Social Science

Topics: Introduction, Politics and the White Working Class

Introduction

In Let’s Get Civil, I criticized Social Scientists for divorcing moral philosophy. But more important, I integrated the epistemologies of moral philosophy and social science which makes them indispensable to each other. That integration also provides a blue print for the two disciplines to work together allowing each to reach full development.

I did not stress this point in the book, and I want to make it here. By integrating moral philosophy and social science we do not just give social science its moral purpose, its criteria for evaluating what it studies and what it does; we also fixed an enormous failure in Aristotelean and Thomistic and subsequent moral philosophy. By integrating moral philosophy with social science, we develop an entire discipline of applied moral philosophy which is not just pragmatic, it is scientific. Pragmatism pays attention to results. Social science uses the scientific method to test results in the context of mathematically structured hypotheses. Our moral philosophers do not get to just sit around reflecting and speculating. They have got to get their hands dirty, as it were. They have got to work with social scientists to tests the application of their moral assertions and use the results of those tests to affirm or reject or improve their assertions.

Their are two major, contradictory theories of leanring: Behaviorism vs. Vygotsky’s Social Cultural Source of Learning and Feuerstein’s Structural Cognitive Modifiability. Briefly, Behaviorism vs. Vygotsky and Feuerstein.

Sociology and Behaviorism

Economics and Behaviorism

Political Science and Behaviorism

These disciplines are profoundly flawed and hogtied by being bound to behaviorism as their primary theory of human learning and development.

This is not to say that the behavior sciences have nothing to contribute to the social sciences. But they tell us about behavior, not about how we think and what we think. And most important of all, they tell us nothing about how to teach and learn. How to help ourselves and each other develop formal reasoning and formal concepts.

Politics and the White Working Class

On June 26, 2019 the New York Times published an editorial by Thomas B. Edsall: “There Are Really Two Distinct White Working Classes.” As Edsall pointed out immediately, “One is solidly Republican and will stay that way; the other leans Democratic. And then there are the in-betweeners.”

It is an important example of social science (political science) research. It informs Democrats of the challenges they face if they want to win the minds and hearts of these Republican voters. In doing that, it demonstrates the major strength of social science research. But it also gives no clue as to how these working class Republican’s hearts and minds became what they are and, therefore, no clue how to win them over. And in that failure, this seemingly brilliant article demonstrates the fatal flaw of social science research.

Let’s Get Civil provides a lengthy description of how these Republicans became who they are and of why social science cannot help these voters develop different attitudes and values or help Democrats who would try to win them over. But like I said, this is a great editorial. I wish I had read it before I finished writing Let’s Get Civil. The goal of this website is to clarify and improve what I wrote in Let’s Get Civil, and this article will help me do that. The background provided in Let’s Get Civil is helpful, and of course, I assume that everyone has read it who reads this. So this discussion will use this article to make both the article and Let’s Get Civil clearer and better, more useful.

What Edsall does well is what social science does well. He describes in detail what IS in this political setting. He describes these white non-college educated working class whites, those who are Democrats and what they believe, those who are Independents and what they believe, and those who are Republicans and what they believe. And he makes it clear that especially the Democrats and Republicans are not amenable to change based on current political strategies.

But what Edsall is silent about is what social science is also either silent about on the one hand and misled about on the other.

They are misled in trying to understand how these Democrats and Republicans came to believe what they believe. As we saw in Let’s Get Civil, social science has adopted behaviorism as its go to learning theory. Behaviorism is useful if we want to understand behaviors, especially of those who would teach (or influence) and to some extent those who learn (or are influenced). But it does not tell us how learners develop concepts nor how those who would teach can help learners develop concepts. Understanding learning and teaching concepts requires entirely different learning theory. We saw that in Let’s Get Civil, and we found Feuerstein’s theory of Cognitive Structural Modifiability not just helpful but compelling.

Feuerstein provides two explanations for why we learn. I added one more, and the one I added is the one that explains what Democrats need to know because Republicans have clearly figured it out. Feuerstein’s explains:

1. Those who have learned have received positive mediated learning experiences.

2. Those who have not learned have received inadequate mediated learning experiences.

I demonstrated:

3. Those who have learned negative or un-American beliefs have received negative, un-American mediated learning experiences.

Now, as we talk about Democratic and Republican views, we must recognize that neither party is committed to negative or un-American views entirely. But one of the great failures of social science is its inability to describe what should be in society and in the Public Square. And that includes the ability to tell what should not be in society and the public square and especially what is un-American, but also what is evil.

Greed is evil. Working hard to succeed in business is not greed and not evil. It is good. But after one succeeds in business, after one accumulates significant wealth, one can choose to be greedy or charitable, to use the Christian term, or humanistic, to use a more neutral term.

Racism is evil and stupid. But not all racists understand their evil. They experience no guilt because they have been taught to believe racists attitudes and values. They have been subjected to negative mediated learning experiences. It is fair to say that they are victims of evil mediated learning experiences.

But social scientists have not figured that out about learning and development, and they have no capacity to ask, let alone answer, ought questions.

So social scientists are silent about good and evil, morality, what ought to be in the Public Square and what ought not to be. Therefore they cannot identify good and evil. They can study what they see, but they cannot see good and evil.

As a result, they do not study and do not discover who is providing the evil mediated learning experiences, how they provide it, and who funds the whole process. Who convinces hard working Americans that greed is good, that the super rich who have already accumulated more wealth than they or their future generations could possibly spend need tax breaks so that they can accumulate more wealth? Who convinces decent working class Americans, Americans who are loyal and generous within their tribe, their church, their white community; to see other Americans as others and to dehumanize them? Who teaches that? Who pays for it?

Is journalism a social science? Not really. It is a language and communications discipline. But it uses social science to inform its reporting on society and politics. And here is the problem for journalism: journalists can be ignorant of what social science and political science knows, but they cannot know more. Social science and political science cannot guarantee the floor of journalism’s knowledge, but they do provide a ceiling. Since social science cannot answer the ought questions, cannot identify in a compelling, irrefutable manner the good and evil in society and the public square, neither can journalism.

The Editorial Board of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times (the creme de la creme of American newspapers) exert considerable influence over American attitudes, but they daily demonstrate their enormous inadequacy. They describe things as they see them, but they too cannot take compelling, irrefutable stands for good or against evil. Just consider. In spite of the obvious influence of these great newspapers, great magazines, great television news organizations, in spite of all that power and influence:

We the People cannot mount a united, effective fight against global climate change even though natural science has given us irrefutable scientific evidence of the dangers, horrors, that face our country, all countries, and all living things.

We the People, in spite of the victory in the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the sublime moral leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and others cannot put an end to racism. Rather racism continues to plague the minds and hearts of millions of Americans causing pain and suffering to millions of other Americans and immigrants.

We the People continue to tolerate misogyny even though it victimizes mothers and sisters, wives and daughters.

We the People tolerate denying women the right to choose to have or not have a child after becoming pregnant, regardless of her capacity to raise the child, regardless of how the child will impact her life.

We the People, in the richest country in the history of the world, cannot assure the just distribution of wealth, cannot provide good work and wages for all, cannot eliminate economic insecurity and fear, cannot provide all of our people real economic opportunity.

And how about more mundane issues?

We the People cannot repair our deteriorating physical infrastructure nor expand it to make it adequate.

We cannot provide affordable and accessible day care, early childhood education, quality K-12 education, job training and re-training, or college and graduate school education. As a nation, we are more interested in the full development of artificial intelligence than human intelligence.

What is it going to take for the Editorial Boards of our great newspapers to recognize these failures and look in the mirror?

What is it going to take for social scientists to recognize these failures and look in the mirror.

Journalists and social scientists teach us both how to think and what to think, but they are losing the battle for the education of the minds and hearts of Americans to skillful propagandists who are funded by super rich Americans whose hearts have been blackened by greed. And they are losing the battle because they have not joined it. They are too smug and arrogant to see their inadequacies and turn them into strengths. The propagandists are winning because no one stands in their way.

We need:

A critical mass of Americans to show up in the public square and support our arguments. Religious humanists who believe that social responsibility is a prerequisite to redemption. Secular humanists who believe that a good life requires that they help others. Americans who believe that they are members of and responsible for our community and our liberal democracy.