I just responded to this post at The Monkey Cage, about this column by David Brooks. Figured I'd post it here too, as the blog takes a swerve toward poli sci (some of the time)...

I remember reading in one of Brooks' books a line, no doubt frustrating to many social scientists, that suggested: "one needs to tolerate the imprecision of the poetic if one can truly understand the essence of a people, place, or thing." While Brooks might doubt the ability of any science to capture the essential feelings and "ancient insights" of a complex problem like addiction, he is not totally dismissive of "Enlightenment" thinking. Brooks suggests that AA works for people on a very mysterious, unscientific basis (for a vastly more thorough exploration of the topic read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest), and I would be inclined to believe him. Sure, studies of AA's effectiveness ought to guide its public promotion, but those studies miss the personal part of the picture. AA was designed "to arouse people’s spiritual aspirations rather than just appealing to rational cost-benefit analysis;" it addresses a spiritual crisis (addiction) with a spiritual solution. In slightly more scientific terms, it changes fundamental attitudes and dispositions some of the time, for some people. Brooks is not saying that science has no business fighting deep and spiritual problems like addiction - but simply that a rational analysis (within the specific program) fails to capture the intricacies of the problem. No perpetual drunk can be swayed with the promise of a better life and a rewarding job - only through specific social supports and an almost religious devotion to a higher power can he or she freely choose sobriety, much of the time. Thus Brooks concludes that "the business of changing lives" is not a game of costs and benefits, which I think anyone familiar with addiction would agree with.

The tricky question is how and if social sciences can capture and apply those ancient, personal insights when devising public policy. I think they can. While for Brooks, a great work of literature might always hit the ineffable target better than a precision guided case study, I don't doubt that he'd find scientific investigations of unconscious dispositions and deeply felt emotions (and addiction) useful. I read this column as polemic directed against game-theorists and behavioral psychologists who pretend to know all the answers when they clearly do not. Brooks' essential point - that human beings are not rational creatures - is a valid one, and Enlightenment thinking will never completely understand our selves.

Couple Stories

why not feel the magic of good fiction: Amy Hemple

and here's Wells Tower: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned