By way of an introduction

Part 2: Academic and bourgeois social science

By Anthony Boynton

Interesting is the fact that in the physical sciences things have in some ways caught up with Marx and Engels. In the above quoted text, Engels wrote, “...for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development.”

But this idea was not well accepted in the 19th century. Darwin’s ideas were controversial, and in fact are hated to this day by the extreme right who are still vainly mounting their cretinist – I mean creationist - counterattack.

The notion of constant motion was okay, as long as things basically stayed the same. The earth revolved around the sun – forever and period. Gravity was a constant, unchanging, reassuring force. The notion of constant transformation and development - for the most part, except for the work of Darwin - had not yet entered the picture.

But now that has all changed: starting with the Big Bang, and on through super novas, black holes, planetary evolution, pangia, tectonic plates, and the transformation of organic molecules into cellular life the physical sciences have embraced the idea of constant transformation and development.

The physical sciences have discovered that everything is connected in one big whole, and that it and all of its parts are constantly undergoing change, transformation and development. Amazingly enough, many of the thousands of small discoveries that went to make up this new system of scientific thought were achieved by people unaware of Engel’s, or even Hegel’s, thoughts on the subject.

Hooray! 21st century physical sciences have advanced to the level of 19th century Marxism.

The only field where the notion of constant transformation is not yet accepted as the most basic fact is social science! The notion that the current economic, social and political structure of the world will last forever, maybe with a little fine tuning here and there, is the basic assumption of most academic social science.

Since the current world order is very, very new, and came into existence through two centuries of war and revolution – more or less from the Seven Years War to the end of the Cold War – the notion of a static social order should seem strange even at first sight.

True, academic social science does recognize tumultuous transformations in human society, as long as they happened a long time ago. The watershed between paleolithic society and neolithic society now known as the agricultural revolution is an example. But as academic social science approaches the present it starts doing its best to erase any sharp dividing lines in the evolution of human society.

Despite the fact that human society is changing at a far faster pace today than ever before in its history, absurd dreams like those of Francis Fukayama are right in the main stream of academic thinking. Continuity, not change, is the watch word in all social science.

The most important reason is simple self-interest. No academic wants to lose his or her chair, or chance at one. Those who discover that the current social order is likely to become a relic of history in the not too distant future are less likely to be promoted, and so are less likely to publish their startling discoveries.

Those who advocate change are courting dismissal and persecution.

This is burned into memory by the millions of victims in and around academia - primarily in the social sciences - of the anti-communist witchhunts in the USA which transpired over nearly two decades from the late 1940’s to the early 1960’s, and which never really stopped.

Ward Churchill is one recent example.

Academic conservatism in the social sciences is encouraged or enforced to one degree of another in every part of the world, although Western Europe and Latin America have much stronger traditions of university autonomy than do the United States, China and Russia.

One reason is simply that the ruling classes of the world do not like to think about how temporary their positions are. Probably more important to them is the fact that radical academics have historically formed a key part of the leadership of every important mass movement for social change in recent history.

Probably the most important reason is that the ruling classes understand the importance of social consciousness in guiding political actions and struggles.

The powerful pressure of ruling class self-interest shapes academic social science, but so far it has not killed it. Academic social science investigates areas which are safe to investigate, or which are popular to investigate according to ruling class fashion. Since ruling class fashion shifts in ways that reflect changes in real social relations, academic social science continuously uncovers uncomfortable truths about capitalist social reality.

Consequently, and unintentionally, it is a treasure trove of information and data, if not always of analysis. And, sometimes, it produces analyses which reach half-way to the truth before they are reigned in by the processes of censorship and self censorship described above.