I was surprised, last summer, to learn, based on three polls, that approximately half of young Quebecers supported the sovereignty project.
A paradox
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It is difficult to explain this resurgence. Various Quebec studies carried out in recent years have established that the vast majority of young people are very individualistic and live in a sort of bubble, but also within small groups of friends who share their cultural universe.
We also learned that the school exerts a very unequal influence on them, that they do not read the newspapers, watch little television, are not very interested in current affairs (except the environment), are not very politicized and neglect local cultural productions. Finally, we discovered that prolonged screen time comes with many harmful effects. Barring exceptions, the differences between boys and girls would be minimal.
Polls on support for sovereignty clearly contradict these results. Many young people would not only be made aware of political life, but they would also support in large numbers a very daring political project which invites real political reflection.
The sociological surveys mentioned above are, however, based on a rigorous methodology. Their results, moreover, overlap to a large extent. What should we think about it?
It is obvious that this anomaly (if I may be allowed this euphemism) does not make the members of my brotherhood look good. Skeptics will not fail to doubt the social sciences — and especially sociologists. The worst part is that the annals of our discipline contain other similar experiences.
A disturbing precedent
During the winter of 1968, the French daily The World invited Alain Touraine, then one of the most renowned sociologists in Europe and beyond, to deliver his thoughts on the state and future of France. The master agreed to comply and, in four installments (if I remember correctly), he published a very scholarly diagnosis of French society in its different spheres. The texts were remarkably erudite. But what was even more remarkable was that there was not the slightest hint of the explosion that would shake the country a few weeks later…
That said, Touraine nonetheless remained a great sociologist. The episode rather illustrates the difficulty of predicting the future of a society.
The case is not so rare. Here is another example. In 1999, two renowned American sociologists (John A. Hall, Charles Lindholm) took stock of their society in Is America Breaking Apart ?. Their thesis? American society is doing well: common (“sacred”) values, dynamism, strength of social bonds, converging positive factors, common visions, cohesion, etc. We know the rest.
In the “exact” sciences
Before pillorying sociologists, let’s take a look at the so-called “exact” sciences (the “pure”, the “true”). We discover that their story is not exempt from such disappointments. The very famous Luc Montagnier, discoverer of the AIDS virus and 2008 Nobel Prize in physiology-medicine, spent the last fourteen years of his life in vain defending the idea (although very clear) of the memory of water.
A second example features physicist Brian Josephson, another Nobel Prize winner who also adhered to the idea of water memory. He also claimed to have discovered “cold” nuclear fusion, a theory which went against all the knowledge accumulated in this field and which has still not caught on.
The uncertainty principle
Let us continue our foray into the “exact” sciences. In quantum mechanics, a strange phenomenon known as the uncertainty principle has been discovered. It lies in the fact that it is impossible to precisely recognize the position of an atomic (or subatomic) particle and at the same time, to measure its speed or its energy (I invite curious but busy minds to consult Google for the article “Heisenberg”).
In the same spirit, we could also evoke the no less strange divergence on the nature of light: waves or flows of corpuscles?
There is, in a way, an equivalent phenomenon in sociology. Studies on large groups of subjects reveal general features. But they are incapable of shedding light on finer realities, which studies on small groups allow. Conversely, what these microsociological observations reveal cannot be generalized.
Failure of sociology or difference of object?
What must be remembered in the case that concerns us is that small-scale sociological surveys could have captured sensitivities, aspirations, inclinations that heralded what would become sovereignist convictions. In other words, they could have discovered choices in the making. We will therefore speak here not of a failure of sociology, but of methodological specificities.
Let’s come back to Alain Touraine. Perhaps we will explain in the same way what he did not see. His analysis took a macrosociological perspective, which was inevitable given what was asked of him. Under these conditions, his study was impeccable. He nevertheless missed the essential: what was being prepared and deployed at ground level, so to speak.
If we conclude from the above that sociology is not a science, the same must be said of physics. The wisest party invites us to understand that there is no infallible knowledge (apart, of course, from revealed “truths”). But above all we will remember that each discipline constructs its approach and its knowledge according to the object it studies. However, that of the social sciences – humans in society – is malleable, moving, unpredictable. It hardly lends itself to the formulation of laws. The resulting knowledge is no less “exact” in its own way: it is adjusted to the reality under study.
