The conservative's conclusion is that, in their pursuit to derive certain trends leading inevitably to a socialist future, socialists are wrong because in the day-to-day progress of history, there are never such discernible trends. Why? Because history occurs through accident, contingency and individual struggle, and inevitability only appears in retrospect.
The socialist's conclusion is that historical analysis is not important in socialist argument because of inevitability, rather it is important because it helps socialists transform institutions of capitalist society through understanding. Why? In order to transform a capitalist society, they must first be understood and they can only be understood through an analysis of their history.
Prior to looking at the answer choices, the socialist and the conservative did not necessarily have a conflict in their views of history since the conservative states that the socialist's pursuit of historical analysis for the purpose of inevitability is ill-founded, and the socialists agrees that inevitability is not the purpose of their historical analysis--"Socialist: if we thought the outcome of history were inevitable, we would not work so hard to transform the institutions of capitalist society."
So what else would the conservative have to believe for there to be a conflict between what the socialist is saying and what the conservative is saying?
Answer choice (E) states: "because historical changes are mostly accidental, it is impossible for people to direct their efforts sensibly toward achieving large-scale changes in social conditions."
If the conservative believes that it is impossible for people to direct their efforts sensibly toward achieving a large-scale change in social conditions then that would directly conflict with the socialist's pursuit of working hard to transform the institutions of capitalist society.
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
LikwidIce10September 29, 2014
Thank you!
mg123October 4, 2019
Hello @Naz
Why couldn't B be correct? B essentially says that all historical events could have occurred otherwise then they actually did. That would weaken the socialists argument that they need to study/analyze history because they would be studying something that isn't even correct. One can't understand, and thus transform, a capitalist society if the information used to understand it is not valid. I understand why E is correct, I just don't see why it is "more correct" than B. Thanks!
