Everyone here has become familiar with the meaning of the word ‘nudge’ since 2020. It was at the centre of Laura Dodsworth’s book A State of Fear in 2021. In a powerful article of a few days ago Gary Sidley gave us a short history of ‘nudge’.
I always think it is a good thing to have a good argument or good bit of evidence shortened so it can be seen at a glance. Sidley, in short, shows:
- That behavioural science has been central to British Government strategy since Cameron, and came to its height in the happy days of Michie, Sridhar, Hancock and other superior technocrats.
- That this behavioural science is an American invention: an invention which was a grotesque distortion of some academic activity in the 20th century so that it became an exploration of the techniques by which society could be manipulated by a ‘democratic’ regime.
The techniques developed were many. They included bits of rational exaggeration and irrational suggestion, all in the service of ‘conditioning’ us to accept certain rules and edicts. ‘Nudge’, as explained by the authors of the overtly titled book Nudge of 2008, was a remarkable innovation: as it showed why there was no reason to think that the Western enthusiasm for ‘freedom’ should prevent Western regimes from imposing constraints on us worthy of a despotic or autocratic or let us say Eastern regime, for the ‘greater good’.
Is there any hope? One might think not. I certainly think that there is something highly subtle and sophisticated about the West now: it makes the East look primitive. But there is very good reason to suppose that ‘nudge’ has a great flaw in it. It is the same flaw which runs through all social science. It is a flaw in the form of a self-rupturing loop.
I take no credit for this argument. As with the history of ‘nudge’ detailed by Sidley, there has also been a history of scepticism about social science, including behavioural science. To my mind, at least — I am, as usual, no expert — the great heroes of this are Michael Polanyi, Michael Oakeshott and Alasdair MacIntyre — the last of whom is still alive at the great age of 95. The point is very simple, and I shall first use Oakeshott’s way of putting it, before also mentioning MacIntyre’s rather more elaborate way of putting it, which is so decisive that it should stand as a refutation of the very possibility of the social sciences. I am amazed that it is not more famous than it is.
Oakeshott began by saying that one cannot have a science until one has a subject matter which is ‘intelligible’. This is simple enough. ‘Intelligible’ means that whatever we want to study can be subjected to intelligence. Next, the problem with the social sciences, as opposed to the natural sciences, is that its subject matter is — ‘intelligent’. Atoms and stars are intelligible; but humans are intelligent. Note the problem. We are trying to subject to our intelligence an object which is itself not only intelligent, but intelligent in exactly the same way that we are intelligent. In sum, what this means is that when it comes to understanding ourselves there is no Archimedean point, no external point of view, no godlike vision we can possibly hope to have of ourselves. We are limited by our intelligence, and any pretence that we are transcending it by calling ourselves ‘scientists’ — even behavioural scientists — crashes on the rocks of that limitation. We may pretend to be scientific about ourselves, but it is only a pretence.
MacIntyre wrote a sequence of articles and chapters between the early 1960s and early 1970s which I consider to be a refutation of the social sciences, including the behavioural sciences — proof that they are an impossibility. The argument is really just a version of Oakeshott’s, and even Oakeshott’s was just a way of saying something that had been obvious to some historians and philosophers as early as the late 19th century. But MacIntyre’s argument is particularly potent. It is best found in the article ‘Ideology, Social Science, and Revolution’ in Comparative Politics 5 (1973), pp.321-342.
Here he argues that the purpose of the social sciences is to generate some findings about ourselves that could not be stated by the man on the street or the average educated journalist. If the social sciences are to establish anything at all, this should take the form of the sorts of generalisations we call laws. So MacIntyre decided to explain what a law of the social sciences would look like. He argued on p.334 of his article that it would take the following form:
Whenever an event or state of affairs of type A occurs, then an event or state of affairs of type B will occur, unless (1) intelligent reflection by the agents involved leads them to change their ways or (2) unpredictable factors deriving from creative intellectual innovation intervene.
The “unless” is the rupturing loop. This is because the qualifications (1) and (2) make a law of this form absolutely worthless. MacIntyre explained: “A generalisation framed like this is one whose scope can never be known.” If such a law were ever framed, we would never be able to find a counterexample. So anything would go. The fact that our intelligence is a variable that cannot be controlled means, said MacIntyre, that “refutations cannot occur in social science”. It follows that social science is not a science. And: “From this it follows further that, if there is consensus in the social scientific community, and to the degree that such consensus exists, it will not be rational, but a matter of something else, perhaps of academic politics.”
Let us delete the word “academic” in that last sentence and paraphrase the sentence. If there is consensus, it will not be rational — or scientific — but political.
Now, MacIntyre’s refutation is a refutation of the possibility of having a theoretical law of ourselves. But the refutation also destroys ‘nudge’ and for the same reason. We can always be nudged by A in such a way that we will do B unless — unless — we become conscious that we are being nudged and then decide to confound the expectation. In other words, as soon as we become aware that we are being nudged, we can be nudged no longer — at least not in the way that we have recently been nudged. This is because our knowledge of being nudged enters the nudging mechanism as a new input and dislocates it, since the original “nudge” was only supposed to work if we were unaware of it.
Now, the behavioural scientists might say that they can themselves innovate and come up with a new way of persuading us to do things against our own interests for the ‘greater good’, but as soon as we become aware that ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’ regimes are in the habit of consciously attempting to manipulate the population as a whole then the game is over. ‘Nudge’ only works if the people being nudged are not aware of it. Make them aware — starting calling things ‘nudge’, for God’s sake — and the game is over. Then governments, if they want to insist on their controls, will have to revert to simple Eastern forms of coercion. Governments will not be able to hide from the people that they are being ‘nudged’ as long as there is even a sliver of free enquiry, open deliberation and public education. This is because we are people being nudged, not by God, or Satan, or Antichrist, or Sauron, or the Daleks, but by other people.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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I’m afraid facts and arguments aren’t going to change the minds of Net Zero advocates.
What will change their minds is the sense that those who don’t want it are getting angry and might start going for Net Zero zealots in ways they might not like.
They need to feel the need to change position at an emotional level. And we all know fear works best.
Personally I make a point of ensuring that anyone who defends climate change policy perceives my anger and a certain sense of menace that I’m not standing for it.
That’s the sort of emotional response that gets people re-thinking, in my view.
Indeed. Righteous anger coupled with a couple of winters freezing in one’s home and – heaven forbid – being deprived of the internet and one’s dumb-down-the-owner ‘smart’ phone (due to power blackouts) and we will probably see some change in direction. Recent history shows how quickly zealots can change sides – 2 years ago there were millions standing in line for untested poison, now they can’t give it away. Reality bites big.
Yep everyone wants to “save the planet” till the penny eventually drops that the planet is fine and it was never about the planet in the first place.
We see the same tactics used against those who put rational arguments and science up against the loony climate change protagonists.
The loonies are not loony and those with rational arguments and science are the loonies.
All achieved using the same approach to so many other issues that are destroying our social values and structures and done using
useful idiotswhatever activists they can fund to implement this madness.The end justifies the means for those behind all this crap who see the destruction of social values and structures as the ends which justify the means.
DS is invaluable as a source of information and a forum to read what sensible people have to say against this backdrop of madness.
Or “never let a good crisis go to waste”, and parasite governments of both parties are certainly putting the manufactured climate crisis to good use to implement all the progressive policies they have long craved
No facts and reason……Just faith and emotion. Climate activists and those who glue themselves to things decided long ago what is true and there is no budging them. But we need to remember it is government and their phony climate models masquerading as science that brainwashed them all. —–Thos governments can hardly come down hard on their own useful idiots that do all their dirty work for them now can they?
Until the liberal mainstream media, and especially the BBC, do honest reporting over the utter folly of spending trillions on completely worthless and highly dangerous Net Zero madness nothing will change.
I would suggest that everyone complain to the BBC via. their Make A Complaint web portal. Find a climate change article on the BBC website, it’ll almost always state that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of climate change, something that we all know is complete rubbish. They always make this dumb statement without any dissenting views allowed. That’s complaint-worthy in itself.
Do you really think complaining to the BBC achieves anything? It is impervious to complaints.
Hopefully one low level individual there might start to think for him/her self and light a spark. A long shot, I know.
At a stroke, we could cut the staggering 0.0016% of the atmosphere that is human-caused CO2 by wiping out most of the world’s population by toxic medical interventions, geoengineering, gmo food and electrosmog. Unless some people have already thought of that.
Just as a matter of interest – have any of the Net Zero zealots ever clarified what’s the target internal winter temperature people are expected to maintain in this brave new world of theirs, or hasn’t that sort of practical reality crossed their tiny minds? I see the WHO, NHS and others currently recommend 18-21C, and building ‘sperts recommend above 16C to stop condensation and mould. Are those numbers likely to drop, I wonder? (My place regularly drops well below those already; wonder if that means I get extra brownie points?!)
Off topic, but who cares..
So.. 2.30 pm tomorrow Andrew Bridgen after 20 refusals and the pressure of constitutants harassing their MPs there will be a debate (1 hr slot) about excess deaths.
Its the first parliamentary debate in the world… You couldn’t make this up in your widest of dreams..
https://youtu.be/uWP6mGiDveI?si=sYVcJHZC-SLCDsYQ
More off topic…. Was all this about provoking Iran..
Brand talking sense… Yet again (don’t believe the narrative about him, it’s an attempted matrix takedown)
https://youtu.be/jWO-mtt4_lU?si=vUDuZ1TDB4O-iFMW
”Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you,”
This is a momentous nightmare social experiment, the current technology cannot deliver, the current resources are inadequate. As this nonsense progresses and it becomes increasingly obvious that our current population cannot go ‘net-zero’ and live at anything like present living standards, what is going to happen? Are people meekly going to accept immiseration and a degeneration of living standards back to medieval times? If we do go down this route the UK will become a weird basket case like the mad uncle you keep in the attic while the rest of the world gets on with life. This is a recipe for huge social upheaval and turmoil, the end result of which is hard to predict?
Something similar to North Korea, I expect. Only without the abundant luxuries…
‘Saving the planet’ is worth any cost in some eyes. Even if you can’t afford it, and it wouldn’t save the planet anyway, (primarily because it doesn’t need saving from CO2).
Useless people trying to give themselves a sense of destiny.
The NIC should be closed down and sent back to school while we find some adults to carry on the essential work.
The can will need to be continually kicked down the road because what the parasite political class are trying to do is not just impossible, it is unaffordable, but the pain and suffering inflicted will be a severe blow to hard pressed taxpayers suffering the fallout from the malady infecting all of parliament called PSPS (Pretend to Save the Planet Syndrome)