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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 - 1. Biases in the Research on the American Negro Problem
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1038 An American Dilemma
Because the existence of the Negro problem is so widely held to be a blot upon
Southern civilization, this common tendency in favor of excusing or explaining the
South gives rise to biases adverse to the Negro. The recent trend toward increased
friendliness to the Negro has been connected with rising criticism against the South.
Negro writers have naturally never shared much in the pro-Southern bias.
(c) The Scale of Radicalism-Conservatism. The place of the individual scientist
in the scale of radicalism-conservatism has always had, and still has, strong influences
upon both the selection of research problems and the conclusions drawn from research.
In a sense it is the master scale of biases in the social sciences. It can be broken up into
several scales, mutually closely integrated: equal itarianism-aristocratism, environmental-
ism-biological determinism, reformism
—
laissez-faire^ and so forth. There is a high
degree of correlation between a person’s degree of liberalism in different social prob-
lems. Usually the more radical a scientist is in his political views, the more friendly
to the Negro cause he will feel and, consequently, the more inclined he will be to
undertake and carry out studies which favor the Negro cause. The radical will be
likely to take an interest in refuting the doctrine of Negro racial inferiority and to
demonstrate the disadvantages and injustices inflicted upon the Negro people.
The tendency toward increased friendliness to the Negro people, already referred to,
is undoubtedly related to a general tendency during the last few decades, in American
society and its social science, toward greater liberalism. In a particular problem where
public opinion in the dominant white group is traditionally as heavily prejudiced in the
conservative direction as in the Negro problem, even a radical tendency might fail
to reach an unprejudiced judgment; whereas under other circumstances or in other
problems the objective truth might lie beyond the most extreme conservative position
actually held. The prevalent opinion that a “middle-of-the-road” attitude always gives
the best assurance of objectivity is, thus, entirely unfounded.
(d) The Scale of Oftimism-Pessimism, Without doubt most social scientists are
under the influence of the general tendency of any man or any public not to want to
be disturbed by deeply discouraging statements about the social situation and impending
trends or by demands for fundamental changes of policy.® In the Negro problem, which
has extremely disturbing prospects, indeed, this tendency to defend the “happy end-
ance of facts and conclusions which would be embarrassing to the South; sometimes the
avoidance takes the form of understatements, euphemistic expressions or concealment of
such data and conclusion in unduly abstract and complicated formulations. Pro-Southern
biases in the studies of Southerners, when they occur, take the same expression ;
in addition,
their presentations of facts will often be softened by tributes to the regional romanticism.
This bias is more prevalent in the fields of history and sociology than in the other social
sciences.
* This tendency can be illustrated from many other fields. When an economic depression
turns into a prolonged stagnation of industry as in America during the ’thirties, economists
are likely to begin to talk about “maturity” of the economy, and to direct their interests to
minor waves of ups and downs within the stagnation. When the industrialization process is
checked for a time, some agricultural economists will always be found to give themselves
and the general public consolation in a new enthusiasm for self-sustaining farming or even
an American peasantry. When sound forecasts of the reproduction trend point to a cumula-
tively declining future population, the statisticians in all countries turn out for a time to
talk about the approach of a “constant population.”
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