of government: his MONARCHY; ministers; the territorial
COMMUNITY; military fortifications; the treasury; the
army; and allies. Punishing dissenters and traitors is
an important function of the Hindu prince. Strict pun-
ishment of breakers of the universal order serves to
deter other offenders and preserve the society against
the “evils” of individual freedom and PROGRESS.
This central theme of Hindu political thought
exists within a diversity of deities and cults that
encourages relativism that preserves its central teach-
ings while offering a surface image of TOLERATION. Both
the rigidness and the polytheistic confusion explain
recurrent conflicts in India between Hindus and
monotheistic Muslims, as well as between India and
the Western CAPITALISTdemocracies.
Further Readings
Ghoshal, U. N. A History of Hindu Political Theories.Bombay;
New York, Indian Branch: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Jayaswal, K. P. Hindu Polity.Eastern Book House, 1924.
historical materialism
A theory of history developed by Karl MARX and
Friedrich ENGELS(and carried on by later COMMUNISTS)
that conceives of historical social change and progress
as motivated by technological advances in economic
production. Accordingly, all ideas, LAW, politics, art,
education, religion, and philosophy as the “superstruc-
ture” reflect the fundamental, materialist “structure” of
the economy. So, for example, Marxism sees the
organic, hierarchical theology of MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY
(St. Thomas AQUINAS) as simply reflecting the social
class structure of the European Middle Ages and eco-
nomic FEUDALISM. Thus, ideas are not autonomous or
important by themselves but are determined by eco-
nomic technology and “relations of production.”
This theory further claims to be “scientific SOCIAL-
ISM” in discovering universal laws of history that prove
that capitalism will inevitably lead to socialism and
then to communism. Much like Darwin’s theory of
biological evolution, of which Marx approved, histori-
cal materialism sees human social progress as follow-
ing natural laws. It rejects any supernatural, spiritual
dimension to human history or any possibility of alter-
native developments in economic progress.
With the fall of communism as a world system (the
end of the SOVIET UNION) in the 1980s, this philosophy
is no longer widely subscribed to, except by certain
Western academic philosophers and sociologists.
Further Reading
Lichtheim, G. Mar xism.New Y ork: Praeger Publishers, 1961.historicism/historicist
A philosophy originally developed in Germany in the
mid-1800s (see George HEGEL and Karl MARX) that
views socials truth as historically relative. For histori-
cism, then, there is no constant, universal human
nature that exists in all times. Rather, HUMAN NATURE
and social concepts (JUSTICE, FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, etc.)
are conditioned by people’s historical and social con-
text. So, the social environment really makes human
beings what they are, and because social, economic,
and political concepts change throughout history,
humans are different at different times and places in
the world. So, MODERN, 20th-century people in techno-
logically advanced, CAPITALIST democracies cannot
relate to people from ancient Israel, CLASSICALGreece,
MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANEurope, and so on. This leads to a
depreciation of the value of past literature on current
intellectual life (e.g., the Bible, ancient philosophy
such as that of PLATOand ARISTOTLE, the CATHOLICMid-
dle Ages). Historicism tends to view knowledge as pro-
gressing, so old books are inferior to newer writings;
the knowledge of Solomon or Jesus has been super-
seded by superior recent studies. There is, therefore, a
certain contempt for the past and arrogance of newness
in historicism. It presumes that Modern people are
unable to know ancient thinkers (because of their dif-
fering social contexts) and that civilization has
advanced and progressed over time, so Modern ideas
are necessarily better than older principles. It portrays
old systems of thought as at best incomplete and naïve
and at worst pathetic and dangerous. So, for example,
historicist economics dismisses ancient warnings
against usury as quaint and primitive; historicist, LIB-
ERALtheology diminishes the value of the Bible and
other sacred texts as archaic and outmoded. Simply by
being “old,” an idea (such as patriarchy or faithfulness)
is considered wrong by historicism. The alternative to
historicism is traditional, CONSERVATIVEreligion, philos-
ophy, and psychology that see humanity as constant,
uniform, unchanged by historical and social circum-
stances and, therefore, benefiting from the wisdom of
the past. This conservative view that “nothing is new
under the sun” sees the same human capacities, emo-
tions, reason, and dilemmas throughout history. So, the
stories of human life in the Bible, Aristotle’s ethics,historicism/historicist 139