Living with ideology

A dialog from the PhilOfHi list, May 2001

Haines: lots of good thoughts as usual. Here is my response. The key worry you have seems to be that we may not recognize ideology when it functions to draw our arguments away from solid historiographic ground.

I think we need to assume that ideology is always there and always be ready for the charge of ideology. The charge, however, can be a blunt instrument that keeps us from doing much but wringing our hands. You point out that covering law analysis is inherently conservative in that it presumes a stable and uniform reality. Fair enough. So when covering laws are brought into play there should always be a side argument on just this point. Is the phenomenon stable? Doess the stability have a probable endpoint? Once we lay out the domain of applicability and give good grounds for believing there is enough stability and uniformity we are off and running. You restrict the application to small arenas of concern (daily life). But aren't there some larger phenomena, like demographics, which lend themselves to enough uniformity to make reasonable predictions? We are rather good at predicting world population growth, for example.

Now to “feudalism.” The persistence of the term shows its usefulness. You correctly point out that scholars have made all kinds of distinctions between types of feudalism, almost to the point where it loses its usefulness for research. But you also note its persistence in textbooks. I think that is a different issue from that of ideology. The reason it is still used in textbooks is that it is good shorthand for describing a set of roughly similar modes of economic/social life. These similarities may not be enough for high-level research, but for a first year student in world history it might help. Is this dishonest? I don't think so unless it misrepresents the research. Isn't a similar “glossing” done in natural science textbooks?

Now on the “facts” again. The discussion has rightly moved to the issue of consensus. There is a political element in reaching of consensus, but I think that is simply part of the job, ferreting out the merely political positions from those that move science or historiography forward. Take the case of the rise of the West, a politically charged issue if ever there was one. The argument has led us to ask if there was more trade outside the West than we previously thought. How important were those clocks and eyeglasses? The argument has sent us scurrying for answers.

What is interesting in all this is how the argument progressed. Theorists start to question the received consensus: the West is dominant because of Protestant values which supported capitalism at a key point in history. No, that's not it; there are areas where non-Protestants did better. And if that is true, maybe it isn't values at all; maybe it is economic luck. And by the way, maybe the West wasn't dominant until lately. Oh, and maybe capitalism isn't restricted to the West. And so on. All these interesting and, I would argue, progressive, moves were made in a ideologically charged atmosphere.

So reason (in science or historiography) isn't destroyed by the mere existence of ideology, it is simply more refined, accurate and subject to greater criticism, all of which is a good thing. We aren't aiming for a universal ideology. We are going to have to live with ideologies (the fact that they are plural is the problem, after all). But I think we are better off in doing so.

By the way, what's so bad about empiricism (without the dogmas)?

Randy Groves

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Randy,

> THe key worry you have seems to be that we may not recognize
> ideology when it functions to draw our arguments away from solid
> historiographic ground.

Well, almost. I'd argue that ALL our arguments are ideological, but also that this is a good thing! Instead of the chimera of ideology-free discourse, I'd recommend instead that we seek a universal ideology, so that we can have our objective cake while subjectitively eating it as well ;-). This is admittedly ambitious, but it strikes me as the only possible resolution of the objective/subjective contradiction. What is “objective” is simply universal (and that term requires definition, of course), and the universality must be social (i.e., defining the individual as a social being so that the individual can acquire universality) (Wow!! I know I’ll hear back from you on some of this!) > I think we need to assume that ideology is always there and always
> be ready for the charge of ideology. The charge, however, can be a
> blunt instrument that keeps us from doing much but wringing our
> hands.

Wouldn't my proposition above (if not entirely hogwash, which it may well be) relieve you of this anguish?

> You point out that covering law analysis is inherently conservative
> in that it presumes a stable and uniform reality. Fair enough. So
> when covering laws are brought into play there should always be a
> side argument on just this point. Is the phenomenon stable? Doess
> the stability have a probable endpoint? Once we lay out the domain
> of applicability and give good grounds for believing there is enough
> stability and uniformity we are off and running. You restrict the
> application to small arenas of concern (daily life). But aren't
> there some larger phenomena, like demographics, which lend
> themselves to enough uniformity to make reasonable predictions? We
> are rather good at predicting world population growth, for example.

Exactly. It helps to know that I'm looking at things in terms of world history, where one naturally expects diversity and disjunctures. But you are right, short range history, such as the modern history of a nation, or perhaps a topical history, would be more open to covering laws, and it's not one or the other, but suiting our mode of explanation to the phenomenon we seek to explain.

Your comment on demographics makes me think of Braudel, who tried to reconcile different time frames in sort of a neoplatonic shell game. Significantly, his attempt occurred early in his career, and he later admitted it was a failure. Yet this does not discourage people from lapping it up. Oh, well, perhaps there's no progress in historiography ;-) But, I agree, that whenever we apply a covering law, such as in demographic prediction, we need auxiliary hypothesis to account for the exceptional circumstances that justify our doing so.

My point is that traditional (bourgeois) historiography presumed stability and felt it was that change called for explanation; I’m suggeting that we instead presume change, and when we encounter stability or homogeneity, that we seek to explain it. Again, I could say a lot more about this. > Now to “feudalism.” The persistence of the term shows its
> usefulness. You correctly point out that scholars have made all
> kinds of distinctions between types of feudalism, almost to the
> point where it loses its usefulness for research. But you also note
> its persistence in textbooks. I think that is a different issue from
> that of ideology. The reason it is still used in textbooks is that
> it is good shorthand for describing a set of roughly similar modes
> of economic/social life. These similarities may not be enough for
> high-level research, but for a first year student in world history
> it might help. Is this dishonest? I don't think so unless it
> misrepresents the research. Isn't a similar “glossing” done in
> natural science textbooks?

Point well taken: a label for a rough classification of societies. That's reasonable. However, I don’t really think it works. The societies to which the label is applied can differ remarkably. For example, the second intermediate period in ancient Egypt has been called “feudal.” I hope we would agree that this stretches the term to the point of meaninglessness. Secondly, while empiricist classifications are intended to be meaningless (T-shirts come M,L,XL,XXL), I have higher expectations for the categories we use in historiography. To the extent our categories are vacuus, I suspect our explanations become trivialized. The term “feudalism” in origin was certainly loaded, and that it lost its potency I suspect reflects the general decline in bourgeois historiography (strong words, I know, but don't take them too seriously).

> All these interesting and, I would argue, progressive, moves were
> made in a ideologically charged atmosphere.

Again, point well taken (ideoligical component does not seem to hinder historiographical progress). But I'm not entirely comfortable. First, the “West” is, I believe, an entirely fictitious and ambivalent concept, and so your point about progress in its understanding leaves me wondering if indeed there is progress.

I'm forced to pose one of those questions for which there is probably no simple answer: How do we know there's progress in historiography?

First, a historigraphy seems to define its own criteria of success. In a von Rankean world, success might be measured by the growth of well criticized political facts, but in the Enlightenment, it would be measured by its ideological relevance for nascent capitalism. Success today might be what encourages civic mindedness and wise democratic participation. If so, has not contemporary historiography failed?

Second, my understanding of history suggests that a paradigm continues to develop until it collapses from its contradictions. If so, the more it progresses (a theory acquires ever better Gestalt, for example), the more fragile it becomes and the less likely to endure. That is, it can be argued that historiographic understanding is not simply cumulative, but periodically revolutionized so that we experience a new beginning on some higher plane (a la Vico).

Don't take all this too seriously. I'm only suggesting that an operationalist argument for historiographic success does not seem compelling, and so I'm not sure using the term “feudalism” so carelessly might not lead us into trouble or a cull de sac instead of supporting historiographic progress. > So reason (in science or historiography) isn’t destroyed by the mere
> existence of ideology, it is simply more refined, accurate and
> subject to greater criticism, all of which is a good thing. We
> aren’t aiming for a universal ideology. We are going to have to live
> with ideologies (the fact that they are plural is the problem, after
> all). But I think we are better off in doing so.

Not sure we use the word “ideology” in the same way. I think of it as a world view that has a functional relation to social class. If so, while refinement will naturally occur naturally, the refinement is irrelevant. In my own use of the word, it make no sense to talk about “accuracy.” It makes no sense to subject ideology to criticism if it is the ideology of our own class. In this case, you want it to be invisible, and criticism then becomes counterproductive. One way to make it invisible is to suggest that “feudalism” is not meant to be incisive, and so it is removed from criticism.

Every ruling class seeks to make its ideology universal (soc 101, I suppose). I see plenty of evidence that the current ruling class sees its ideology as universal. What is World System Theory, after all, but a universalization of petit bourgeois trucking and bartering? But I see that I'm using the concept “ideology” in quite a different sense than you are. > By the way, what's so bad about empiricism (without the dogmas)?

Well, in part it depends on which empiricism we are talking about, but it seems to me that the philosophy of science (with some pure philosophical exception from the US shores) largely collapsed after WWII. I've not been able to keep up with things, but some time ago, I think Musgrave and Lakatos wrote a definitive book on the subject (called, I think, something like the Methodology of Scientific…), and (hidden admittedy in a footnote), they retreated to an explicitly existentialist position. Now, I'm sympathetic to existentialism, but it's a sad admission in the philosophy of science. In fact, at the time and since, there's emerged healthy alternatives to empiricism, such as scientific realism. Is not empiricism a dead horse?

Sorry to be so quick and casual in this reply. Pressed by other matters. But at least it might illuminate some agreements and differences.

Haines Brown
brownh@hartford-hwp.com
www.hartford-hwp.com
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