaming at you

[@joshyfox99]

CODY!

[@Mrax_Taylor]

Whel tenancy Evan presume action is a product of stims, Just stims that are imposable to now about.

[@wolfgangbrooks]

Criticizes Marxism for 'overdetermining' history and the actions of groups of people, then praising sociology for doing the exact same thing.

[@jmeals1]

Nothing is overdetermined when you’re a hard determinist

[@csr7080]

Where is everybody

[@labracktime]

they went for dinner

[@cocksmashmcirondick6440]

They’re over there

[@Faustobellissimo]

Yea, but there's a problem. The concept of contingency belongs to the humanities. Science does not allow for contincencies. The physical world is completely determined, even when it is random, chaotic or complex. Modern historiography is still a prisoner of the humanities. I have no doubt that one day it will escape and rejoin science.

[@CynicalHistorian]

It never was a science

[@Faustobellissimo]

@@CynicalHistorian That's my point...

[@CynicalHistorian]

@@Faustobellissimo you said "rejoin" furthermore, you seem to miss that history can never nor should it ever "be a science." If you are using the term "humanities" with disdain, you've got no chance of becoming more aware of the world you inhabit

[@Faustobellissimo]

@@CynicalHistorian No, I'm not interested in a war between humanities and sciencies. I'm a compatibilist. I believe that the physical world is deterministic, even superdeterministic. But I also believe in emergence: consciousness and free will follow from the physical world. They are both illusions we cannot escape. So we're bound to describe our past in the form of a narrative. That's what we call humanities. But we can also strive to describe the past as the effect of deterministic natural laws. We've done it with the physical wolrd, we will do it with human history.

[@rolonrobinson7847]

My favorite cynical historian 🎉🎉🎉

[@genericfabricrefresher3163]

2nd👽

[@MikeJohnson-nj1ry]

When does grievance become a protest and when do protests become wars?

[@CynicalHistorian]

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering" -Yoda for some reason. What is your comment about?