d the "accidentalism" of the twentieth. "History," he writes, "is concerned with the relation between the unique and the general" (p. 83). What we call accidents in history were as much a part of a chain of causation as anything else; they are accidental only in the sense that they give us less guidance. He offers the analogy of a man who goes out to buy cigarets and is killed by a drunk driver. The victim's decision to go out for cigarets could be called the "cause" of the accident, but that does not help us reduce traffic deaths, whereas focusing on drunk drivers does.
Carr then extends this argument about historical writing into an argument about the nature of history in the sense of actual events or trends. In so doing, he argues for what may be called a modified doctrine of progress, (suggesting that the modern sense of stagnation or decline is mere Western parochialism). It is not progress in the "Whig interpretation" or Hegelian sense, toward some pre-ordained goal, but a gradual enlargement of the range of human possibilities. Where we are going can only be discovered as we proceed. "Our sense of direction, and our interpretation of the past, are subject to constant modification and evolution as we proceed" (p. 161).
Stephen J. Gould (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton.
From time immemorial, it has been common enough for people to believe that some of their fellow humans were in some sense innately superior to others, and it has been equally common for a measure to be chosen that places the measurer conveniently at the top. In the modern West, the ranking has often claimed to use the methods and therefore to share the objectivity of science. "Plato relied upon dialectic, the Church upon dogma. For the past two centuries, scientific claims have become the primary agent for validating Plato's myth" (p. 20).
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