One Dog or Another: Tugging at the Strands of Social Science

Abstract

On the cover of Nature and the Human Spirit: Toward an Expanded Land Ethic is a painting of an old woman at the edge of the Badlands designing quillwork on a buffalo robe. Each time the woman gets up to gather more wood for the fire, her wolf unravels all the work she has done so that when she returns she must start over. According to Lakota legend, if the old woman ever finishes her quill work it will be the end of the world (Driver, Dustin, Baltic, Elsner, & Peterson, 1996). The practice of social science is not unlike designing quillwork on a buffalo robe. As new strands of learning are woven into the fabric of policy and practice, one or another looks for an opportunity to unravel them. This means social scientists, too, must sometimes begin their work anew, and it is easy to imagine that if they ever complete their assignments it will be the end of the world as well. The dog in this case is Tom More, a research social scientist in the USDA Forest Service. His 'The Parks are Being Loved to Death' and Other Frauds and Deceits in Recreation Management (in this issue) tugs at four strands of social scientific thought underpinning much contemporary recreation resource management: 1) the idea that outdoor recreation environments are being loved to death and that their use must be restricted; 2) the idea that public sector agencies must adopt private sector strategies to survive in times of fiscal austerity; 3) the idea that benefits-based management is the best approach to delivering park and recreation services; and 4) the idea that sustainability ought to be the summum bonum of recreation resource management practices. Whether More's tugging results in an unraveling, or whether the four strands hold firm, is a judgment best left to each reader. For my part, I focus not so much on what More says in his polemic, but on what he doesn't say. I focus on what appears to be the source of his snappishness. More's argument can be distilled to the following: 1) he observes that there is great economic disparity in the United States and that the distance between the haves and have-nots is widening; 2) he observes that public agencies, largely out of concern for their own welfare, are aping the financial practices of the private sector, resulting in the haves getting even more while the have-nots get even less; 3) he argues that benefits-based management caters to the haves while neglecting the needs of the have-nots; and 4) he argues that an overarching concern for sustainability is a ruse for protecting the interests of the haves, again at the expense of the have-nots. To make matters worse, More sees social scientists and practitioners alike as unwitting apologists for a government beholden to special interests-interests he categorizes as users, legislators, management agencies, and researchers. He goes on at great length to describe how these interest groups, driven by a hunger for money and power, shape and mold the conduct of social science, including the definitions used in formulating research questions, the questions asked, and the use to which answers to those questions are put. Much of this criticism is not new. The idea that social science is value free has been challenged repeatedly. What is new is More's intimation that it's all part of a twisted plot to keep the lower classes in their place. His remedy for this sorry state of affairs is functionalism, what he describes as a clear articulation of public agency goals and objectives, such that planning for parks and recreation is guided by top line rather than bottom line thinking (Schultz, McAvoy, & Dustin, 1988). What he's really calling for is a soul search, a reexamination of our field's raison ditre. In the absence of deep reflection on first principles and fundamental purposes, he fears outdoor recreation planning and policy is merely a reactionary process governed by special interests. While I think there is an element of truth in what More says, calling the field's current practices fraudulent and deceitful is a stretch. …