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Problems with Social Science (Thread)
1. The stubborn overlap of social institutions. This is particularly pronounced with political institutions where all forms of government want the legitimacy of all the others.
1a. The United Kingdom is a wonderful example being a disorganized bureaucracy pretending to be a meritocracy pretending to be a democracy pretending to be a monarchy.
1b. The overlap of many different institutions obscures which is the functional one that is subsidizing the others. An effect on discourse is that it allows ideologues to argue the success of a polity, society or institution is due to their championed principle.
2. A correct understanding of power is powerful. This creates an incentive for hoarding such knowledge or even spreading disinformation.
2a. An honest elite has many things to recommend it: an easier time training their own successors which will reduce generational variance, making it easier for nonelites to navigate and thrive in society, etc.
2b. A dishonest elite has one very strong advantage however: It is less predictable. Both to rival elites and nonelites. This means it has an information advantage that is very useful in war (and politics...).
2c. That Chinese internal politics are a mystery for most American 'experts' is an advantage for the Beijing and a disadvantage for Washington.
2d. The advantage of superior social knowledge applies internally as well. Chinese hereditary nobility lost power to Confucian scholars when Confucian scholars had a better understanding of psychology, power and law than the hereditary elites.
2e. When bureaucrats are shallow symbol manipulators other elites can retain power (e.g. Ancient Egyptian scribes who served priests and Pharaohs depending on which was ascendant). When bureaucrats are poets, rhetoricians and strategists they are the ruling class.
2f. Modern software engineers are encouraged to not think too much about how to persuade fellow people or how social organization works. They are paid handsomely to understand software and misunderstand people. They are symbol manipulators.
2g. An institution teaching humanities, economics or politics... will either be the ruling organ of society or it will be a tool of power rather than investigator of truth. (The worst scenario when both are the case). There niche counter-examples but those are hard to engineer!
3. Time spans exceeding lifespans. Some social phenomena take generations to play out. Every generation only has access to a shadow of information on the undertakings and realities of the previous.
4. The psychological function of society. As individuals we are often emotionally attached to an interpretation of our own society. Arguably it can be as cherished our conception of parents when growing up. We might grow out of the shadow of our parents but never society's.
4a. This emotional attachment produces many blind-spots, it is further the source of many convenient conceptual confusions that say justify our actions or associates. When done well the dispassionate study of society is a particularly demanding kind of emotional labor!
