Review of "Social Sciences as Sorcery"

I recently read the books Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. Both point out instances of gross misuse of scientific concepts in the liberal arts. Through my experiences as a college student and a Religious Studies major, I have become intimately acquainted with sophistry. So after coming upon Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s (a genius who deserves a later laudatory post) recommendation of Fashionable Nonsense in one of his books (I forget whether it was in Antifragile or Fooled by Randomness), I found reading anything purporting to tear apart postmodernism at its logical foundations irresistible. I was not disappointed. Fashionable Nonsense by itself is a hilarious and yet coldly logical dismantling of the bafflingly inappropriate use of such scientific and mathematical fields as topology and quantum physics as metaphoric fodder; however, the hilarity of the book is enhanced by association with a legendary case of academic hijinks, the Sokal Affair.

Back in 1996 Alan Sokal, inspired by Higher Superstition, wrote the paper “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” “It asserts an extreme form of cognitive relativism: after mocking the old-fashioned ‘dogma’ that ‘there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole’, it proclaims categorically that ‘physical “reality”, no less than social “reality”, is at bottom a social and linguistic construct” (Bricmont, Sokal 1998, pp. 2). Pi and Newton’s G are social constructs. It was published in the journal Social Text and was revealed as a hoax soon afterwards. Sokal was trying to emulate a soft-science tradition. As described by the sociologist Stanislav Andreski, “The recipe for authorship in this line of business is as simple as it is rewarding: just get hold of a textbook of mathematics, copy the less complicated parts, put in some references to the literature in one or two branches of the social studies without worrying unduly about whether the formulae which you wrote down have any bearing on the real human actions, and give your product a good-sounding title, which suggests that you have found a key to an exact science of collective behaviour” (Andreski 1972, pp. 129-130).

This is where Stanslav Andreski’s Social Sciences as Sorcery comes in. I saw the quote above in Fashionable Nonsense, along with other quotes from and references to Andreski. I believe he is also mentioned in Higher Superstition. I got the impression that he was a genius, a witty asshole, and a true pioneer in his debunking, his book predating Higher Superstition and Fashionable Nonsense by more than 20 years. I had to read their spiritual predecessor. Andreski’s almost mythical stature in my mind was only inflated more after finding out how rare Social Sciences as Sorcery is. But I finally found it in the Los Angeles Library, which by the way, is incredible. It’s like a subterranean, art deco Minas Tirith, whose levels are filled with books.

Anyway, Social Sciences as Sorcery was as good as I was hoping it would be. As suggested by the few quotes of Andreski I had seen beforehand, the book was chock-full of incisive and sardonic commentary on what has gone wrong in the field of sociology. I did not write down where all the good quotes are (there are too many), but here’s one of my favorites, which is representative of the rest of the book: “Top universities can usually get the best people in the fields where there are firm criteria of achievement; but at the present stage of development of the social sciences the process of selection resembles, as often as not, a singing competition before a deaf jury who can judge the competitors only by how wide they open their mouths” (Andreski 1972, pp. 86). I also enjoyed his “Equation of Jargon-Mongering,” which is (A/K)-1=V, where A=ambition, K=knowledge, and V=verbosity. He explains the -1 by saying that “when the knowledge matches the ambition, there is no verbiage” (Andreski 1972, pp. 83). Though his equation doesn’t make any sense when there is no ambition, that’s not the point. The rhetorical effect is quite funny. At bottom all three books have the same message concerning epistemology and intellectual honesty, yet Andreski attacks the problems of intellectual honesty on a wider plane, extrapolating less from specific examples like the other two books. The end result is a more philosophical book, a good primer for Higher Superstition and Fashionable Nonsense.

Andreski starts the book by discussing the problem of imputing intention. Andreski theorizes throughout the book about the causes of sloppy thinking and superfluous but impressive sounding verbiage, and when talking about behavior where competition is involved, costs and benefits of certain behaviors must be explained. For purposes of clarity, Andreski writes as if the people involved are aware of certain circumstances, which makes his reasoning easier to understand. Unfortunately it also makes sociologists seem like conspiratorial, cynical manipulators. You find the same problem in evolutionary psychology. Well, this whole problem is rhetorical, but for those who insist on imputing cynical intentions on academics, Andreski has this to say: “In any case, the most deadly agents of cultural infections are not the brazen cynics, but the sectarians prone to self-delusion and the timorous organization men anxious not to miss the band-waggon [sic], who unquestioningly equate popularity and worldly success with intrinsic merit” (Andreski 1972, pp. 10). The point is that “in the study of human affairs evasion and deception are as a rule much more profitable than telling the truth” (Andreski 1972, pp. 12).

Part of Andreski’s theory is basically that verbiage and the scientistic insistence on quantifiable measurements preserve social scientists by allowing them to repackage the same banal platitudes about sociology in infinite permutations of impressive sounding jargon. I would type an example of inane verbosity, but I am too lazy. It’s enough to say that Andreski’s translation of a 16 line excerpt from Talcott Parsons’s Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives is “that although every individual is in many ways similar to other human beings, he is also unique in a way which is predetermined neither by the properties of his organism nor by the state of the culture,” something that’s “hardly a revelation” (Andreski 1972, 60). An insistence on quantifiable measurements misleads by imbuing banal data with a pseudoscientific imprimatur, by obscuring its banality, and by suggesting that less “rigorous” methods are unfit for use in sociology as they are not “objective.” Furthermore, restricting the ability to research anything truly original combined with the potential to hide ideology in nominally neutral language has the side effect of not pushing the buttons of anyone in power. Andreski calls this “promiscuous crypto-conservatism.” Looking at conservatism as a defense of the status-quo makes it clear that people labeled as “conservatives” don’t think as a bloc. It depends on what they’re defending. Conservatives from different societies or people who are conservative concerning different issues could easily have contradictory opinions. Promiscuous conservatism derives from the desire to placate those in power. It is based in self-preservation; to try to justify this brand of conservatism ideologically would result in an incoherent ideology. Lastly, academics form cliques, propping each other up with laudatory reviews and appointing each other to positions of power. It’s a vicious circle.

Attending some of my first Religious Studies classes made me wonder whether the professors were playing Devil’s advocate or not. I soon came to find that they believed what they taught, but regardless of whether they were honest in their convictions or shamelessly cynical, I can’t help but think of an anecdote in the conclusion of Social Sciences as Sorcery: “Some years before the First World War, a Parisian periodical asked some of the most prominent French figures in the…social sciences…about what they regarded as the most essential method in their field. While other respondents sent back learned methodological disquisitions, Georges Sorel replied in one word: honesty” (Andreski 1972, pp. 232).