================= HES POSTING =================
Robert Leeson wrote:
>Brad Bateman:
>
>I think we are misunderstanding each other. I was not referring to
>Stigler's 'virtue as a theorist', but his belief that hegemonic knowledge
>was constructed, disseminated, and destroyed for 'non-positive' reasons.
>The stories told by yourself and Michael Perlman confirm this impression.
And yet -- the argument that I sense being made here is that
there is still an underlying positivist movement to the theory
THAT OUGHT TO BE.
There is still a rigid "right" and a rigid "wrong" -- and
the sociology of knowledge has been borrowed only enough to
explain who is wrong and why.
Furthermore, the discussion (interesting as it is) is so very
INTERNAL. As if economics (and who wins) is all that goes on.
Stigler lived, and wrote, a long time.
What do you suppose influenced his development as an intellectual?
What were the theories that were breathed in the air, so to speak,
among ALL intellectuals in his youth, when he was in graduate
school, in the newspapers, and on the radio?
Try to fit his writings into the CULTURE of the 30s, 40s,
50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.
Now -- how about CHICAGO's department of economics? What
IS this with Chicago culture? From a sociology of knowledge
standpoint, it is not necessarily an improvement to demolish
ONE rigid hegemonic ideal and replace it with a different one.
Let me add to this debate -- if you will permit me to do so
-- that we are also talking about the era of Norman Mailer
and the worship of Hemingway.
MANhood.
What is there about this that is so masculine, competitive,
combative? Winners and losers? To admit in person a
softer edge than one is willing to admit on a podium -- you
CAN'T admit on a podium, because you have to be RIGHT or you
show a weakness. There cannot be doubt.
American culture of the 50s and 60s was so VERY dichotomous
-- Us and Them, Capitalism and Communism, Free World and
Totalitarianism -- and when you got home, it was Men and
Women, as if they were from different planets, different
species (though everyone really knew better after
World War II).
Even Micro and Macro.
So it was Chicago vs. Keynesianism. Us vs. Them.
A battleground.
What I am trying to show you is how DEEPLY embedded STIGLER
had to have been in the culture of his time.
THAT is how you use the concepts of the sociology of knowledge.
How did CULTURE -- how did LIFE -- how did being HUMAN --
affect his writing?
This is most strongly historical. You cannot DO sociology
of knowledge without understanding the culture, the
environment, of the times. You must understand history,
which means you must understand historiography.
History of economic thought is about theories developed by
human beings who were SITUATED IN TIME AND PLACE.
You must be able to study time and place to understand this.
So what was the culture of America? What was the culture of
Chicago? What is the culture of economics (we're already
getting a good taste of it, aren't we?)? How do these things
impact upon the THEORY that economists produce? How do we
understand that and deal with it?
[P.S. -- the current overemphasis upon capitalist hegemony
that pervades much of the discussion of one SIDE of history
of science/knowledge is itself blind to cultural influence --
I find it ironic that historians will use the concept of
capitalist hegemony to discard social science theory or
empirical modeling, while failing to question why that concept
is so useful for them in their own fields -- and I have made
the argument elsewhere that ONE reason it is useful is that
it enables historians to continue to use paradigms of
historical analysis that were otherwise discarded long ago --
linearity, positivism, Eurocentrism, romantic nationalism,
and fixed stages in history -- all of which are inseparable
from any reification of the concept of "capitalism", for
bad or good.)
Mary Schweitzer
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