There is no perfect taxonomy of human thought

Over the course of history, people have believed a variety of different things for a variety of different reasons. There are useful schemes of categorization, based on drawing similarities, but ultimately there is no substitute for evaluating things on their own terms.

For example, the terms left and right, used politically, are helpful as an initial categorization, especially in more modern times, but not so much beyond that. From the point of view of modern leftists, pretty much all ancient civilizations would be “far right” and yet many of these ancient civilizations clashed with each other over their beliefs. Moderns may throw them all in the same basket, but the inhabitants of these civilizations clearly saw things differently. So, although widely used, left and right is not a universal taxonomy of belief.

To form a clear picture, it is necessary to examine the beliefs themselves rather than to prematurely try to fit them into some scheme of classification. Of course, it is natural to evaluate the beliefs of different societies as good or bad or mixed, but the proper way to do this is with reference to the beliefs themselves, not with connections and associations without first establishing these associations.

It is was possible to make a perfect categorization of beliefs, then beliefs could indeed be praised or condemned based solely on their place in the categorization, but simply based on empirical fact, none has appeared. Taxonomies of belief are models; useful, but ultimately approximations.

Also associated with this is this notion of tracing back trends in the present time to thinkers or political figures hundreds of years ago. The idea is that things going on now are really the same or a direct continuation as events or ideas from the past. It is certainly possible, but does not seem to really be happening. It is one thing to trace back influences from the present to the past; nothing happens in a vacuum, past events are influenced by other past events, either from the same time period or earlier. But then to go from there and predict that things must have happened a certain way in the present does not make sense.

Now, it should be mentioned that this is distinct from evaluating whether or not something in the past was good, bad, or mixed. It is one thing to say an event was bad at the time or that in hindsight things would have been better, but to say that something must have led to some bad development 200 years later when there was no indication this is the goal or was forseen is not a just criticism. Suppose a book containing essays from some obscure blogger becomes well-known and respected in 100 years and some dictator uses it to justify a corrupt policy. If nothing in the blogger’s writing indicates he would favor the policy, does it make any sense to blame him for it? No, it would be ridiculous, so then why should this standard be applied to historical figures?

There is no substitute for evaluating things as they are. Models can be useful, but the model is not the same as the underlying reality.