The Movement of History Between Holism and Fragmentation
Author: Dr. Walid Abdul Hai
When reviewing the literature on the interpretation of the movement of history, we find two underlying approaches in all texts. One approach focuses on the general trajectory of historical movement, which involves tracking mega-trends and then linking these mega-trends to explain the movement and establish a foundation for future projection based on this interconnection. This forms the holistic approach, which is based on the specific idea that the sum of the interactions of the mega-trends in history is greater than their mathematical sum.
The second approach is based on segmenting historical sectors and isolating them one by one, attempting to understand the underlying logic in their essence and then applying this understanding to their "common" aspects. This is the reductionist approach, which I claim is gradually fading, albeit with some procrastination.
Let us consider the mega-trends in history and highlight the most prominent ones, noting that these trends are increasing and have not known any general regression, necessitating an observation of the general movement of history through them and their interactions, while not forgetting that the total interactions are greater than their familiar mathematical sum.
1. **Continuous Increase in World Population:** There has never been a single day in all of history where the "total" world population decreased. Wars, epidemics, and natural disasters have reduced the population of a specific country or region, but the overall global population at that moment was increasing. World War I and II each claimed tens of millions of lives, but the populations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America were increasing at a rate exceeding the annual death toll from the wars, not to mention the continued births in the war-affected societies themselves.
2. **Accumulation of Scientific Knowledge in Various Fields:** Can anyone point to a single day where the volume of scientific knowledge was less than the previous day? Every individual or collective discovery, theory, methodology, or technique evolves daily. A glance at the machines around you—whether in warfare, transportation, communication, medicine, production patterns, social or human theories, arts, or even game development—suffices. This evolution is responsible for changing the superstructure of all societies, albeit with varying levels of change. The scope of war in the era of sharpened stones is by no means the same as in the era of intercontinental missiles. A world where people did not know the appearance of their ruler is different from one where they see him getting pelted with rotten eggs. The speed of horse running is not the same as moving faster than the speed of sound, and a society where a man heard of a woman is different from one where he sees her completely naked.
3. **Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP):** All economic historians agree that the global GDP over the past two thousand years has never regressed in its overall trajectory. It might decline in a country or region but increases in another, especially since population growth and scientific development reinforce this increase. It may lag for a short period but then resumes at a higher pace than before and exceeds the previous total. Over the past five centuries, the global GDP has increased more than 350 times.
4. **Interconnection and Communication Between Societies:** When ancient historians spoke of the "world," they only had Asia, Africa, and Europe in mind. The concept of the world became complete after 1492 with Columbus, and then the interconnection, communication, interaction, trade, and cultural exchange—whether peaceful or warlike—began to increase until we reached the current stage where the term globalization emerged, and the era of the end of the separation between time and space began, as Anthony Giddens called it "Time-space Distanciation." We have indeed become a single village, a process that has not stopped for even a moment.
5. **Value Evolution:** This last mega-trend is perhaps the most complex and controversial. However, shedding the projections of a subjective value perspective indicates that the evolution of values is a major trend in the movement of history. Slavery no longer exists in its previous quantity and quality. The status of women is not the same, workers' rights have changed, the deification of rulers is eroding, and democracy is expanding. But the residues of history make progress in this direction more complex and elusive, yet the general outcome aligns with the previous four trends.
If you place the previous five mega-trends in a matrix and attempt to track their mutual influence, you will find they explain major transformations in the world politically, economically, socially, and technologically. They explain wars and peace, the rise and fall on the ladder of international powers, and elucidate pollution and art simultaneously, as well as the evolution of values and their elusiveness.