Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Whither art: vanity is killing social sciences and the humanities
29 October 2009
Conference hears that scholarly narcissism is leading disciplines to ruin. Matthew Reisz writes
"Academic narcissism" and a focus on self-promotion over scholarly substance are being blamed for bringing the humanities and the social sciences to the brink.
At a conference on the future of the disciplines held in Brussels last week, scholars warned that they were on a self-destructive course.
One of those to sound the alarm was Sasa Bozic, associate professor of sociology at the University of Zadar, Croatia, who accused his peers of displaying narcissistic traits.
Those who get to the top tend to be "highly competitive, image-oriented, substance-avoiding, ultra-innovative, quotation-obsessed individualists," he said.
He added that a lack of kudos for research that performed the valuable role of confirming existing work had resulted in a constant search for novelty, which made it hard for the social sciences to build up a solid body of knowledge.
The result, he claimed, was that "theories in the social sciences cannot predict much and their explanatory power is decreasing constantly".
Professor Bozic was not the only delegate to raise concerns at the conference, organised by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences (ICCR) in Vienna.
Elizabeth Sundin, professor in business administration and management at Linkoping University, Sweden, said she feared she could be witnessing "the suicide of the social sciences".
Useful research in the disciplines had to do justice to the "complex relations and multiple factors" that make up the social world, she said.
Yet prestigious international journals often demanded "one single score and conclusion in each article", which Professor Sundin said had led to "a loss in relevance, which, in turn, means a loss of legitimacy and a decreasing willingness among taxpayers to pay for our salaries".
Future debate
The conference was held to debate the results of the ICCR's SSH-Futures project, a European Union-funded study of the development of the social sciences and humanities in Europe. It brought together experts in everything from psychometrics, medical ethics, transport policy and radical farming methods to Ludwig Wittgenstein and women writers of the Middle Ages.
And not everyone was gloomy about the future.
For Ronald Pohoryles, director of the ICCR, the ideal was clear - scholars must embrace the idea of "the ivory tower with an open door".
Many researchers in the social sciences and humanities believe their insights can help address real-world challenges and, although they want to retain their autonomy, they also want to be heard, he said.
Philippe Keraudren, scientific officer for the SSH-Futures project at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research, said that the key issue was how to promote the circulation of social science and humanities ideas within Europe.
The conference heard that a number of barriers can make this difficult, including financial and institutional factors. Henriette van Eijl, who is responsible for innovation policy at the Commission's Directorate-General for Enterprise, referred to "the complex policy environment and erratic policy cycles".
Chris Caswill, visiting fellow at the James Martin Institute, University of Oxford, added that it could be difficult to work out the precise relationships between the Framework Programmes, Networks of Excellence and the new Joint Programming Initiatives that have emerged from the Commission.
Other scholars noted ways in which universities themselves were getting things dangerously wrong. Allan Janik, senior research fellow at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, was unhappy with the very phrase "social sciences and humanities".
He said that while "the things we really need to know as human beings can only be studied superficially by the social sciences, the humanities can definitely help us better cope with the needs of society today".
It is the humanistic knowledge provided by the arts that offers "personal insight gained from experience and gleaned from reflection on experience", he said.
Humanistic scholarship ought to aspire to wisdom, but Mr Janik said that most academics "don't rise to the challenge, and address their peers rather than distressed mankind". This, he said, left the world at large to "fall back on 'how-to' books".
Both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment took place largely outside our universities. Mr Janik warned that today's academy could be in similar danger of missing the boat.
matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
"Those who get to the top tend to be "highly competitive, image-oriented, substance-avoiding, ultra-innovative, quotation-obsessed individualists,"" Oh it isn't just social sciences. Much the same applies to science in general. It is a trend strongly encouraged by research councils and university apparatchiks. They call it "impact".
What a wonderfully confused bubble of stuff! A case of: "Look, did you see the point flying past. . . Oh, no, you missed it!" The speaker mentioned at the outset appears to confuse "vanity" with "individualism" (and I speak of the philosophy not of the notion), fails to understand the relationship between individual intention and cultural intention, juggles together discussion of human agency and discussion of social structure and function, and the whole thing ends nicely with a kind of "real wisdom is about not trying too hard". Brilliant. Just brilliant. Deary me . . .
"Social Science" is a term that comes down to us from the Enlightenment. Since then, the juvenility of Condorcet has innudated the study of social life. The project ought to be abandoned: social science is overly concerned with appearing "scientific" and less concerned with studying society. Social Science ought to be concerned with what Mr. Janik calls wisdom rather than the next grant or journal article. On the basis of the search for wisdom about social relations can "Social Science" claim to be a science in the best sense of Aristotle. Bill Jacobks.
A lot more than simple narcissism is at the root of pervasive intellectual corruption here in America in the heart of colleges and universities. The academic culture is rampant with backslapping, image distortion (PR), self-satisfaction, self-vaunting, sycophancy, a general see-no-evil, hear-nol-evil, speak-no-evil mindset of positivism and turning a blind eye, speech codes, PC-diversity-multiculturalism conformity, and an alarming indifference to the needs of democracy, including free speech and vigorous debate. As an ousted professor, I’ve been performing experiments to test the waters of democracy at colleges and universities. Each time I get the same results: one or two professors respond to either denigrate my person or argument with a single word, while the rest do not respond at all. Never has a professor responded with cogent point-by-point counterargumentation. Persons who get tenure are generally persons who don’t need tenure. G. Tod Slone, Founding Editor (since 1998) The American Dissident, a Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence A 501 c3 Nonprofit Providing a Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy todslone@yahoo.com www.theamericandissident.org 1837 Main St. Concord, MA 01742
We've been wrong about most things, right up to the point that we discover the 'new' truth which reigns until it falls, too. The good news is that we keep getting better at numbering, counting, indexing, and tracking. Someday, we will be able to understand which incorrect beliefs had which unhelpful consequences and our errors may become more short-lived and more manageable. Numbers is where it's at, my friends. We may never learn much about the causes, but we may learn to recognize the difference between harmful and beneficiail patterns. Maybe it's time for the academy to emerge from its chrysallis.
Numbers, schmumbers. The difference between qualitative and quantitative data is that it's harder to conceal an imbedded interpretation in qualitative data.
Responding to Tod Slone: academia sounds a lot like Congress!
I'm a relatively new academic who moved from a career in the public sector into university life. I am ready to toss it in due to the exact syndrome mentioned here. Rampant egos and narcissism kill off the interests and enthusiasm of some potential newcomers, and others convert to the culture in order to plat the game. Lose/lose.
I'm a relatively new academic who moved from a career in the public sector into university life. I am ready to toss it in due to the exact syndrome mentioned here. Rampant egos and narcissism kill off the interests and enthusiasm of some potential newcomers, and others convert to the culture in order to plat the game. Lose/lose.
The social sciences will continue to develop, contrary to what the doomsayers claim. However, I agree that the academic culture may be stifling their development in our universities. Academics must chase grants, the academic environment seems to encourage logrolling, and I doubt the academic world is capable of reforming itself. However, the public will demand more of its universities because university costs are rising and people will want accountability before they stand for increasing costs. Also, government needs research to manage properly and nonacademics will offer their services in competition to academics. Between the public's demand for accountability and the government's need for research to manage its programs and meet its needs, social science will continue to improve.
I don't really think the problems in the humanities can be blamed on the researchers. There's just very little investment in humanistic research, and less all the time. e.g.--Vanderbilt has job listings for more than 20 people in medical research right now, and none in any sort of humanities. Also, I'd say that sociology has made some solid advances in recent decades. This name-calling, I think, bypasses the real issues: capitalism (the real interest is in forms of knowledge that can make money for someone) and a general lack of enthusiasm about studies in ethics and the like. <a href="http://www.zoombits.co.uk/christmas-gifts">christmas gifts</a>
I don't really think the problems in the humanities can be blamed on the researchers. There's just very little investment in humanistic research, and less all the time. e.g.--Vanderbilt has job listings for more than 20 people in medical research right now, and none in any sort of humanities. Also, I'd say that sociology has made some solid advances in recent decades. This name-calling, I think, bypasses the real issues: capitalism (the real interest is in forms of knowledge that can make money for someone) and a general lack of enthusiasm about studies in ethics and the like. <a href="http://www.zoombits.co.uk/christmas-gifts">christmas gifts</a>