Social force
Posted 04.16.2008 in Power, Physics, Science
I don’t know who first used the phrase “social force” to describe power relationships in human society, but I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and tell them to cut the crap.
I’m in the middle of an attempt to piece together a reasonably cogent response to a question about the meaning of “force” in society. Here’s how I begin:
In classical mechanics, force is equal to the product of an object’s mass and its scalar acceleration. When we’re talking about relatively common earthly objects like bowling balls and ballistic missiles, F=ma is a fairly unproblematic equation. But what happens when we apply the concept of physical force to social phenomena? Even a cursory look at definitions of force in social theory reveals a tremendous diversity of ideas about what constitutes social force, where and why it is applied, and how to study it. These notions are in many ways mutually contradictory, and in some cases they even appear to be incommensurable.
I had a fantastic physics teacher in high school who continuously praised the utility of statements like F=ma and V=IR, but he always reminded us that they only worked in Physics Land: a universe of four (and only four) dimensions, zero friction, uniform gravitational fields, perfectly elastic collisions, light that was either wave or particle (but not both), and (most importantly) no people. People are observers, so they screw up relativity. People are also agentive, so they can change their minds. Most interestingly from my perspective as a high school physics student, people could just walk away from problem sets.
Well, here I am many years later, rabidly disillusioned about the revelatory potential of the physical sciences and completely involved in the study of all those things in the universe that have absolutely nothing to do with the clean surfaces of classical mechanics. People are everywhere, with all their passions and uncertainties and frictions and complex fields of actors and objects, and now I’m once again being asked to explain force–in no uncertain terms.
As I wade through this monstrosity of a response paper, I can’t help but wonder if social theory ever really got past Newton’s apple, or if it’s still on vacation in Physics Land.
[Note that the yellow area under the curve is J, or power. F(t) is a function of force, but it isn’t force itself. You can’t even see force in the graph. The closest you get is the vertical axis, which is itself implicated in power. Axes are chosen in order to show that power has a particular shape; as a result, force emerges from this analysis as nothing more than a chimera, itself an invention of the dynamics of power of which it is supposed to be an explanation.]
5 Responses to “Social force”
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I don’t think it counts as a direct link, but Nicola Tesla made a similar analogy in 1900 (!):
“Hence, wherever there is life, there is a mass moved by a force […] When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to, the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? […] Conceive, then, man as a mass urged on by a force. Though this movement is not of a translatory character, implying change of place, yet the general laws of mechanical movement are applicable to it, and the energy associated with this mass can be measured, in accordance with well-known principles, by half the product of the mass with the square of a certain velocity. […] But our deficiency in this knowledge will not vitiate the truth of the deductions I shall draw, which rest on the firm basis that the same laws of mass and force govern throughout nature. […] Man, however, is not an ordinary mass, consisting of spinning atoms and molecules, and containing merely heat-energy. He is a mass possessed of certain higher qualities by reason of the creative principle of life with which he is endowed […]”
And so on! (And on, and on, and on. It’s a great, albeit long-winded, article.) Personally, I think it’s important to recognise when you’re talking about these sorts of things that it’s really a broad analogy you’re drawing, so you can use such crude “physics” to talk about social interaction. But no-one’s claiming that it’s actually a mathematical model to describe how we behave
This is all coming from an engineer with precious little idea on such matters from the social sciences point of view…
Sorry, the URL in my reply seems to have been eaten. Damn my habit of wrapping URLs in angular brackets! Try this: http://www.tfcbooks.com/TESLA/1900-06-00.htm
It’s true, the practice of humanness (whatever that means?, yikes!) is not condensed matter physics…
http://tamjackson.blogspot.com/2008/01/condensed-matter-physics.html
Ah, but even though I think the SF curriculum is trying to hard to describe something it doesn’t understand, I can’t blame it really; I do the same thing — everyday, with every utterance — I suppose.
Further thoughts:
F is an abstract quantity represented by a vertical line. F(t) is a line, extended over time, that represents force. The graph therefore shows three representations of force: a dimension, a temporal abstraction, and finally, the graph itself as image.
Force must always be represented as an absolute quantity, because force always goes both ways. Therefore force is scalar, as it possesses no direction inherent to itself.
Force is therefore a snapshot of an abstraction–useful, perhaps, to explain certain relationships at certain times for certain (always political) purposes, but never as an object that withstands dissection.
But you’ve just dissected it…or at least made visible parts of its abstraction.
Your above anatomization was made according to terms and rules of one discipline, but maybe force has been appropriated and changed to something else, something that does not always have to be represented as a frozen, absolute quantity.