The inevitability of history is an illusion of hindsight rather than real determinism

Evidence

But such a narrativisation is question-begging, since the very credibility of this story relies upon the events of the strike unfolding as they did. What if they hadn’t? Under the aspect of eternity, everything is inevitable and we are all Spinozists. But life has to be lived “forward”, making us Sartreans. Reading the book now inevitably dramatises the tension between these two positions, between knowing that everything has already happened and acting as if it hasn’t. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 216

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Spinozist vs Sartrean, living backwards vs forwards — a dense, portable mental model for how narrative and hindsight distort notions of historical inevitability, and how fiction can hold both positions at once.
• XREF: Connects to ballard’s writing on the self and to how any retro-speculative fiction must thread between given fact and conjecture. — connects to: Historical inevitability claims overreach; the past never dictates the future; Historical patterns do not determine future outcomes — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 33; Revolutionary moments compress history so improvisation outweighs long-term structures — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 55 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Historical inevitability claims overreach; the past never dictates the future #corroborates (0.95)
• Historical patterns do not determine future outcomes #corroborates (0.90) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 33