Order and Progress
During the first decades of the Nineteenth Century, Europe was in deep turmoil. There was hardly time to come to grips with the changes brought about by the French Revolution of 1789 before other revolutions broke out. In 1820/21, 1825, 1830 and 1848 new revolutions sent shock waves through the continent. All of these revolutions were inspired by various forms of Liberalism. This was the blanket term for the ideas and concepts that had led to the French Great Revolution. These centered on personal freedoms and individualism at the expense of traditional authority and traditional collectivities. Henceforth absolute monarchy and the social order grounded in medieval and ancient traditions were thrown by the wayside. In general, the individual was believed to merit preference over any collectivity or higher authority except that of the “nation.” No wonder traditional societies and age-old bonds and arrangements were mercilessly torn apart.
Liberalism also brought forth new ideologies such as the primitive socialism advocated by Henri de Saint-Simon in France. Confusion was endless. What to adhere to? What to believe? What to support? How to organize one’s life?
For the elite and the nascent middle class, the choice seemed apparent: they flocked around Liberalism’s individualist agenda. Those who wanted to return to the Ancien Regime were represented by men like Joseph de Maistre, who eloquently criticized the values imposed by the French Revolution.
Initially associated with Saint-Simon and his socialist friends Auguste Comte (1798-1857), a young intellectual from Southern France sought to find a way out of the ideological and philosophical conundrum. Comte formulated a comprehensive theory he called Positivism, which he believed would provide a solid framework for tackling the social and political problems of the age.
Based on a meticulous study of history and the age in which he lived, Comte asserted that mankind had passed through two previous stages and was now in the third and highest stage of development. This three-tiered division of history was essentially a reformulation of the standard chronological concept consisting of Antiquity, followed by the Middle Ages and finally the Modern Age. Comte believed that mankind had first experienced a theological stage, during which all phenomena and events were explained by, and attributed to deities and divine intervention. Then there was the metaphysical stage, when the non-divine supernatural was the explanation for what happened, to be followed by the positivist stage, during which pure reason and logic, based on scientific (impartial) observation and description, were used to make sense of the world around us.
Since Positivism is based on observation and the precise description of objects, creatures and phenomena, it is necessary to give names to what has been observed. This in itself is destined to cause problems, because human capacity for observation is limited to the five senses, perhaps aided here and there by some technical device to overcome certain limitations. Hence, once the names are fixed and when changes occur (a possibility that can never be ruled out a priori), the Positivist edifice will become distorted in ways that may be impossible to perceive at first, but that will become more and more obvious as time progresses. Eventually, Positivism will be affected by the same kind of flaws it has observed in the theological and metaphysical stages of human social development. Therefore, like any theoretical construct, Positivism is absolutely not as flawless as its adherents would be willing to admit.
In the years 1826-1835, when Comte was formulating his theory, France was going through a terrible crisis. The economy was in full breakdown, unemployment, dire poverty and famine were everywhere. On a population of 31 million, 26 million were living under worse circumstances than negro slaves in the Caribbean in that same period. Socialists of all sorts were active all over the country, trying to realize their utopian ideals. No wonder then that Comte’s ideas were influenced by the socialism of that period.
One could also say that Positivism is a combination of empiricism and socialism of the kind propagated by Saint-Simon. Consequently, Positivism was based on the primacy of science and can be understood as a fundamentally scientific Weltanschauung. As such, it obviously had predecessors, such as the English philosopher David Hume. Comte also presented a new hierarchy of sciences, adapted to suit his concept of the primacy of empiricism. The basis of his hierarchy was mathematics, followed by astronomy, physics and biology. At the pinnacle stood what Comte called “sociology” the scientific study of human society. This was composed of social statics (the individual, the family, society at large) and social dynamics (social laws, or the observed mechanisms according to which society develops).
According to Comte, it was therefore obvious that society needed to be organized in a positive way, that is, based on hard facts and objective science. This in turn called for a mental or spiritual power that was borne by a so-called speculative class, consisting of scientists, philosophers and artists. The other major group in society was the active class (traders, industrialists, farmers). All of society and its progress was borne by these two classes, of which the former was also the ruling class. In modern terminology, one could say that Comte wanted society to be directed by intellectuals, more specifically, by scientists and “experts.”
Comte’s Positivism found a warm welcome among small groups of contemporaries, including John Stuart Mill and Ludwig Feuerbach, and others in England, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Latin America. In some countries, especially Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Argentina, Positivism was attractive because it offered a consistent strategy to bring about progress and economic growth while avoiding social unrest, because of the science underlying it. In Latin America, where independence from Spain and Portugal in the period 1810-1826 had introduced decades of civil war and political chaos in most new countries, democracy had been established. But it was not functioning satisfactorily anywhere in the region. Positivism was therefore quite attractive, since it enabled local elites to continue paying lip service to democracy while in fact they were organizing an old-fashioned oligarchic system.
From 1870 to the First World War, there was broadly speaking less social and political conflict in Latin America than before and after. However, it is an open question whether this was caused by the conscious application of Comte’s philosophy.
In Brazil Benjamin Constant (1836-1891) in 1871 founded the Sociedade Positivista, which soon welcomed numerous members, including military officers. When in 1887 Constant founded the Clube Militar, assembling Positivist officers, Positivism had become firmly entrenched in the Brazilian armed forces. Two years later they staged a coup d’etat abolishing the Empire and proclaiming it a republic, like all the other Latin American nations. Brazil was given a new coat of arms and a new flag that proudly exhibited Comte’s Positivist motto: Ordem e Progreso (order and progress).
Whereas in Brazil the military academy was the initial stronghold of Positivism, in Peru it was San Marcos University in Lima. The leading Positivist was Manuel González Prada (1848-1918), a central figure in the literary and cultural scene and a visceral critic of the corruption and incompetence that prevented the nation’s development.
In Argentina, General Julio Argentino Roca, elected president in 1880, tried to govern the country according the precepts of Positivism. Under the motto of Paz y administración (peace and governance), Roca put in practice the “culture of progress,” that was his interpretation of Positivism. As a matter of fact Argentina did indeed make great strides toward becoming a modern, developed society thanks to Roca. In 1913, Argentinian author José Ingenieros published a scathing criticism of what he saw as the main obstacle to progress, namely the mediocre man (“El hombre mediocre”), which some years later inspired Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset to publish La rebelión de las masas (The Revolt of the Masses).
Positivism also gained a stronghold in Mexico, where president Porfirio Díaz, who from 1876 to 1911 headed a regime that today would be qualified as authoritarian, gave free rein to a group of Positivists, known as científicos (scientists). These men tried to organize the state and economy in line with August Comte’s recommendations. Foremost in this group was Justo Sierra (1876-1912), a professor at the University of Mexico.
Elsewhere in Latin America Positivism was also a leading ideology in the period 1870-1914. If not practiced outright by the government, it was at least a guideline for planners and decision makers in the civil service and in society.
Indeed, Latin American nations had some serious catching up to do with Europe, the United States and parts of the European colonial empires. Moreover, for Latin America, Europe had always been the main connection for everything ranging from trade to culture and everything in between. However, during the second half of the nineteenth century Europe’s most dynamic societies were Germany and England, both countries doubling their population between 1820 and 1900.
Has the adherence to Positivism yielded benefits?
It is difficult, if not impossible to answer that question, because we don’t know what would have happened if Positivism had not been a guiding principle of government policy. At any rate, Latin America underwent a veritable transformation, reflected in the growth in its share of total world debt from 1820 to 1882, from £4 million to £237 million, a more than fifteen fold growth from 0.3% to 4.6%. Since during the same period the Latin American share of aggregate international trade (imports and exports) remained roughly the same (4.3% in 1830, 4.5% in 1870, 3.7% in 1880), one can conclude foreign capital was massively invested locally in production and infrastructure. There is no doubt that Comte’s Positivism may have had its advantages, but there was nothing miraculous about it. After the wave of Positivism had its course, Latin American nations still needed a lot of effort and investments to develop into full-fledged modern societies, and that goal has not even been attained yet.
Today, all of that happened over a century ago. Since then, other movements and philosophies have had their moments of glory and sunk back in the sea of ideologies. Today in the “West” we are being told by our rulers and media that we are living in a democracy. Indeed, every so now and then, we are told we can go cast our vote in elections.
This all sure sounds democratic. But is Positivism still alive?
You bet it is! One could say that in the US Empire (which includes the Anglosphere, the EU, Japan and South Korea) Positivism is alive and kicking. Just as in Latin America in 1870-1914, the constituent parts of the US empire are all phony democracies, with governments that by all standards may be called Positivist. Like Comte suggested, there is a speculative class made up of all sorts of “experts” that calls the shots and sets the tone. Note that very often these people are sociologists and graduates of derivative fields such as “political science,” “international relations,” and other vague disciplines.
Whereas as a result of Comte’s ties to utopian socialism those traditional late 19th-century and early 20th-century Positivists still had some human feelings and a sense of social responsibility, contemporary Positivists are mere technocrats. Many are transhumanists, many such as Bill Gates, want to get rid of the greater part of the world’s population, but lack the courage to say so out loud. Traditional Positivists, when they held power over a century ago, honestly tried to make the world a better place, while those in power today seem totally devoid of human emotions as they spray the skies, organize pandemics, plan to put the remnants of humanity in concentration camps called “fifteen-minute cities,” and force them to eat insects and chemical substances.
Today’s Positivists are organized in outfits such as the UN, the WHO and the WEF, which is holding its annual meeting in Davos as we speak. All the local rulers, from Trump and the mentally challenged little woman called Von der Leyen down to the leaders of the various EU satrapies and the Anglosphere, will be listening there to talks by “experts” like Yuval Noah Harari. The less such experts” actually know, the less their self-criticism, the greater their egos, the greater their idiocy, the more eagerly they are listened to by Trump and all those other avatars at Davos.
I am sure not a single attendant of the current Davos meeting has the faintest notion that their predecessors in Latin America around 1900 have not been able to guarantee a stable and balanced growth for their nations. Like the Latin American leaders of that period, the Positivists of today will need to head for the exit.
That moment may actually be nearer than we think.