Hey Sociologists (and other social-scientists), here’s what fancy-schmancy New York Times journalists think of your sister-profession:

Generally speaking, political writers don’t think so much of political scientists, either, mostly because anyone who has ever actually worked in or covered politics can tell you that, whatever else it may be, a science isn’t one of them. Politics is, after all, the business of humans attempting to triumph over their own disorder, insecurity, competitiveness, arrogance, and infidelity; make all the equations you want, but a lot of politics is simply tactile and visual, rather than empirical. My dinnertime conversation with three Iowans may not add up to a reliable portrait of the national consensus, but it’s often more illuminating than the dissertations of academics whose idea of seeing America is a trip to the local Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Ouch. The poly-sci tizzy starts here.

What I don’t get is why a solid, well-respected writer like Bai…whose articles I use in my classes from time to time, needs to go on some rant about an entire discipline? He sounds like he’s on the Jim Rome show. All he needed to do is end his passage by saying “rack ’em…I’m the pimp in the box!” Actually he could be making and interesting critique about our overemphasis on positivist/deductive approaches at the expense of inductive/interpretivist approaches (which can be just as rigorous and systematic), but instead of going there, he decides to “zing” an entire discipline instead of being reflective about its strengths and weaknesses. When New York Times feature writers are going for the verbal “smackdown,” I fear for our public discourse.

Rack ’em!

Why do folks have to hate on pedagogical innovation. The authors question the wisdom of offering these “frivolous” courses in the midst of an economic downturn. I think these classes are refreshingly creative! I only wish I would have thought of them first.

Among the gems:

Myth and Science Fiction: Star Wars, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings
Cyberporn and Society
The Science of Harry Potter
Zombies in Popular Media
Joy of Garbage

Philosophy of the Simpsons? C’mon, I’d have taken that at 18!

Am I missing something? Is this taking “sacred” knowledge and making it “profane”? I mean we all toil in the salt mines trying to get our students to engage with ideas. What’s wrong with adding a little cheese to the broccoli? particularly when students are immersed in cheese? As long as it’s not swimming in cheese!

I wonder what students think of these types of courses. Do they want a bright line between their popular culture and their academe? Do we?

I’ve been thinking about José’s blog on Luther’s Freedom (2/19), which reminded of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (PESC).

I find many of these ideas to be interesting.  The idea of Luther’s Reformation as a catalyst for change in terms of social relations in markets is pretty heady stuff.  I see the Reformation as the obvious move away from the [ideas/ideals] of the Catholic church (and its take on absolution and salvation, which was often criticized from within), which also marked a shift (in my opinion) a new era of spirituality, going from a more commutarian approach to an individualistic one, particularly under Calvinism.

After the Reformation, salvation was divorced (no pun intended) from leading a Christian life.  Pascal’s wager was irrelevant, as man could not influence God.  Nevertheless, through work could man serve God.  One’s profession was one’s calling.  It was later developments in Protestantism, i.e., John Calvin, where one couldn’t know for sure if they were saved, BUT success might be an indicator of it.  Hence, the Protestant work ethic was born.  It gave people meaning, as opposed to wallowing in nihilism due to not knowing one’s eternal fate.  Actions became centralized around the individual.  Community wasn’t dead, but status and legitimacy were now focused more than ever towards personal success.

Slouching towards late capitalism (or postmodernity), spiritual life was usurped by the profane.  The final fall of mediaeval asceticism?  The ascendance of a bourgeois ideology?  Materialism filled in the gaps of meaning.  (S)he who dies with the most toys, wins?  Brands become the symbols/totems that hold meanings.  Nike = transcendence.  Coca-Cola = global community.  Apple = cool rebellion.

While I find Weber’s PESC to be interesting, I think that the main idea is that the cultural context matters when it comes to determining the roots of the various flavors of capitalism, which is being fleshed out with recent research.  One could write a paper on the Shintoist ethic and the divine spirit of capitalism to explain the rise and fall of Japan, layering how feudal structures were thrust into capitalism under Meiji and how, decades later, overembedded networks of people and organizations were both a boon (70s-80s) and an albatross (90s-00s) to economic growth.  Cultural context.

• Is the trajectory of Protestantism responsible, at least in part, for our current era of materialism?
• Was the trajectory inevitable?
• If so, what does this say about Luther’s freedom?

image:  “Difference between the Protestant and Catholic church service” Cranach the Younger

Anybody who reads this with regularity has probably come across me proclaiming my love for the article links in Bookforum. I’m not sure how they dredge the web for their content, but they never fail to uncover something interesting.

Today’s thought pellet comes from an interview with Christine Rosen in The University Bookman, a publication from the Russell Kirk Center (an “old school” conservative…I learned a great deal from The Conservative Mind — so props to him).

Rosen, who edits The New Atlantis: A Journal of Culture and Technology, questions a utopianist view of new technology and engages the potential deleterious effects on families.

The biggest challenge our new technologies pose for children and families is one of opportunity costs: too many of us are spending too much of our time in front of the screen instead of with each other in face-to-face communication, and this has adverse effects for families and for our culture.

I’m of two minds on this. Before I left for work today, I set my daughter up on a site called Strip Generator a site that allows her to make her own comic strips (don’t worry, she’s under supervision: no calls to Child Protective Services). I think new technology allows for a flowering of creative expression and I try to expose her to experiences on-line that engage her in creative production. But I must admit to wondering about the costs. Do these new technologies create habits that undermine face to face engagement. A possibility that I’m especially interested in as a political scientist who thinks about social capital and civic engagement.

As we think about how we deal with technological innovation in our own world, Rosen encourages us to think about how the Amish approach technology:

The Amish are a good (albeit rigorous) model for this. They are not opposed to every technology; but before they decide to incorporate one into their community, they first ask whether it will bolster or undermine the core values of the community.

This of course greatly offends libertarian sensitivities. Who is “the community” to tell me whether I can use a new technology. But if there are great social costs to new technology, we need to make it apparent. The literature thus far doesn’t seem to suggest a decline in face to face interaction as Internet usage increases, but we’re still at an early stage in this scholarship. there’s more thinkin’ and researchin’ to do.

I can hear my Internet and Politics students groaning 🙂 Stop hand wringing and let a 1,000 gadgets bloom! But I get paid to hand wring….so (not sure what the onomatopoeia for “hand wringing” is.

The very cool and practical Presentation Zen blog turned me on (I like the old sixties phrases) to a growing movement called Pecha Kucha Nights. The Presentation Zen site describes these gatherings, now taking place in over 100 countries, where people must share ideas in a condensed format:

You must use 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds, as you tell your story. That’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Slides advance automatically and when you’re done you’re done. That’s it. Sit down. The objective of these simple but tight restraints is to keep the presentations brief and focused and to give more people a chance to present in a single night.

Here is an example of a Pecha Kucha presentation from Dan Pink on public signs (see his article on the topic in Wired).

i often wonder what would happen if more academics (particularly sociologists) played with turning their work into Pecha Kucha presentations. What would it look like if we created “community nights” where faculty at a particular institution or a group of institutions would present these 7 minute Pecha Kucha presentations? How would it change our relationship with the non-academic world?

I spend holidays in Ontario, Canada and listen to CBC every so often.  I heard this episode of Spark with an interview with Clay Shirky (NYU).  They discuss concepts from his book, Here Comes Everybody, including “cognitive surplus,” where the Internet is taking advantage of people’s unstructured thinking time.  Where is this time coming from?  Aren’t our lives overbooked with no spare time.  Barry Wellman and other found that the rise of the Internet was hand in glove with less TV viewing.  

One of the issues about TV is that’s it’s passive.  It’s a passive consumption experience, while the Internet in Web 2.0 can have the potential to be participatory, involving producing content, sharing content, and viewing content.

They also discuss how Web 2.0 is adding value in ways that would not be undertaken by market forces.  No firm or organization would undertake creating a tagged image repository such as Flickr with its 1B images, but enabling the crowd to do so is a big idea.  The question is how the limits of the freemium model in commercial possibilities.

• Will the crowd help firms/organizations see the path to cash?  (Revenues)

I think there’s also an interesting discussion on intellectual property sharing.  Will mass amateurization become commonplace?  Yes.  New opportunities will transform our relationship with innovations and intellectual property, as open source will open doors and close others.  

While not discussed on Spark, independent researchers can even engage in medical research, as evidenced by a physician hacking into his daughter’s DNA.   Many nations have an eye on the biotech prize, as this has huge implications for the cost of health care and on pharmaceutical innovations, how will open source affect biotech?

• Will the scale and scope of China (given their take on open source) blast apart our current notions of property rights and capitalizing on intellectual property rights?

Much of these discussions go back to the idea of data.  23andme is allowing users to get a DNA report.  You need not identify yourself, but they will be able to use and sell the aggregate data.  

I think we’re in new territory here with innovations, open source, and globalization.  I think it’s unclear what the “rules” are and we need to be aware for signs that the market is not working.  After all, value was created by Flickr, but it was the “wisdom” of the crowd that played a huge role in enabling it.

Finally, I thought there were good points on the notion of ethics and Web 2.0.  I’m not a technological utopian and I feel that technology transforms culture and often amplifies what is going on already.  Did MySpace spontaneously “create” pedophiles?  (Or did a brainchild for a NBC ratings grab create the illusion of an epidemic?)  Did MySpace create  real dangers for the youth?  The research points to ‘no’ on both counts, but the question remains:

• How will culture manifest itself online with norms, sanctions, and rules of conduct?

I liked Shirky’s quote that ethicists are like ambulance chasers.  Not to slam ethicists, but I think it’s extremely difficult to create prescriptions or a normative mode for an evolving social context.

So, I just got wise to the basic cable brawl between Jon Stewart and CNBC. I was able to catch up thanks to the convergence of TV & the Internet. My Web 2.0 viewing was sponsored by Bertolli and another view had a Tide commercial before the segment played.  (I also got to see promos for South Park and other Comedy Central shows).  The following is a decent overview of the skirmish.  “Don’t mess with the peacock,” for sure.  

In the continuing effort to tweak my blog posts to suit my narrow interests, I’m starting a section where I briefly summarize a text or article of which I’ve read a part but would like to read more. I’m starting with Chiara Bottici’s A Philosophy of Political Myth.

Why read more?

Bottici takes on a challenge in political science by exploring the distinction between myths and other aspects of language (symbols, stories, etc.) In my field of public policy there are numerous conceptual terms out there that roughly correspond to myths, narratives and symbols — causal stories, generative frames, narratives, etc. I actually wrote a comps question about this years ago and hope to someday dust it off and build on it (dream on, me!). Two passages in the sample chapter of Bottici’s book that provide, if not conceptual clarity, then food for thought. One is defining myth as linked to a purpose, or a specific explanation of how the world works. In this view, myths are used to make sense of the world.

In order to work as a myth, a narrative must always answer a need for significance (Bedeutsamkeit). If it cannot do so, it simply ceases to be a myth (Blumenberg 1985).

She then goes on to counterpose this instrumental view of myth with a view informed by Wittgenstein’s view of language (of which I admit I’m entirely ignorant).

Following Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, it may be said that to interrogate myths from the standpoint of their true or false account means to assume too limited a view of what human language and meanings are about: human beings are ceremonious animals, who, with their language, perform innumerable actions that are not based on any hypothesis about the constitution of the world (Wittgenstein 1979).

It seems as if much of our work accepts the former definition of myth rather than the latter. But at what price? Do we run the risk of reifying myths and attaching a convenient language to them when in actuality they are experienced differentially by those who adopt them (and in ways that social scientists really can’t do much with). Are the myths adopted after 9-11 less about trying to explain how the world works and more an elaborate performance intended to reduce anxiety? How does that change the way we study frames? narratives?

I need to read more.

Anybody else unsettled by 13 year olds promoting books on politics and giving rousing political speeches? He’s actually not bad, but what ever happened to video games and pick-up basketball?

At the very least, you can show this to your undergrads when you need to light a fire under them!

Peter Singer offers up a provocative article in the Chronicle of Higher Education imploring us to spend more of our time in academe addressing global poverty across the board, not simply in Sociology or International Relations courses:

We should not limit so important a topic to specialized courses on international development (valuable as they are). The issue should be prominent in anthropology, cultural studies, economics, ethics and sociology. In political-science courses, we should ask why we pay so little attention to people living in poverty outside our borders.

His concern for the neglect of the global poverty issues is so profound that he thinks we should prioritize areas of study that emphasize pressing social issues (Yay for Social Scientists! Peter Singer for Provost of the World!)

we should give a lower priority to areas of study that have no obvious connection with world poverty or with, say, climate change or avoiding war or, indeed, with any similarly large and pressing problem. That will no doubt incense some of my colleagues who think that we should study art, languages, history, mathematics, or philosophy for its own sake. I agree that, in an ideal world, studying epistemology, classical music, and Italian Renaissance art would be part of every cultivated person’s education. But we live in a world in which 27,000 children die every day from preventable causes.

While I wouldn’t go there, I’d submit that a move towards more engagement with the world through the study of its social dynamics is preferable to a move away from it. There are examples of institutions that are eliminating social science programs altogether. Contrast Singer’s view with Wisconsin Lutheran University’s decision to drop their political science major because they determined it wasn’t central to the liberal arts mission of the institution to offer (HT: The Monkey Cage).

I would caution however, as we thrust headlong into saving the world that we use Harold Bloom’s controversial reading/misreading of Plato in which he suggests the point of the Republic is to point out that “political idealism is the most destructive of human passions.” We should enter conversations with students in about how best to alleviate global poverty with profound humility regarding the complexity and contextuality of global problems and be wary of magic bullet solutions to hard, vexing problems. At the same time, I agree with Singer that we must act as if what we did mattered, whether it’s ultimate outcome actually produces desires results. I’m struck by a parallel he uses in his courses:

I draw a parallel with a situation in which you come across a small child who has fallen into a pond and is in danger of drowning. You know that you can easily and safely rescue him, but you are wearing an expensive pair of shoes that will be ruined if you do. We all think it would be seriously wrong to walk on past the pond — in fact, most people think it would be monstrous. Yet most people don’t think it wrong to buy expensive shoes that they don’t need rather than give the money to an organization that would put it toward interventions that could save a child’s life.

This intriguing thought exercise illustrates my point. One one hand, it seems monstrous to ignore mass suffering just because we don’t observe it directly. On the other, we have no way of know if contributing money to a charity would necessarily produce the desired effect. In fact a case could be made that charity has deleterious effects on economies in the developing world. Donated clothes, for instance, creates a secondary market in resold goods that undermines the development of a local textile industry in African countries.  Of course doing nothing wouldn’t necessarily mean an indigenous textile industry would thrive and would ensure that many millions continued to go hungry.

Again, this example doesn’t mean we should act or engage our students in discussions of global poverty. It means we should be intentional about having broad-based discussion about how to address them. But they should take place.