Volume 38, Issue 12. Today is
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Volume 38, Issue 12. Today is
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Political science expands thought
Political science is one of the social sciences. Many would argue that at its best, it is a "soft science," as opposed to physics or chemistry, which are "hard sciences." At its worse, it is much like Ronald Reagan’s "voodoo economics," as argued by his future Vice President, George Bush, i.e., it is a pretender to the throne, and its comparison to a science is more fancy than fact. But let us assume that because practically every post-secondary institution of higher learning in this country has at least one full time political science instructor on its faculty, that it has some standing in the world of academia, even if its relevance to the "real world" is questioned. I started taking political science because I had aspirations of becoming an attorney, and I was politically active. What better way to prepare for law school and a life of political activity? Numbers vary, but roughly 85 to 95 percent of all legislators have law degrees. The logic worked well until I was told that many of those who did well on the LSAT and in law school, majored in English. It also became clear that studying politics was different from practicing it. In fairness, both the practice and study of politics does require an amount of mental toughness and work to excel. Yet, they are different. Political science requires the ability to explain why certain conclusions are derived – politics does not. Practitioners of politics often act on "instinct," reason is not issues in fact, most are at odds to explain why they did what they did, that is what they hire the political scientist to do it for them. This does not mean that political scientists do not deal with the "real world." The whole idea of the discipline is to explain human behavior. The problem comes in explaining that just because politics is part of the title, it will not necessarily teach you how to do politics. What it will do is provide a means for understanding what is happening and why the incident may be important given the situation. The question still remains: why take a class in it? This becomes an issue especially when other course work in Sociology and Economics seems to be more interesting, if not useful. Other social sciences talk about "marriage and the family," as well as market fluctuation and profits. Political science as a discipline, uses both hard and soft sciences to do its job. In the 1990s, the field would have been termed the "Japanese of the social sciences." It borrows from any and all fields of inquiry that will help it explain the why and how of people interactions; whether it be individuals, groups, whole nation states, or the world. This basically means that political science is multi-discipline in approach. Just as the purveyor of modern capitalism, Adam Smith, utilized history, psychology, etc., to create his vision of the world, the discipline seeks to provide insight into the way we function. It does not promote truth, but rather the explaining of circumstance. To try anything else would take it outside the realm of science and into the world of faith. So why take a class in political science? I’d argue because your curious, and seek to know about the world around you. I would also state that in learning how to do it, you also garnish the skills that allow for evaluation of everyday occurrences. Political science is meant to provide you options, not necessarily certainties. In essence, that is why you get an education; to be able to think, consider, decide and adapt to the ever-changing real world. Alex Avila is a political science instructor at MCC. |
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