Post Tenebras Lux

Cautious About Causation

This article is a reminder that history is rarely so simple that it can only be explained by a single causation, be it an individual’s history or a nation’s. As the well-known saying goes, “Correlation does not equal causation.” This may often be used in a statistical sense, but DeYoung is arguing for it in a historical sense.

Quotes

  • Of course, understanding our pasts can be useful in making sense of the present. But it’s a deterministic myth to think, “I had to turn out this way.” The fact of the matter is, there is no straight line whereby certain experiential inputs invariably lead to the same set of lifetime outputs.

  • The uncomfortable fact is that there are wide disparities between blacks and whites when it comes to a host of well-being measurements, from standardized test scores to educational attainment to household income to rates of incarceration. If some are quick to explain these disparities based on merit and hard work, others are quick to assume that discrimination and white supremacy are to blame. I’ve always found the easy explanations to be unhelpful—unhelpful in understanding the present and unhelpful in making things better in the future. It’s not discounting the legacy of racism or the value of personal responsibility to argue that neither is a sufficient explanation (nor an irrelevant consideration) for why people have what they have and are what they are.

    People are complicated, and history is complicated. We don’t do anyone any favors by pretending that people or the past can be understood and summed up in a single, unifying theory.