[For a while I toyed with the idea of using paths and traps as the way to provide the
framework for the letters. Discussion with Gerry Martin, Sarah Harrison and Andrew
Morgan as well as others made me modify this scheme and in April (22nd, 2003), four
months into writing the Letters, I wrote the following to sort out my ideas.]
Paths Through Time: Letters to Lily on How the World Works
Gerry, Sarah, Andrew and I (as well as others) have wondered whether the word
‘trap’ is satisfactory. It does contain four ideas within it which are needed and must
not be lost.
- that one wanders into something often by accident and unawares or as the
result of an unintended consequence (as in falling into a trap which is
invisible)
- that once you are in this situation, it is difficult to escape or get out of it, as in
a rut or trap or quagmire
- that being in this condition further movement in a certain direction becomes
very difficult or impossible; it is an impediment, entanglement, constraint
- that occasionally, having come into this condition, people or societies manage
to ‘escape’ as from a prison, enclosure or trap
All these ideas need to be preserved and whatever word or metaphor is chosen as
an alternative must include them.
On the other hand, the word ‘trap’ has three negative features which make it
somewhat misleading and objectionable to many.
-
-
-
it tends to imply that there is a right way, a desirable goal or outcome, towards
which a society or person would normally proceed, but has failed to achieve.
In other words it contains an undesirable teleological assumption (tending
towards an end) that people were heading in a certain direction and were
‘trapped’ and ‘failed’ to do something.
it tends to be moralistic and often ethnocentric; we have done something, but
they are ‘trapped’, this civilization is doing well, but that is ‘trapped’ in some
way, as if there were a race or competition
it tends to suggest that there is someone out there (God, human nature, the
Marxist dialectic?) who is setting the traps into which we fall
None of these is acceptable, but all are part of the baggage of the word ‘trap’. So what
alternative is there?
While walking round our garden paths today, as the dew shone on the trees, I
suddenly thought of the obvious alternative metaphor or idea, namely ‘path’ or
‘paths’. This, when examined, looks promising.
-
one does stray around and then find or fall into a path which looks hopeful
(wet rice, Buddhism, Roman Law or whatever), so one joins a path or
proceeds along a path which often is the result of accident and unintended
consequences; so it contains the first idea of trap. Paths can be invisible or
gradually become obvious over time, just like traps.
1
-
-
-
-
the path can then constrain one in various way into the future, making it
difficult to change things, do certain things etc. This links to the well-known
theory of ‘path dependency’ by Paul David where he showed that we are very
constrained by our past (his examples were mainly technological, as with the
QWERTY keys on this computer, which no longer make sense, but cannot
now be changed at all easily). Path dependency, though, applies to social
structures, ideologies, religions, politics as well. It overlaps with mental ‘ruts’
(paths which have sunk deep into the mind, as Gerry and I have often
discussed) and with ‘oases’ as David Perkins has discussed (a path is a long
thin oasis, so to speak, where it is difficult to strike off into jungle or desert).
paths are both helpful and yet can make further development increasingly
difficult, being too rugged and slow, closing off alternatives, becoming
circular, leading nowhere; so they can be like traps in their effects
occasionally paths branch, or a culture or individual starts off on a new and
unexplored path. This allows an ‘exit’ in Ernest Gellner’s metaphor, an
‘escape’ from an increasingly circular or non-useful path. The industrial
revolution, the challenge to magical beliefs in science, the discovery of
America, are all new paths or ‘escapes’. These new paths in turn, and in due
course, become circular and non-productive.
some paths are more essential than others – there used to be a whole literature
which once interested me called ‘critical path analysis’ which tried to establish
for organizations the better and worse paths to their goals. It might be worth
looking at this again.
So the idea of path looks promising. While it retains all the positive ideas in ‘trap’
and seems to lose nothing, it does not contain any of the negative features.
-
-
-
there is no teleology implied; a path does not necessarily lead anywhere or
stop people going somewhere, it is a way of proceeding and often useful and
does not imply anything about goals or ends
there is no value judgement; each path has to be considered on its merits and
the reader can decide how to attach comparative values. The ‘intensive rice’
path has much to be said for it when compared to the ‘wheat’ path, the
aristocratic path has advantages over the democratic path, the witchcraft path
has some advantages over the random chance path.
there is no-one out there laying out the paths; humans intentionally and by
chance and selection follow them. They usually arrive at them through random
variation and complete chance, but then decide to follow them because they
seem to work, though the paths themselves may in themselves contain the
seeds of future destruction. There is no God or Devil, Marxist dialectic or
basic human nature at work.
The idea of path or way does seem to have all the important features of ‘trap’. It
may constrain, compel, limit alternatives, but it has none of the undesirable
connotations of that word in teleological or moral overtones. One ‘way’ or ‘path’ may
be as good as another. What is important is to be aware of the path one is walking
along, to realize the nature of the ruts and inhibitions and constraints of each path.
*
2
The word path is a noun to which one can add adjectives, just as with traps. One
can talk of the Malthusian trap, or the Malthusian path, the inquisitorial trap or the
inquisitorial path, the magical trap or the magical path, the Confucian trap or the
Confucian path.
Indeed, as soon as one mentions the ‘Confucian path’ a whole other set of ideas
crosses the mind. The ‘path’ is the same as ‘the way’, which is an enormously
powerful idea in most thought systems. In the Chinese and Japanese case it is the
central idea or concept, being the heart of their ideologies. The ‘Tao’ or ‘Dao’ is the
central ‘way’ in China, and was adopted and adapted into Japanese as the ‘do’ or way
(as in ju-do, ken-do) and so on. Even the tea ceremony is known as ‘The Way (or
path) of Tea’ (cha-do, or cha-nyo). So the idea of ways, paths, all fits, as it does with
the message of Christ, ‘I am the Way’.
*
One of the four zen meditations is walking down paths. Many of the temples in
Japan and China have approach paths. Indeed, following the path is an almost
universal religious symbol. Whether in the path which the dead souls go along to the
‘soul village’ among the Gurungs to the Pilgrim’s Path in Hindu, Buddhist or
Christian religion (as with the dewy path leading to our tea house), the path is of
central significance.
One important element in the concept of the path is that of movement, which is
absent in the ‘trap’. History and time passes, one travels, or a civilization travels and
is not static, even if it is generally in equilibrium. Traps was a bad metaphor because
it was too static. The Chinese from 1400-1850 did change and develop and proceed,
even if it was on a high-level equilibrium. It was going along a certain path which was
in no way heading towards certain things, eg. industrialization.
The idea that movement and direction is very important has constantly haunted
me. For example, I have often complained that this lack of awareness of the
movement through time is what is wrong with Pomeranz and other revisionists who
have attacked the older school of followers of Max Weber. The revisionists judge by
static cross-sections. I have written that we need to look at trajectories, directions in
which things are going, rather than cross-sections. We also need to escape from
looking at history as a race or competition, with some ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’ others.
‘Path’ is another word for trajectory, and there can be many paths of equal validity.
Another very important component in the idea of path is that it combines those
intriguing philosophical opposites, continuity and change. The idea of the ‘changing
same’ has long intrigued me for, like Maitland and Tocqueville, I think that the key to
understanding many complex civilizations, whether China, Japan, Islam or Britain, is
the idea that there are certain structures which remain deeply continuous, while others
change. It is very difficult to explain this, but the path metaphor is helpful. As with a
real path which goes over a varied landscape, the path is the same path in one sense,
as with the Dales Walk, path along the canal at Lode, along the disused railway line
behind Gerry, or other paths, but in another sense it is different because the scenery
and even the nature of the path changes.
3
So it is with history. The English of the twelfth century and the nineteenth
century are both the same and very different. The idea of continuity with change lay
behind the well-known metaphor of the ‘long bridge’ which spanned the twelfth to
nineteenth centuries according to certain revisionist Marxists. The path has this idea
too. It is the epitome of the ‘changing same’, of the famous paradoxes of the
philosopher’s shoe (both made of new leather, but the same shape) etc.
Another thing to consider is the relation between ‘path’ and the key word and
concept of ‘tendency’. The tendency describes the direction/bias or shape of the path.
People are always on paths, and they often move onto other ones. The tendency is the
pressure or likely direction of the path. It is only a tendency rather than a law because
people can always leave that path (or be ejected from it by others). Paths make things
probable or likely. So tendency and path go together well, both having movement
built into them.
*
The moment one pauses to think about the path idea, all sorts of subsidiary ideas
and analogies rush into the mind. Here are a few of the things paths can be.
They can be secret or open. They have different widths, from narrow tracks to sixlane motorways. They can be busy and crowded or lonely with hardly any travellers
on them. They can go in circles, come to a dead end, peter out, criss-cross and mingle.
They can also be seen as footpaths, roads, tracks and ways. They can be paths over
different substances, grass, gravel, water, ice, snow, thus requiring different
technologies (wheels, sleighs, boats, shoes) to traverse them. They can be on different
inclines; flat, uphill, downhill, steep, gentle. Their surface can be helpful or hindering
for travel: tarmac, gravel, grass, deep mud or whatever. They can be easy to see and
follow, or be almost invisible and hence need great skill to walk along, they can be
fenced or unfenced.
Paths can be clear of obstruction, or overgrown with matted vegetation or blocked
with dangerous creatures. They can be at a low level (the bottom of valleys), middle
level, or high-level in the mountains. The drop from the path can be very great and
dangerous (as with Tibetan cliff paths), or hardly worrying. They may go through the
open, or through tunnels. The entry to the path may be easy to see and enter, or
concealed (as in Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Harry Potter). They may pass over
difficult bridges, ferries, or through narrow gates. They may contain contrary traffic
which cause jams or crashes. There may be people who attack one on the path and
hurl one off it (e.g. Mongols, Huns, Orcs etc.) The path may cross a uniform
landscape, or lie on the margins between two ecologies as with tracks along the sea
shore. Paths may have to be made by oneself, or be made by others. Paths may be
suitable for different entities, pedestrians, horses, bicycles, cars etc.
Paths may be across other’s territory, by rights of way, bridleways, or through the
commons. There may be permitted speeds, 30 mph rules and so on. They may be well
lit or almost covered in darkness. They may pass between dangerous and alluring
temptations (Scilla and Charybidis) to left and right. They may over time become
overgrown and disappear (cf. de la Mare ‘The Path Through the Woods’,
disappearance of glass in Japan). They may be free, or there may be an entry charge
or toll. They may be straight, or they may be twisty (cf. Belloc on drunken English
4
road). They may be very old, or very new. They may be on the surface, or deeply
rutted (as with certain Devon, Sussex lanes) so that it is very difficult to escape out of
them (as T.S.Elliot, ‘the lane insisted on the direction’). These and many other ideas
(many of them from remembered shreds of poetry, e.g. ‘cliffs of fall, no man
fathomed’, ‘I cannot see what flowers are at my feet’ etc.) provide interesting
potentials for the metaphor.
Some are very famous, like the Tokaido in Japan or various pilgrimage routes.
Some are open to all, others privileged and invisible (as King’s lawn). Some all can
easily travel, others require knowledge and discipline, as in Buddhist and Taoist
philosophy. Often creativity consists merely in getting off a rutted path and finding
something by entering a new one. Sometimes they lead through jungles, mountains,
deserts, seas. Sometimes there are mazes, snakes and ladders, dungeons and dragons.
Sometimes they lead aimlessly; sometimes the Holy Grail is thought to lie at the end
of them.
In sum, the word and concept of path looks like a rich and fruitful metaphor and
much preferable to traps. It has many more associations and few of the negative
connotations which have plagued the ‘traps’ idea.
5