4 ms·

I really like your illustrative example and to me it points at the fundamental core problem of the idea of "social science" to me -- it's not that the structure

I really like your illustrative example and to me it points at the fundamental core problem of the idea of "social science" to me -- it's not that the structured anthropological inquiry is a misguided ambitions, nor that scientific methods are misguided, but that the two are, to some extent, intrinsically at odds with one another because of practical limitations to isolate factors within or to create in a controlled environment a natural social setting. To your point, the DJ (and I would say many performance artists) has a practice for how to make this occur in a repeatable manner, but the practice is an artistic practice and therein a cultural practice, not a conventional scientific practice. To me, it raises the question of whether for the goals of any kind of "social science" to come to fruition if it must become an artistic practice. I don't have a great answer to this question but you can probably tell in which direction I lean.

tech_ken 2y ago
Damn you said exactly what I wanted to say but way more concisely haha. > To me, it raises the question of whether for the goals of any kind of "social science" to come to fruition if it must become an artistic practice. “Artistic practice” is absolutely what I think the field is missing, and which many other disciplines with similar concerns (ex. marketing) are way more enthusiastic to incorporate. And thats not just about getting social scientists to start painting or whatever, but more adopting that mindset of an artist trying to perfect their craft. The basic program for the performing artist is to bomb over and over again until you can change people’s behavior “by feel” (or maybe you never develop the knack and change careers). Politicians similarly start out by pressing the flesh and going to endless community meetings until they figure out how to move a crowd. Doing these things isn’t “hard” once you’ve figured out the trick, but it’s a skill that you acquire by extensive practice and apply by intuition/artistic judgment, rather than something that you can figure out solely through sufficiently rigorous analytics. Not to say that this isn’t experimentation, it absolutely is, but it’s not laboratory experimentation, it’s fully integrated within the real world.

tech_ken 2y ago

Damn you said exactly what I wanted to say but way more concisely haha. > To me, it raises the question of whether for the goals of any kind of "social science" to come to fruition if it must become an artistic practice. “Artistic practice” is absolutely what I think the field is missing, and which many other disciplines with similar concerns (ex. marketing) are way more enthusiastic to incorporate. And thats not just about getting social scientists to start painting or whatever, but more adopting that mindset of an artist trying to perfect their craft. The basic program for the performing artist is to bomb over and over again until you can change people’s behavior “by feel” (or maybe you never develop the knack and change careers). Politicians similarly start out by pressing the flesh and going to endless community meetings until they figure out how to move a crowd. Doing these things isn’t “hard” once you’ve figured out the trick, but it’s a skill that you acquire by extensive practice and apply by intuition/artistic judgment, rather than something that you can figure out solely through sufficiently rigorous analytics. Not to say that this isn’t experimentation, it absolutely is, but it’s not laboratory experimentation, it’s fully integrated within the real world.