IDEOLOGY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
(Ideologi dalam Ilmu-ilmu Sosial)
Gunawan Wiradi
Naskah asli berupa makalah seminar di USM, Malaysia, tahun 1978 dengan tema: “Ideology and Scientific Objectivity”.
Anggota Badan Pengurus Yayasan AKATIGA.
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Pengantar
Tulisan ini merupakan makalah dalam suatu seminar yang telah lama lampau, namun temanya dianggap masih tetap relevan. Yang dibahas adalah suatu isu yang seringkali diperdebatkan, yaitu apakah kegiatan ilmiah dalam ilmu-ilmu sosial itu dapat “bebas nilai” ataukah tidak.
Agar tidak berpeluang untuk menyimpang, maka tulisan tersebut dimuat di sini sesuai aslinya, yaitu dalam bahasa Inggris. Istilah “hands-off policy” adalah is-tilah untuk mengacu kepada sikap untuk menolak samasekali pengaruh nilai atau pengaruh ideologi dalam kegiatan keilmuan. Sedangkan “hands-in policy” mengacu kepada sikap yang menerima kenyataan bahwa dalam praktiknya, ilmu-ilmu sosial tidak mungkin secara mutlak “bebas nilai”. Perdebatan menge-nai perbedaan dua pandangan ini sebenarnya sampai sekarang belum pernah selesai.
Wacana mengenai makna “ideologi” itu sendiri serta perkembangannya, bukan-lah hal yang sederhana karena menyangkut teoresasi pada tataran abstraksi tinggi ataupun filosofis. Tulisan pendek dalam bahasa Inggris berikut ini me-mang amat sederhana dan mungkin terkesan “sempit”, karena hanya menggu-nakan sejumlah literatur terbatas. Bagi mereka yang ingin memperluas wawa-san tentu diperlukan perluawawa-san kepustakaan. Sementara itu, barangkali, se-jumlah makalah dan “hand out” dari para narasumber dalam suatu pelatihan yang diselenggarakan oleh USC-SATUNAMA pada akhir tahun 2005 di Yogya-karta akan sangat berguna untuk dipelajari. Diharapkan, para pemula dapat mengembangkan sendiri pemahamannya melalui perluasan bacaan.
It is not my intention here to discuss “theorizing”, but rather, it is just a simple explanation for taking position with regard to the “hands-off” or “hands-in” policy on ideology in social research. Since the term “ideology” has been used in so many different senses that one might despair of using it in any precise manner at all, how-ever, I should begin, in brief, with the concept and theory.
The concept of ideology was coined by the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy, and then, the contemptuous use of the epithet “ideologue” by French writers of the revolutionary periods, and notably by Napoleon, was taken up by Marx and Engels and given a new significance. Engels spoke of “false consciousness”, ani-mating those whose ideas, shaped by class interests and class position, were not in conformity with the eco-nomic reality. Marx and Engels applied the term “ideology” to what they con-ceived as the “bourgeois” way of thinking. “It is a protective web of be-liefs that held no intrinsic validity but were the rationalization of their strug-gle to gain or maintain place and po-wer”.
Karl Mannheim in his book Ideology and Utopia draw an antithesis be-tween the bourgeois “ideology” that guards the capitalist status quo and the Marxist “utopianism” that projects a new social order. In other words, for complexes of ideas which direct acti-vities towards maintaining the exist-ing social order, Mannheim called: Ideology; whereas for complexes of ideas which tend to generate activities toward changing the prevailing social order, he called: Utopia. But this may invite criticism, because the word Uto-pia generally refers to any visionary scheme of something ideal which will never come true. For the Marxist, if society was made by men, it can also be changed by men. It will come true if the conditions were met and men did want to act. For the non-Marxist, on the other hand, the use of the word Utopia by Mannheim may be consi-dered as only an effort to avoid the wrong image of the word “ideology” since it was used contemptuously be-fore, saving the Marxist against the charge that their own doctrine was no less ideological as being also the ex-pression of class consciousness.
More important than that, I think, is that Mannheim had succeeded in
Robert M. MacIver. 1965. The Web of Government. New York: Free Press. p.41.
Karl Mannheim. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. Translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. London.
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reducing (or compounding?) confu-sion (of the usage of the term), by distinguishing between the so called “particular ideology” and “total ideo-logy”. Total ideology which is dis-tinguished further into “ideology” and “Utopia”, is action oriented. It is a con-version of social ideas into social ac-tion. These ideas may be shared by class, by culture, by age, in short by a group of people. “At present time the term ideology has become current to mean any scheme of thinking charac-teristic of a group or class. Particular ideology is a set of ideas which is not very much organized, held by indivi-duals. It may be also beliefs which are loosely connected (half stated notions about the world). But once the parti-cular beliefs are adopted by a group and become action oriented, it be-comes the ideology of the group. Es-pecially when it comes to be attached to power interest then it becomes to-tal ideology.
Total ideology is a theory of men and society, directed toward maintaining the existing social order or toward projecting a new one. In order to maintain the old or to establish the new, men should act. But action is closely related to power. Since the
object is society, men cannot act to implement their goals, i.e. to maintain or to change society, without having political power. So the first step is to struggle for gaining political power. Hence, as stated by Geertz, “… it is through the construction of ideolo-gies, schematic images of social order, that man makes himself for better or worse, a political animal”. But Geertz himself criticized the “interest theory” approach (which I have no wish to dis-cuss here). In the interest theory, ideology is viewed as being only a mask or weapon used by men to pur-sue power. It is this notion that lead to the general usage of the term in daily life that ideology refers to ideas held by political groups. Perhaps, it is ideology in this sense that is being afraid of that it might prostitute scien-tific research. In this sense, I think, “hands-off” policy can be tried. It is not easy to do, but it is not impossible as long as we keep the principle of universalism for objectivity, that is, we only talk about the existent facts. If we say that water is fluid, it is the same water and the same meaning of fluidity that we talk about in anywhere else.
Robert M. MacIver. Op. cit. p. 339.
Clifford Geertz. 1964. “Ideology as a Cultural System”, in D.E. Apter. Ideology and Discontent. New York: The Free Press. p.63.
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But the problem is, in social sciences existent inquiries arise because of, and are concerned with, specific pro-blems. In formulating problem and in giving the significance of observable phenomena, the researcher is led by certain ideas. As Mills stated: “Social research of any kind is advanced by ideas; it is only disciplined by facts”. Facts without values are meaningless. Values without facts are mere abs-tractions. But then, we come to ano-ther territory of ideology. It is not anymore ideology in the sense that it is a weapon to pursue power, but rather, it is ideology in the sense of Mannheim's particular ideology. In this sense, “hands-off” policy is im-possible! Suppose we talk about rural people suffering in Java, and suppose we observe the fact that most of the rural people still depend heavily on subsistent agriculture for their livelihood. The problem is how to do away with people suffering. In an-swering this question, values will in-volve. If one said that the first step to do is to change the farmers' mental attitudes from subsistent-minded to become commercial-minded whereby they can improve their economic con-ditions, it is because he believes that happiness and suffering primarily
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pend on economic condition or mate-rial property. Consequently, he will do his research in this direction.
The object of social science in general is men and society. Science itself is part of culture. The world we lived in, includes all activities of scientific search. It means that scientific re-search activities are part of the object of social science. If (particular) ideo-logy is a set of ideas about the world, then, does not it mean that the idea that science must get away from ideo-logy is in itself an ideoideo-logy? Hence, “hands-off” policy is impossible.
Now I want to come back to the con-cept. Literally speaking, ideology is the “logic” of “ideas”. Following this, regardless of the initial usage and connotation, may not we define that ideology is a set of ideas which is constructed logically into a concept used by men in their effort to answer questions of life? In this sense, reli-gion is an ideology. If one said that the term ideology cannot be applied to religion at all time, it is because the term is used not in that sense, but in the sense that it always refers to a particular definition of reality which is attached to power interest and held
Fred H. Blum. 1964. “C. Wright Mills: Social Conscience and Social Values”, in I. Horowitz. The New Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. p.164.
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by two polar groups, the lord and the serf, the oppresser and the op-pressed, the governer and the governed. As stated by Peter Berger, “It makes little sense, for example, to speak of Christianity as an ideology in the Middle Age—even though it had obvious political uses for the ruling groups—for the simple reason that the Christian Universe was 'inhabited' by everyone in the Medieval Society, by the serfs just as much as by their lords.
In the effort to answer questions of life, different men or groups inter-preted the same overall universe in different ways. The distinctiveness of interpretation is due to culture. When we see fact as being something, that it is being something is already deter-mined by our culture. Science and ideology are of course different busi-ness. But, “they are not unrelated ones. Ideology do make empirical claims abut the condition and direc-tion of society, which, it is the busi-ness of science (and, where scientific knowledge is lacking, common sense) to assess. The social function of science vis-à-vis ideology is first to understand them—what they are,
how they work, what gives rise to them—and second to force them to come to terms with (but not neces-sarily to surrender to) reality.
If my research work was considered as being “not value free” and hence “not scientific”, I firmly reject this opi-nion! Because from the discussion a-bove it is clear that being scientific does not necessarily means value free, and being value free does not al-ways mean scientific. The opinion that social science should be value free is justifiable only to some extent. Of course it is necessary for researchers to take all the available precaution to prevent their personal value judge-ments from distorting their methods and their data, but it will be mislead-ing and shortsighted if we claim that being scientific (in science) it neces-sarily means completely free from va-lues. Because it means that we as-sume that a given social reality does not ever reflect a particular set of so-cial values. And this is absurd for it denies the relevance of individual and collective will. So the extreme position on the scientific quality of social scien-ce must be rejected. A more
reason-Peter Berger. 1967. “The Social Construction of Reality”. A Treatise in The Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. p.141.
Clifford Geertz. Op. cit. p.72.
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able view is that “social science can and actually does operate within the framework of a particular value
sys-tem without jeopardizing its scientific nature”.
Mohd. A. Nawawi. 1976. Ideology and Development. Discussion Paper No. 1. Penang: USM. p.6.
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References/Bibliography
nd Miller, D.C. 1970. Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement. 2 ed.
(An Outline Guide for the Design of Social Research Problem). New York: David McKay.
MacIver, Robert M. 1965. The Web of Government. New York: Free Press.
Mannheim, Karl. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. Translated by Louis Wirth and Ed-ward Shills. London: Routledge & Paul Kegan.
Geertz, Clifford. 1964. “Ideology as a Cultural System”, in D.E. Apter. Ideology and Discontent. New York: The Free Press.
Blum, Fred H. 1964. “C. Wright Mills: Social Conscience and Social Values”, in I. Horowitz. The New Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Berger, Peter L. 1967. “The Social Construction of Reality” A Treatise in The So-ciology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books.
