Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Fiduciary Responsibility and Improbability Principle 113
exchange some years ago between Gustav Ichheiser and the late
Louis Wirth. Ichheiser rather innocently pointed out that "It is a
universal human fact that people tend to consider different those
who look different.... minorities are likely to interpret as a plot
what is only a natural majority reaction to personal differences." 32
Wirth wrote that these statements could not possibly be correct
because there were people who had been socialized to ignore differences
in skin color and hair form. Furthermore, he added that
"White people who even share more intimate experiences with
Negroes [than dancing] are not necessarily deceiving themselves
in thinking there is no significant difference between them." 33
Wirth said that the ability to discern differences and to relate
oneself to people in terms of these recognized differences was
prejudice. "I ... consider anyone prejudiced who ... approaches
a new experience with a preconceived judgment and assigns that
experience to a preformed category." 34 Prejudice clearly is not, by
this definition, a valid concept, since the typical relationship of
man to man is based on such classification, not to mention the
relationship of man to maid.
Wirth's scientific language was gracefully expressed when he
vented his spleen (scientifically?) on Ichheiser, thus:
As far as I know, no one with any sens,e in the field of race relations
[i.e., no scientist] seeks to deny differences in physical characteristics
[This excludes the physical anthropologists cited above, because they
have no sense] or even in cultural characteristics. They do, however,
object to the chauvinistic [scientific epithet?] racialist suggestion that
the two invariably [Italics added. Very high positive correlation which
absolutely nobody suggests] go together.
Ichheiser concluded by a resort to analogy:
We treat dogs and cats as two different animals, not because of a
cultural definition, but because cats and dogs look different, and if
social scientists (as presidents of a council on dog-cat relations) would
start to convince the common man that dogs and cats are alike, and
"only" look different, the sole result of such an action would be that
the common man would start to laugh about social scientists. Even
dogs and cats themselves would not accept this redefinition. 35