Reaching the top floor

I've taken a day or two to gather my thoughts about social science, which sits on top of psychology and biology. Social scientists are -- or at least should be -- the most self-reflective of all scientists. Among scientists, we are the fullest inhabitants of Habermas's Second and Third Worlds. The Second World -- The Good -- includes the social order, what are considered to be the proper social roles for people, which includes "right" or "good" behavior according to the position one occupies in society, as well as what people actually do, which may or may not accord with that.

Inevitably, we have our own opinions of The Good, and relatedly, of The Beautiful. We cannot approach the study of society from a position outside of it, although some pretend to do so. We can study societies other than our own, but that requires imposing our own frameworks of understanding on them. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it is wrong to pretend it isn't happening. When we study our own society, we must be conscious that our frameworks of understanding are a product of the society we are studying. 

Many social scientists, historically, have essentially set out to justify what they see. Broadly speaking, this is called a structural -functionalist viewpoint. They explained social norms and institutions as serving purposes, as accomplishing ends that benefit the entirety of society. We can take a critical or dissenting position, but that obviously isn't value free either. These are usually called conflict viewpoints -- people in different positions in society have contrasting interests, and the more powerful exploit the less powerful. There may be some perceivable communal interest, but it is often subordinate to the interests of particular groups. These may be defined by class, caste, gender, ethnicity, or other criteria, but all of us are embedded in all of those categories.

I was at a conference some years ago, I don't remember what it was about. Maybe public health, or communication in healthcare. Anyway we had a special interest group meeting on cross-cultural communication. We went around and introduced ourselves and a man said (I'm putting it in quotes but it's from memory so maybe not a literal quotation) "I always wanted to have a culture. My neighbors were Latino and Chinese, and I didn't have a culture."

As the jaws hit the floor I said, "I assure you sir, you do have a culture." But the truth is, until the latter half of the 20th Century, many social scientists were blind to this obvious reality, which from our point of view today seems truly astounding. The convention was to write papers in what purported to be the view from nowhere. Reviewers and editors would ding you for using active voice in describing the methods and the analysis. It couldn't be "We did this," it had to be "This was done," apparently by nobody. 

The myth of the disembodied investigator in fact denies the very foundations of social science. But does that mean social science isn't really science? Some people, e.g. Stephen Pinker and Richard Dawkins, will say so. Next, I'll explain why they are wrong and in fact are blind to themselves.