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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 2. A Methodological Note on Facts and Valuations in Social Science - 3. The History and Logic of the Hidden Valuations in Social Science
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Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1049
. . . That is why it is the greatest folly of which a man can be capable, to sit down with
a slate and pencil to plan out a new social world.*
Sumner could not fail to have a particularly strong influence on social science think-
ing about the problems of the South and, specifically, about the Negro problem. The
theory of folkways and mores has diEused from the scientists and has in the educated
classes of the South become a sort of regional political credo. The characterization of
something as “folkways” or “mores” or the stereotype that “stateways cannot change
folkways”—^which under no circumstances can be more than a relative truth—is
used in the literature on the South and on the Negro as a general formula* of mystical
significance. It is expressed whenever one wants to state one’s opinion that “what is,
must be” without caring to give full factual reasons. To a large extent the formula has
also been taken over by the Negro writers. We may note a recent example of the same
sort of reasoning on the part of a writer, who, if he had not been influenced by
Sumner, is in perfect agreement with him. The example is the more striking because
it is taken from the pages of the radical Negro periodical, The Crisis
,
and is part of a
review of a book whose author is trying to improve the lot of the Negro—though per-
haps in a naive manner.
It is the belief, on the other hand, of our author and a considerable group of educators,
largely members of the ‘^social frontier group” at Teachers* College, that education can
lead in social reform instead of following in the wake of social trends. This belief is a
form of wish-fulfillment thinking based upon the assumption that social life can be
rationalized and that the frocessus social can be rid of its irrational elements and brought
under the control of a previously established plan. Res est ridicula et nimis iocosa. Such
a belief is not a product of scientific observation, but of the educator’s faithy and one as
naive as any ever inherited by man. If the researches of science have established anything,
it is that man is at bottom a most irrational animal) a rationalizing rather than a reasoning
creature.**
Much less conservative than Sumner but still bound by a similar fatalism have been
Robert E. Park and some of his followers. Park’s influence on the research on the Negro
problem has been great and direct, as so many of the contemporary students of this
problem are his pupils or recognize his guidance as their most important inspiration.
Park is not, as was Sumner, moved by any deeply felt desire to maintain the status quo.
But his keen observation of social conditions—and, perhaps, also some disillusions from
his reform activities—^have made him realize the tremendous force exerted by “natural”
influences.® Not observing much in the way of conscious and organized planning in his
* William Graham Sumner, “The Absurd Attempt to Make the World Over,” Essays of
William Graham Sumner, Edited by A. G. Keller and Maurice R. Davie (1934), Vol. I,
pp. X 05-1 06.
**
James W. Ivy, review oi An Analysis of the Specific References to Negroes in Selected
Curricula for the Education of Teachers by Edna Meade Colson, in The Crisis (October,
J940.P-33>-
* Park, of course, recognizes the possibility of rapid and radical social change. His theory
concerning such change is centered around the concept of “crisis.” This theory was first
developed by W. I. Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins (1909), pp. 17-aa.
The theory, simply stated, is that under certain circumstances habits, mores, and folkways
are recognized by people to be no longer useful as ways of meeting situations and needs,
and, after a brief period of amoral disorganization, people come together to build up a new
type of “socially acceptable” behavior, or such a new folkway develops naturally “without
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