88 MEANING AND METHODOLOGY
- I am indebted to the discussion in Monk (2004, esp. 39–42) for helping me articulate this connection.
- As noted above, this positioned moral and value statements, for example, beyond the realm of science
because they were seen as products of emotion, rather than reason. - His example of bicycle riding illustrates this: If you know how to ride a bicycle, you know which way
to turn the front wheel when falling to the right; otherwise, you would always be falling and could not claim
to hold that knowledge. But most bicycle riders asked this question cannot articulate their knowledge. Fur-
thermore, even if they could, they could not write a manual naming all the rules for riding a bicycle. More-
over, even if they could write such a manual, no novice could read it, get on a bicycle, and ride off without
falling—absent learning the “tacit knowledge” (in this case, of a kinesthetic sort) that experienced riders
know but cannot articulate. - I take as evidence of this several sections of the 2004 report on “Scientific Foundations of Qualitative
Research” (Ragin, Nagel, and White 2004). - In fact, Lakoff and Johnson’s claim that objectivity concerns self-control (1999, 277) sheds another
light on this argument concerning the uses of “objectivity” to control researchers’ behaviors—namely, that
its rhetorical usage for control purposes stems from a fear of bodies being “out of control.” I do not have the
space here to develop this implication of these two arguments. - The fact that many political science doctoral students and junior faculty fear to self-identify when
posting to the Perestroika list—indeed, the existence of that group at all, as an outlet for constructive criti-
cism of the American Political Science Association—attests to the power of these controls.