Week 9: Violence and Terrorism

“Drawing on Max Weber’s “Science as a Vocation” and “The Meaning of ‘Ethical Neutrality’ in Sociology and Economics,” political scientist Jeffrey Isaac argues that social scientists have an obligation to provide analysis of significant events, including war. However, in times of war and civil unrest, the freedoms scholars depend upon, such as the ability to “inquire, communicate, and publicize” (2004: 476), are jeopardized. In Agamben’s words, this is another outcome of state of exception democracies and it is up to scholars to “mobilize their theories to explain how and why those conflicts are unfolding” even if doing so discloses facts that are “inconvenient” to government “its critics, the media, terrorist organizations, rogue states, and clerical ideologues alike” (479). Disclosing “inconvenient facts” is the heart of sociology and essential for a critical analysis needed to challenge hegemonic notions (Lauderdale and Oliverio 2005) that are based on ideology and prejudice rather than scientific truth. Isaac contends that scholars have been impacted in numerous ways, including limitations on the free movement of scholars and students, surveillance that undermines the privacy of library and Internet users, and the emergence of campus “watchdog” groups such as “Middle East Watch. Another concern is the misuse of scientific data and theories to justify the dehumanization and mistreatment of others, including alleged terrorists. As German scientist Benno Müller-Hill writes, “science is about knowledge and truth. So, we must ask ourselves, how could German scientists support anti-Semitism and the racial measures of the Nazis?” (2004: 485). In Deadly Medicine, Müller-Hill provides a detailed account of how some non-Jewish academics benefited from the anti-Semitism of the National Socialists even if they did not agree with it (and of course others did). Ethical scientists never let ideology or personal self-interest cloud their use of data or justify violence against others rooted in perceptions of superiority–inferiority.