What I have learnt recently: Harold Dwight Lasswell

Friday, May 4, 2012

Harold Dwight Lasswell

Harold Dwight Lasswell (1902-1978)

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Various intellectual methodological approaches such as interviewing techniques, content analysis, para-experimental techniques, and statistical measurement were originated, developed and applied by Lasswell long before these methodologies become standards, and famous across a variety of intellectual traditions that all of us, students and researchers are taken for granted.

Harold Dwight Lasswell is seen by many as the father of policy sciences. He was a prolific author, and authored over 30 books and 250 articles. "He was the most original and productive political scientist of his time" (Almond, 1987: 249).

Marvlck (1980: 219) states that “throughout the half century of his career, Harold D. Lasswell remained an intellectual iconoclast.” In a biographical memorial written by Gabriel Almond at the time of Lasswell's death (1978), Lasswell "ranked among the half dozen creative innovators in the social sciences in the twentieth century." (Almond, 1987: 249).

It was Lasswell who coined the term “the policy sciences,” (Farr, Hacker & Kazee, 2006: 1) now this phrase is all over the world of academic and research. In his book, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, Lasswell (1938) states that politics is the resolution of conflict over “who gets what, when, how?”

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According to Lasswell (1942), the liberal, democratic state did not succeed in harmonizing professed ideal and effective policy, partly because in the policy process, the democratic elements in the ideal were left undeveloped. Some shortcomings of liberal, democratic states have been failures of policy and intelligence. The paper stresses the important and critical role of intelligence (which has been neglected) in the policy process and analysis.

Marvlck (1980: 229) beautifully states that “Lasswell's approach was substantive; his concerns were humane; his influence has been cumulative. In his lifetime, he did a great deal. He did it all in a style that was inimitable and memorable”.

Lasswell (1971: 3) affirmed of his intellectual credo as follow:

Surely the qualified scientist is a participant observer of events who tries to see things as they are. He demands of himself, and of anyone who purports to be a scientist, that he suppresses no relevant fact and that he holds all explanations tentatively, and therefore open to revision if more adequate explanations are proposed . . . . Anyone worthy of the name of scientist must be able to struggle with considerable success against jealousy, envy, bigotry, and any other attitude that interferes with clarity of perception and judgment.

According to Encyclopedia of World Biography (2004), there is no biographical study of Lasswell. Perhaps one of us should do it.

(There are many things to talk about Lasswell, I will continue it later. I have to do other things :-))

References

Almond, G. A. (1987) Harold Dwight Lasswell (1902-1978): A Biographical Memoir. Washington D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved May 4, 2012, from http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/hlasswell.pdf

Encyclopedia of World Biography (2004), Harold Dwight Lasswell. Retrieved May 04, 2012 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404703735.html

Farr, J. S., Hacker, J. S. & Kazee, N. (2006) The Policy Scientist of Democracy: The Discipline of Harold D. Lasswell. In American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, No. 4 November. 2006. Retrieved May 4, 2012, from http://www2.lse.ac.uk/CPNSS/events/Abstracts/HIstoryofPoswarScience/Farr%20et%20al%20final%20proof.pdf

Lasswell, H. D. (1938) Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lasswell, H. D. (1942) The Relation of Ideological Intelligence to Public Policy. In Ethics, Vol. 53, No. 1, Oct., 1942. pp. 25-34. Retrieved March 10, 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2988844.

Lasswell, Harold D. (1971). A Pre-View of the Policy Sciences. New York: American Elsevier.

Marvlck, D. (1980) The Work of Harold D. Lasswell: His Approach, Concerns, and Influence. In Political Behavior. Vol. 2, No. 3, 1980. New York: Agathon Press (pp. 219-229). Retrieved May 4, 2012, from www.springerlink.com/index/x0424l58h207167m.pdf

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No matter we know them or not, we acknowledge, appreciate, are grateful, give credits to them, or not, there were, are, and will be always one person, or a couple of persons, or a small group of persons who started, visualised, hypothesised, tested, developed and standardised these grand methodologies, theories, discoveries, philosophies, or even religions.

I am going to reintroduced them to us again.

I am going to reconnect theories, discoveries, seminal works to their intellectual and philosophical fathers and mothers who gave birth these intellectual advancements that make our lives more rich, more meaningful, more colourful, more efficient, more peaceful, but also sometime (but unintentionally I hope) more dangerous, more stressful, more busy.

All of them built by people like me. (Columbus)

Sanchez: [Columbus stops Sanchez after he leaves an audience with the Queen. Sanchez looks at him, disgusted] You're a dreamer.

Columbus: [shooting a glance out of a window] Tell me, what do you see?

Sanchez: [pausing to look] I see rooftops, I see palaces, I see towers, I see spires that reach... to the sky! I see civilisation!

Columbus: All of them built by people like me.

[Sanchez doesn't respond - shocked]

Columbus: No matter how long you live, Sanchez, there is something that will never change between us. I did it. You didn't.

Ref: In Memorable quotes from the movie, 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992). Retrieved May 9, 2012, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103594/quotes

My Slumber Train

I call it a train but it’s, in fact, a series of evening lectures, throughout the whole night. It’s my slumber train that’s sending me to my destiny, helping me connect with the nature, the humanity and the Enlightenment.

My evening and night have never been boring. It's always a great journey of learning. Along my sleeping rail, throughout the whole night. I travel across the history, meet with greatest minds of the world, learn philosophies and theories that shape the world.

There I meet with the greatest minds of our civilizations. I talk with them about the greatest thoughts, theories and philosophies. I ask them, learn from them, study them, try to understand them. They explain me, teach me, mentor me. They show me how they think and how they see things and nature and the world. They share me their experiences and insights, their concerns and fears, their visions and hopes

Last night I started from Modes and Orders of Machiavelli, then passed the Sovereign State of Hobbes and later Constitutional Government of Lock. In the morning, I woke up at the Democracy and Participation of Rousseau.

This weekend, I was in two Utopias; of Plato and of Thomas More. I visited their schools, learned their educational programme, attended their classes, met their students and studied their curriculum.

Last several months ago, I was at Socrates’ trial and listened to his Apology. Then I visited Plato’s Academy and also his famous cave. I was also with Aristotle when he absconded Athens while wisely uttering ‘I do not wish to see the Athenians sin against philosophy for a second time ’

During the Dark Age, I was in Europe, witnessing the arrival of Enlightenment era. I was with Voltaire and Rousseau just before France revolution started.

My slumber train also sent me to Italy, to meet Cicero, Machiavelli, and Thomas Aquinas, then sent me to England, to talk with Locke, Newton and Keynes.

It also sent me to Scotland, to see Smith and Hume and Darwin, then to the Vienna, to discuss with Mises, Hayek, and Wittgenstein.

While others’re enjoying their evenings, with friends, alcohol, songs, movies, or parties or clubs, every evening I fondly attend my slumber train, religiously, perusing, contemplating and delving as deeply as I can into reflections on economics, philosophy, and politics.

Myo
19 June 2011, Sunday. 04:14 p.m.

Note: It is from my long-nurtured thoughts. I wrote one line and left it, then wrote another line and forgot it again. It will be a continuous written and revising note, adding more thoughts whenever they appear to my mind and imagination. My slumber train is going to tell a story of our history of civilization through the stories of greatest persons who shape, save, change, help, enrich, and develop our world.