PT14.S4.Q11 – Socialist Observations of History

Clemens_

Conservative: Socialists study history, and they do so to identify trends that inevitably lead to a socialist future. However, this undertaking is certain to fail, because it is only retroactively that historical trends appear inevitable.

Socialist: Socialists do indeed study history, but the purpose of this is practical rather than theoretical: Instead of trying to identify historical trends that themselves bring about socialism, socialists try to identify trends that inform the kind of work that socialists need to do to bring socialism about. Socialism thus is not the inevitable outcome of historical trends, it instead must be worked towards and deliberately brought about.

Under timed conditions this Point at Issue / Disagreement question had me genuinely confused: The conservative and the socialist agree in maintaining that socialists study historical trends, but they disagree about the purpose that these studies are supposed to serve: According to the conservative, these studies are a purely theoretical undertaking, the socialist deems them practical. This thus would have been the issue to anticipate.

The pertinent answer choices are (A) (“[A] socialist society is the inevitable consequence of historical trends that can be identified by an analysis of history”) and (E) (“Socialists analyze history in order to support the view that socialism is inevitable”).

In the case of (E), we do get at a version of the anticipated answer; (E) gets at the conservative’s portraying socialist analyses of history as purely theoretical undertakings, which the socialist rejects.

(A) is more tricky. If (A) said “Socialists believe that a socialist society is the inevitable consequence of historical trends that can be studied,” this arguably would be a right answer choice: The conservative does ascribe this view to socialists, the socialist does not. However, (A) is a claim in itself, not only a belief that socialists may or may not endorse. In this context, the situation is more straightforward: We have no reason to think that the conservative deems the creation of socialist societies inevitable, and the socialist explicitly denies that they are inevitable. So as it stands, the speakers actually seem to agree that (A) is false. This thus can’t be the point at issue.

Takeaways: It is crucial to distinguish clearly between the two viewpoints here, as well as between facts and beliefs. Do not interpret (A) as a belief that the conservative ascribes to socialists; it is rather a claim that the speakers themselves are supposed to endorse or reject.