Are the social sciences a waste of time?

“So, should they invade?”

The class was silent, although not for lack of opinions. Rather, it was like hesitating before diving in cold water. You know you’re going to do it. You just need a moment of subtle cowardice first.

I glanced at my notes. Others did the same. We were discussing when one country was justified in intervening in another using military force to protect a domestic population. Most of my classmates had a healthy cynicism of this kind of thing. I decided to take a stab at the question.

“I think we can use some objective metrics as a guide? Like suffering. It’s not all relative. Maybe there’s a moral justification for intervention in cases that would clearly impact those metrics.”

Another student raised his hand. The teacher acknowledged him with a nod. “But where do you draw the line? Most of us agree something probably should have been done in Rwanda. But what about Libya? Or Iraq in 2003? When you open the door for interpretation like that it usually means states end up doing whatever they want whenever they want.” 

I didn’t have a great response, but someone else did. So they made a comment and moved the discussion forward.

That’s the way these classes went: a point made by one student would inspire somebody else with a related idea. Sometimes there were disagreements. Sometimes there were specific case studies being discussed. Sometimes there were awkward silences that the teacher tried to help us move past. Discussions like these, along with a lot of reading and essay writing, were a key part of my education in the social sciences. There are plenty of critics of such an education, deeming it too easy at best and a waste of time at worst. But I believe that, if approached with the right mindset, studying the social sciences can be helpful in making students better thinkers.

Let’s take a look at the topic we were discussing in class: military intervention. What might lead a superpower to intervene in the domestic affairs of another state? Numerous variables can play a role, ranging from domestic political institutions to military power and human nature. Each variable may vary in its importance, and they may impact each other in different ways. Perhaps the head of state will do whatever they can to improve their chances of winning any upcoming elections. Or maybe they’ll prioritize having a position of power relative to other countries. Or maybe they only want to be stronger than governments they see as a threat and this perception depends on their cultural values. There are nearly countless possible relationships. At the same time, like my classmate mentioned, the empirical track record also needs to have a say on the matter. Sometimes the evidence is contradictory. Variables may be more, or less, prevalent in certain examples. 

To see the type of mental gymnastics required to take all of this into account, consider how David Epstein describes a conversation with psychologist and political scientist Philip Tetlock:

“[He] would start in one direction, then interrogate himself and make an about-face. He drew on economics, political science, and history to make one quick point about a current debate in psychology, and then stopped on a dime and noted ‘But if your assumptions about human nature and how a good society needs to be structured are different, you would see this completely differently.’ When a new idea entered the conversation, he was quick with ‘Let’s say for the sake of argument,’ which led to him playing out viewpoints from different disciplines or political or emotional perspectives. He tried on ideas like Instagram filters until it was hard to tell which he actually believed.” 

This is the type of thinking that a social sciences education ought to develop – if done right. It requires a willingness to explore many lenses and arguments and assumptions and values. It mimics, in the head of a single person, what happens organically in a class discussion. In one word, it’s all about flexibility. 

Yet this fluidity is only half the story. Students also need to simplify complexity. That’s where essays come in. When writing one, they usually start with definitions, assumptions, and the methods they’ll use. That lays the groundwork for the discussion to come, but still requires careful analysis. Students then make their argument, ideally being a single, coherent, and sophisticated line of thinking that is consistent both theoretically and empirically. No easy task. It requires finding clarity in the messy nature of reality. Flexibility, which thrives in chaos, needs to be married to order. This mirrors what will be required of them in real life. They’ll need to be able to analyze problems from many different angles, look for many potential paths forward, and choose the best one available.

That’s not to say these benefits are guaranteed. Rather, the social sciences merely help create the possibility of improving students’ thinking. That’s only half the job. Students still need the right mindset to reap these rewards, something many – if not most – don’t have. They need to truly open their minds before they learn to be flexible and capable of effective synthesis. They then need to make a point out of applying these habits beyond the limited scope of formal education. This is usually not accomplished but is very much within reach if taken seriously.

So are the social sciences a waste of time? That’s for you to decide. At the very least, they offer an exciting journey, especially when undertaken with others, whether in a classroom, a library, or the local pub. This alone makes it worth every second spent reading dry academic texts, every second spent trying to salvage an essay beyond salvation, every second spent coming up with a grand theory of politics. Whatever potential benefits it may have for our thinking (and there are plenty of those) are just a nice bonus.

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