The Open Society and Its Enemies

The purpose of the three chapters contained in “The Myth of Origin and Destiny” is to describe Plato’s formative years, establish his intellectual background, and discuss Plato’s well-known Theory of Forms or Ideas. This approach is necessary to understand why Popper considers Plato the source of historicism and totalitarianism.

First, Popper dissects the problem of historicism in social sciences, which he alluded in the Introduction. Historicism assumes that historic events are outside human control as a result of broad-scale historic conditions and trends, historic destiny, or even God. Historicism focuses on great ideas, states, and leaders rather than an average person:

There is no doubt that the doctrine of the chosen people grew out of the tribal form of social life. Tribalism, i.e. the emphasis on the supreme importance of the tribe without which the individual is nothing at all, is an element which we shall find in many forms of historicist theories. Other forms which are no longer tribalist may still retain an element of collectivism; they may still emphasize the significance of some group or collective—for example, a class—without which the individual is nothing at all (8).