SOCIAL THOUGHT RADIO was a half-hour weekly interview program aired on 40 public radio stations and the Armed Forces Network. Aired between 1989 and 1998.
Definition: Social thought is about the relationship of ideas and institutions. For example: Catholic ideology doesn't have glossolalia in church services, and Baptist ideology doesn't have preachers reporting to a bishop. Also available encylcopedia definition.
- Michael Phillips, the producer and moderator:
- Creator of Mastercard the first global universal credit card.
- Banker, Corporate treasurer, foundation president and author of 11 books.
- Michael Phillips wrote his explanation for starting the radio program before it began in 1989.
The term refers to a broadly-based, late twentieth century, intellectual endeavor that has developed in many nations and many academic disciplines to examine the strong relationship between ideas, concepts and metaphors with the institutions directly associated with them.
The phrase "ideas, concepts and metaphors" is intentionally broad in order to include a wide range of entities that are associated with the mind, as opposed to non-mind categories such as economic, utilitarian or theological entities that are considered by earlier traditions to have strong relationships to institutions.
The term "institution" refers to communalities of behavior in human groups. At its broadest, language is an institution, so are cultures, nations and religions. In everyday life corporations, fashion, clubs, occupations, bookstores, governments, bars and driving on the right-hand side of the road are institutions.
HISTORY
A Japanese comparative historian, S. Nakayama, who focused on the the early European development of science, found that it was erived from the conceptions and experiences of the legal system and concepts of rhetoric. By the late 1970's, a school of historicism emerged around S. Greenblatt that looked for ideas and conceptions that shaped specific historic actions and events. In the case of Christopher Columbus the conceptions that shaped his voyage were derived from commerce and mythology.
In the history of ideas, Isaiah Berlin showed the connection between the ideas of the French cleric Joseph de Maistre and the 20th century fascist ideology.
D. Landes and Mancur Olson have made major contributions to understanding the institutions of business and economies. Landes showed the direct connection between ideas of time and the development of clocks in China and Europe. Olson established the relationship between the legal boundaries of central governments and the expansion of national economies.
The history of science was primed for expansion with the contributions of T. Kuhn and K. Popper in showing the dissemination mechanisms of new ideas. Thomas Hughes and J. Corn carried the model to the realm of technology to show the direct connection between ideas and metaphors and the pursuit of new technologies.
The early 17th century protestant debates about theology and appropriate church structure were inherently the first understanding of social thought. While this significant theological battle doesn't seem to have connections to modern social thought, the major issues have been revived with Elaine Pagels and the 1950's discovery of new Christian gospels which clearly show the direct relation to early social teachings and the structure of the Roman Catholic church. Similar work has grown out of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls.
B. J. Frieden, J. Stilgoe and J. Garreau have looked at the urban landscape and the development of suburbs to identify the ideas and concepts that led to the destruction of urban downtowns, such as the metaphor that slums were cancer and needed to be cut out, to suburbs as the English manor. Garreau connected the concepts of time and family to the creation of satellite cities.
Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, French scholars, elevated the issues of social perspective as it is imbedded in language to a central thesis of criticism. Synthesizing this approach with the American relativist philosophy, a major critic, Stanley Fish, has emerged to as a leader of social thought by showing how literary interpretation in the individual case and the academic community are both by products of social dialog and prevailing, but often unstated, metaphors. Conflict and debate in literary circles begins when the social perch of the participants has changed and focuses on the communities most effected.
The thinkers in many fields who embrace the perspective of social thought are likely to increase in prestige and expand their influence. While some nation's universities may elevate social thought to the level of a new academic curriculum category, most will not. The direction appears to be the creation of a social thought perspective, with journals and sub-schools of specialization that grow vigorously in nations with well-established civil societies. Within half a century most of the central conceptions of social thought will be common- place, almost common sense, and large parts of the population will take it for granted.
The thinkers in many fields who embrace the perspective of social thought are likely to increase in prestige and expand their influence. While some nation's universities may elevate social thought to the level of a new academic curriculum category, most will not. The direction appears to be the creation of a social thought perspective, with journals and sub-schools of specialization that grow vigorously in nations with well-established civil societies. Within half a century most of the central conceptions of social thought will be common- place, almost common sense, and large parts of the population will take it for granted.
