Harvard's Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science

Patrick L. Schmidt recounts how prominent social scientists in the 1930s, marginalized for pursuing Freudian and Jungian theories, persuaded Harvard to create a new Department of Social Relations. This interdisciplinary department aimed to surpass economics, government, and history but ultimately failed to achieve that goal. Despite this, it attracted outstanding faculty, produced important work, and trained notable graduates. The narrative includes scandals: Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert giving psilocybin to students, and Henry Murray's traumatic experiment on Theodore Kaczynski. Central is Talcott Parsons' obsessive quest for a unified social science theory. The story serves as a cautionary tale of academic infighting, hubris, and scandal.

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Abstract

In Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science, Patrick L. Schmidt tells the little-known story of how some of the most renowned social scientists of the twentieth century struggled to elevate their emerging disciplines of cultural anthropology, sociology, and social and clinical psychology. Scorned and marginalized in their respective departments in the 1930s for pursuing the controversial theories of Freud and Jung, they persuaded Harvard to establish a new department, promising to create an interdisciplinary science that would surpass in importance Harvard’s “big three” disciplines of economics, government, and history. Although the Department of Social Relations failed to achieve this audacious goal, it nonetheless attracted an outstanding faculty, produced important scholarly work, and trained many notable graduates. At times, it was a wild ride. Some faculty became notorious for their questionable research: Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (reborn as Ram Dass) gave the psychedelic drug psilocybin to students, while Henry Murray traumatized undergraduate Theodore Kaczynski (later the Unabomber) in a three-year-long experiment. Central to the story is the obsessive quest of legendary sociologist Talcott Parsons for a single theory unifying the social sciences– the white whale to his Captain Ahab. All in all, Schmidt’s lively narrative is an instructive tale of academic infighting, hubris, and scandal.