RationalJustification

MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | Categories

: aka ConvenientRationale

In organizations, people strive not to just act. They spend a considerable amount of time trying to act in a rational manner. This effort leads to a body of knowledge that tries to explain why people act in the way they do through RationalJustifications. If you can bear with some WordMagic, this combination of the body of knowledge and its associated practices and power dynamics has been termed discourse by Foucault. It differs from pure action in that it is tied to a wider theory that is intended to be logical and pure.

In many ways, this intentionality behind the creation of discourses is part of the "meta-discourse" of Modernism. Indeed, they only gain their social value by drawing from the commonly held Modern belief that there are more rational (and therefore better) and less rational (and therefore worse) ways of acting, and that the only hope for humanity is to find the most rational ways of acting and then following the prescribed rationale in our actions.

Being capable (able and allowed) to act is the definition of power. Power has a property whereby it begets more power, simply because those able to act will act to preserve their own survival, which often involves gaining more power to protect against larger players, which often means taking power from weaker players. Once acquiring the StableBase of their own survival, people will seek to act on their objectives, some of which may require more power than a person has today. This again motivates the acquisition of more power.

Because most power is governed socially (as opposed to naturally), in order to gain the most amount of power, one needs to attract the largest group of (powerful) people into your affairs. This seeming paradox, where the more people involved in your life the more free you are to act, makes sense when you realize that being isolated is completely disempowering. Latour (1987) covers this in great detail in Chapter 5, Insiders out. No scientific or industrial feat could be performed before one AlignInterest?"s with those who wield the needed power to carry out the act. Indeed, the task is one of making those powers pass through your interests, so they are dependent on the successful outcome of your objective.

As a result, because in a Modernist social organization every action must have a RationalJustification in order to meet the approval of that society, people find themselves forced to derive rationales after the fact. Argyris and Schön (1978) have consequently suggested there are two theories of action. The internal theories or "mental maps" (in their terms) that are implicit in how we act are theories-in-use; these are what helps us navigate through the day. The theories we only use to explain our actions to others (and our consciences) either before when seeking permission or afterwards when seeking forgiveness are called espoused theories.

However, this practice can be generalized in a Modern world. Whenever there is a social group with whom you need to AlignInterest?, it works in your favour to find a convenient rationale to convince them to pass through your interests. If the government is responsible for preventing the spread of contagious disease, they are forced by mere logic to AlignInterest? with any (reputable) lab that claims to have the needed vaccine. Otherwise, they have failed to meet their SocialContract, which for governments is written down in logic--i.e. legalese (cf. Habermas, Popper).

It can be further generalized to any society. Whenever there is a social group with whom you need to AlignInterest?, find the levers that motivate their own actions and offer to manipulate those levers for them in a manner that is favourable to them. We are all marrionettes to the pressures we face in life. If you have power, you can pull their strings. If you need power, find a way to put their own strings into their own hands that requires you in some way. They will gladly give it to you. We cannot cut our strings, but we can grab them.

This dual process can be seen often in democratic politics. A large subset of the population is disempowered for some reason, either economic or based on BaseIdentity? such as ethnicity, religion, or sex for examples. A party emerges that plays to the emotional discontent of this group, often overtly. The party does not often need a RationalJustification in order to capture support of this group, who will be called their core supporters. However, if the subset is a minority, they have to publicly state a RationalJustification that is palatable to the wider public. While in office, they will look for ways to promote their core supporters' agenda, but since this often takes more than one term, they have to stick to the RationalJustification that the rest of the society wants. (And the best part about democracy: often this is done completely transparently.)

The converse conclusion to having a RationalJustification is that any idea that has achieved currency with some population must speak to their personal interests and objectives, or else they would not all have put their time and energy and power into promoting and propping up and defending and building that idea. Thus, whenever one studies a popular idea (or popular product, or popular place, etc.), one should also understand the underlying motivations of the constituency of supporters for that idea.

And the ultimate converse conclusion is to realize that ideas are cheap. Again, to act is to have power is to act. The only Big Ideas that can be enacted are those that

have currency amongst those with power (e.g. venture capital),
redirect social power towards the intended interest (e.g. the ebb and flow of scientific investment following new discoveries),
or that lead to the formation of new power (e.g. good: teaching people how to code so OpenSource is preferred over proprietary software; bad: formations of militias).

CategoryPower

References

Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.

Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. London: Tavistock.

Foucault, M. (1972). The archaelogy of knowledge London: Tavistock.

Habermas, J. TheStructuralTransformationOfThePublicSphere?. ...

Popper, K. TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemies?. (OpenSociety) ...

Discussion

I think society trains people to act as RationalEgoist? and sell their intents as CommonGood? using a RationalJustification. Most political changes (tax changes, laws, ...) are sold by "economic advantages (for all)" although one has to assume that special interests are served. -- HelmutLeitner

This page is a great starting place, I would like to nail down some practical advice for those entering communities or situations in which a convenient RationalJustification has been adopted, or for challenging such a rationale. (As usual I am marching firmly at a tangent from what others seem to see as the vital aspects of the topic.) Once this page has had some time to be refined I am likely to start putting this sort of thing in, but let's see where it goes. -- JasonCorley