I am not sure exactly what you mean here, if you mean in reference to particular theories or what about the social sciences in general.
I am glad you phrased the question as directed at me in particular, because as I see it my concerns are connected to my own history and desires.
I see the focuses of the social sciences I named above as offshoots of preexisting methods in forming society, so most of the findings are not new in the way a steam engine would have been new the first time it appeared, or what might perhaps arise from studies in neuroscience. But in this way the application of the social sciences in society are much more subtle.
My concern with something that on the surface seems quite ordinary, environmental psychology, for example, is that by studying the impact of various environmental factors, shapes, line distribution, presence or abscence of structures (say a desk, or a chair) can be understood to elicit responses from people. An example, are the parks in your area mostly open to the streets without sheltered areas? If where you live is more modern it’s likely that they are. The reason is that behaviour within the parks is meant to be observable. The original rational was that crime festers in unobservable areas closed off from the streets.
I do think the social sciences can have positive applications, but generally the incentive is to use them for purposes like profitability and social control.
With something like behavioural economics, the focus is on how people act irrationally within an economic system — this doesn’t mean that society will thus be formed irrationally, it just means that at the bottom of our reason is irrational desires and instincts and so by appealing to our baser instincts rational decisions are bypassed.
The problem with my suggestion about ridding the monopolization of pleasure is that generally as a society we limit the pleasure of people in order to keep each other from committing acts which throw society into chaos, so actually what I am suggesting is potentially extremely dangerous… it’s the opposite of what Freud and the psychoanalysts advocated… As it is, access to pleasure is being used, but it is used deliberately… we have values of which pleasures are okay and which are not okay, and then there is the economic and price system… even normative codes work in this way… by creating a fashion trend for example which has a high economic cost wherein those who don’t conform to the fashion are ostracized, it ensures that individuals will continue to act within the societal framework even for something which might be otherwise free, like “friendship” (and here I am using the term friendship very lightly, in the sense of the modern facebook era friend category).
Of course propaganda relies heavily on the social sciences, Edward Bernays used Freud in its pioneering era…
Here is a book for example that translates social theory including feminist theory and post-colonial theory, even Weber and Foucault into techniques useful for public relations:
books.google.se/books?id=bmmQAgA … &q&f=false
I’ve kind of dragged on here. The reason I mentioned that it’s of particular concern to me because of my history and desires is because I am a creative person, I wanted to work in the arts before I was interested in philosophy, and many times creative impulses do not translate into rational behaviour… so basically I find society very limiting.
I do think that would have always been a problem, as I mentioned, these aren’t new things. What is new is the increasing perfection of the technique.
I have probably rambled on too long and I didn’t address a lot of your comment, perhaps I will return to it, but I will say a couple more words.
I have not read Marcuse, but I have looked into that book a lot, and I have had an interest in the Frankfurt school. Due to an unfortunate insanity I have like 100 books sitting on my shelf unread so I probably won’t be able to obtain a copy any time soon. I got into this mostly through my own experiences, and reading the social sciences, with lots of literature and philosophy thrown in there.
I wouldn’t even consider pain as opposite to pleasure, some people can feel pain at pleasure, even most people, for example a rough massage of a sore muscle… uncomfortable would be harder to justify in that way because discomfort is often used synonimously with unpleasant, but something like fear and anxiety if generally considered uncomfortable but can be a cause of pleasure, in the case of horror movies or paintings, also adrenaline is converted in the body into dopamine, which is one of the happiness chemicals, which is probably where there are adrenaline junkies…
I would be interested in you elaborating a little on this if you’re up for it: