Bob's Story: An imminent critique and thought experiment
I haven't posted a blog in a long while. It doesn't mean I'm not writing. I write a lot, but as many authors will understand, some of what we write isn't really for other people. It's mostly for ourselves. I'm learning to use my blog in different ways now and some of that about personal reflection, stuff I don't really want to share. While other parts are about stuff that I want to share and invite other people to interact with, think about and comment on. Your comments help me to examine my own thoughts. So please, as always I'd invite you to read, think about and comment on what you're about to read.
During the summer and into the autumn I've been reading and learning about Critical Realism (CR). As a philosophy of science and ontological paradigm it's challenged and enlightened me by encouraging me to think differently about the world. It's forced me to look beyond the numerical and statistical world that that I was taught to see at university under-graduate level. For those who haven't heard about it before and are interested, read about the work of Roy Bhaskar and Margaret Archer. It's fascinating stuff (though perhaps not the most accessible read. "Critical Realism: Basics and Beyond", by Hubert Buch-Hansen and Peter Nielsen I wound it to be an accessible introduction to this philosophical approach to social research.)
A lot about this philosophy appeals to me because I've learned that:
- critical realists view reality as stratified - built up in layers from the empirical, to the actual, to the deep domains of the unobservable where causal mechanisms lie.
- critical realists reject reductionism,
- critical realists view society as an open system
- critical realists employ different research methods from the ones I'm used to such as the methods of retroduction and abstraction.
Of all the things that I value in my professional and personal life, inclusiveness is hugely important to me. I say this having experienced exclusion both in my personal and professional life in various ways. I think it takes time and maturity to understand that disagreement with others and exclusion are two very different things. Two academics can disagree, but in embracing epistemological relativism, greater dialectic truths to emerge, through inclusive discussion.
The rejection of reductionism was hard to take at first because, as a mathematician, all the numerical statistical correlations and hypothesis tests I had become so used to were suddenly considered reductive because they don't allow for agentic reflexivity and often oversimplify problems to the issue of prediction and control rather than striving to understand the complex causal mechanisms that lie in the deep unobservable domains of society. While statistics can provide clues to possible connections, there are no causal explanations offered by numbers. This is an uncomfortable place for a mathematician to be, to realise that there are limitations to what a mathematician's positivist view of the world allows them to know. But equally this rejection of reductionism arguably also acknowledges the complexity of the human condition placing humanity at the centre of the social sciences.
While I wouldn't say I am overt activist on matters of social justice, I do believe that social research should aim to make a difference in the lives of people and communities. However, on learning more about CR and thinking about the idea of research making a difference to society, I was brought to a complete halt recently by the work of Margaret Archer.
If you've read my previous blog articles you'll know that I have found the thinking toolkit of Pierre Bourdieu to be extremely helpful in understanding social structure. Yet Archer (who happens to be a prominent critical realist) is highly scathing of his work. In her lecture below on Reflexivity: Mediating between Structure and Culture (linked below), at 24mins 15seconds approximately she comments:
"What is the difference between reproduction and transformation? It's a question that Pierre Bourdieu never answered. He assumed that everything was reproduction."
This was quite a shock to me as Archer continues in her lecture to comment that Bourdieu appoints habitus as something you acquire from your family thereby reducing the actions of the individual amount to little more than habit or classical conditioning. From such a prominent critical realist, this bothered me.
First, it made me think as to whether CR was right for me - was I way off track here? Archers critique didn't seem particularly inclusive. Was she simply distancing herself from Bourdieu's work to make space for her own argument? I certainly couldn't find an overarching dialectic truth emerging from her critique. So I was faced with the question of whether she was right and that Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field and doxa were more flawed than I had first realised? I had to face the question of whether or not my own reliance on Bourdieusian thinking been misguided?
To be honest, I can't disagree with Archer's concept. If our actions are reactions to the impingement of social structures and cultures on our lives, then perhaps Prof. Archer is right! Our reactions have to be more than just habitual repetition. To suggest otherwise is to reduce the human condition to mindlessness. Our actions have to be critically reflexive reactions to conditions we face, based on the information we have at our disposal.
So I found myself faced with a theoretical toolkit provided by Bourdieu that encompassed a good level of explanatory power, conflicting with this view of critical realism that would dismiss Bourdieu's work as reductive. Was there any room for co-existence of these two theoreticial perspectives?
So I started to dig deeper.
Archer defines reflexivity as: "...the singular exercise of the mental ability shared by all normal people to consider themselves in relation to their (social) context and vice versa." (Archer, 2007, p. 4)
Initially, I thought this was an odd definition because, for a sociologist who seems to reject the notion that people are predictable by way of their capacity to exert agency, she immediately proceeds by referencing normality and normal people which itself is defined as a probability distribution bringing us back into the realms of positivism. In further exploring this definition I realised that there are aspects of reflexivity that made me think of the allegory of Plato's Cave. Plato's cave highlights that we can only respond to the things we know and perceive even if what we see and what we perceive does not give us a full picture of reality (which, as an aspiring critical realist, acknowledges the fallibility of knowledge). The idea of "normality" itself presupposes the idea of abnormality. So I found myself asking the question of whether or not it is abnormal not to be aware of one's own social context? Plato's cave suggests that we can only be aware of what we see and experience as our own reality. I don't think that's particularly abnormal.
Moreover, there was something about this dismissal of Bourdieu's work that didn't sit right with me. As Thomson (2017) puts it: "His thinking tools are aids to making meaning; they do not offer 'proofs', but instead 'truths'. I had always understood that Bourdieu's conecpt of habitus was a tool to help us think about how individuals behave in very similar (almost repetitive ways) over extended periods of time. By contemplating the significance of this, I started to understand Archer's theory as tool to help us think about how people's behaviour can vary or change over time. Two theorists working from opposing perspectives with regard to the same social phenomenon.
So to explore some of the truths about habitus and reflexivity, I decided to conduct my own thought experiment. In doing so I came up with a vignette, Bob's story. I placed Bob in a scenario where his life is impinged upon by structural change. So then I could ask the question of what is it that he can see, what is it that he can't see, what might he be thinking, how is he feeling and how does he react to the situation he finds himself in? So here is the scenario I created - Bob's Story.
Bob is a maths teacher. Bob was raised in a working class family. He was an only child raised in a Christian household where he and his parents went to church every Sunday. His mother didn't work while they were growing up and chose to stay at home as a housewife. His father was an engineer. But both his parents were keen for Bob to go to University and get a good job. They didn't mind what he studied, they wanted him to be happy doing something he enjoyed.
While studying at University Bob met Jane and it didn't take long before the couple were dating and involved in a long term romantic relationship. On their graduation day Bob proposes and the couple get engaged. They would have liked to have got married straight away, but neither of them had a job yet, so on their current budget it would be difficult to afford the kind of wedding they both wanted. So they agreed to wait until they both had good jobs and save money in the mean time by living with Bob's parents.
After a few months of job hunting Bob gets a job as a maths teacher in a local secondary school working with a team of 9 other teachers (including Bob, the team encompasses 10 full time maths teachers). Jane hasn't found a job yet. While the job doesn't carry the best pay, Bob is happy because the position gives him the social status and cultural capital he had been encouraged to strive for since childhood. Moreover, it gives him and Jane the change they need to start saving up for their wedding. In his eyes and in his family's eyes he was a success. Over time, Bob acquires a good reputation as a professional and is popular with his students. He had never been happier!
But then economic conditions change and the country goes into recession. Consequently, decisions made at government level reduces the school's budget. This starts to impinge on Bob's life and threatens what little financial security he has when he finds out that the school has to make 3 teachers in his department redundant. Including himself, there are only 10 teachers in the department. What does he do? How does he act? Bob's reflexivity might be firing on all cylinders. He must have lots of questions running through his mind. But this is his first job since graduating. He's never faced the prospect of redundancy before. So he doesn't have all the answers he needs.
What does he do? What does he know? What does he not know? Here's the catch - if you don't know something, how do you know that you don't know? You don't. Bob is back in Plato's cave with only his on perceptions of reality to guide him. What would you do in Bob's situation? Pause here for a moment and have a think.
I think it would be reasonable to say that, almost instinctively and without much consideration, most of us when faced with a situation like this, our inner reflexive conversations would be going wild at this point. How might Bob consider himself in relation to the social context he finds himself in? What kinds of thoughts and questions might be going through his mind? I tried to make a list.
- What will my family think if I lose my job?
- What will Jane say!? If I lose my job we'll have to use our savings to get by. We had almost saved up enough money to get married.
- Should I speak to my pastor and get him to pray with me? But what if the pastor tells other people and word gets round?
- It'll be OK because the odds are in my favour? After all I've got a 70% change of keeping his job... theoretically.
- I'm the newest member of the team and I can hear his dad's voice saying,"You know what they say boy, last in first out."
- Maybe I should just keep quiet and say nothing. Maybe it will all blow over.
- Maybe I should start looking for other jobs. But there are so few jobs out there for teachers. Even if I do get a new job, it would mean having to commute and I doesn't have a car. So that would cost more money.
- Should I talk to my colleagues? Maybe I should speak to Brian, my mentor, he might have some good advice. But Brian might think I'm trying to pressure him to take a severance package. I can't do that.
- This isn't fair. I've worked hard and I want a better explanation from the boss.
...and these are only some of the thoughts that might be going through Bob's mind.
This is a new experience to Bob. He's a relatively new teacher. But in the space of a few minutes that it takes for senior management to send a departmental email to the staff or have a short meeting, he starts to recognise that his position within the organisational structure is much more fragile than he first realised.
Yes, changes to the structure of the organisation are beginning to impinge on Bob's life and the way he's reacting to this situation is unique. As Prof. Archer rightly comments, we all respond to things like this in different ways and our response will be based on our own values and concerns. But these values and concerns may well be derived from and bound up the formative years of our lives where our parents, families, social groups and communities that we were part of showed us as we were growing up. This same preconditioning is what Bourdieu highlights as the habitus. How many of us still think back to our childhood when faced with difficult situations and wonder to ourselves, "What would mum do? What would Dad do? What would Grandma say?"
But, for Bob, still with all of this reflexive conversation going through his head, he has yet to decide how to act. So, for me, this little scenario has so far highlighted that reflexivity precedes action and the nature of the reflexive conversation itself can vary depending on our own habitus. It seems to me that habitus and reflexivity are bound together in a complex relationship that stems from one's identity as an individual.
When I was thinking about Bob, one of the things that I noticed was the majority of the thoughts that went through his head were motivated by self-preservation - essentially a fear response to changing circumstances. I agree with Archer in that our chosen courses of action will largely depend on how we evaluate our own concerns. Thomson (2017) comments that the Bourdieusian concept of habitus implies that individuals are predisposed to act in certain ways. While Archer may disagree with this statement, I find it difficult to disagree with Thompson's (2017) comment that Bourdieu's thinking toolkit does not provide "proofs" but rather "truths". And the truth of Bob's situation is that he's part of more than a profession. He's part of a family and a community beyond his working life and each of those relationships are important to him too. Does Bob have the freedom to do anything he wishes in this situation? Clearly not! His actions have consequences for himself, for his reputation, for his relationship with Jane, the reputation of the school, his relationship with his students and peers... He has interests that he needs to protect.
Well, in much the same manner of the famous thought experiment known as Plato's Cave, Bob's perception of what's going on and the reality of what's happening behind the scenes are very different things (King, 2020).
So, what can he do? Bob needs more information but, where does that information come from? Well, again that will vary from person to person. While all of our sources of information may be fallible in some way, it is likely that Bob will have some sources that he will turn to. These could be his parents, his trade union representatives, his manager, his mentor... But the value he places on each of these will be based on past experience. Indeed, is it not true that we often confide in the people who have most often given us good advice in the past? And, the more often that person gives us good advice, the more easily and automatically we turn to them for support? Archer (2007) comments that reflexivity helps us to deal with novel situations and this situation is totally new to Bob. But he relies on his habitus to determine who to go to for advice.
Given any situation, if we were to evaluate each of the different courses of action available to us in a given situation, we might choose an option and initiate a project which is ultimately designed to help us to succeed in achieving our goals. While there may be some room for compromise, I think we would all agree that should our course of action fail, then by way of reflection we might be less likely to choose this course of action in the future. Perhaps we might make some adaptions or changes to our project plan under the assumption that it will help us to be more likely to succeed the next time. But what if that doesn't happen? Repeated failures in similar circumstances might then teach us automatically not to do something.
Repeated failures to perform well in job interviews might convince a person to stop trying for promotion. Repeated failures to perform well in school exams might convince a person that they're not cut out for a career in that area. Therefore, by extension, if similar situations arose in the future that person might not even attempt to succeed. By conditioning that person has adopted failure as part of their habitus and therefore the status quo is reproduced. However, in contrast, all it takes is one success and the trajectory of a person's life can be transformed. Success in a job interview can open doors to a managerial career. For young people, successful performance in an exam can open doors to numerous universities.
Ultimately, the point I'm getting at suggest that habitus does contribute to those reflexive conversations that Prof. Archer point out are so crucial in mediating the relationship between structure, culture and agency. While Archer might argue that:
"Social and cultural structures do not determine one’s subjectivity, activity, behavior, identity, or values." (Critical Realism Network, 2018)
...one might equally argue in response, where do they come from then? Indeed, as primary agents of socialisation, sociologists might argue that the structures and cultures of family and education play significant roles in the formation of one's subjectivity, behaviour, identity and values. To suggest otherwise seems an oversimplification of the concept.
Thompson (2017) highlights that, "Habitus frames and strongly shapes human action."
In situations where the absence, incompleteness or recognised fallibility of the information available is enough to cast doubt on whether a particular course of action is viable then habitus provides a frame that can guide human action. While I don't deny that reflexivity is absolutely a crucial part of understanding the theoretical process, to quote Thomson (2017):
"Bourdieu's thinking tools only become meaningful through their application to a specific project and the generation and analysis of particular data."
Therefore, perhaps there is a distinction to be made here between the ontological perspective or Archer and a methodological perspective of Bourdieu.
Bob's habitus directly influences his behaviour and by extension the way he responds to the impingement of these aspects of structure and culture on his life. The same is true of Bob's other colleagues.
Let's look at what's happening elsewhere in the department.
Brian, who is much older than Bob, is looking to retire soon. He's having significant health difficulties and would welcome the chance to take a financial severance deal. He also knows that if he goes then it reduces the risk for the rest of the team. He know's Bob's in a panic because the two of them have grown close. Brian has become Bob's mentor over the past few years since working at the school, but Brian doesn't want to say anything until he's spoken to the department head, Sandra, and had it confirmed in writing that he's got a voluntary severance package. There's no point in getting people's hopes up.
Sandra, Bob's manager, has been working with the senior team across the school and has identified opportunities that staff can take up in other departments. Daud, one of the maths teachers on her team, his degree is in Physics. So, through negotiation, she's identified that Daud could be moved to the Science department to replace one of the physics teachers who is retiring this year.
Naima, another member of Sandra's team, has handed in her resignation notice because her daily commute is too much and she's managed to secure a job at a school much nearer her home town.
But Bob doesn't know any of this yet. Think back to all of these unobservable aspects of reality that critical realists argue are so important to our understanding of causal mechanisms. Remember - Bob is stuck inside Plato's cave and is responding purely to the things he knows and understands as his reality. Will the government suddenly find new sources of funding so the school doesn't have to lose experienced staff? Will Bob hand in his notice and find work elslewhere? Or will he just keep quite and hope for the best to ride out the storm? Who knows because all of this is just a thought experiment - right?
References
Buch-Hansen, H. and Neilsen, P. (2020) Critical Realism Basics and Beyond, London, Red Globe Press.
Thompson, P. (2017) Educational Leadership and Pierre Bourdieu, London, Routledge.
Archer, M. (2007) Making our way through the world: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
SWPS University (2021) Reflexivity: mediating between Structure and Culture - prof. Margaret S. Archer [Online]. Available at: Reflexivity: mediating between Structure and Culture - prof. Margaret S. Archer - YouTube (Accessed 18th October 2023).
Critical Realism Network (2018) A tale of two systems: the perrenial debate about Archer and Bourdieu [Online]. Available at: A tale of two systems: The perennial debate about Archer and Bourdieu – Critical Realism Network (Accessed 18th October 2023).
King, P. (2020) Learn to Think Using Thought Experiments [ebook reader], San Francisco, PKCS Media.
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