Download from the social construction to the misconstruction of reality

FROM THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION TO THE MISCONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Perhaps the most insidious form of irrationalism is The Sociology of Knowledge Thesis. This
intellectual development is concerned with determining whether man’s participation in social life
has any influence on his knowledge, thought and culture, and if it does, what is the nature and
significance of its influence?
Although the term “Sociology of Knowledge” was coined in the 20th century, its origins derive
from Plato’s assertion that the lower classes are unfit to pursue the higher kinds of knowledge
because their mechanical crafts not only deform their bodies but also confuse their souls. Plato’s
classical stance stimulated some modern pioneer in the Sociology of Knowledge, notably Max
Weber and Max Scheler. Both Plato and Scheler anticipated the modern/postmodern claim of
the Sociology of Knowledge that social circumstance, by shaping the subject of knowing, also
determined the objects which came to be known.
In the Middle Ages patterns of life were fixed and defined, and patterns of thought tended to be
equally so; ideas appeared as absolute. Soon the social fabric began to unravel. Machiavelli’s
remark in the Discourses that thought of the palace was one thing, the thought of the market
place quite another, exposed this coming narrative displacement (Paradigm Shift). The
developments between the 17th and 19th centuries that led to the development of modern/post
modern Sociology of Knowledge was divided between Cartesian Rationalism and
Kantian/Newtonian Empiricism.
The Rationalists regarded mathematical propositions as the archetype of truth. As mathematics
propositions do not change in content from age to age and from culture to culture, the
Rationalists could not concede that different societies might have different systems of
knowledge, all equally valid. But if truth is one, error could not be multiformed and its roots
could be sought in social life; for instance, in the machinations of privileged classes it was in
their interest to keep the people in ignorance. Bacon’s doctrine of “Idols” or sources of delusion
set forth in his Novum Organum, illustrates this tendency. The Rationalists thus became the first
unmaskers of ideologies.
According to the Empiricists, the content of the mind depends on the basic life experiences and
as these are manifestly dissimilar in circumstanced societies, they almost had to assume that
reality would be different in each society. Thus, Vico asserted that every phase of history has its
own style of thought which provides it with a specific and appropriate cultural mentality. This
new mind set was used by two differing schools to engage the Biblical account of creation.
Voltaire called it a piece of stultifying priest craft which no rational person anywhere would
accept: how could light exist before the sun? Herder answered that for a desert nation like the
ancient Hebrews the dawn creaks before the solar disk appears above the horizon. For them,
therefore, the light was before the sun. The problems of the Genesis of error and the genesis of
truth were not handled until the end of the 18th century. And even though Kant's achievement
synthesized Rationalism and Empiricism, the "Sociology of Knowledge" failed to gain from his
advances. Kant's revolution of knowledge claims arose from the meeting of the Individual Mind
with the Physical World. The social element was missing at both poles. The Sociology of
Knowledge explains Kant's narrowness itself as society determined. Here we see steps towards
our long day’s journey into night, the decay of feudal society and the emergence of independent
producers had created a desire to "liberate" man from "artificial restriction" of social life. The
pre-social or anti social type of man was thought possible and even superior to social man. The
primacy of the individual was to transcend the social or collection of individuals linked by social
contract.
The 19th century brought a strong reaction against this radical individualism. The ultimate
consequences of this phenomena was exposed in Marx's mislabeled "materialistic interpretation
of history." Marx wrote in his Introduction to The Critique of Political Economy, "It is not men's
consciousness which determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence which
determines their consciousness." With all of Marx's flaws, he provided the starting point of the
development of the Modem Sociology of Knowledge (e.g. how precarious it is that a post
modem advocate "uses" the Sociology of Knowledge Thesis to critique the post modern
consciousness). From this maze we arbitrarily chose three attempts to characterize the basic
attitudes of the Sociology of Knowledge:
(1) The Naturalist School: These prophets emphasize that human beings were creatures of nature
before they were creatures of society and tend to see human beings as dominated by certain
genetic drives with decisive consequences for emergent mentalities. Nietzsche ascribed to man a
"will to power;" if this will is frustrated by a barrier, self consolatory ideas are apt to appear.
Therefore for Nietzsche, Christianity is essentially a philosophy of "Sour Grapes," and "slave
morality."
Villfredo Pareto's Trattato di sociologia generate is the most elaborate articulation of the
Sociology of Knowledge thesis. According to Pareto, men act first and think of reasons for their
action only afterward. This school continues the lines initiated by the rationalists. Theirs is a
doctrine of ideologies which devalues thought while it accounts for its formation.
(2) The Idealist School: A second group of values asserts that every society has to come to some
decision about the absolute and that this decision will act as a basic premise that determines the
content of culture. Perhaps the most ambitious presentation of this theory is Pitirim Sorikin's
Social and Cultural Dynamics. He distinguishes three basic metaphysics that, as prevailing in
given societies, colors all their thinking. If a realm beyond space and time is posited as the
absolute, as in ancient India (Hebrews) an "ideational" mentality will spring up, if the realm
inside space and time is posited as the absolute, as in the modem West, a "Sensate" mentality
will come into being; and if, finally, reality is ascribed both to the here and now and to beyond as
in the high Middle Ages, an "idealistic" mentality will be the result. Sorikin's doctrine is itself
idealistic in characteristic and finds its ultimate inspiration in a religious attitude.
(3) Sociology of Knowledge: The third group of prophets do not go beyond the human sphere
but divide it into a primary and conditioning half and a secondary and conditioned one. As is to
be expected, there is a vast difference between primary and secondary conditions. These values
determine what lines of endeavor will be pursued both in practice and its theory. The third group
has the most empirical justification. Societies do gain mental consistency to the degree that they
achieve better human coordination and integration.
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Derivative Problems: How to identify the substructure of knowledge and its relationship to the
superstructure. There are three clear schools who respond to this problem: The positivist
Hippolyte Taine expected the future of science of culture would be no less deterministic than the
sociality of matter. This positivistic perspective concedes no independence to the mind and its
contents. The Platonic tendency ascribes complete independence to the mind. To Scheler, et al.,
thinking means participating in eternal pre-existent ideas. Max Weber has called this doctrine the
doctrine of "elective affinity." A third theory argues in terms of "interdependence and appears
regularly in terms of connection with Functionalism (see my essay, "Functionalism and Post
Modern Hermeneutic?"). If society is to function as a unity, its modes of acting and thinking
must be in or on the way to agreement. Neither Substructure nor Superstructure is given
ontological priority, but there is a tendency to see thought in action as prior to thought as theory
(see especially Nicholas Lobkowicz, Theory in Practice: A History of a Concept From Aristotle
to Marx (University of Notre Dame, 1967). The extent of influence range from manual to total
causal connection. This issue stems from those who assert that the "categories of thought"
themselves are "socially determined" to those who deny that they are (see my essays on
Revisionist History and Anti-Science for post modem epistemological and cultural relativism).
The Sociology of Knowledge thesis claims to supplement, if not replace, all forms of classical
epistemology (for this narrative displacement see my "Whatever Happened to True Truth?" and
"The Truth Lost in An Army of Metaphors"). If society partially or totally determines knowing
and thinking how does this affect their validity? All species of Sociology of knowledge theories
stress that initially the human mind is never aware of more than a sector of reality and that the
selection of a sector to be investigated is dependent on the axiological system which a given
society has made its own. From this perspective they diverge once again into at least three
schools: (I) Effect of Social Factors on Thought: Pareto, et al., claim that only the senses are
reliable sources of knowledge. This entails a split between mental universe into Scientific and
Non Scientific compartments. The non scientific mode at best entails a "conceptual status", but
no true truth value. The denigration of the social elements in human beings and hence of human
knowledge is responded to by both Emile Durkheim and Karl Mannheim with the exact opposite
conclusion who see the individual as the most direct source of truth. They regard society as the
truth of the validity of a belief, but if truth works differently in different societies, then truth is
merely connection!! We have arrived at the irrational post modem temple!
A third group including Max Weber and Max Scheler considers that social influence on mental
activity consists essentially in "giving direction." Max Scheler (1874-1928) was a German
phenomenologist and social philosopher. He was influenced by Rudoph Euchean, Franz
Brentano and Edmund Husserl (See especially Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological
Movement (2 volumes. The Hague, 1960), vol. I, pg. 228-270). What knowledge will be sought
in a society depends on the axiological system which reigns in that society (see my essay,
"World Views in Conflict" and "Two Cultures in Post Modem Confrontation: Rationalism and
Irrationalism"). Sociality is neither truth destroying nor a truth guaranteeing, but merely a truth
limiting factor. The resulting imitation can be overcome by combining the valid "aspectal"
insights of all societies into a comprehensive whole. Another crucial factor is the distinction
between knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture. The facts of nature do not change from
age to age and from country to country; the facts of culture do. Knowledge of the former,
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therefore, need not be marked by relativity. Pareto's theory makes physical knowledge the model
of all knowledge. The Mannheim and Durkheim theory fall into the opposite mistake. The
theories of Max Weber and Max Scheler attempt to escape the weaknesses in scientific research,
only the origins of an insight will be determined by the social structure in cultural studies. The
Sociology of Knowledge can throw light on the genesis and often on the content of concrete
thought structures. The Sociology of Knowledge thesis is above all a hermeneutical method and
must not become involved in the difficult ontological problems which the social "determination"
of knowledge, thought and culture is otherwise bound to raise.
A central issue in any discussion of The Sociology of Knowledge thesis is: is there a necessary
logical connection and not merely a contingent or causal one between the 'social perspective' of a
student of human affairs and his standards of competent social inquiry; Also is there a
consequence of the influence of the special values to which he is committed because his own
social involvement is not eliminated. Does this suggestion escape Hegelian 'Dialectic' or Marxian
"historical relativism"? There must be a distinction between the origin of men's views and their
'factual' validity. All species of the Sociology of Knowledge thesis challenge the universal
adequacy of the thesis that "the genesis of a proposition is under all circumstances irrelevant to
this truth.'" (see Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York, 1959, pp. 271, 288,-292; also
Kurt H. Wolff, 1946, "Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory," in Symposium on
Sociological Theory (ed. Llewellyn Gross, Evanston, IL, !VP, p 577).
The Sociology of Knowledge does not establish the radical claim that there is no competent
evidence to shows that the principles employed in social inquiry for assessing the intellectual
products are necessarily determined by the social perspective of the inquirer. The fact usually
cited in support of this contention establish at best only a contingent causal relation between a
man's social commitments and his canons of cognitive validity. In many forms of post modern
thought it is fashionable to say that the "mentality" or logical operation of primitive societies
differ from those typical in Western civilization - a discrepancy that has attributed to differences
in the institutions of the societies under comparison is now generally recognized to be erroneous
because it previously misinterprets the intellectual process of primitive peoples. Are conclusions
of mathematics and the natural sciences neutral to differences in social perspective of those
asserting them? The genesis of these propositions is irrelevant to their validity. What is the
cognitive status of the thesis that the social perspective enters "essentially" into the content as
well as the validation of every assertion about human affairs? If all "ideas" are culturally
contingent, then there could be no cross cultural communication regarding either their content or
validation. Are any claims regarding human affairs "objectively" valid? Is there an intrinsic
impossibility of securing objective, i.e., value free and unbiased conclusions? (See Ernst Nagel,
The Structure of Science: Problems in The Logic of Scientific Explanation (NY: Harcourt,
Brace, 1961) and my essay," Theories of Logic")
Even in our brief trek to the Social Misconstruction of Reality, we must note the radical shifts in
social and historical scholarship in our postmodern culture. The paradigm shift in historiography
has moved from records of the “actual events“ which occurred with the input from personal
biography where our experiences may or may not provide a true record of events, whether in
scriptures or the daily newspapers. Is my personal experience socially communicable, or is it
typical only of a small narcissistic minority? Is “each one’s” personal interpretation unique, thus
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having no “social relevance” or “containing any publicly available true truth? Why in the face
of a consensus among scholars, do I see things differently (see James Sire’s Blind Men and the
Elephant (IVP, 2004). In our postmodern deconstructionist mode, the “real picture” is not
available. Is the “real picture” only contingent to each participant?
We have moved from Descartes’ “skeptical method” through Post Modernism of just uninterpreted “facts” to Max Weber’s Sociology of Knowledge thesis in Protestant Ethics and the
Spirit of Capitalism (1950 edition). In this brief history of narrative displacement what can we
learn concerning the radical shift from getting “behind the scenes” to a “relativity of
interpretative schemes.” Weber had a dual attitude, i.e., another reality was hidden beyond the
initial appearances.
Karl Marx and Engel were neither widely read nor approved of in the late 1940’s and early 50’s.
The two men were letting their readers know that the manifest fact was in reality the hidden fact.
Their favorite metaphor was watching a drama unfold on stage. The authors were the master
dramatists (and stage manager) who exposed our illusions, telling us what was really happening
behind the scenes (note the development of this theme in deconstructionism, i.e., no inherent
meaning in a text because the reader/audience is the ultimate authority regarding the meaning of
the text—i.e., there are as many meanings as there are readers or auditors; i.e., every language,
community of users, is its own world view). Marx and Engel’s thesis was that the lower middle
class emphatically declares that the threatened party bourgeoisie was reactionary and somehow
dangerous to the social structure of the culture. The classical Marxist theory of alienation is that
the socio-economic-psychological condition caused by Capitalistic Democracy is destructive of
cultural solidarity. (The same analysis failed in Germany, France, Russia, etc.)
During the counter culture of the 1960’s and early 1970’s Marxism again flourished in the
American context. In the late 1970’s, French Deconstructionism invaded American academic
thought structures. Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment was a revisionist account of
the history of punishment (Dostoevesky’s Crime and Punishment to Foucault’s Crime of
Punishment).
Most of the factors of misconstructionism are of psychological conditions, while Hamilton’s
(Social Misconstruction of Reality) “case study” contains a number of undisclosed
presuppositions (e.g. that the process is inductive). Induction is “open ended;” his theories of
Columbus, Mozart and the Duke of Wellington are clearly arbitrary choices. He should have
chosen some from the great creative giants of the history and development of science. This
could expose the narrative shifts from Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Crick,
Monad, Freud, Marx, Goedel, Hawkings, Heisenberg, et al. All of Hamilton’s cases were studies
in the social psychological dimension. This would present the postmodern anti scientific
paradigm in context. There are more cases of justification than there are of imprecision
incidences. The “justified cases” far out number the “flawed cases.” (Examples of Newton and
Einstein).
From Weber’s Protestant Ethics and Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment (E.T. 1977) the
sociological structures of explanation prevail. The central issue of the discussion of theories of
The Sociology of Knowledge thesis might be presented in the following. “If theory is faulty,
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because based on mistaken [presuppositions] or because the key predictions are not sustained,
one should either repair it or abandon it.” (e.g. Justification for Narrative Displacement).
The foundational task is to provide a more defensible theory which contains both explanatory
power and predictive capabilities for attaining new knowledge (e.g., Idealism or Animism
might be internally consistent, but contains no explanatory power for the attainment of new
knowledge). Max Weber’s famous Protestant Ethics thesis claimed that there was a strong
linkage between Protestantism and worldly success. He argued that the array of sources
concerning “the rise of the West” was generated by religious doctrine. Logically, if the initial
fact, the linkage of religion and success were mistaken, then the argument would also fall.
Weber’s theory is a hypothesis for explaining the “rise of the West.” There are several more
factors (evidences) involved than those of Puritanism, i.e., more time for better ships and sailors.
Was it military superiority, better canons? Or was it technological breakthroughs, innovations of
spinning and weaving, the steam engine, or the use of coke in the factory, or exploration and
assessments. None of these factors could have arisen without the developments in the hard
sciences (e.g. jointly sufficient conditions that cause the unpacking of the historical, scientific
and technological advancements are beyond the pervue of this brief encounter but without
developments in mechanics, gravitational theories (freely falling bodies), optics, ballistics, etc.,
there would have been no machine models nor factories to make products on line- metallurgy for
strength of steel for ships or buildings, etc.).
From the Newtonian world machine to the positivists of the 19th and 20th centuries was an era
permeated by scientific conflict between Positivism and Historicism. The radically extreme
view holds that “all knowledge is socially constructed;” there is no “objective reality.” Even the
narrative of science, it is said, is no more than “community agreements” imposed by the
positivists who control the major academic institutions and leading scholarly publications. The
ultimate reading of this phenomenon would be a profound relativism. Where positivistic
knowledge claims it has a binding character, one that obliges attention, this opposite argument
maintains that all readings are “arbitrary and have equal claims to validity.”
In the postmodern maze, it is maintained that all knowledge is transmitted through the use of
concepts through the use of “agreed” upon symbols. All such symbols are learned in the course
of social experience or training. Thus, all knowledge is bound by the available symbols, or
discourse; they provide a “cage” from which no escape is possible. The “choice” of symbols,
terms of analysis, from among the available conceptual options predetermine the result, that is,
how we perceive, know and understand “reality.”
This phenomenon has produced a diversity of social constructions, so we are “caged” in pluralist
variants of interpretive schemes and cultural groups (races) --feminists, African Americans,
Lesbians, Homosexuals, conservatives, right wing homophobes (cf. the color code of the election
map, e.g. blue on the east and west coasts, red in the center for the conservative closed-minded to
all alternatives, etc. Yet, if all divergent social structures are “cages,” why the conflict over the
alternatives?) If the necessary alternative cages multiply competing systems of meaning and
understanding, then there is no meta narrative, i.e., True Truth. This leaves only “power
encounters” to mediate conflicting views. But of course the POWER CAGE is also socially
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constructed. There is no escape from our nihilistic nightmare! (There is only one race of human
beings but according to Genetics, diverse ethnic and linguistic groups).
This claim is limited to the “Social World” only, not the cosmic specificity of astrophysics.
Kantian perspectivalism is the historic origin of the cultural/epistemological relativism thesis that
finds its final home in the social construction thesis of the postmodern academy. (Note the
farcical utilization of Kantian perspectivalism by Vatican II theologians.) This intellectual
outrage only considers the “social structure” of the global village—not the “origin and nature of
the universe.” The elite constructionists have lost control over “public discourse” because they
pay little heed to counter/factual data that validate on falsifies a given narrative story.
How can there be a “university” if all participants are caged in their own agenda, or when
university professors, scientists, artists, journalists, and members of the intelligentsia develop
and pass on still other conceptions? The radical implication of this development is that all social
constructions have equal claims to validity. The narrative displacements of science are no more
than an elaborate pretense whose claims are held to be no more credible than the understandings
produced in coffee shop gossip sessions. [See especially Derek L. Phillips, Abandoning Method
(San Francisco: Jossey Bros.); Feyerabend, Against Methods: Outline of An Anarchistic Theory
of Knowledge (London: Verso, 1978, first publication in l975); K.D. Knorr, et. al., The
Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Conceptual Nature of Science
(Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981); Stanley Aronowitz, Science as Power: Discourse and Ideology
in Modern Society (University of Minnesota Press, 1988); Feyeraband’s conclusion with regard
to method declares: “The only principle that does not inhibit progress is—anything goes!” (p.
23); for criticism of relativists’ arguments, see esp. Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism: Some
Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science (University of Chicago Press, 1990); Stephen
Cole, Making Science: Between Nature and Society (Harvard University Press, 1992); Ernst
Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (London University Press, 1992); P.R. Gross and
N. Levitt, Higher Superstitions: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994; see esp. a critic of Aronowitz on pgs. 50-55); for an
excellent discussion of the objectivity questions see his collection of articles edited by Allan
Megill, “Rethinking Objectivity”, Annals of Scholarship 83-4, 1991; and esp. Nicholas
Abercrombie, Stephen Hill and Bryan S. Turner, The Dominant Ideology Thesis (London:
George Allen and Unwin, 1980); for review data on fakery see William Broad and Nicholas
Wade, Betrayers of The Truth (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1982); and Alexander Kohn, False
Prophets (London: Basil Blackwell, 1986); for a look through this discussion there is constant
tension between social Influence, Conformity, Content, Style and Appearance].
Ultimately, if all views are expression from a caged perspective, then how do we derive that so
many are victims, prisoners of the control from an elite cage perspective? The Italian Marxist,
Antonio Gremsci, was an early proponent of this view. Louis Althusser, Nicos Ponlantzas, and
various members of The Frankfort School of Sociology, most notably Herbert Marcuse, have
also provided formulations of this position. (See the above bibliography and the works of
cultural relativists Claude Levi Strauss, Talcott Parsons, C.W. Mills and esp. The Sociological
Imagination (NY: Oxford University Press, 1959) and Claude Levi Strauss, Social Science as
Sorcery (NY: St. Martin Press, 1972); and the enormous body of literature from the British
Journal of Social Psychology: Journal of Medical Education on “Captured Imagination”; see
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D.C. Lindberg and R.L. Numbers, “Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter
Between Christianity and Science” Church History 55 (1986), pp. 338-354, esp. 338-340).
The left wing elites have lost control over public discourse because most elite constructionists do
not concern themselves with such evidence (see J.D. Wright, The Dissent of the Governed:
Alienation and Democracy in America (NY: Academic Press, 1976); S.L. Long, editor, The
Handbook of Political Behavior, vol. 4 (NY: Plenum, 1981); and M. Lipset and W. Schneider,
The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor and Government in the Public Mind, revised edition
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).
Any extension of “all knowledge” to public expression is an unjustified, clear non sequitur (e.g.,
all calculus of probability claims are at best non sequiturs). The discovery of instances of
malfeasance in the work of Galileo, Mendel and Newton, et. al. does not prove such behavior to
be universal or typical in their work or in science in general. Newton’s equations have been
modified by Einstein but his modifications say nothing about Newton’s contributions on other
occasions. Nor do the supposed a fortiori cases say anything about science or intellectual efforts
generally. The discovery of instances says nothing about incidence or frequency within the
larger universe of experience. The major contributions of these intellectual giants are still valid
in the 21st century laboratory.
The ubiquitous conclusion, justifying the radical relativist claims, goes far beyond what evidence
warrants. We are surely beyond the spins of focus groups in analysis of “misconstructionism”
thesis!
This litany of non sequitur and supposed a fortiori judgments can be traced in Washington
Irving’s book, (1826) History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus mingled fiction
with truth, i.e., an example of revisionist history. A later Columbus biographer, Samuel Eliot, a
Marxist, described Irving’s account as “pure moonshine.” Irving was a progenitor of the “flat
earth” mythology. The sphericity of the globe was not in question. The issue was the width of
the ocean and therein the opposition was right (see esp. Jeffery B. Russell, Inventing the Flat
Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians (NY: Praeger, 1991), pgs. 26, 27).
Russell’s work (Inventing) also traces the transformation of medieval scholarship which moves
us to another popular work by John W. Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and
Science (1874). Andrew D. White’s published works on the science theme, The Warfare of
Science (1876) and a “fully documented” two-volume study, History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology in Christendom (1896). White utilized revisionist history to construct the
medieval flat earth. Russell points out that “many authors great and small have followed the
Draper/White line down to postmodern anti science and revisionist history movements. This
issue makes clear that the conformity and citation chains are evident problems. (See esp.
Russell, Inventing (pgs. 70-71, 75)
Scientific error transmission was also evident in the late 1950’s when academics transmitted
alarm about the “threat of automation.” The wholesale elimination of jobs would bring mass
unemployment. These issues were imminent realities. In the 1960’s, the student uprisings
signaled a massive change in postmodern values. This thesis was “documented” in several
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popular works, the most notable was Charles Reich’s, The Greening of America. By the 1970’s
the counter culture recognized that these students were becoming the bearers of the new values
where “a rebellion in the workplace” became commonplace (e.g. so-called white backlash
against the Civil Rights of African Americans. These confident scenarios failed to be realized.
(See esp. James D. Wright, The State of the Masses (NY: Albine, 1986, esp. chps. 1, 2). Also
Richard F. Hamilton, Restraining Myths (NY: Sage Halsted-Wiley, 1974, chp. 4); for views
covering the past forty years, see H. Schuman, C. Steeh, and L. Bobo, Racial Attitudes in
America: Trends and Interpretations (Harvard University Press, 1985).
The vital work of Hamilton in the Social Misconstruction of Reality traces social
misconstruction from White, Reich, Weber to Foucault; he exposes the selected use of counter
factual evidence with respect to their sociological perspectives.
From the time of radical revisionist history, academic specialists had ready explanations for the
“rise of Nazism”, i.e., Germany’s threatened lower middle class provided the support that made
Hitler and his party an important political force (see esp. R.F. Hamilton, Who Voted for Hitler?
(Princeton University Press, 1982); Robert Harris, Selling Hitler (NY: Penguin Books, 1986);
and Charles Hamilton, The Hitler Diaries (Lexington University Press, 1991).
Radical Turn to Deconstructionism: Michel Foucault’s deconstructionism is clearly declared
in Discipline and Punishment (E.T. 1977). Foucault “argues” for a pervasive sinister tendency
within postmodern society, which is an “unidentified power,” that with cunning subtlety has
extended its power throughout all areas of the academic arena. Since Foucault is among the
most cited in the academy (only Thomas Kuhn is sighted more) his work must not be ignored,
although much of his work is outright fiction. But his influence in postmodern multicultural
relativism thesis can be ignored only at our own demise. Relativistic deconstructionism, which
started with Kant’s Perspectivism has reached the halls of the academy (which removed the
universe and the creator God from accessibility by human intelligence).
Our trek has taken us from Social Construction of Reality to the Social Misconstruction of
Reality. It is an effort to show that irrationalism has a long history of Narrative Displacement.
The essence of postmodern irrationalism is the repudiation of foundationalism and the “rational
consequences” of rejecting “objective” and “universal” true truth claims. This narrative
displacement is much older than Kant’s perspectivism and its ensuing radical contextualization.
The implication of this phenomena for Christian Evangelism, Missions, and Education should be
crystal clear. (Jesus is under fire because he is not just one of a pluralism of religious gurus;
The Gospel affirms that Jesus only saves!)
Books to Remember:
Albert Harry, Emile Durkheim and His Sociology (NY, 1939).
Irving Horowitz, Philosophy, Science and the Sociology of Knowledge (Springfield, 1961).
Karl Mannheim, Ideologie und Utopia, (translated London, 1936).
Robert Merton, “The Sociology of Knowledge” in Georges Gurvitch, et. al., editors, Twentieth
Century Sociology (NY, 1945).
Max Scheler, editor, Versuche zu ciner Soziologie des Wissens (Munich, 1924), a decisive work.
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Werner Stark, “The Sociology of Knowledge and the Problem of Ethics” in Transactions of the
Fourth World Congress of Sociology, vol. IV, (London, 1959) and Montesquieu: Pioneer
of the Sociology of Knowledge (London, 1960).
The two crucial works empowering us to negotiate our journey into Relativistic Multiculturalism
are: Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge (NY: Doubleday, 1966) and Richard F. Hamilton, the Social
Misconstruction of Reality: Validity and Verification in the Scholarly Community (New Haven:
Yale University Pres, 1996). See also Florian Zananicek, The Social Role of the Men of
Knowledge (NY, 1940).
Essays of James Strauss:
Cosmic Specificity and Astrophysics; World Views in Conflict and the Demise of
Foundationalism; Merchants of Commercialism: The Postmodern Culture of Sensationalism:
From Barnum to Barna; Terrorism of Truth: Truth and Theory in Postmodern Epistemology;
Search for True Truth in Cyber Space; Radical Revisionism: Enemies of Science; The Rewriting
of History; From the Idea of Progress to Postmodern Revisionist History: Philosophical and
Psychological Horizons of Postmodern Hermeneutics; New Hermeneutical Horizons in Logic;
(These papers appear on the web site: http://www.worldvieweyes.org/strauss-docs.html)
James D. Strauss
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