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Social Studies skills: Difference between revisions
→Contingency: adding path dependencies
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** sometimes called "counter-factual" or "historical fiction" ("what if?" type scenarios) | ** sometimes called "counter-factual" or "historical fiction" ("what if?" type scenarios) | ||
** however, it's illuminating to consider and evaluate different variables that create historical contingencies and actual outcomes | ** however, it's illuminating to consider and evaluate different variables that create historical contingencies and actual outcomes | ||
=== Path dependencies === | |||
* using contingency, we see that set conditions define available choices | |||
** we also see that those choices are constrained by those conditions | |||
*** i.e., an isolated agrarian society cannot simply choose to industrialize if the conditions for industrialization are not present | |||
*** that society can engage in a series of choices that might create those conditions over time | |||
* however, sometimes even available choices are not present not because while those choices might seem available "path dependencies" inherently limit them | |||
** ex., early United States could have chosen to abolish slavery as that choice was articulated and available | |||
** however, the early US suffered from a "path dependency" in the constitutional relationship between the slave and free states that prevented that choice from being taken | |||
*** instead, the choices taken ultimate led to civil war | |||
* path dependencies shape decisions in a form of a circular argument: | |||
** ex., "we cannot increase food production because we don't have enough food to provide for workers to increase irrigation that would lead to higher food production" | |||
=== Contingency Traps === | === Contingency Traps === | ||