Author: Muninn

A lot of excellent bloggers are making their voices heard on the issues of social software or social networking software etc. the definition of which seems to vary with each blogger. I don’t know enough about it to organize my own thoughts, but I was amused by David Weinberger’s characterization of one of the problems of the explicit social networks registered in social software on a post at Corante:

“Real social networks are always implicit. The ones constructed explicitly are always — yes, always — infected with a heavy dose of social bullshit. It’s like thinking that the invitiation list for your wedding actually reflects your circle of friends and relatives. No, you had to invite Barry-the-Boozer because he’s your cousin and you couldn’t invite Marsha because then you’d have to invite her husband Larry-the-Ass-Grabber and her daughter Erin-the-Snot-Flinger. Explicitly constructed social networks not only lack the differentiation that makes relationships real, they are falsehoods built to reinforce spectral relationships and to avoid ending shaky ones.”

Kenneth Waltz, one of the leading scholars on international relations theory, is very careful in his work. The same can not be said for those who apply his theories. A million things separate IR theory from the history I now study and especially recent “theory” used by historians but today I’m adding a quote to Muninn’s quote database which is quite revealing of the huge gap:

“In order to test a theory…Eliminate or control perturbing variables not included in the theory under test.” – Kenneth N. Waltz Theory of International Politics p. 13

It is this “control” and “elimination” of variables (especially culture) which lies at the center of controversy. It is also, of course, a major problem with every attempt to rationalize our social world and create human “sciences”.

In and of itself, the above quote doesn’t necessarily have to become an issue, you need to dig deeper into Waltz’s analysis of the relationship between theory and reality (which depends on a pragmatist rather than a traditional correspondence theory of truth) to really debate some of the more troubling consequences of his approach.

However, such a discussion is relatively benign compared to how IR realists write and argue about real world problems. Their frequent jump from “theories” of international affairs to direct assertions about this or that state, this or that leader, and even more frighteningly the jump from the interests of the state to “my” or “our” interests all disregard the more limited claims that form the foundations of Waltz’s neo-realism.