Howard Becker. Whose Side Are We On?

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WHOSE SIDE ARE WE ON?

HOWARD S . BECKERorthwestern University

T o have values or not to havevalues: the question is always with us.When sociologists undertake to studyproblems that have relevance to theworld we live in , they h d hemselvescaught in a crossfire. Some urge themnot to take sides, to be neutral and doresearch that is technically correct andvalue free. Others tell them their work

is shallow and useless if it does notexpress a deep commitment to a valueposition.

Th is dilemma, which seems so pain-ful to so many, actually does not exist,for one of its horns is imaginary. Forit to exist, one would have to assume,as some apparently do, that it is indeedpossible to do research that is uncon-taminated by personal and politicalsympathies. I propose to argue that it

is not possible and, therefore, that thequestion is not whether we should takesides, since we inevitably will, butrather whose side we are on.

I will begin by considering the prob-lem of taking sides as it arises in thestudy of deviance. An inspection ofthis case will soon reveal to us featuresthat appear in sociological research ofall kinds. In the greatest variety of sub-ject matter areas and in work done byall the different methods at our dis-posal, we cannot avoid taking sides,for reasons firmly based in social struc-ture.

W e may sometimes feel that studiesof deviance exhibit too great a sym-pathy with the peo le studied, a sym-pathy reflected in t e research carriedout. This feeling, I sus ed, is enter-tained off and on both I y those of us

who do such research and by those ofus who, our work lying in other areas,

Presidential address, delivered t the an-nual meeting of the Society for the Studyof Social Problems, Miami Beach, August ,1966.

only read the results. Will the research,we wonder, be distorted by that sym-pathy? Will it be of use in the con-struction of scientific theory or in th eapplication of scientific knowledge tothe practical problems of society? Orwill the bias introduced by taking sidesspoil it for those uses?

W e seldom make the feeling ex-

plicit. Instead, it appears as a lingeringworry for sociological readers, whowould like to be sure they can trustwhat they read, and a troublesome areaof self-doubt for those who do theresearch, who would like to be surethat whatever sympathies they feel arenot professionally unseemly and willnot, in any case, seriously flaw theirwork. That the worry affects bothreaders and researchers indicates that

it lies deeper than the superficial differ-ences that divide sociological schoolsof thought, and that its roots must besought in characteristics of society thataffect us all, whatever our method-ological or theoretical persuasion.

If the feeling were made explicit, itwould take the form of an accusationthat the sympathies of the researcherhave biased his work and distorted hisfindings. Before exploring its structuralroots, let us consider what the manifestmeaning of the charge might be.

It m ight mean tha t we have acquiredsome sympathy with the group westudy sufficient to deter us from pub-lishing those of our results whichmight prove damaging to them. Onecan imagine a liberal sociologist whoset out to disprove some of the com-mon stereotypes held about a minority

gro up . T o his dismay, his investigationreveals that some of the stereotypesare unfortunately true. In the interestsof justice and liberalism, he might wellbe tempted, and might even succumbto the temptation, to suppress thosefindings, publishing with scientific

Social Problems , Vol. 14, No. 3. (Winter, 1967), pp. 239-247.



candor the other results which con-firmed his beliefs.

But this seems not really to be thehea rt of the charge, because sociologistswho study deviance do not typicallyhide things about the people theystudy. They are mostly willing to gra ntthat there is something going on thatput the deviants in the position theyare in, even if they are not willing togrant that it is what the people theystudied were originally accused of.

A more likely meaning of thecharge, I think, is this. In the courseof our work and for who knows whatprivate reasons, we fall into deep sym-pathy with the people we are studying,so that while the rest of the societyviews them as unfit in one or anotherrespect for the deference ordinarilyaccorded a fellow citizen, we believethat they are at least as goodas anyoneelse, more sinned against than sinning.Because of this, we do not give a bal-anced picture. W e focus too much onquestions whose answers show that thesupposed deviant is morally in the rightand the ordinary citizen morally in thewrong. W e neglect to ask those ques-tions whose answers would show thatthe deviant, after all, has done some-thing pretty rotten and, indeed, prettymuch deserves what he gets. In conse-quence, our overall assessment of the

problem being studied is one-sided.What we produce is a whitewash ofthe deviant and a condemnation, ifonly by implication, of those respecta-ble citizens who, we think, have madethe deviant what he is.

I t is to this version that devotethe rest of my remarks. I will lookfirst, however, not at the truth orfalsity of the charge, but rather at thecircumstances in which it is typically

mad e and felt. T h e sociology of kno wl-edg e cautions us to d istinguish betweenthe truth of a statement and an assess-me nt of the circumstances unde r whichthat statement is made; though wetrace an argument to its source in theinterests of the person who made it, we

have still not proved it false. Recog-nizing the point and promising to

address it eventually, I shall turn tothe typical situations in which theaccusation of bias arises.

When do we accuse ourselves andour fellow sociologists of bias? I thinkan inspection of representative in-stances would show that the accusa-tion arises, in one important class ofcases, when the research gives credence,in any serious way, to the perspectiveof the sub ordinate group in some hier-archical relationship. In the case ofdeviance, the hierarchical relationshipis a moral one. The superordinateparties in the relationship are thosewho represent the forces of approvedand official morality; the subordinateparties are those who, it is alleged,have violated that morality.

Though deviance is a typical case,it is by no means the only one. Similarsituations, and similar feelings that ourwork is biased, occur in the study ofschools, hospitals, asylums an d prisons,in the study of physical as well asmental illness, in the study of both

normal and delinquen t youth. Inthese situations, the superordinate par-ties are usually the official and profes-sional authorities in charge of someimportant institution, while the subor-dinates are those who make use of the

services of that institution. Thus, thepolice are the superordinates, drug ad-dicts are the subordinates; professorsand administrators, principals andteachers, are the superordinates, whilestudents and pupils are the subordi-nates physicians are the superordi-nates, their patients the subordinates.

All of these cases represent one ofthe typical situations in which re-searchers accuse themselves and are

accused of bias. It is a situation inwhich, while conflict and tension existin the hierarchy, the conflict has notbecome openly political. The conflict-ing segments or ranks are not orga-nized for conflict; no one attempts toalter the shape of the hierarchy. While



24h o s e Side Ar e W eOn?

subordinates may com lain about thetreatmen t they receive om those above

them, they do not propose to move toa position of equality with them, or toreverse positions in the hierarchy.Thus, no one proposes that addictsshould make and enforce laws forpolicemen, that patients should pre-scribe for doctors, or that adolescentsshould give orders to adults. W e cancall this the apoliticd case.

In the second case, the accusation ofbias is made in a situation that isfrankly political. The parties to thehierarchical relationship engage inorganized conflict, attempting either tomaintain or change existing relationsof power and authority. Whereas inthe first case subordinates are typicallyunorganized an d thus have, as we shallsee, little to fear from a researcher,subordinate parties in a political situa-tion may have much to lose. Whenthe situation is political, the researchermay accuse himself or be accused ofbias by someone else when he givescredence to the perspective of eitherparty to the political conflict. I leavethe political for later and turn now tothe problem of bias in apolitical situa-t i o n ~ . ~

W e provoke the suspicion that weare biased in favor of the subordinateparties in an apolitical arrangementwhen we tell the story from theirpoint of view. W e may, for instance,investigate their complaints, eventhough they are subordinates, aboutthe way things are run just as thoughone ought to give their complaints asmuch credence as the statements ofresponsible officials. W e provoke thecharge when we assume, for the pur-

No situation is necessarily political orapolitical. An apolitical situation can be

transformed into a political one by theopen rebellion of subordinate ranks, and apolitical situation can subside into one inwhich an accommodation has been reachedand a new hierarchy been accepted by theparticipants. The categories, while analyti-cally useful, do not represent a fixed divi-sion existing in real life.

poses of our research, that subordinateshave as much right to be heard as

superordinates, that they are as likelyto be telling the truth as they see it assuperordinates, that what they sayabout the institution has a right to beinvestigated and have its truth or fal-sity established, even though respon-sible officials assure us that it is un-necessary because the charges are false.

W e can use the notion of a hierarchy of credibility to understand thisphenomenon. In any system of rankedgroups, participants take it as giventhat members of the highest grouphave the right to define the way thingsreally are. In any organization, nomatter what the rest of the organiza-tion chart shows, the arrows indicatingthe flow of information point up, thusdemonstrating (at least formally) thatthose at the top have access to a morecomplete picture of what is going onthan anyone else. Members of lowergroups will have incomplete informa-tion, and their view of reality will bepartial and distorted in consequence.Therefore, from the point of view of awell socialized participant in the sys-tem, any tale told by those at the topintrinsically deserves to be regardedas the most credible account obtainableof the organizations' workings. Andsince, as Sumner pointed out, mattersof rank and status are contained in themores,2 this belief has a moral quality.W e are, if we are proper mem bers ofthe group, morally bound to accept thedefinition imposed on reality by a

superordinate group in preference tothe definitions espoused by subordin-ates. (By analogy, the same argumentholds fo r the social c asses of a com-munity.) Thus, credibility and theright to be heard are differentially dis-

tributed through the ranks of thesystem.As sociologists, we provoke the

Willi am Graham Sumner, Status in

the Folkways, olRway~ New York: NewAmerican Library, 1960 pp. 72 73.



charge of bias, in ourselves and others,by refusing to give credence and defer-

ence to an established status order, inwhich knowledge of truth and theright to be heard are not equally dis-tributed. Everyone knows tha t re-sponsible professionals know moreabout things than laymen, that policeare more respectable and their wordsought to be taken more seriously thanthose of the deviants and criminalswith whom they deal. By refusing toaccept the hierarchy of credibility, we

express disrespect for the entire estab-lished order.

W e compound our sin and furtherprovoke charges of bias by not givingimmediate attention and equal timeto the apologies and explanations ofofficial authority. If, for instance, weare concerned with studying the wayof life inmates in a mental hospitalbuild up for themselves, we will natu-rally be concerned with the constraintsand conditions created by the actionsof the administrators and physicianswho run the hospital. But, unless wealso make the administrators andphysicians the object of our study (apossibility I will consider later), wewill not inquire into why those con-ditions and constraints are present.W e will not give responsible officialsa chance to explain themselves andgive their reasons for acting as theydo, a chance to show why the com-plaints of inmates are not justified.

It is odd that, when we perceivebias, we usually see it in these circum-stances. It is odd because it is easilyascertained that a great many morestudies are biased in the direction ofthe interests of responsible officialsthan the other way around. W e mayaccuse an occasional studen t of medical

sociology of having given too muchemphasis to the complaints of patients.But it is not obvious that most medicalsociologists look at things from thepoint of view of the doctors? A fewsociologists may be sufficiently biasedin favor of youth to grant credibility

to their account of how the adultworld treats them. But why do we not

accuse other sociologists who studyyouth of being biased in favor ofad ults ? Most research on youth, af terall, is clearly designed to find out whyyouth are so troublesome for adults,rather than asking the equally inter-esting sociological question W hy doadults make so much trouble foryouth ? Similarly, we accuse those whotake the complaints of mental patientsseriously of bias; what about those

sociologists who only take seriouslythe complaints of physicians, familiesand others about mental patients?

Why this disproportion in the direc-tion of accusations of bias? W hy dowe more often accuse those who areon the side of subordinates than thosewho are on the side of superordinatesBecause, when we make the formeraccusation, we have, like the wellsocialized members of our societymost of us are, accepted the hierarchyof credibility and taken over theaccusa tion made by responsible officials.

The reason responsible officials makethe accusation so frequen tly is preciselybecause they are responsible. They havebeen entrusted with the care and opera-tion of one or another of our importantinstitutions: schools, hospitals, law en-forcement, or whatever. They are theones who, by virtue of their oficialposition and the authority that goeswith it, are in a position to do some-thing when things are not what theyshould be and, similarly, are the oneswho will be held to account if theyfail to do something or if what theydo is, for whatever reason, inadequate.

Because they are responsible in thisway, officials usually have to lie. Thatis a gross way of putting it, but not

inaccurate. Officials must lie becausethings are seldom as they ought to be.For a great variety of reasons, well-known to sociologists, institutions arerefractory. They do not perform associety would like them to. Hospitalsdo not cure people; prisons do not re-



43hose Side re e On

habilitate prisoners; schools do noteducate students. Since they are sup-

posed to, officials develo ways bothof denying the failure o the institu-tion to perform as it should and ex-plaining those failures which cannot behidden. An account of an institution'soperation from the point of view ofsubordinates therefore casts doubt onthe official line and may possibly ex-pose it as a lie.3

For reasons that are a mirror imageof those of officials, subordinates in anapolitical hierarchical relationship haveno reason to complain of the bias ofsociologica1 research oriented towardthe interests of superordinates. Subordi-nates typically are not organized insuch a fashion as to be responsible forthe overall operation of an institution.What happens in a school is creditedor debited to the faculty and adminis-trators; they can be identified and heldto account. Even though the failure ofa school may be the fau lt of the pupils,they are not so organized that any oneof them is responsible for any failurebut his own. If he does well, whileothers all around him flounder, cheatand steal, that is none of his affair,despite the attempt of honor codes tomake it so. As long as the sociologicalreport on his school says that everystudent there but one is a liar and acheat, all the students will feel compla-cent, knowing they are the one excep-tion. More likely, they will never hearof the report at all or, if they do, willreason that they will be gone beforelong, so what difference does it make?The lack of organization among subor--dinate members of an institutionalizedrelationship means that, having no re-sponsibility for the group's welfare,they likewise have no complaints if

I have stated a portion of this a r e -ment more briefly in Problems of Publica-tion of Field Studies, in Arthur Vidich,Joseph Bensman, and Maurice Stein (Eds.),Reflections on om mu nity Studies, NewYork: John WiIey and Sons, 1964, pp. 267-284.

someone maligns it. The sociologistwho favors officialdom will be spared

the accusation of bias.And thus we see why we accuseourselves of bias only when we takethe side of the subordinate. It is be-cause, in a situation that is not openlypolitical, with the major issues definedas arguable, we join responsible offi-cials and the man in the street in anunthinking acceptance of the hierarchyof credibility. W e assume with themthat the man at the top knows best.

W e do not realize that there are sidesto be taken and that we are takingone of them.

The same reasoning allows us tounderstand why the researcher has thesame worry about the effect of hissympathies on his work as his unin-volved colleague. The hierarchy ofcredibility is a feature of society whoseexistence we cannot deny, even if wedisagree with its injunction to believe

the man at the top. When we acquiresufficient sympathy with subordinates tosee things from their perspective, weknow that we are flying in the face ofwhat everyone knows. T he knowl-edge gives us pause and causes us toshare, however briefly, the doubt ofour colleagues.

When a situation has been definedpolitically, the second type of case Iwant to discuss, matters are quite dif-ferent. Subordinates have some degreeof organization and, with that, spokes-men, their equivalent of responsibleofficials. Spokesmen, w hile they cannotactually be held responsible for whatmembers of their g roup do, make asser-tions on their behalf and are held re-sponsible for the truth of those asser-tions. The group engages in politicalactivity designed to change existinghierarchical relationships and t he credi-bility of its spokesmen directly affectsits political fortunes. Credibility is notthe only influence, but the group canill-afford having the definition of real-ity proposed by its spokesmen dis-credited, for the immediate conse-



quence will be some loss of politicalpower.

Superordinate groups have theirspokesmen too, and they are confrontedwith the same problem: to make state-ments about reality that are politicallyeffective without being easily dis-credited. Th e political fortunes of thesupe rordinate group-its ability tohold the status changes demanded bylower groups to a minimum-do notdepend as much on credibility, for thegroup has other kinds of power avail-able as well.

When we do research in a politicalsituation we are in double jeopardy,for the spokesmen of both involvedgroups will be sensitive to the implica-tions of our work. Since theyopenly conflicting definitions opr p seality,our statement of our problem is in it-self likely to call into question andmake problematic, at least for the pur-poses of our research, one or the otherdefinition. And our results will do thesame.

The hierarchy of credibility operatesin a different way in the politicalsituation than it does in the apoliticalone. In the political situation, it isprecisely one of the things at issue.Since the political struggle calls intoquestion the legitimacy of the existingrank system, it necessarily calls into

question at the same time the legiti-macy of the associated judgments ofcredibility. Judgments of who has aright to define the nature of realitythat are taken for granted in an apoli-tical situation become matters ofargument.

Oddly enough, we are, I think, lesslikely to accuse ourselves and oneanother of bias in a political than in anapolitical situation, for at least two

reasons. First, because the hierarchy ofcredibility has been openly called intoquestion, we are aware that there areat least two sides to the story and sodo not think it unseemly to investigatethe situation from one or another ofthe contending points of view. W e

know, for instance, that we must graspthe perspectives of both the resident

of Watts and of the Los Angelespoliceman if we are to understandwhat went on in that outbreak.

Second, it is no secret that mostsociologists are politically liberal toone degree or another. Our politicalpreferences dictate the side we will beon and, since those preferences areshared by most of our colleagues, feware ready to throw the first stone orare even aware that stone-throwing isa possibility. W e usually take the sideof the underdog; we are for Negroesand against Fascists. W e do not thinkanyone biased who does research de-signed to prove that the former arenot as bad as people think or that thelatter are worse. In fact, in these cir-cumstances we are quite willing toregard the question of bias as a matterto be dealt with by the use of technicalsafeguards.

W e are thus apt to take sides withequal innocence and lack of thought,though for different reasons, in bothapolitical and political situations. Inthe first, we adopt the commonsenseview which awards unquestionedcredibility to the responsible official.

This is not to deny that a few of us,because something in our experiencehas alerted them to the possibility, may

question the conventional hierarchy ofcredibility in the special area of ourexpertise.) In the second case, we takeour politics so for granted that it sup-plants convention in dictating whoseside we will be on. I do not deny,either, that some few sociologists maydeviate politically from their liberalcolleagues, either to the right or theleft, and thus be more liable to ques-tion that convention.)

In any event, even if our colleaguesdo not accuse us of bias in research ina political situation, the interestedparties will. Whether they are foreignpoliticians who object to studies ofhow the stability of their governmentmay be maintained in the interest of



45hose Side re e On?

the United States (as in the Camelot

aflair)4 or domestic civil rights leaderswho object to an analysis of raceproblems that centers on the allegeddeficiencies of the Negro family (asin the reception given to the MoynihanReport) 6 interested parties are quickto make accusations of bias and dis-tortion. They base the accusation noton failures of technique or method,but on conceptual defects. They accusethe sociologist not of getting false databut of not getting all the data relevant

to the problem. They accuse him, inother words, of seeing things from theperspective of only one party to theconflict. But the accusation is likely tobe made by interested parties and notby sociologists themselves.

W h a t I have said so fa r is all sociol-ogy of knowledge, suggesting bywhom, in what situations and for whatreasons sociologists will be accused ofbias and distortion. I have not yet ad-dressed the question of the truth ofthe accusations, of whether our find-ings are distorted by our sympathy forthose we study. I have implied a partialanswer, namely, that there is no posi-tion from which sociological researchcan be done that is not biased in oneor another way.

W e must always look at the matterfrom someone's point of view. Thescientist who proposes to understandsociety must, as Me ad lon g ago pointedout, get into the situation enough tohave a perspective on it. And it islikely that his perspective will begreatly affected by whatever positionsare taken by any or all of the otherparticipants in that varied situation.Even if his participation is limited toreading in the field, he will necessarilyread the arguments of partisans of one

See Irving Louis Horowitz, The Lifeand Death of Project Camelot, Transaction 3 (Nov./Dec., 1 9 6 5 , pp 3-7, 44-47.

5 See Lee Rainwater and William L.YanceyA Black Families and the W hi teHouse, ibid. 3 (July/August, 1966 pp6-11 4 8 - 5 3 .

or another side to a relationship andwill thus b e affected, at least, by hav ingsuggested to him what the relevantarguments and issues are. A student ofmedical sociology may decide that hewill take neither the perspective of thepatient nor the perspective of thephysician, but he will necessarily takea perspective that impinges on themany questions that arise betweenphysicians and patients; no matterwhat perspective he takes, his workeither will take into account the atti-

tude of subordinates, or it will not. Ifhe fails to consider the questions theyraise, he will be working on the sideof the officials. If he does raise thosequestions seriously and does find, as hemay, that there is some merit in them,he will then expose himself to theoutrage of the officials and of all thosesociologists who award them the topspot in the hierarchy of credibility.Almost all the topics that sociologistsstudy, at least those that have somerelation to the real world around us,are seen by society as morality playsand we shall find ourselves, willy-nilly,taking part in those plays on one sideor the other.

Th ere is another possibility. W emay, in some cases, take the point ofview of some third party not directlyimplicated in the hierarchy we areinvestigating. Thus, a Marxist mightfeel that it is not worth distinguishingbetween Democrats and Republicans,or between big business and big labor,in each case both groups being equallyinimical to the interests of the workers.This would indeed make us neutralwith respect to the two groups athand, but would only mean that wehad enlarged the scope of the politicalconflict to include a party not ordi-narily brought in whose view thesociologist was taking.

W e can never avoid taking sides.So we are left with the question ofwhether taking sides means that somedistortion is introduced into our workso great as to make it useless. Or, less



drastically, whether some distortion isintroduced that must be taken into

account before the results of our workcan be used. I do not refer here tofee ling tha t the icture given by theresearch is not ~a lan ce d, the indig-nation aroused by having a conven-tionally discredited definition of real-ity given priority or equality withwh at everyone knows, fo r it is clearthat we cannot avoid that. That is theproblem of officials, spokesmen andinterested parties, not ours. Our prob-

lem is to make sure that, whateverpoint of view we take, our researchmeets the standards of good scientificwork, that our unavoidable sympathiesdo n ot rend er o ur results invalid.

W e might distort our findings, be-cause of our sympathy with one of theparties in the relationship we arestudying, by misusing the tools andtechniques of ou r discipline. W e migh tintroduce loaded questions into aquestionnaire, or act in some way in afield situation such that people wouldbe constrained to tell us only the kindof thing we are already in sympathywith. All of our research techniquesare hedged about with precautionarymeasures designed to guard againstthese errors. Similarly, though moreabstractly, every one of our theoriespresumably contains a set of directiveswhich exhaustively covers the field weare to study, specifying all the thingswe are to look at and take into accountin our research. By using our theoriesand techniques impartially, we oughtto be able to study all the things thatneed to be studied in such a way as toget all the facts we require, eventhough some of the questions that willbe raised and some of the facts thatwill be produced run counter to our

biases.But the question may be preciselythis. Given all our techniques oftheoretical and technical control, howcan we be sure that we will apply themimpartially and across the board as theyneed to be app lied? Our textbooks in

methodology are no help here. Theytell us how to guard against error, but

they do not tell us how to make surethat we will use all the safeguardsavailable to us. W e can, fo r a start,try to avoid sentimentality. W e aresentimental when we refuse, for what-ever reason, to investigate some matterthat should properly be regarded asproblematic. W e are sentimental, es-pecially, when our reason is that wewould prefer not to know what isgoing on, if to know would be to

violate some sympathy whose existencewe may not even be aware of. What-ever side we are on, we must use ourtechniques impartially enough that abelief to which we are especially sym-pathetic could be proved untrue. W emust always inspect our work carefullyenough to know whether our tech-niques and theories are open enoughto allow that possibility.

Let us consider, finally, what mightseem a simple solution to the problemsposed. If the difficulty is that we gainsympathy with underdogs by studyingthem, is it not also true that thesuper-ordinates in a hierarchical relationshipusually have their own superordinateswith whom they must contend? Is itnot true that we might study thosesuperordinates or subordinates, pre-senting their point of view on theirrelations with their superiors and thusgaining a deeper sympathy with themand avoiding the bias of one-sidedidentification with those below them?This is appealing, but deceptively so.For it only means that we will get intothe same trouble with a new set ofofficials.

It is true, for instance, that the ad-ministrators of a prison are not free todo as they wish, not free to be re-sponsive of the desires of inmates, forinstance. If one talks to such an official,he will commonly tell us, in private,that of course the subordinates in therelationship have some right on theirside, but that they fail to understandthat his desire to do better is frustrated



47h o s e Si de A r e e O n

by his superiors or by the regulationsthey have established. Thus, if a prisonadministrator is angered because wetake the complaints of his inmatesseriously, we may feel that we can getaround that and get a more balancedpicture by interviewing him and hisassociates. If we do, we may then writea report which his superiors will re-spond to with cries of bias. They,in their turn, will say that we have notpresented a balanced picture, because

we have not looked at their side of it.And we may worry that what they sayis true.

The point is obvious. By pursuingthis seemingly simple solution, wearrive at a problem of infinite regress.For everyone has someone standingabove him who prevents him fromdoing things just as he likes. If wequestion the superiors of the prisonadministrator, a state department ofcorrections or prisons, they will com-plain of the governor and the legisla-ture. And if we go to the governorand the legislature, they will complainof lobbyists, party machines, the publicand the newspapers. There is no endto it and we can never have a bal-anced picture un til we have studiedall of society simultaneously. I do notpropose to hold my breath until that

happy day.W e can, think, satisfy the deman dsof our science by always making clearthe limits of what we have studied,marking the boundaries beyond whichour findings cannot be safely applied.Not just the conventional disclaimer,in which we warn that we have onlystudied a prison in New York or Cali-fornia and the findings may not holdin the other forty-nine states-which

is not a useful procedure anyway, sincethe findings may very well hold if the

conditions are the same elsewhere. I

refer to a more sociological disclaimerin which we say, for instance, that wehave studied the prison through theeyes of the inmates and not throughthe eyes of the guards or other in-volved parties. W e warn people, thus,that our study tells us only how thingslook from that vantage point-whatkinds of objects guards are in theprisoners' world-and does not at-tempt to explain why guards do what

they do or to absolve the guards ofwhat may seem, from the prisoners'side, morally unacceptable behavior.This will not protect us from accusa-tions of bias, however, for the guardswill still be outraged by the unbalancedpicture. If we implicitly accept theconventional hierarchy of credibility,we will feel the stin g in that accusation.

It is something of a solution to saytha t over the years each one-sidedstudy will provoke further studiesthat gradually enlarge our grasp of allthe relevant facets of an institution'soperation. But that is a long-term solu-tion, and not much help to the in-dividual researcher who has to contendwith the anger of officials who feel hehas done them wrong, the criticism ofthose of his colleagues who think h e ispresenting a one-sided view, and hisown worries.

What do we do in the meantime?I suppose the answers are more or lessobvious. W e take sides as our personaland political commitments dictate, useour theoretical and technical resourcesto avoid the distortions that mightintroduce into our work, limit our con-clusions carefully, recognize the hier-archy of credibility for what is is, andfield as best we can the accusationsand doubts that will surely be our fate.

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Howard Becker. Whose Side Are We On?

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