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scientist must regularly go to where his phenomena exist, because they can't be carried to the campus, as
in geology and stratospheric research - if he is to learn anything new about his subject and not simply
chew over what other men have said.
Is it not obvious that in order to study politics scientifically it is necessary to spend a lot of time where
politics is going on?
I have at hand a letter from a friend of mine who is a professional political scientist, with all that years of
post-graduate training in one of the most famous schools can give him. However he has had no
experience in active politics. He writes:
"Do you think experience or practice in politics essential to an improvement in political interaction? I am
a believer in empiricism in most things but believe that much more can be accomplished by scientific
methods than by experience in government. That is, I feel that a man might be an effective partisan all his
life, but end it with no greater ability to accomplish desirable political changes than in the beginning."
The above paragraph exhibits such complex confusion that I hardly know where to start. Let us begin by
conceding that a man may be a very effective field worker in politics and still not do any good in the long
run if his work is not enlightened by information and
understanding in current affairs, history, economics, sociology, and many other things. Politics is the
broadest of human subjects and we have dealt only with one narrow field of it herein.
But how can a man hope to "accomplish desirable political changes" if he is not experienced in the
mechanisms by which political changes are brought about? For that matter will he know a desirable
political change when he sees one, unless he has rubbed shoulders with the crowded millions off campus?
But note the orientation, note how he contrasts "empiricism" and "experience" as being the opposite of
"scientific methods." The sad fact is that all of his degrees and training have not exposed him to the basic
idea of the scientific method. All scientific knowledge comes from experience, experience as concrete as
careful observation, careful measurements, and careful experimentation can make it. "Empiricism" is a
word with several related meanings; in scientific methodology it is usually used to refer to an early stage in
an investigation when the observer has too few facts too inaccurately observed to permit him to make
more than rough generalizations as his hypothesis. Politics is largely at the empirical stage because of its
extreme complexity. Empiricism is appropriate to politics; no other scientific approach is possible.
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Unfortunately, other approaches are possible; one is the method of armchair speculation of the
philosopher. It is the classic method in this field, used by Plato, Aristotle, Spencer, and Marx - and the
work of each is vitiated by it. They might as well have spent their time debating how many angels can
dance on the point of a needle. But the method is still popular!
Is it too much to hope that some day someone will found a school of government which will include as
one of its required laboratory courses active field work in at least one campaign? And then perhaps to
require something as
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Robert A. Heinlein
strenuous and unacademic as serving a term in a county committee, or running for office, or managing a
campaign, or undertaking to lobby a bill through a state legislature, before awarding graduate degrees
which entideaman to refer to himselfasapotitical scientist?
I feel wistful about it. Honest-to-goodness trained men could do so much good in public life if only we
had a few more of them. Afterthoughts and Minutiae:
Don't put campaign literature in mailboxes other than through the matis. Postal regulations forbid it.
There is a small duplicating set available suitable for postal cards, which costs about a dollar. Sears
Roebuck used to have them and probably does now. It uses mimeograph ink and a hand roller. Gelatine
duplicators, hectograph-type process, and looking like a child's slate, may be had for three or four
dollars in sizes which will take either postal cards or standard
business stationery.
Unpredictable coincidences can play hob with a carefully planned campaign, leaving you nothing to do
but laugh it off and forget it. I happened to pick the year to run for office that found the Nazi Sudetenland
Fuehrer in the headlines; his name differs in spelling from mine by one letter!
In making a committee report it is diplomatic to say "your committee" instead of "the committee."
The difference between a caucus and an ordinary majority action is parallel to the difference between the
Constitution and the laws which are made under it. A constitution is an agreement-to-agree-in-the-future,
along certain lines and to serve certain known ends. So is a caucus. This may make it easier for you to
explain it
to the uninitiated.
Anti-handbill ordinances, anti-bill posting ordinances, and ordinances which forbid street-speaking and
park-speaking without a permit should be
TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT! 245
opposed by all persons and parties devoted to democracy and freedom, as the avenues these
ordinances close off are historically the only ones available at times to the poor and unpowerful. I am
aware that it is a nuisance to have your doorstep littered with throw-away pamphlets, but it is still more of
a nuisance to be thrown into a concentration camp. Democracy is worth a few nuisances.
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