Abstract:
”The first paragraph of the first book she ever wrote, ‘Claudine at School,’ is devoted to an argument between the description of her native village in a geography book, and what was really there: ‘To me, those descriptions are totally meaningless!’ writes Claudine angrily. ‘No, that’s not how I see it.’”
Elizabeth Janeway’s Review of Collette’s Autobiography “Earthly Paradise.”
Attempts at the interpretation of human society are innumerable. Invariably, like the geographer’s description of Claudine’s village, these explanations of human reality are debatable. “I see it differently,” says the contestant. What he means is that his experience permits him to interpret it differently. Social scientists, as Peter Hall has observed, have increasingly come to “...observe human behavior through a glass screen.” These researchers have been led to believe that because they can view human behaviour through a glass screen, on which they draw the configuration and actions of the societies with their wax pencils, they are being impartial. If one may draw an analogy, the impartiality is greater because they have not been contaminated by breathing the same air as the society which they are studying. But, the social scientists who claim this impartiality forget that their eyes are looking through the glass and their hands are holding the pencils and tracing the patterns. Laing expresses the situation strongly but accurately:
“The theoretical and descriptive idiom of much research adopts a stance of apparent objective neutrality but we have seen how deceptive this can be. The choice of syntax and vocabulary are political acts that define and circumscribe the manner in which ‘facts’ are to be experienced. Indeed they go further and even create the facts that are studied.’”
The point of the first paragraph is clear enough. If the impartiality of the social scientist is a myth, why does he persist with the glass screen? Why not smash it, break it down, reach through it, and touch the people. Why does he not experience the society which he is analyzing, interpreting, passing judgment upon?
