Humans cannot be unbiased, but minimizing bias is a vocational duty. Don't just play by the rules, adopt the spirit of the rules and seek to be as unbiased as you can. Go further: don't just temper your biased impulses, accept the depth of our ignorance. Cede your ground enthusiastically to the data! Learn to enjoy it. I hope I can.
I see the appeal. But I think realistically a lot of social science is going to be done in the service of a political agenda. There are dispassionate types like Weber, but there's also Marx, sitting in the British Museum reading room with carbuncles on his arse and a profound hatred of the bourgeoisie.
And another distinction I'd like to make is between being dispassionate (which is not necessarily good) and putting the pursuit of truth above one's political agenda. I do not think the academic should strive to be dispassionate. I think she should strive to be more respectful of the pursuit of truth than the preservation of her prior beliefs. I think an academic should recognize that she receives privileges from society in exchange for serving it in the pursuit of truth, not using her status and resources to advance her political agenda at the expense of truth-telling.
So I would say that the academic who sees her role as ushering social change, rather than seeking truth, is basically not keeping her end of the bargain with society.
Marx, I think, contributed to the proliferation of this betrayal, because he made an immense contribution to a conflictual view of society, seeing it as an arena of mass exploitation rather than cooperation. This framing makes all who adopt it warriors in a class war, and in war, there is next to no respect for the needs of the enemy, which is seen as deserving of destruction. This framing is almost dehumanising, and indeed has led to widespread atrocities.
So speaking of Marx is very pertinent not just as a case study in research disposition, but also as a large contributor to a widespread (I believe) anti-scientific disposition among others.
Let me offer an analogy. There are 3 professions who receive social privilege in exchange for serving society in truth-seeking. These are academics, journalists and judges. It has sadly become commonplace for the first two to see political change as their primary duty to society. Would you like judges to think the same?
Would you like it if judges enthusiastically use their powers to promote their political views as long as they can do it within some formal constraints set to mechanically approximate fairness?
Our appreciation of Marx should be at least tempered by the fact that his work led or at least contributed to the murder of tens of millions of people. I also think, but you might not agree, that he inspired generations of ideologically corrupt academics, who are much more dedicated to a political agenda than to the pursuit of truth. Marx is kind of the worst academic in history, in my book. So yes, a frown, I say, he most definitely deserves!
Setting those aside, you might legitimately think that the man provided us with important analytic tools (I actually don't know about that). But even then, we might think that he did important work and still believe he failed to live up to a standard that we should set ourselves and others. To say that a certain standard should be followed is not to say that no person in history has managed to make a great contribution without meeting that standard.
Marx certainly has serious flaws but I think that blaming him for academia in 2024 is probably too strong. And if there’s a line from him through Lenin, there’s also one through European social democracy, which did the pretty well in the C20.
Thank you.
May I offer a more demanding ideal?
Humans cannot be unbiased, but minimizing bias is a vocational duty. Don't just play by the rules, adopt the spirit of the rules and seek to be as unbiased as you can. Go further: don't just temper your biased impulses, accept the depth of our ignorance. Cede your ground enthusiastically to the data! Learn to enjoy it. I hope I can.
I see the appeal. But I think realistically a lot of social science is going to be done in the service of a political agenda. There are dispassionate types like Weber, but there's also Marx, sitting in the British Museum reading room with carbuncles on his arse and a profound hatred of the bourgeoisie.
The Marx type deserves to be frowned upon.
Marx was a great social scientist. Does Hayek deserve to be frowned on too? He was also passionately ideologically motivated.
And another distinction I'd like to make is between being dispassionate (which is not necessarily good) and putting the pursuit of truth above one's political agenda. I do not think the academic should strive to be dispassionate. I think she should strive to be more respectful of the pursuit of truth than the preservation of her prior beliefs. I think an academic should recognize that she receives privileges from society in exchange for serving it in the pursuit of truth, not using her status and resources to advance her political agenda at the expense of truth-telling.
So I would say that the academic who sees her role as ushering social change, rather than seeking truth, is basically not keeping her end of the bargain with society.
Marx, I think, contributed to the proliferation of this betrayal, because he made an immense contribution to a conflictual view of society, seeing it as an arena of mass exploitation rather than cooperation. This framing makes all who adopt it warriors in a class war, and in war, there is next to no respect for the needs of the enemy, which is seen as deserving of destruction. This framing is almost dehumanising, and indeed has led to widespread atrocities.
So speaking of Marx is very pertinent not just as a case study in research disposition, but also as a large contributor to a widespread (I believe) anti-scientific disposition among others.
Let me offer an analogy. There are 3 professions who receive social privilege in exchange for serving society in truth-seeking. These are academics, journalists and judges. It has sadly become commonplace for the first two to see political change as their primary duty to society. Would you like judges to think the same?
Would you like it if judges enthusiastically use their powers to promote their political views as long as they can do it within some formal constraints set to mechanically approximate fairness?
Our appreciation of Marx should be at least tempered by the fact that his work led or at least contributed to the murder of tens of millions of people. I also think, but you might not agree, that he inspired generations of ideologically corrupt academics, who are much more dedicated to a political agenda than to the pursuit of truth. Marx is kind of the worst academic in history, in my book. So yes, a frown, I say, he most definitely deserves!
Setting those aside, you might legitimately think that the man provided us with important analytic tools (I actually don't know about that). But even then, we might think that he did important work and still believe he failed to live up to a standard that we should set ourselves and others. To say that a certain standard should be followed is not to say that no person in history has managed to make a great contribution without meeting that standard.
Marx certainly has serious flaws but I think that blaming him for academia in 2024 is probably too strong. And if there’s a line from him through Lenin, there’s also one through European social democracy, which did the pretty well in the C20.