Social dynamics is a very long term affair; the causative factors may span over millennia. The focus on the current conditions and actors helps little in understanding and in managing social affairs. And more profoundly, it is the intellectualist state (operative epistemology) over time which determines the unfolding social phenomena. We often overvalue great calamities or upheavals. The plague epidemic in the 14th century triggered a chain of movements bringing modernity to Europe but hardly affected Asia, from where it originated. The Arab Spring, mostly an ICT generated movement, sank the Arab nations more in obscurantism and authoritarianism. We may also talk about a completed project of recent history, the Soviet one. The promised egalitarianism never materialised and it reduced into a very dehumanising totalitarianism. And yet, the desirable changes within a foreseeable future are possible, provided we realise that wishes are not horses. They need a scientific understanding of the social organism and commensurate policy measures to materialise. A proper probing of the current must move beyond the contemporary.
Niraj Kumar Jha
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