HISTORICAL LAWS
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explained in terms of the structure of the established society and the
forms of control, manipulation, and indoctrination required for the
preservation of this structure. It then appears that the alternative to
progressive barbarism (and there have always been alternatives!) may
well involve a change in the
structure
of society, in other words, a
"holist" change which is Popper's real
bete noire.
Here, I suggest, is the driving force behind Popper's attack on his–
toricism. It is, I believe, in the last analysis a struggle against history–
not
spelled with a capital H , but the empirical course of history. Any
attempt to rescue the values of liberalism and democracy must account
for the emergence of a society that plays havoc with these values. At
the attained stage, this development threatens to obliterate the differ–
ence between war and peace, between military and civilian drill, be–
tween technical and intellectual manipulation, between the rationality
of business and that of society, between free and dependent enterprise,
privacy and publicity, truth and propaganda. These tendencies are af–
flictions of the whole: originating from the center (i.e., the basic societal
institutions), they penetrate and shape all spheres of existence. More–
over, they are not confined to totalitarian countries; they are not at–
tributable to a "holist" or "Utopian" philosophy; and they have as–
serted themselves within the framework of pluralistic institutions and
gradualist policies. Contemporary society is increasingly functioning as
a rational whole which overrides the life of its parts, progresses through
planned waste and destruction, and advances with the irresistable force
of nature-as
if
governed by inexorable laws. Insistence on these irra–
tional aspects is, not betrayal of the liberalistic tradition, but the at–
tempt to recapture it. The "holism" which has become reality must
be met by a "holist" critique of this reality.
