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How does it work (preparing for appointment with Len)?
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:date: 2005-12-28T01:51:00
:category: research
:tags: dissertation, BostonMiracle
Len asked me to explain him how should all these theories I quote in my
dissertation proposal work together and how I am not creating yet
another Great Sociological Theory.
Of course, that this question hits on the most complicated part of the
question. How does it all fits together? Am I not creating just another
grand theory which has answer for everything but understands nothing?
And if I want to get my theories out of data, and not to impose my
theories on data, what should I do with the theories which already exist
and which seem so close to what I see in my data? And isn’t whole that
founding theories only on data more or less humbug, because there just
are plenty of theories around and research cannot (and shouldn’t) just
ignore them?
Somehow it resembles a denomination which is based “solely on the New
Testament” and they “purged their teaching of all human inventions” (I
have actually met a pastor who told me these two things about his
denomination; needless to say, that I have run out of his church
immediately ``:-)``) — these are usually the most dogmatic and
legalistic church groups, whereas those Christians who just do not care
that much about purity of their teaching tend to be quite often most
relaxed, loving, and free. Isn’t best research also the one which is not
that much concerned about purity of methodology? Of course, one
shouldn’t go to the other extreme (in the Church context it would be
liberalism), and to throw away all good rules, which generations of
scientist found, as good preventive measures how not to fools
themselves.
Back to the main question of how to deal with my different theories and
my data. The basic idea I had was that there are many streams of thought
which seems to lead to the similar conclusions, although sometimes the
theories go from very different and strange angles. So for example, both
Braithwaite (criminologist and founder of the theory of reintegrative
shaming) and Charon (introduction to the symbolic interactionism)
mention as an important factor how symbolic interactionist perspective
does not include static concept of personality, which is a static result
of our past experience (or it is inborn and thus even more static)
determining our present action, but it accept that past experiences
influence our present action through *definition of self based on our
reactions to the past experiences*. When I read this for the first time,
I was shocked. In that time I was just discovering (through a
church-based program of inner healing) how much my understanding of
myself very much determined (quite often not for good) my behavior, and
how much I need to learn (and be told) who I am, so that I could see
world differently and hopefully grasp more of the life. I didn’t expect
much that I could find in (then still rather dry) sociology something
corresponding to this very personal experience and new understanding,
which seem to be too churchly and far from secular science. And yet,
this was exactly what I read in this criminological textbook!
And when I was reading many newspaper articles about crime in Boston, I
could see struggle of Black Bostonians to grasp self-image of “the
ordinary citizen” and to persuade everybody that they are such. I could
believe that actually Black pastors stepping into this self-image and
BPD switching their approach of Roxbury & co. from “enemy battlefield”
to “part of our city, where our fellow Bostonians need help” (my own
terms, not quotations), that these steps could help to empower and
mobilize Black communities of Boston to help eliminate crime in their
midst. And this effort could clearly explain quite angry opposition of
Rev. Rivers against Jessie Jackson’s trashing of Boston as racist—not
only that Jessie offended his friend in the effort to improve position
of Blacks in Boston (both Mayor Menino and BPD representatives), but he
also directly attacked this new self-image of ordinary citizens and
pushed them back to the image of poor underserved oppressed Blacks.
Unfortunately, the story continues, this business of changing self-image
is very long-term process — actually this is just part of the process of
overcoming Black slavery which (with interruptions) has been continuing
for past hundred and fifty years and it is far from being finished. When
the first effort made a huge difference, because improved cooperation
between BPD and the Black community of Boston made a huge difference in
the crime statistics, people in power of the City of Boston lost
interest in supporting this process and it collapsed on insufficient
funding (totally unsupported hearsay claims that the Boston Ten Point
Coallition is broke and relations among participants of TPC are falling
apart). Now, the only hope is that Mayor Menino & co. will get afraid
again from the Black crime and will find some resources to support
programs in Roxbury.
Moreover, not only that this example very well works in this
psychotherapeutical-SI context of self-image, but it seems to be very
nice example of how the theory of reciprocity describes that “[people]
perceive that others are behaving cooperatively/shirking […] they
cooperate/retaliate.”
All this is nice, but obviously this kind of anecdotical thinking is an
exact example of all wishful thinking which would be rightfully trashed
by Bernstein & co. And qualitative and interpretative research being
what it is, I do not see any way how to make this into testable theory
and how to eventually prove it.
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