Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[marct]

Hi Stan,

Sounds like this thread goes straight back to Marc's "Why Doctor Johnny won't go to war".

It is all part of the same issue.

I won't even pretend to understand the pathetic attack that Doctors McFate and Price concocted stressing the need for 'crytical 'self' evaluation' and freely using native populations as if we were all in Africa fighting the Pygmies for floor space in the jungle.

Um, McFate? She is the one who has been vilified to most by the Price Gusterson crowd who wrote the "pledge". It think you have her confused with someone else, Stan .

Well, that's my take...confusion, when one considers the immense amount of intelligence these individuals have, yet are content to go to the grave with it despite soldiers and 'natives' dying all around them.

And that is a moral argument that, IMO, has a chunk of weight.

It goes back to what Rex was talking about regarding professional codes of ethics (aka professional morality).

The second issue is the tensions that arise from one's professional responsibility as a social scientist, and one's potential function as a counter-insurgent. Academic social scientists are suppose to live by a series of research ethics that, for example, require disclosure research project to most interviewees, disclosure of data and findings, informed consent, and very stringent safeguards for interviewing involuntary subjects (such as prisoners) or those otherwise unable to give informed consent. HUMINT collection, IO, PSYOPS, etc all work rather differently, as does providing professional advice in these areas. There are some potentially troubling professional and ethical implications of moving back and forth between both worlds.

I agree, there are some troubling implications about shifting back and forth. But I think that one reason behind the existence of the professional moral codes that has not been examined is that they serve as a guarantor to the state which, ultimately, serves to legitimate and legitimize these professions. This, in turn, implies that these codes are no more that prophylactic mechanisms to avoid state and/or popular censure - a guarantee of moral "purity" as it were.

Marc