Artifact Three
A Review of Brian Fay`s Critical Social Science: Liberation and its Limits
Fay, B. (1987). Critical Social Science: Liberation and Its Limits. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
This artifact is a book review that I initially wrote for the course Doctoral Seminar: Contemporary Educational Theory (GEDU 9003), offered in 2017, which was an exploration of how educational philosophy, research paradigms and theories are manifested in contemporary educational debates and dialogues. Further, it also provided an opportunity to explore theoretical foundations of education and their relationship to problems encountered in schools, higher education, educational organizations, and communities. In 2018, during my second year as a doctoral student, I carried on reading more extensively, to develop a further understanding of a theoretical approach and its practice and how this might relate to my research questions. My continuous review of the material led me to revisit some of my earlier work. In this revised book review I illustrate that I significantly deepened both my exposure to, and understanding of, scholarly writing specific to theory.
Brian Fay is a professor of Philosophy and senior Tutor in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, US. A graduate of Loyola University of Los Angeles, he received his M.A. and D.Phil. degrees at Oxford University which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar (1965 to 1968) He is the author of Social Theory and Political Practice (1975), a seminal book that essentially laid the foundations for his explanation of Critical Social Sciences (CSS). His professional website articulates a very interesting statement: “My research concentrates on questions about the nature of social inquiry and its relation to politics and ethics” (www.wesleyan.edu). His simple yet very impressive one-sentence narrative seeks to lay bare and to assess the foundations of emancipation, whose diverse theories have moved millions of people throughout the modern world to political action.
The use of the prefix “critical” for particular types and methodologies of social research has become so widespread and trendy that one has the feeling that everybody wants to “unsettle” previous approaches to reality. “Critique” is a trendy synonym for criticizing, and the more we use it, the more it becomes devalued. The key concept that Fay employs in developing his approach is that of CSS doing more than unsettling; CSS is emancipatory in intent, and contributes to the liberation of people from domination and oppression of various kinds. Therefore, CSS is explicitly constructed so that social theories might have a practical impact. Under the CSS approach, understanding the “revolutionary” temper of our times requires understanding the notions of ideology, false consciousness, alienation, autonomy, hegemony, and a host of related ideas that derive from other critical theories. It is important to note here the distinction between Critical Theory and critical social science. Fay wants to escape the traps of the early Frankfurt School, a school which, he argues, “prevent[s] one from seeing the rich variety of critical social science” (p. 6). For instance, Fay argues that, in Marcuse`s (1991) One Dimensional Man and Max Horkheimer & Theodor Adorno`s (1993) The Dialectic of Enlightenment critical forces required to overthrow the existing order are not present, authentic defiance is all but given up, and the viability of critical social science has, therefore, no emancipatory potential. I read Marcuse`s (1991) book and I tentatively agree with Fay`s assertion that Marcuse provides no real resistance in his “one-dimensional society”, a society without opposition cannot see any political force demanding that the society uses its capacities for what he calls “the pacification of existence” (p. 242)—a life free from domination and scarcity. On the second point, since I have not read The Dialectic of Enlightenment, I have to trust Fay`s judgment. CSS holds that theory by itself has little value if we do not see that theorizing is integral to action. Consequently, all action that does not see theory related to the process of acting and reacting will fail to fulfill itself. As Brookfield (2005) asserts, theorizing provides a self-critical presence in our everyday life; it is the conscience of all actions. Fay goes a step further and changes “theory” into “science” in order to legitimize his arguments—two-thirds of the book—hoping that the reader, or the theorist, will hear his voice and respond.
Fay’s clear, analytical acumen came as welcome relief to me as I attempt, in my doctoral studies, to navigate my way through the dense field of social science. Fay, and his school of Critical Theory, while preferring CSS, suggest that theorizing is integral to action; theorizing is a significant presence in our everyday world, the conscience of our actions. By extending this line of argument one can then present critical social science (CSS), which, as Fay explains, is a form of self-estrangement theory rooted in the Enlightenment but achieving prominence in the period following that. CSS, in Fay’s definition, attempts to illuminate the oppressive nature of society and encourage people to liberate themselves by transforming society. Fay prefers “critical social science” to “critical theory” because the latter is associated with the neo-Marxist theory of the Frankfurt School, from which Fay distances himself. Critical social science is, as he sums up, “an endeavour to explain social life in general or some particular instance of it in a way that is scientific, critical, practical and non-idealistic” (p. 26). Scientific, because seeks to account for a wide range of phenomena on the basis of theoretical principles, and is responsive to empirical evidence. Critical, because provides a systematic critique and assessment of a way of life which is inadequate, frustrating and unsatisfying. Practical, because explains ways by which people`s enlightenment can be fostered, and aspects of their lives be changed. And, non-idealistic, because dissatisfactions cannot be alleviated by changing of ideas alone, one must also change mode of living, behavior, social context, and be responsive to critical analysis. So, critical theory, he further asserts, explains the social order “in such a way that it becomes itself the catalyst” (p. 27), which in turn “leads to transformation of this social order” (p. 27).
Fay provides a compromise also, a common ground as it were, by retaining the word critical, and explaining that, in his mind, thought and action go hand in hand. This is in line with Bourdieu`s position as well, which is that a critique should be able to “explain the apparent truth of the theory that is shown to be false” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 215). What Fay has in mind here is to unearth and to judge the “worth of the deep and important assumptions about human society and history, politics, and the good life which … underpin critical social science” (p. 1). By proceeding in this manner, he also reveals the heart —the understanding of any epistemological and methodological position of CSS.
CSS is a medium by which people theorize,—but ideally all people should—express their most profound meanings through thought and action. Thus, understanding critical social science is a way of comprehending an important part of the world of thought and action we live in. Further, CSS is a carrier of a vision of existence which has deep history in human thought, which not only discloses the essence of human beings as fallen creatures but also offers the means by which, as Fay notes, “fallenness”—a self-redeemable, secular life situation—can be overcome. It claims to offer the tools by which humans can overcome the inescapable sufferings of life and have the capacity to transform their lives. Fay argues that humans are thought of as being capable of solving their own problems through an “enlightened re-ordering of their collective arrangements” (p. 3). This is an expression of the Enlightenment ideal: that through reason humans can achieve a form of existence that sets them free and into a satisfying situation. Enlightenment swims against currents of human nature—tribalism, demonization, magical thinking—that demagogues are all too willing to exploit, and takes on the sources of cynicism (Pinker, 2018). Fay extends this line of argument, the chief merit of CSS is that it is a thought-provoking theory, as it breaks with the tradition of the Frankfurt School and provides a new social scientific inquiry that can be employed in an effort to transform society and liberate its members.
The first chapter sets the stage for understanding CSS as Fay explains the nature of self-estrangement theory. This, he claims, “simultaneously explain[s] the social world, criticize[s] it and empower[s] its audience to overthrow it” (p. 23). Fay’s purpose is conceptual rather than historical, for the author wants to reveal the core meaning of theory. To this end, he considers the Parable of the Cave in Plato`s Republic in which collective existence is structured on mistaken beliefs so that the bound prisoners organize themselves around pointless, misconceived activities. However, one of the prisoners manages to escape and sees the falseness of his life (i.e., existence within the Cave), and eventually comes to look directly at the sun. As he stares at the sun, he realizes that the sun is the source of all light, and consequently becomes liberated. Here, as Fay points out, we have the notion that ordinary existence is based on a fundamental illusion, that those living it are not aware of this fact. The cavemen and women are indeed prisoners engaged in a worthless activity, and escaping this existence is a form of release. Plato`s parable is used well by Fay because it highlights the profound social conditions of human existence and depicts our lives as unsatisfactory because they are ordered around falsehoods. The continuing depiction of our world as being bleak continues, as Fay asserts that the world as we know it is not what we think it is, nor are we who we think we are (p. 12). Therefore, the world ought to be revealed and this endeavor should be at the heart of critical social science. This is a point on which Fay cannot be misunderstood. The reader learns that CSS is nothing more than uncovering and assessing the ontology on which it stands and on which it draws; that CSS is a radical stimulus for transformation.
Critical theories such as Marxism and feminism have inspired important elements in modern life; such theories have moved millions of people in the contemporary world to political action. Understanding the revolutionary temper of our times is key to understanding ideology, alienation, emancipation, autonomy, and a host of other concepts discussed within Critical Theory. Critical theory wants to explain the social order in such a way that the explanation itself becomes the catalyst that leads to the transformation of the social order. How can explanatory theory accomplish this? Critical theorists explain why people are frustrated and unsatisfied, why they are doomed to continue in this condition, given their conceptions of themselves and their social order, and why it is that they have these conditions (p. 28). Theorists also offer an alternative conception of who the people are, providing them with a new radically different picture. Here, Fay`s CSS assumes great responsibility by his declaration that humans are actually able to recreate themselves based on their own self-interpretations and actions while they also struggle against alienation and domination. The task is really complex, however Fay does not wish to question his assumption that people can recreate themselves; so, what kind of enlightenment is involved here? An alternative conception of the people in terms of who they are and provide them with powers of critical thinking and the will to use these powers to fashion the nature and direction of life” (p. 67).
In addition, Fay provides an explanation of the theory of false consciousness, the theory of crisis, the theory of education and the theory of transformative action (p. 31-32), and another ten related sub-theories that are critical and intend to provide explanation for our actual life. Drawing upon the above mentioned theories, Fay stresses the importance of understanding the human condition, which ought to be an inspiration for every social scientist. Understanding conflict and suffering helps us understand how they can be overcome. Fay`s use of Plato`s Parable of the Cave was a vivid example emphasizing his notion that ordinary existence is based on a fundamental illusion, that those living it are not aware of this fact, and that they are indeed prisoners engaged in a worthless activity. A more obvious explanation was his conversion of the soul’s analogy with education, a process by which “people become enlightened as to their existence and emancipated from the prison in which they have been living because of their ignorance” (p. 11).
Although Plato`s parable is metaphoric, it nevertheless contains all the elements of human existence: it depicts life as unsatisfactory, ordered around falsehoods, the world as we know it is not what we think it is, nor are we who we think we are. Our life is unsatisfactory, we are frustrated, at odds with ourselves and the world. In this view humans are fallen creatures. Another powerful expression of this is to be found in another example Fay uses, the Jewish tale of the Exodus, where Israel`s enslavement was in part a result of the people’s losing touch with their own identity. The Israelites became blind to this most important truth about themselves and, as result, were cut off from the source of power that could strengthen them in their misery. In a sense, their blind ignorance caused them to collude with Egyptians (p.14), in their own oppression. Their wandering in the desert was a time of education, during which people gradually shed their false identity and came to recognize and be what they really were—children of Yahweh—and enter the “land of milk and honey”. In the Exodus story, ignorance plays an important role in oppression, and the knowledge of reality an important role in liberation. Both cases—Plato`s parable, and the Exodus story-- illustrate the important process of education—to become enlightened as to one`s condition, to have proper self-understanding, which then has the potential to reveal genuine needs and possibilities for future, and provide a paradigm of the process of emancipation: the core proposition of CSS.
Fay, in my opinion, makes many questionable and over-generalized claims. He identifies core assumptions that then can be criticized and presented as a flawed analysis; this approach dominates the argument throughout the book. If we develop an explanatory critique of something but can see no feasible or desirable alternative, then the force of critique is weakened. I think CSS somewhat loses its force here. He discusses Gramsci, Habermas, the “women`s movement” (no particular theorist), Marcuse, Weber, Rousseau, and many others. For instance, he calls Freire`s ‘pedagogy of oppressed’—with its aim to fill the learners with knowledge about how things work—a model of education that leads to self-defeat, rather than get the learners to see their social setting “as one which offers problems that can be solved, or limit situations that can be transcended” (p. 106).His argument around collective autonomy, “a group of people determining on the basis of rational reflection...legislates for itself, creates and implements its own policies and practices” (p. 77) brought back memories from my youth, as I was attempting to navigate the communist regime, a world made out by sheer force of will, informed by oppressive relations forcing policies and practices of a collective autonomous group. To see and break through illusions of false consciousness one needs more than intelligence, curiosity, and self-reflexivity; one needs evolutionary forces that propel mankind ever upward toward their true potential of their lives. This strikes a chord with my past experiences when the Berlin Wall came down. It was a juncture when revolutionary energies provided a historical narrative that eliminated the socially caused misery and created the potential of genuine appreciation for people—certainly it was the case for me— to see their true narrative in history and see themselves as active, autonomous and deciding beings. Indeed, as Fay, so eloquently points out, idea(l)s have the potential to produce tyranny, we only have to consider Lenin, Castro, Mao, or the Carpathian dictator Ceausescu, among others, to recognize that these leaders “failed to adopt the correct ideological position” (p. 72) and used the worse kind of threats to intimidate their citizenry. Thankfully, this condition today is not so widespread, however, the world still struggles.
It follows from the above that Fay`s thematization of “the truth shall set you free”—the premise of the Enlightenment—addresses the dilemmas of today, in which the oppressed no longer have the patience to wait for ‘enlightenment.’ Citizens are not only capable of understanding who they are and what they need, they are also capable of organizing their affairs on the basis of this understanding, so as to produce a satisfying existence. This “enhanced” conception of human capacity manifests in the idea that emancipation involves an intervention in the affairs of this world in order to alter the “natural” course of things, to make them more amenable to the human condition. According to Fay, there is nothing sacrosanct or foreordained about the ways humans live and, by understanding what their lives are all about, they can learn how to actively alter them, make them over, and control them. Through knowledge and political education CSS promises liberation and self-empowerment.
Fay`s arguments are often one-sided, as if he is hoping the reader will hear and respond. His assertion on idealism is such an example. He contends that idealism is an ambiguous concept, because in the context of social science it claims: first, that people`s ideas cause social behavior, a sociological claim; second, in order for people to alter their dissatisfaction, all they have to do is to change their ideas about what they are and what they are doing, a therapeutic claim; third, that people are willing to listen to rational analyses of their lives and act upon these analyses, a psychological claim. This strategy of presenting various positions on any subject situates Fay in the company of Marx, Kant, Plato, Rousseau, then, later, Sartre and Marcuse.
In the last three chapters Fay points out the limits of CSS in effecting rational change, and the practical limits to attaining “clarity and autonomy.” Human beings are entangled in durable and slowly changing structures that are deeply entrenched in traditions that set boundaries on change—events humans usually cannot control. Fay also recognizes that freedom and happiness are conflicting rather than complementary concepts. Were this the case, does anything remain of critical science? To ensure that we do not remain on uncertain ground, Fay responds,
Humans are forever in the middle of the way, forced as time passes to revise continually their sense of their origin and their destinations, and required to respond in only partially satisfactory ways to the ever surprising contingencies which they face. (p. 215)
With reference to critical social science, Fay contends that our existence is marked by continual tensions which arise from conflict between the various aspects of human nature. This conflict shows the ferocious tension in human life between illumination—enlightenment—and activity on one hand, and dependency and concealment on the other. Specific to this argument one approach should not exclude the other, the focus ought to be on both. Nonetheless, Fay`s analysis, in which he believes I think, leaves me with a disposition that keeps short-circuiting my thinking, namely the capacity to vitiate his negative views, such as “social theory provides the basis for a social engineering with which one can rationally control objective social processes through the manipulation of people and the environment in which they operate” (p. 91). I understand Fay`s use of the Marxist term, manipulation,and I also know that, for instance, behavioral social science by its nature conceptualizes knowledge as the power to predict and control, and therefore influence. However, I believe in the contrary, that “people must be told [truthfully] everything, there is no other way to restore to them their full liberty (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 203).
References
Bourdieu, P. (1991).Language and symbolic power.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2005). The social structures of the economy. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Brookfield, S. (2005). The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fay, B. (1975). Social theory and political practice. London, UK: Allen & Unwin.
Fay, B. (1987). Critical social science: Liberation and its limits. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1993). Dialectic of enlightenment. New York: Continuum.
Marcuse, H. (1991). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society.
Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Pinker, S. (2018). Enlightenment now. The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress.
New York: Viking.