From: bayla@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: "nothing wrong"
Organization: Independent scholar
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 03:38:01 GMT

This discussion is likely to involve very long postings: I usually edit
down, but there doesn't seem to be too much I can omit without distorting
the line of discussion.  I'll do my best, and accept suggestions along the
way.


>From Bayla, above water in Evanston:

>"Euclidean geometry, Newtonian physics, and ... Ptolemaic astronomy
>function well within their own limitations [..deletion..]  In these
>cases it can be argued that there is some sort of absolute reality
>against which they may be tested: no such situation exists for
>anything that humans have invented as social tools."

[Steve Karlson's comments re Ptolemaic astronomy deleted]

>2.  The absolute reality of anything may be unknowable, but we can
>make ever better approximations to that reality.  Newtonian and
>Einsteinian physics are ever better approximations to a model of
>motion in the universe.  Why can't we apply the same kind of
>analysis to "social tools"?  Can't we look at the objectives and
>the performance of social systems using various social tools and
>make some sort of deduction about what tools accomplish their
>goals more effectively?  Can't we also study those goals and ask,
>are those good goals?  Would I be happy with my position under
>a system that pursues those goals?

>Steve Karlson

--Steve is here referring to a paragraph of mine which he didn't reproduce,
in which I point out that social institutions (broadly understood) can be
evaluated only against the goals *of that society*.  I agree that we *can*
look at social tools and "make some sort of deduction... [about
effeciveness]."  Note that we're *not* making a closer and closer
approximation to some unchanging reality when we do so!  The goals
themselves may shift even as we watch.  

We really can't ask "are these good goals? Would I be happy..." without
imposing our own values on the system we're studying.  As a
twentieth-century American matron, I know I wouldn't be happy if I were
suddenly transported in time or space to a society where my freedom
(physical or intellectual) were curtailed.  But what if I had *grown up* in
that society -- maybe I *would* be happy, either because I didn't know any
"better" or because I appreciated other aspects of the society which (in my
"native" state) I thought "made up for" the deficiencies in freedom.  

For example, I know there are deficiencies in my native American system
which would be intolerable to some who grew up under other conditions, yet
I still have the chauvinistic sense that on the whole, this is a
comfortable society for me to live in, and the deficiencies can be "worked
on."  Yes, I have suffered on account of these deficiencies -- but my
perception is that it would have been "worse" (by some indefinite measure)
in another social system.  By analogy, and from conversations with
colleagues from other countries/ societies, I know that other folk hold
similar views of their own cultures.

--bayla
     Dort, wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.
     Wherever books are burned men also, in the end, are burned.
                               Heinrich Heine [1797-1856]






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