Tarde!
Society explains nothing but has to be explained (Tarde 1999a, 1999b). If it is to be accounted for, it will be, by definition, through the presence of many other little things that are not social by nature, but only social in the sense that they are associated with one another (p. 113).
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In order to obtain objectivity as they understand it, social scientists try to find cases where their human subjects are as little prone as possible to influence the result. For this, the only solution is to render him or her unaware of what is manipulating his or her behaviour, as for instance in the famous Milgram experiment about the inner cruelty of American students. While the actor is held by forces unbeknownst to him or her, only the scientist is ‘in the know’, producing what is taken as solid knowledge since it is untainted by the subjective reaction of the participants. The scientist is disinterested and the subject uninterested in what is by definition unknown. The set up seems ideal for producing a science of humans as hard as that of natural objects, since human subjects have no influence whatsoever on what is said about them (p. 115).
If social scientists wanted to become objective, they would have to find the very rare, costly, local, miraculous, situation where they can render their subject of study as much as possible able to object to what is said about them, to be as disobedient as possible to the protocol, and to be as capable to raise their own questions in their own terms and not in those of the scientists whose interests they do not have to share! (p. 116)
Latour, B. (2000). When things strike back: A possible contribution of `science studies’ to the social sciences. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 107-123
