The Origin of Historical Occurrences

Historical events occur according to the same processes that determine human behavior.

 

The behavior of human beings is determined by the combination of positive reinforcement (rewards for given behaviors), punishment (aversive results from certain behaviors), and negative reinforcement (the withdrawal of punishment) for certain behaviors that a person of certain genetic and biological propensities experiences in life.

 

Operants (punishment and reinforcement), as these interact with the genetic and biological qualities that define each individual, produce all behavior.

 

Notice, then, two important implications:

 

1)  Human beings do not have free will;

 

2)  The interaction of operant conditioning and biogenetic inheritance in determining human behavior renders irrelevant the issue of nature vs. nurture. 

 

The more important debate has been between the determinists of behaviorist psychology, versus the free will advocates of humanist psychology. 

 

The processes that actually determine human behavior resolve the issue in favor of the behaviorists.

 

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This has enormous implications for the origin of historical occurrences.

 

Historical events occur due to the interaction of individuals whose behavior is determined by operant conditioning:

 

A combination of aversive and rewarding outcomes produce human behaviors and neurally recorded experiences that create cultures and communities of particular prevailing circumstances, which  interacting individuals seek to maintain or to change.  Preference for change occurs when a critical mass of interacting human beings agree that current conditions are aversive enough to seek alteration.

 

When masses of people seek alteration, rebellions (vigorous action against established norms and those who preserve those norms) may occur.

 

But revolution (social, cultural, or political transformation) depends on the presence of leaders whose operantly determined behavior renders them capable of and inclined toward directing or provoking mass discontent so as to achieve transformation: 

 

The United States revolution and constitution were produced under particular historical conditions due to the brilliance of leaders saliently represented by Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison.

 

The Civil War was conducted under particular historical conditions by a flawed but prescient Abraham Lincoln.

 

Vladimir Lenin (Vladimir Ulyich Ulyanov) interpreted the works of Marx and Lenin so as to determine  the course of the Bolshevik Revolution under particular historical conditions of early 20^th century Russia.

 

Joseph Stalin (losif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili), under particular historical conditions, redirected the Bolshevik Revolution so as to create the totalitarian Soviet state.

 

Adolf Hitler, under the particular historical conditions of late 1920/early 1930s Weimar Republic, conceived and implanted Nazi (National Socialist) policies associated with that combination of factors associated with the Holocaust and the attempt to establish a global empire.

 

Mohandas Gandhi under the particular historical conditions of 20^th century British colonial India, led a movement guided by the tenets of satyagraha to induce the exit of the colonialists from the subcontinent.

 

Decades of life under the particular historical conditions of Jim Crow prevailed until a unique combination of courage, eloquence, and organizational capabilities in Martin Luther King made possible the 1950s/1960s Civil Rights Movement.

 

Centuries of oppression of half the world’s population abided until the particular historical conditions of the 1960s induced Gloria Steinem to create Ms. Magazine as a fulcrum for success in the feminist movement.

 

Under the particular historical conditions of lingering racist and sexist reactionary attitudes, Donald Trump won the presidency and established an administration under policies that were uniquely conceived or assembled to create the circumstances of current life in the United States.

 

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Other important historical figures assisted the above Great Moral Actors or Uniquely Immoral Actors;  but the precise course of history was unlikely in the extreme to have occurred without these historical presences.

 

The behavior of these historical presences was determined by the particular operants and genetic factors of each individual.

 

The particular historical conditions that provided the context for the actions of these Great Moral Actors or Uniquely Immoral Actors were the result of the interaction of citizens, each manifesting operantly determined behavior and then gathering with others to produce the prevailing social environment conducive to change.

 

Great Moral Actors or Uniquely Immoral Actors do not change history merely as matter of personal biographies;  they require certain prevailing conditions for achieving the outcomes for which they become famous.

 

Also, beyond and below the occurrence of nation-wide social transformation, the lives of the nonfamous, the peasant, the worker, the nonliterate, the woman in patriarchal society, must be known, often through the work of anthropologists and oral historians, for a full account of history.

 

But in the absence of Great Moral Actors or Uniquely Immoral Actors, nation-wide historical change does not occur at all, occurs more slowly, or happens according to different processes than would be the case without their leadership.

 

Hence,

 

Great Men, Great Women, particular personalities: 

 

They indeed matter very much.