Why We Can’t Go “Value-Free”

While reading chapter two of Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, the following passage caught my eye:

“He {Richard Hoggart} warns against the ‘hard-nosed unimaginativeness’ of a social science that claims to be ‘value-free,’ and argues that if we fail to recognize the unique value of certain kinds of text ‘we will sooner or later top talking about literature and find ourselves talking about history or sociology or philosophy–and probably about bad history and bad sociology and bad philosophy” (Moran, 51).

Upon seeing the words “value-free,” I immediately made a connection to my sociology class, in which we discussed the perspective of sociologist Max Weber, who believed in value-free sociology. In fact, he referred to this concept as “freedom” from values. Value-free sociology exists when human behavior is studied separately from values. For example, the principles the sociologist holds must not flow over into the sociologist’s works or findings, and the principles the subject(s) hold(s) must also not be taken into account. Of course, this is impossible as human behaviors are driven by values, so taking out the values skews the behavior and thus the sociological results.

In relation to sociology, Hoggart is saying that one must refer to two texts and connect them to each other: one, the information/sociological principle you are studying as a sociologist, and, two, your personal values, which will inevitably influence your decision and opinion on your studies. I do not agree with Weber’s claim that ridding sociology of values is “freedom.” In fact, it becomes restricting and limiting because you miss out on whole other perspectives that are erased without values. This can be seen in Hoggart’s use of the word “unimaginativeness” in relationship to implementation of value-free study.

As literary scholars, not sociologists, we can still also apply Hoggart’s ideas. First, interdisciplinarily–for example, if we are studying a piece of literature, we can look at the sociological aspects of the work and how those aspects affect the literary value of the piece. Hoggart is largely speaking of intertextuality, specifically, studying and connecting two texts, whether they be the sociological texts mentioned above, literary texts, or others. If we do not realize the importance of connecting certain texts in these such manners, we will miss out on the true meaning of the information (or the multiple meanings that it may hold). Therefore, over time, these meanings will be buried, lost.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.