Asimov’s Mathematical Psychohistory Is Pure Fantasy (response article)

Richard Varela’s contribution is disappointing because he seems to have little or no idea of what psychohistory is about. I have done psychohistorical work for 25 years and can assert without hesitation that his claim that “any researcher of psychohistory knows that much of the literature is replete with the same concepts and theories offered by Dr. Asimov” is just not true.

Though Asimov did indeed invent the term “psychohistory,” his ideas in no way reflect what our field is about or reflect our current state of awareness and knowledge. What Asimov presents might more properly be called “mathematical history,” but it is not the psychohistory we work with today and never has been. We are not practitioners of a “branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli.” Humans do much more than react. “Social and economic stimuli” does not begin to describe the complexity of what large groups are about. And when, in the reality of human affairs, is anything ever “fixed”? Our field is not a “profound statistical science.” Nor do we attempt “mathematical prediction.” Can humans really be understood mathematically? I think not.

We use psychoanalytic theory because it recognizes the importance of understanding individual and shared emotion when we attempt to understand the motivation of human beings in the theater of their history. One reason our field can be so anxiety-provoking is because when dealing with real human beings there is little certainty of anything. Mathematics, on the other hand, offers a sense/fantasy of certainty that a focus on emotion and fantasy content — more the reality of our humanity than any attempt at statistical quantification — cannot. Varela’s belief that mathematical prediction is even possible may stem from a fantasy of certainty provided by mathematics. Such a fantasy might be an understandable defense in response to the anxiety often inherent in psychohistorical work. From what Varela has written, he does not seem to acknowledge, or even be aware of, the reality of feeling in individuals, groups, or history. What is history after all, if not ourselves? Men as individuals or in groups are not abstract entities that can be understood in any meaningful way by mathematical thinking. Considering “mind” — more properly emotion and fantasy — does add greatly to the complexity of what we seek to do. But human beings think and feel. We love, desire,

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make love, make war, steal, help others, dream, progress, regress, cheat, are consistent and inconsistent, achieve tremendous greatness and evil (sometimes in the same person), do actions that can be truly wondrous as well as shameful, and all the rest that space does permit me to enumerate. Where is the sense of wonder in Asimov’s so called theories? There can be no psychohistory without admitting to facing the reality of emotion in man. To some this may seem a hopeless effort, but it is not. Psychohistory is one of the great scholarly challenges of our time.

The whole notion of science itself offers a fantasy that certainty and mathematical prediction are possible. In Western society, science seems to be a benchmark criterion for defining whether fields of study are legitimate. Some scientific thinkers are beginning to call this into question, but they remain in the minority so far. There are psychohistorians who long to use prediction as a way to scientifically test our insights, but this still remains a largely intuitive process with a limited level of certainty. To a limited degree, prediction may be possible in psychohistory, but because man, in all his complexity and wonder, remains our field of study, prediction will always be more intuitive than scientific. Varela and those enamored of his fantasy are certainly entitled to their opinion. As for me, I think we have more than enough to do right now to simply improve our levels of psychohistorical understanding. Getting overly involved in disputes about such issues as prediction, may be defenses to detour us from our truer task of understanding human historical motivation, anxiety-provoking though it is.

Asimov does not deserve an “honored place” among psychohistorical pioneers. He is not, and never was, a psychohistorian. To make such a claim is insulting to our real pioneers: Freud, Abraham, Erikson, Bion, deMause, Binion, Loewenberg, La Barre, Stein, and many others. Varela is an intelligent man but I find his lack of awareness disappointing and insulting. Perhaps it is because he is relatively new to our field. I hope he will want to learn more about what we really do and work with us to better understand, rather than remaining enmeshed in some abstract fantasy world.

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