Roy began by giving us a glimpse of his extensive research on Nazi Racial Science. However, he also used that case study to make a case for Communication Studies. After all, one might be tempted to argue that Communication Studies is suited to study verbal junk, 'mere' rhetoric. While it may help us understand popular culture, it cannot shed any light on the legitimacy of knowledge claims. This is the proper domain of the Philosophy of Science which (supposedly) has methodological norms to distinguish between good and bad science. According to Roy, the case of Nazi Racial Science exposes these turf-wars as obsolete. After all, what do we mean by 'good science' or 'bad science' here? Nazi Racial Science was clearly 'bad' in that it failed to move the greater scientific community toward a consensus. At the same time, it seemed to be very good (as good as any science) when it came to enabling the speed and direction of thought, i.e., as a resource for the construction of racial/racist arguments. This science makes for 'bad' knowledge and 'good' rhetoric (for a 'bad' cause) -- Roy suggested that Communication Studies is just the place where these various aspects of Racial Science can be appreciated.
Not suprisingly, perhaps, further analysis shows that the relationship between the culture of science and the political agenda of Nazism is fairly complicated. Not all scientists engaged in Racial Science were Nazis, and not all leading Nazis (including Hitler himself) relied on Racial Science to legitimate their racism. Roy's contributions thus include an article entitled "Nazi Racial Hygiene and the Boundaries of 'True Science'" (Spheres of Argument: Proceedings of the Sixth SCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation, Annandale: Speech Communication Association, 1989, pp. 225-231). He takes up interpretive issues also in "Toward a Critical Hermeneutic: Methodological Quandaries in Studying Nazi Racial Doctrines" (Mary Stuckey, ed., The Theory and Practice of Political Communication Research, Albany: SUNY Press, 1996, pp. 196-223). A copy of Roy's dissertation (Racial Science, Nazism, and the Genesis of Genocide, University of Iowa) can be found at Thomas Cooper library; Roy is currently working on a book dealing with the interface between science and racial doctrines in pre-war Nazi Germany.
Alfred Nordmann
| Membership Directory| General Information| Reading Group| Calendar |
This page last updated March 20, 1997. It is maintained by the Philosophy Department. © 1997 by the Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina. Credits.