Twilight and Dawning: Post Peak/Collapse Social Science and Social Psychology
by Tadit Anderson, March 2007

There have been calls in the last few years for a post peak psychology. Michael Klare's call, in an article “The Post Abundance Era” published November 30, 20061, for a post abundance era psychology of austerity is one example. Others have also called for a psychology to address the needs of the expected large numbers of people who will be effected by rapid economic and societal transition. I personally have witnessed numerous presenters speaking about issues related to the societal effects of the peaking of oil and natural gas production as well as the related impacts upon existing centralized economies. The problem arises again in the societal and psychological problems brought into focus by over-consumption and over-population. Often the approach has been to dismiss conventional economics and social science and to substitute suppositions based upon pop-level social science and/or a retreat into comforting mythologies or horrific speculations. This is a very dangerous approach which can result in more harm than good. Typically it has come from people who are over-reaching their understanding of the fields that they are criticizing. While the criticism is warranted, the substitution of uninformed opinion and fabrication as legitimate alternatives will have very serious negative effects. The fact that the social sciences seem poorly prepared to address major societal problems, seems to be a product of certain assumptions. It is very clear that there is need for a new interpretation of political economy and the theory of history as a basis for our social sciences and social psychology. Conventional economics, sociology, and social psychology are very good at pressing adaptation or assimilation to pre-existing norms, but they are of little aid when those conventions are the primary source of hazards or when there is a need to change beyond those conventions.

A recent article by Wilfred Mc Clay entitled “The Twilight of Sociology”2 is useful here for several reasons. The primary explanation given by Mc Clay for the decline of “sociology” is the result of the 'progressivism,' as defined by his dubious standards, of many of sociology's academics. Though the author has impressive sounding credentials of little relevance, the article seems intentionally directed to an audience that is accepting of convenient generalities and lapses of memory. The impression given by Mc Clay is that sociologists are in large numbers involved in different forms of social justice issues and thereby are the cause for the decline of modern sociology. From direct personal experience and from contact with different academic sociology departments it is clear that the percentage of actual activists within academic sociology faculties has been rather low for a very long time. Mc Clay's actual objection seems to be more toward any academic sociologists at all being involved in social justice issues. It could also be established that the number of faculty members in economics departments who are actively involved with providing rationalizations and cover stories to neo-classical and neo-liberal economics as the enforced convention is quite large. By this observation any expectation of activism in favor of communal equality or progress within academic economics would be dismally remote. If this level of disconnect from the real world is considered to be a success, then apparently sociology is failing to have a similar level of devotion. Therefore the complaint from Mc Clay must be toward those faculty members not currently providing rationalizations and cover stories for the traditions and institutions that he seems to favor. A more fundamental concern for me is the absence of any admission by Mc Clay that mainstream sociology has also failed to actually engage in the study of societal and social behavior in a problem solving fashion. Instead the general framework has been for academic sociology to also favor objectification and rationalization. Mc Clay's criticism also seems much like the standard US 'conservative' criticism of the US judiciary when it chooses to interpret law in a way less than prejudiced toward economic and political elites.
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My opposing view is that the apparent demise of sociology as an academic profession has a more complex explanation and that it has been self inflicted. Mc Clay also asserts that the passing of the 1950's and 1960's generation of US sociologists represents the best minds of sociology is prejudiced in its deletion of the generations of sociologists preceding Parsons, Merton, Homans, and Lipset. Just as the academic economics departments were designed to stifle the general and democratic interests of the population even being articulated3, mainstream US sociology from about 1918 forward was designed to nullify sociology as an open discourse based science to a largely exclusive discourse with certain marginalized areas. This was done side by side with the suppression of all imagined forms of socialism in the political context. The core problem was not that the socialists were foreign born, but that their ideas had great appeal to the common US citizen and that was dangerous for the speculative capitalists. The involvement by US social science in Project Camelot and earlier in the Office of Strategic Services project from which the CIA would later evolve gives evidence to the use of the social sciences as counterinsurgency strategies to “prevent” war and how to undermine an opposing government.

Certain applications of both economics, sociology, and social psychology have been very successful forms of activism, particularly those that serve the interests of wealth, that operate to dys-educate the general public, and that coerce labor interests to remain subservient. The involvement of tacit social science in the structuring of the relationship of productive labor to serve proprietary capital through such configurations as health benefits being tied to particular employment relationships instead of universal health insurance is just one more way to keep workers subservient to their employers. The outsourcing of jobs to countries who have no environmental, workplace regulations, or recognized right to organize independent unions operates to further oppress workers every where. The undermining of national sovereignty when it serves the interests of wealth and obstructs the interests of labor and economic self sufficiency is acceptable activism. The issue of 'activism' easily turns to discussing which forms of activism are acceptable and which are not acceptable to corporate wealth.

A more accurate interpretation of the decline of US sociology would be that it has asphyxiated itself by attempting to serve the legacies of social physics, positivism, and corporatism. Conventional sociology has attempted to imitate the imagined success of conventional economics, as a would if it could physical science. Some evaluation might actual also be directed to the declared successes of economics that were promoted upon projections of general prosperity, which then somehow never did trickle down in any meaningful way. It is difficult for any field to measure up to the beneficence of the primary patrons of economics when those same interests have acquired the franchise to simply print whatever currency they want or have placed themselves through influence in a positions of usurious advantage. It is also clear to anyone familiar with the history of sociology in the US, that the first two generations of sociologists in the US were trained in Europe and most in Germany4. Most were trained under the political economics interpretation of sociology. A parallel decline has also been noted in psychotherapy and social psychology by James Hillman in We Have Had A Hundred Years of Psychotherapy... 5and by Thomas Szaz in his books Ideology and Insanity6 and in The Myth of Insanity7. The implication is that the ideologies of control and objectification have been influential elsewhere as well. In this context this passing of a 'conservative' generation of sociology and social science should be applauded and not regretted due to the institutional choke hold it has had for a very long time.

Contrary to Mc Clay's accusation of excess activism within contemporary academic sociology, there is also truth in the expectation that the true measure of every science should be in its ability to improve understanding of its field of knowledge and to advance the expansion of actual civilization. In this contexts the conduct of the social sciences have long been captured by corporate interests, no matter how many calls have been made for public social science. In this context Mc Clay's advocacy of grand abstractions over engagement seems ridiculous. The expectation should be instead that an engagement in real world social issues should be regarded as a positive rather than as a negative attribute. It is particularly true for the social sciences that it should contribute to the expansion of civilization through its impact upon policies and general literacy of the population8. It is a another common piece of 'conservatism' that tradition, history, and social norms be used as the primary bench marks of social order and stability, however frequently selective if not fictional the particular versions of tradition, history, and social norms may be. This is a thinly masked assumption that a particular sort of law and order by the rule by force, abuse, and fraud can deliver upon promises of communal unity and a “democratic” culture. This perspective shares the false values often used in the interpretation of history as if it were ordained, instead of a product of time, place, and culture. Once disassembled the “Twilight.” article contains an oblique advocacy for a return to conformism if not feudalism. There is an uncomfortable similarity of priorities to what the early fascist political philosophers also advocated.9 The collapse of conventional sociology and social science also has to do with the basic tuition costs and the general lowering of the value of a collegiate education with a sociology concentration as a means of social mobility. This in turn also reflects the priorities and dysfunction of the conventional social order.

The major contradiction is that the interest in social science related issues is currently strong, though most of the related education has become non-formal and public in its approach and advocacy. The whole tendency to regard sociology as being devoid by definition of the subjective experience and focused upon averaged behavior rather than the exceptional capacities10 may have also dimmed the interest of younger students. It may be too that the sheer over-bearing nature of academic careerism has also contributed to the suffocation of the social sciences. Even so, that there is no longer a need for sociology in service to corporatism, may be a very good thing. This may also be linked to the supposed triumph of capitalism and the end of history. Perhaps they have just been replaced by public relations consultants, psychotherapists, and the pills of corporate psycho-pharmacology.

The alternative to the ideological basis for organizing discourse and research is to focus upon the problem to be resolved and then to seek out every perspective and bit of information that might assist in a problem solving process, no matter from whatever engaged domain it may originate. In the routinization of the academic division of labor the ability to integrate relevant information and perspectives has been largely lost. In the rush to validate an academic career positing and method have often triumphed over results. The occupants of each academic domain are typically more interested in protecting their jobs and content turf than addressing the real and significant problems as experienced by the general population. The establishment of departments of criminology have become popular though they tend to follow the political priorities of funding sources, to not address the social reasons for crime, and to have a vocational interest in controlling social behavior. The whole privatization of public currency also intervenes here as well in terms of selectively rewarding those who oppose a problem solving and practical approach. The pivot point is between opposing definitions of “civilization.” One definition uses law and order as it serves elite interests. The other favors expanding the socializing capacity of civilization as defined by communal unity, equality, and justice. In the absence of a dialectical process for social problems both large and small, we have the ever well funded processes of coercion and reform. Often there is a tendency to operate without the necessary literacy to evaluate the faults and flaws within the ideologies sustaining rising problems. Taking this approach also leaves us without a more responsive and adaptive basis for discourse and problem solving

The restoration of subjectivity in the interpretation of history defines a major break from the imputation of theological pre-destination and ideological causality. One variety has been the restoration of minority history apart from the veneer of pretense and self validation that has been substituted as the official versions of history. Under the devout consciousness the subjective element of experience of history has been suppressed for most every group except the political and economic elites. The changing and somewhat unpredictable nature of life within the theological and ideological view has been assigned a counterpoint of an unchanging transcendental11. That life might be much more predictable than generally expected under theological and ideological causality might be surmised from a greater understanding of the details of political and economic history. This might be characterized as authentic class consciousness. To the extent that life as it is experienced is either defined as a veil of tears and suffering or as it has been predestined to be there is little room for subjective engagement. This devout consciousness lays the basis for the partitioning of experience by positing of omnipotence and omniscience. The very premise of omnipotence presents several contradictions. Either it is all pre-determined and omnipotence is meaningless, or experience is subject to free will and historical reason. That divine intercession is applied so often as a retributive rationalizations with only slightly subtle political motives defies any meaningful concept of divine will.

In part it is by positing an unchanging and transcendental deity that personality and personal experience are lent a certain false stability beyond the continuity of living. Using a moral code can provide the same sort of trans-personal continuity without investing in the agency of divine will. By one perspective the entire basis of the Protestant Reformation was the establishment of the burden of subjectivity within the interpretation of the Bible apart from the state or church. Over time this has again been conceded to the corporate interpreters. For a few centuries there was a period of uncertainty which offered an opening for diverse interpretations. The adoption of these anti-historical and anti-subjective assumptions within the social sciences, including ideological and faith based pre-suppositions, a feigned neutrality toward service to expand democratic values, and yet service toward counterinsurgency and other political manipulation applications create major contradictions with the basic concept of social science and sociology to the point of their operating in service to an unrepentant corporatism.

Another problem arises with conventional social sciences in that most of the attention is toward cultural norms, averaged behavior, and deviance from those norms12. This poses hard wired types of limitation in that it tends to ignore cultures as possibly being pathological, except perhaps in the context of sub-cultures of deviants or by the political conveniences of cultural relativism. Also in focusing upon averaged behavior patterns it tends to not address either exceptional behavior or capacities of subjects to initiate change. In the division of labor of the production process the moral and ethical value of productive activity has been made acceptable no matter how destructive to human life or even how un-sustainable the framework and processes are. The accompanying salaries, perquisites, and mythologies advance the possibility to produce products and make business decisions which could threaten both life and civilization. This agenda then justified by the command of patriotism and the possibility of private wealth. Perhaps Mc Clay's objection to sociological "activism" is merely a product of the inevitable limits of theological and ideological misdirection.

The reconstructed Hegelian psychology and theory of history13, several marginalized social scientists and social psychologists, several new generation historians covering the histories of minorities, a few stray cultural critics such as Potter and Heath14, several bloggers, and those who preceded the current passing generation of sociologists offer strong potentials for a renewal of the social science and of social psychology. Predications by Mc Clay and others of a similar persuasion of a twilight, seems to be more self serving and preemptive of a restructuring of the social sciences, than constructive. The point remains that we have been navigated into self nullifying interpretations of social science including social psychology and history. A renewed basis for social science and social psychology including material that has been often considered to be outside of sociology might have something to contribute other than securing professional careers. What is indicated instead is a rebirth of a public sociology and of the socializing sciences generally. In this time of major challenges we will dearly need a variety of social science perspectives which has been deschooled apart from the loyalties to money and political authority. We also need to avoid the reactionary rejections of economics, social science, and social psychology resulting from the assumption that they have little to offer real life and thereby allowing ignorance of these areas to be rationalized. In reality the source of the problems of these domains of discourse are a direct product of the over-institutionalization and the corporatization of the processes of inquiry and discourse. Whatever obituary is written for the passing of what has been installed in place of an open discourse regarding the subject matter of the social sciences, let it also be stated that it passed by its own invention and ideological rigor mortis. As such that passing could be interpreted as requiring burial outside the domain of authentic intent and engagement. There is too much work to be done to prepare our communities to mourn for long.

footnotes available on request ideasinc@ee.net