The Open Society and Its Enemies

“The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historic necessity.”

One of Popper’s key points of contention in this book is historicism—the practice of using history to predict future events by amplifying them to the status of destiny. A number of significant thinkers in the history of Western thought, such as the profiled Plato, Hegel, and Marx, used historicism in various ways to explain broad-scale social, political, and cultural developments over time. Popper challenges this method and instead asserts that people are free to choose their own path independent of their countries’ respective histories.

“The enemies of freedom have always charged its defenders with subversion. And nearly always they have succeeded in persuading the guileless and well-meaning.”

Plato saw social change in ancient Athens, particularly any liberalizing tendencies, as a move away from his ideal society of the past. After all, according to Plato’s Theory of Forms or Ideas, the ideal society existed in the past when it was in the closest proximity to its respective Form. As history progressed, this society gradually lost this Form and became corrupt. Based on this theory, Plato saw social changes as subversive tendencies that contributed to the decay of his preferred way of life. Popper subscribes to the opposite view and positions the liberalizing tendencies in Athens, such as maritime trade with other city-states in ancient Greece, as a step toward freedom.