Explanation and Power: The Control of Human Behavior

I. Explanation

I EXPLANATION An inquiry into any area of interest yields, if one judges the effort to be successful, an explanation. But the difficulty of explaining human behavior lies in this: an explanation of human behavior is itself a mode of human behavior. No matter how carefully we may observe nonver­ bal behavior, no matter what safeguards for that observation we may set up, no matter how exacting the controls, we still must state our conclusions, our explanations of that nonverbal behavior, in verbal behavior. We must use the language of verbal behavior to talk about explanation, but then we must use the language of explanation to talk about verbal behavior or any kind of human behavior. To discuss either, we must have a verbally constructed theory of the other, or we must "understand" it; that is, we must have an explanation of it. To explain behavior, we must have an explanation of explanation; but to have an explanation of explanation, we must first have an explanation of behavior. From one point of view a theory of explanation logically subsumes a theory of behavior, but from another and equally valid point of view a theory of behavior logically subsumes a theory of explanation. But a theory of behavior is an explanation, although, to be sure, a theory of explanation is a mode of verbal behavior. Where to begin: with behavior or with explanation? Puzzling as this seems, the obvious answer is before us. I have already engaged in verbal behavior, and that behavior is an example of explanation, even though as yet nothing much has been explained. If one raises the question about which is logically prior, behavior or explanation, it is evident that one is explaining that there is a problem. One is already engaged in explanation. The logical priority is of no significance. But the behavioral priority is clear; it is explanation. To define behavior, then, one must first define explanation, for that is where one begins. It is not a matter open to choice. By writing, I 2 EXPLANATION AND POWER have already made the decision. But this means, unfortunately, that behavior must remain undefined for the time being. After explanation is clarified, behavior can be clarified; and then explanation can be further clarified, and its place in behavior can be comprehended. Explanation is ubiquitous in human behavior, so omnipresent that to understand it, even incompletely, is to develop an insight that no other insight can match. Explanation is found constantly, at all levels of culture, in every kind of social organization, in every human situation. In what are called the higher studies—philosophy, the sciences, the study of the humanities—men devote their lives merely to explanation and do little else, certainly nothing else that makes them different from the rest of mankind. And even in this activity they are merely specializ­ ing in and concentrating on a mode of behavior that everyone engages in. Politics, for example, is the art of persuading the public and other politicians that action is properly taken on the basis of the explanation of what are perceived as problems amenable to political manipulation. Politics is engaged in social management, but so is business, and so indeed are a husband and wife, or two friends, or two children in rivalry over which will play in how much of the sandbox and with what toys. We cannot manage others without explanation, nor can we man­ age ourselves. We justify our actions and our plans by explaining their importance—their value—both to ourselves and to others. Social in­ teraction without explanation is inconceivable; it may be the very condition of human existence. Yet in these simple statements lurks a number of traps, snake pits which are ordinarily leapt over, or skirted, or covered up, or bridged, but which nevertheless are there. What is more, these traps and snake pits are concealed and ignored by two disciplines which claim that they are doing just the reverse—the disci­ plines of philosophy and psychology. What lies in the path of under­ standing explanation, and thus of behavior, are certain words. These two disciplines have taken possession of these words, have asserted themselves to be their proper custodians, and fiercely resent and resist the efforts of anyone else to use them in ways they disapprove of or with an understanding they have not validated. They claim to have cleared up much in how these words are used, but they have cleared up very little, if anything...