Commentary on the Commentaries

Abstract

I MUST CONFESS to being somewhat disappointed by the general tenor of commentary on Dilemmas of Educational Development. It should be clear enough to the reader by now that three of the authors of rejoinders share so few of my premises and indeed disagree so markedly with my conception of the nature of the social sciences and their relation to policy that there is probably little virtue in attempting to join issue with them. Given my assumptions, whether my critics agreeper se with some of my prescriptions or not is largely irrelevant since it is evident that either explicitly or implicitly they largely share the view that the problems of the less developed countries can only be tackled through some monumental alteration of the existing world order perhaps through revolutionary action leading to a socialist society. If one accepts this kind of premise, then, of course, all attempts at social engineering are to failure and amount to nothing more than meaningless tinkering with an already doomed social system. This view is most clearly set forth in Professor Carnoy's piece and I do not wish to take up many pages of the Review in an attempt to question his commentary (indeed this kind of debate has been going on for as long as man has been considering the nature of social change and the possibility of directed social transformation), but I hope I shall not be considered too facetious, in relating a not entirely irrelevant anecdote. Some years ago, a good friend, a not inconsiderable Marxist theoretician who shared some of Professor Carnoy's views, earned his living by running a hostess business in London. Upon my asking him how he could reconcile his revolutionary stance with the nature of his commercial activities he answered that in his own small way he was contributing to the destruction of the capitalist order. His rejoinder was clearly unanswerable but lest any reader be disconcerted by this triumph of apparent vice masquerading as virtue I should add that at a later date a British judge was singularly unimpressed by his line of argument and gave him a rather lengthy opportunity to further ponder the relation between the inevitabilities of social change and the most productive way of working for the coming revolution. I should state, therefore, that I do not believe a melioration of the human condition is likely to be achieved through revolutionary transformation and consider it perfectly possible to achieve a measure of development essentially through pragmatic means. It is significant, I think, in this regard to note that not one of the present commentators had any really constructive alternatives to suggest: whether this stemmed entirely from revolutionary preoccupations or the simple absence of anything useful to say is not clear. The fact remains that in the Less Developed Countries hard decisions continually have to be made concerning the nature of educational systems and the resources to be allocated to them in the