What are social facts and why we need to bother

Social facts to society are like grammar to a language, a higher level of abstraction that is nonetheless real, as it governs the way things/words are ordered. You can speak a language without knowing anything about its grammar.  Perhaps, that may affect the higher level of your command but you should mostly get by.

It is possible to deny the existence of social facts because they are not real in the sense of how physical things are real. It is never having been told about that that enabled Margaret Thatcher to claim, with a beady-eyed aplomb, that "there is no such thing as society". (The same woman insisted that a country finance is just like someone's purse: a deliberate lie  or a misguided naiveté, we shall  never know.) Some professional academics I know told me, very seriously, that identity, values and post-liberalism do not exist. They doubtlessly live according with their middle-classes values and various identities (class, gender, race, religion, etc.) in a very Neo-Liberal reality of latter-day London, yet since they have not been taught the grammar of (their own) social existence, they cannot quite put their finger on it. There is no vocabulary to talk about it and therefore it exists not: out of mind, out of sight. It is just like some of my students, very bright and eloquent young adults, who do not know a subjunctive clause from a parenthesis, because someone long time ago decided that teaching grammar at school is a waste of time, innit.

Learning grammar and learning social theory can and often do open up people's mind to a realisation that there is more to reality than just what is visible to the naked eye. As Castaneda's Don Juan wisely said, 'The true essence of the tree is between its leaves.' Without such an insight, one won't be able to see, metaphorically, the forest for the trees. Which automatically should disqualify anyone from any discussion about social matters. Unfortunately, that is still not the case, particularly where it matters: in politics and academia. Hence, we end up taught and led by people whose ability for mental abstraction and educated discussion does not exceed that of your average teenager.

In the name of Science, Data and Quantitative Methods

Before God('s word) was the language of power.  This day and age, it is science. Or rather the religion of Scientism. Hard data. Statistics. Figures. Graphs. Flashy PowerPoint presentations. The tool of mass persuasion. The tool of policy justification.

It's the only language power speaks. It's the only language power understands.

That is why Quantitative methods are so in vogue. Heavily Quant-laden MSc courses command the three-letters-behind-your-name market: the fees are higher and so are the expected salaries. Tens of thousands of science graduates churned out into the labour market.

This is how Bloomberg calculates that Thailand is world's happiest economy. This is how development consultants' number-jugglery  for ever leaves the Third World struggling, while keeping the HQ in New York, London or Geneva pleased. This is how the rule of technocrats indoctrinated in Quantitative Methods runs entire countries into the ground. This is how nuclear energy is (falsely) made out to be the cheapest. This is how technocrats from Goldman Sachs get to assume top-echelon positions in European governments and bleed everyone white with their misguided austerity policies. Never mind that even natural scientists demonstrate that uncritically quantitative research produces false results.

Wars used to be fought over one word in the Scripture. Now countries are turned into "competition states" to climb up a few places in rankings, never mind the social, environmental and psychological  cost (ala, the externals, generally excluded from most business model, 'coz who cares!). Blind belief in holy words may have given way to a blind belief in  holy numbers, but the latter is even more dangerous because of how efficiently it commands far vaster resources and more advanced technologies.

Social science koan: inspired by Baudrillard

All human systems produce difference and waste.

English grammar and social theory

Being able to speak correctly your mother tongue and knowing its grammar are totally different kettles of fish. The former is acquired by virtue of growing up in a certain linguistic environment, the latter is a an abstract skill that takes a substantial educational effort. The difference is the same as between experiencing gravity since your birth (animals do that too!) and being able to explain it in words (takes some education in Physics, far from everyone does that).

Many of my students, British kids from solid middle-class backgrounds, never get to learn English grammar at school, which, in my opinion, deprives them of the chance to develop a level of abstract thinking required for university students, to realise that apart from the obvious, superficial level of existence, there's a structural level, which may not be visible, yet is extremely important to be aware of. Such kids invariably struggle with learning social theory, because it takes grasping exactly that level of abstraction.

When I talk to their parents who, thanks to having enjoyed a more "old-fashioned" kind of education, do happen to know the difference between an adjective and a noun, I realise, on the micro-level, what the educational trend for replacing training in critical and abstract thinking for learning a trade to "finish school, get a job and pay taxes" is doing to this society. People who can't access reality critically, who can't see beyond the obvious or what they are told, become a docile flock that can be duped into literally anything: mindless consumerism, media-instigated xenophobia, unnecessary wars, giving up on hard-earned civil liberties and labour rights, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Just look around and see for yourself.

Koan in social sciences

Kōan in Zen-Buddhism is a story or sometimes an action that is used to instigate enlightenment. The closest equivalent in Christianity would be Christ's parables.

In social sciences, as in theology, we need to deal with complex intangible phenomena that nevertheless profoundly affect our lives. Often there are no names for them, or some kind of names need to be introduced to help the conscious mind deal with such a complexity. Good examples would be culture of fear,  structural violence or governmentality. They may come across as self-important inscrutable gobbledygook to those who have never pondered over complex process that make up our social life, but should quickly make sense to those who have. I've seen people having those lightb-ulb moments many times.

Sometimes one name is just to small to contain the whole web of relevant meanings, so we resort to parables or metaphors. The point is not in them per se, but in the truth at which they hint at. One of my favourite ones is about the all-too-oft misunderstood Lacan's mirror stage. Just like Budhist kōans it helps overcome binary thinking, analysing realities by way of binary opposites.

It seems to work for some and for many the spark just never ignites. We get answers to the level of our questions, forsooth.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen through Bourdieu's lens

I know it's not really kosher when teaching social theory, but I have been known to give case studies for homework, once I see that the student has a good grip of  key terms and can juggle them with a degree of ease. 

Now this one simply begs for some social analysis, I mean, Mad  Dogs and Englishmen. Explain it through Bourdieu's lens! A no-brainer, really but helps put thing in pespective for some.

"In tropical climes
There are certain times
Of day
When all the citizens retire
To take their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules
That the greatest fools
Obey,
Because the sun is far too sultry
And one must avoid its ultry
Violet ray.

The natives grieve
When the white men leave
Their huts.
Because they're obviously,
Definitely
Nuts.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to,
The Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines
Sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen
Detest a
Siesta.
In the Philippines
They have lovely screens
To protect you from the glare.
In the Malay states
There are hats like plates
Which the Britishers won't wear.
At twelve noon
The natives swoon,
And no further work is done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun!

Such a surprise
For the eastern eyes
To see,
That though the English are effete,
They're quite impervious to heat.
When the white man rides
Every native hides
In glee.
Because the simple creatures hope he
Will impale his solar topee
On a tree.

It seems such a shame
When the English claim
The Earth,
That they give rise
To such hilarity
And mirth.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,
He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,
Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm.

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit
Can never understand it.
In Rangoon
The heat of noon
Is just what the natives shun,
They put their Scotch
Or Rye down
And lie down.
In a jungle town
Where the sun beats down
To the rage of man and beast,
The English garb
Of the English sahib
Merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok
At twleve'o'clock
They foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit
Deplores this foolish habit.
In Hong Kong
They strike a gong
And fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand
Each inmate
Who's in late.
In the Mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There is peace from twelve to two,
Even caribous
Lie around and snooze,
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal,
To move at all
Is seldom if ever done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday sun! "