‘Disciplining’ Humanities and Social Sciences

By Nandaka Maduranga Kalugampitiya

‘Discipline’ is a buzz word today. It is one of the most invoked words, from multiple angles and for a variety of reasons, within the Sri Lankan context at the present historical juncture. We commonly encounter this word in statements, both formal and informal, made by politicians, activists, and also prominent military personnel. We also see this word figuring prominently in a spectrum of contexts, ranging from protest demonstrations to Poya-day religious discussions. The importance that the word has acquired in the present context warrants some engagement with it.

A quick Google search would return two meanings for the word/noun ‘discipline’. The first is “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.” The corresponding verb, which has the same form as the noun, means “train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.” The words ‘train’, ‘rules’, and ‘punishment’ figure prominently in this definition. According to this definition, a disciplined individual is one who has been trained to conduct herself/himself, according to a set of established rules, and who is conscious of the fact that any deviation from the rules could result in punishment. A disciplined society is a society made up of such individuals. The definition itself suggests that the ideal conduct, or behaviour, is one born out of one’s fear of punishment than out of her/his preference for that behaviour over the alternative options.

The second meaning that Google returns for the word discipline is “a branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education.” Each of the different subject areas that are studied, typically at the university level, is a discipline in this sense. If I may risk a terrible oversimplification of Foucault’s lifelong work in this area, a discipline is a historically produced body of knowledge, which is structured in a particular way and whose organisation reflects the unequal power relations that are characteristic of what enabled the creation of that body of knowledge. A discipline, in this sense, is not knowledge in some pure and objective form, nor is it the pure and objective truth; it is always a particular take on what is considered to be the truth at a particular moment in time. In simpler terms, sociology is a discipline in the sense that it is a particular take on what it defines to be the social. Similarly, physics is a discipline in the sense that it is a particular take on what it defines to be the physical. This also means that a discipline could have taken a form that is different from the form that it takes had it come into existence under different historical circumstances. And because disciplines are historically produced, the possibility of change is always already embedded within them.

The birth of the academic disciplines that we engage with today could be traced back to the Renaissance, which took place in Europe in the 15th Century. During the Middle Ages in Europe, which preceded the Renaissance, knowledge was seen as something that was always in service of God. All the bodies of knowledge, which in today’s terminology could be termed disciplines, reflected a God-centric universe. This was the case with what would today have come not only under liberal arts but also under the hard sciences. The engineering, technological, and architectural knowledge that went into the construction of magnificent structures like cathedrals in the Middle Ages could be shown as a case in point. The Romanesque innovations, such as flying buttresses, pointed arches, and ribbed vaults, which enabled the construction of massive architectural structures, were born out of the spirit of the time that underscored the supremacy of God.

The Renaissance marks the collapse of this spirit and the birth of disciplines whose focus was a human-centric universe. The new knowledge, which came into existence during this time, had to self-consciously distance itself from the kind of knowledge that celebrated the supremacy of God. This move towards humanism made questioning the existing bodies of knowledge a compulsory step in the process of knowledge construction. In this way, questioning became part of the inner life of the new disciplines; it was an integral part of the broader conceptual framework that enabled the creation of the new disciplines. To cut a long story short (and also to risk certain overgeneralisations), almost all the disciplines, that we are engaging with today, are more or less within the broader humanistic tradition, which the Renaissance brought about, or rather reinstated from the Greek Classical period. By virtue of the fact that they are within the humanistic tradition, challenging existing knowledge in every step of the way is part of the very life of those disciplines.

It is the questioning of existing knowledge that is expected to happen in research. Such questioning is expected to identify the problems and deficiencies in existing knowledge and point in the directions of possible new knowledge that addresses those problems and deficiencies. The new knowledge that thus comes into existence is expected to be questioned again. This is how knowledge is supposed to evolve. This is exactly what a scientist does. She/he raises questions about the knowledge that she/he has received, with the hope of reforming it, sometimes by filling in the gaps, sometimes by changing existing knowledge, and sometimes even by discarding existing knowledge and replacing it with new knowledge. The research that she/he carries out in the laboratory keeps the humanistic tradition alive.

Now, when it comes to many of the disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences, the laboratory where the ‘scientist’ carries out her/his research is society. The existing knowledge that she/he is supposed to question and challenge includes the rules, norms, and values of the very society, which she/he is part of. Most of the time, these rules, norms, and values are what define her/his existence, and it may even be the case that she/he and her/his loved ones benefit from them and therefore hold them dear to their heart, but as a ‘scientist’ in the area of the humanities and the social sciences, she/he should be capable of looking at them from a critical point of view. What is important here is that one cannot impose limits on the kinds of rules, norms, and values that the ‘scientist’ in the humanities and the social sciences could challenge. Imposing such limits would be similar to saying that those in medicine can conduct research only into the anatomy of the lower part of the body and not the upper part; that those in geology can study the coastal terrain and not the hilly terrain; that those in engineering can study aerodynamics and not avionics. Needless to say that such restrictions are counter-productive, but we have somehow come to accept such restrictions in the areas that come within social research. Many of the disciplines that are within the humanities and social sciences have responded to the pressure by unfortunately limiting themselves to those areas of study that are less socially sensitive or engaging with their subject matter in less socially sensitive ways. The violence that such measures have done to the disciplines in question as well as to the possibilities of knowledge production in general is huge.

So to put it bluntly, this means that being a ‘trouble-maker’ in a socially sensitive manner is an important part of the role that one in the humanities and social sciences has been historically called upon to play. This does not however mean that those in the other fields are not supposed to be ‘trouble-makers’ in a socially sensitive manner. The point is this role is specifically expected of those in the humanities and the social sciences. In fact the success of such an individual as a scholar depends on the extent to which she/he manages to play this role. One can be considered ‘disciplined’ primarily—and I would go to the extent of saying ‘only’—if she/he is capable of becoming a socially-sensitive trouble-maker. Every time she/he plays the role of a socially-sensitive trouble-maker she/he is being true to the spirit of the humanistic tradition, which defines the broadest possible framework for the production of knowledge in modern times. The inability of a programme in these fields to convert individuals into socially-sensitive trouble-makers is an indication that the programme is a failure. One knows that the public funds expended on the programmes in the humanities and the social sciences have not gone to waste if they manage to produce socially-sensitive trouble-makers. Any programme in these fields that produces citizens who remain silent in the face of social injustice has only wasted public funds expended on them.

Finally, if the first meaning of the word discipline is invoked with the express intention of censoring the role that those in the humanities and the social sciences have historically been called upon to play that says a lot about the agency that invokes that particular meaning than about anything else.

(The writer is a senior university teacher.)