PROCESS, COMMUNITY AND MEANINGFUL SCIENCE
Communication, Information and Media Processes
(194:601 October 1, 2002)
Introduction
Science is a public act, an expression of the cultures
in which it is practiced. It has its own culture and subcultures in the form of
areas and disciplines at many levels of specialization. Entering into the
culture of science as a doctoral student, one finds process and community. Part
of the job is getting the science right: process. The bigger job is “finding
one’s feet” in the culture in order to enter it and make it ones own:
community. One hopes not only to do the science right, but also to do it well.
To do science well, one must do science that is meaningful.
Culture: Geertz
In his “The Interpretation of Cultures” (1973) Geertz
describes culture as an “acted document”, a set of “stories”, told by people
about themselves, a “collective text”. The telling of these stories, done in
both action and words, consists of what people say and do, and in doing, “say” about themselves. The texts of
culture are interpretive of private and public experience, and through the
interpretation, externalize the internal experience of being in the culture.
Cultural forms (e.g. dance, rites, ritual, cock fights) create external
versions of subjective aspects of culture.
Culture does not display or reflect these aspects, nor is it a cause of
them, but is an agent that creates and maintains them, in and with the people
of the culture. One’s culture, in Geertz’s view, is the subjective experience
of the collective text which one lives, and through its interpretation, reveals
aspects of self and society.
The Culture of Science: A Spectrum of Subcultures
Geertz, Bruner and Dyson are members of a
culture of science, and of a particular tribe of science, born out of
Anglo-American male culture, and its roots. The writings of these three men are
stories, part of the collective text of science, and of the larger culture of
which it is a part. Each man comes
from a different subculture. To put them on a continuum, one could say that
Dyson represents the culture of “hard” science, where the value of a theory is
its ability to predict the future for
an aspect of the “actual world” that we already understand (Dyson Intro. xiv).
Geertz, at the other end, represents a science where interpreting meaning is at
the root, and where the value of a
theory is in its ability to improve the precision and relevance of
anthropological study. Bruner lies somewhere in the middle, “trapped” between
the two extremes, as his narrative explicates.
If we take
the three texts as interpretive expressions of their cultures, we can glimpse
some of the subjective experience of “being scientist” and of the society of
science. Doing work that has meaning is a requisite state for becoming a scientist. Until one’s work
has become meaningful, science is perhaps a series of perplexing rituals, a
culture apart. Bruner, Dyson and Geertz are all well beyond this state, to a
position from which each can somewhat “magically” create new meaning through interpretation of
accumulated personal experience. Each synthesizes a vast range of knowledge, to push forward new ideas.
Each does so with different means and ends in mind. Both the form and content of their texts are interpretive of the
cultures to which they belong, and more generally, to the nature of “being
meaningful” in a scientific community.
Geertz and Bruner: A Continent of Meaning
Geertz’s writing is engaged not only in clarifying the
meaning of his work, but also in placing it in the broader context of the
social sciences, and science in general. He summarizes: “Cultural analysis is
guessing at meanings, assessing the guesses, and drawing explanatory
conclusions from the better guesses, not discovering the Continent of Meaning”
(Geertz p. 20). He makes clear that his
science is not about prediction, and general notions of validity, and
scientific theory. His text is physically different from the others; it is
thick with many pages of example, interpretation, and general ideas. In this
way, Geertz explicates the process in ethnography and anthropology. Geertz’s
puts forth his “interpretive theory of culture” with the same delicacy that he
ascribes to the process of anthropological interpretation. He builds his
argument from practice, and offers it as turn taking in a “discussion to be
sustained”. Although Geertz states
explicitly that he is out to replace an obsolescent theory of culture, his is a
revolution that “hover[s] low over the interpretations” so as to avoid a “drift
off into logical dreams, academic bemusements” (Geertz p. 24). In this way, Geertz is authentically of the
culture of Anthropology; he creataes it and it creates him, and thus his
contribution is meaningful. I suspect
that his work is meaningful in the broader sciences because it is so solidly of
the culture from which it springs.
In the conclusion of “Notes on a Balinese Cockfight”,
the final essay in the larger volume, Geertz refers to a notion of
subjectivity. The idea set forth there
is that culture is a view of oneself and one’s society, not from an abstracted
objective perspective, but through one’s own eyes, a familiar view that, for a
member of a culture “opens his subjectivity to himself” (Geertz p. 451). This idea has resonance with issues central
to psychology, questions of individual and interpersonal self. Geertz’s construct reaches across
disciplines and into a larger discourse.
From thoughts on interpretive science, and a lifetime
of study and contemplation, Bruner’s “Acts
of Meaning” (1990) proposes a new
“cultural psychology”. Bruner’s writing
seeks to justify the need for this new paradigm, and to conjure it out of a
vast breadth of theory and research.
Geertz, in his introduction to “The
Interpretation of Cultures” warns
that a revolutionary idea will be jumped upon as “the open sesame of some new positive science…around which a
comprehensive system of analysis can be built” (Geertz p. 3) and that people
will try to apply and extend such an idea where it has no applicability. Perhaps Bruner’s cultural psychology is the
kind of intellectual “piling on” Geertz frets about; perhaps it is an attempt
to, quite literally, “discover a Continent of Meaning” in the concept of
culture. Even if it is, it is no less a
turn taking in the discourse of science.
Bruner’s work reads like an external version of an
internal discourse. He is pushing his
knowledge, building extensions from existing ideas into unknown places. Having been present at the birth of a new
theory of psychology, and having seen it develop into a science less meaningful
that his vision for it, he wants to now make Meaning the new core for
psychology. His text passes quickly
over a complex synthesis of his cumulative knowledge. His goal is to propose some basis for unity among the many
disciplines of psychology, and to influence, to literally bring meaning to, the
future of a science to which he has dedicated his life. In this way, he is working to make the
entire discipline more meaningful in the larger culture.
Culture and
Psychology: Bruner
Bruner frames cultural psychology in the concept of a
“distributed self”, who is born of a “collective text” of culture and an innate
human drive to interpretation through narrative. Culture is a communal repository of history and canon, a
persistent body of knowledge from which human experience gathers its meaning
through interpretation. Bruner takes
this idea, and pushes ahead with an extension into what he terms “a biology of
meaning” (Bruner p. 69). In Bruner’s
view, culture is an evolutional advantage humans are biologically destined to
live. He presents evidence that the
development of language in babies involves sensitivity not just to matters like
syntax, but also to the meaning of language.
He posits an inborn folk psychology or “culture tuner”, which triggers a
“bioprogram” for the acquisition of language (Bruner p. 73). He also proposes that narrative is a
universal interpretive form, also inborn as a component of the biological imperative
of culture.
Culture as
Meaning: Geertz and Bruner
Bruner’s ideas, and their expression, are far from the
thick description and delicate interpretation of Anthropology. Both Geertz and Bruner see culture as
constitutive of the point-of-view inherit in human experience. Both see culture as an external version of
internal experience; culture does not reflect
who we are, nor is it an external reality that we negotiate, it is who we are. From this point of similarity, Bruner and Geertz diverge widely,
as their aims and ambitions are so very different. Geertz seeks “not to answer our deepest questions, but to make
available to us answers that others…have given, and thus to include them in the
consultable record of what man has said” (Geertz p. 3 0) and thereby help us
better understand others and ourselves.
Bruner seeks “to illustrate what a psychology looks like when it
concerns itself with meaning, how it inevitably becomes a cultural psychology”
(Bruner Preface xiii).
Bruner is straddling two ends of the
spectrum. He wants his work to be about
meaning, and he clearly sees the meaning in culture. He comes from a science that places the mind and human action
into a biological framework, a place where there are causes and effects. Although he declares that he is moving “beyond
the conventional aims of positivist science . . . [to] . . . deal with meaning and culture” (Bruner Preface xiii), he is rooted in its
paradigms of exploration and meaning.
His stated goal is an interpretive science, but his frequently slips
into the language and process of the hard science he seeks to escape. He sets about to study a “general notion of a particular self in
practice” with a “sample of its uses in a variety of . . . culturally
specifiable contexts” (Bruner p. 119).
He declares that he cannot use ethnography for this purpose, as it would
change the meaning of his research. He
turns instead to verbal autobiography, a narrative “account of what one thinks
one did” whose “form will be as revealing as its substance” (p. 119). The interpretation of his example
autobiographies includes quantification of utterance types and content. Inexplicably, his research does not examine
the doing in his notion of “the
contexts of practice” (p. 119). He
examines only what people are saying. Is
this because he is focused purely on narrative and its role in culture, and has
lost sight of action? One is left with
an echo of Bruner himself: “And so with the study of Self: ‘it’ is whatever is
measured by the tests of self-concept.” (p.101)
In one telling section of the chapter “Autobiography
and Self”, Bruner sets out:
A cultural psychology is an interpretive psychology,
in much the sense that history and anthropology and linguistics are
interpretive disciplines. But that does
not mean that it need be unprincipled or without methods, even hard-nosed
ones. It seeks out the rules that human
beings bring to bean in creating meanings in cultural contexts. (p. 118)
His research and writings are an acted document of the
culture from the which they come, and in this sense, say more than is said. They prompt the question; can one leave
one’s culture behind, even if it is one’s fondest wish?
Narrative in
the Larger Culture
Dyson’s stories in “The Sun, The Genome and the
Internet” (1999) are not primarily for other scientists, but are for the
larger culture of which his science is a part – the American public. His narrative looks back, reflecting on his
experience and the culture of science, while looking forward to the role
science may play in the future. His
text is in essence a bridge between the larger culture and the sub-culture of
science. Its mission is to engage in
shared understanding and meaning, to negotiate the reciprocity and
interdependencies of these cultures.
Dyson does all this through the narrative interpretation of his own
experience in as a member of both cultures.
Dyson draws a clear picture of science as a process of
discovery, where serendipity, keen observation, and analysis lead to most
advances. His stories make clear that
it is impossible to tell in advance which questions will bear fruit, and that often
the fruits are not evident for a very long time. In this he serves the tacit goal of helping the public understand
that progress requires the funding of “risky” propositions (where the outcome
is highly uncertain). Dyson also puts
the scientific process literally “into the hands” of larger culture, through
emphasis on the “engine grease” of science: technology. He makes the process of science tangible
with his discussion of its implements and gadgets. His stories draw attention to the payoff of the practical, and
away from difficulties of theory. In
essence, he acknowledges that the public has a legitimate claim to science as
its own invention. In his stories about
the culture of science, he shows haw meaning is publicly negotiated through
discourse, and how meaning can be transformed or revoked when new ideas emerge. He paints a picture of science in action, as
a personal commitment and a community endeavor. He also makes science the hero of the larger culture, an infinite
fountain of new options and a better life.
Dyson stands on a long tradition of hard science, where
theory is well articulated in highly dense symbolic language, such as
mathematics. He is a pragmatist. For him, meaningful science contributes
tangibly, to make the world a better place.
In his look forward into a utopian future, Dyson expresses his
interpretation of the ambitions and problems of the larger culture and its
values. Of necessity, he does so from
his own privileged perspective. His
vision speaks volumes about his culture’s point-of-view on issues of social
justice. Presumably without intending
to, he explicates many of the norms that divide the larger culture. Dyson states his belief that scientists must
embrace the cause of social justice, to use science and technology for social
good. Bruner and Geertz, speaking
within their own cultural setting, do not address these issues. Does Dyson speak about his concern when
engaged in scientific discourse, or is the topic raised only when the public is
listening? He is talking about these
issues, but one would know what he is doing.
Implications
for the Study of Information Structure in Interactive Marketing
The study of information structure in interactive
marketing is of necessity cross-disciplinary.
My first inclination has been to declare myself a “cross-disciplinarian”,
a person who, as a matter of discipline, understands and values multiple
perspectives of the problem I which to study.
I find now that I must join the sub-culture of a discipline. One reason to do so is to create an identity
for myself. Another is to build a
credible reserve of intellectual capital from which to draw for the purpose of
“scientific mutual aid”. These two
reasons are, however, only a reflection of the deeper meaning of affiliation in
a discipline.
The value of a culture is in its ability to form a
frame, a shared point-of-view, and thereby maintain and create knowledge of a
particular aspect of the world.
Theories of any brand are highly specialized, super condensed information,
which spell out for those who understand and use them, a broad base of
knowledge. To join a discipline is to
become immersed not only in its community, but also in its theoretical
culture. The goal is to absorb the
theory and then as a full member of the culture, to contribute to its
development. Meaningful science comes
of this.
References
Bruner, Jerome (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press
Dyson, Freeman J.
(1999). The Sun, the Genome and the Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolutions.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Geerts, Clifford (1973). The Interpretation of
Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books