Setting out your case – 99
Huntington believes that economic globalisation is only one amongst a
number of forces, the most important of which is religion, which he calls
‘perhaps the central force that motivates and mobilises people’.
Finally, (g) whereas Huntington’s thesis is a theory of what he thinks is
most likely to happen, Blair is calling for what he thinks ought to
happen.
When they are analysing factors, reasons, causes and so on, most
academics feel what E. H. Carr (1964: 89–90) calls a ‘professional compulsion’ to try to decide which of these or which grouping of them
‘should be regarded “in the last resort” or “in the final analysis” . . .
as the ultimate cause, the cause of all causes’. Not everybody nowadays agrees with Carr in this matter, inasmuch as there are many
post-structuralist authors who resist it in principle, if not always in
practice. Moreover, there are some methodological approaches, such
as factor analysis in psychology or accounting for variable speech
habits that linguists study, which preclude it. But it is undeniable
that the desire to tie heterogeneous things up in a ‘unified vision’ has
exerted a powerful influence on the academic imagination.
So, even though you are not able to establish ‘in the final
analysis’ a wholly unifying interpretation, you should still feel a
‘compulsion’ to reduce the list of issues, factors, reasons, causes,
‘aspects’, variables, categories or whatever they may be, as far as
you can. The number that suggests itself to me is three or four. While
it does not constitute a reason for fixing on these limits, the fact that
in English we routinely say ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’ and ‘thirdly’, rarely
‘fourthly’, and never ‘fifthly’ unless we are having a joke, might
be taken as informal corroboration. There will be exceptions, such
as those noted above, but I recommend that you think very carefully before allowing the factors underlying the organisation of your
answer to multiply beyond three or four.
With this in mind, Introduction 2 can be rescued. First, there
is the problem of how to group these disparate factors. A little reorganisation of the items in this shapeless list will reduce these factors
to a few major ones for which we need to find suitable categorising
labels, for example:
Huntington believes that economic globalisation is only one amongst a
number of forces, the most important of which is religion, which he calls
‘perhaps the central force that motivates and mobilises people’.
Finally, (g) whereas Huntington’s thesis is a theory of what he thinks is
most likely to happen, Blair is calling for what he thinks ought to
happen.
When they are analysing factors, reasons, causes and so on, most
academics feel what E. H. Carr (1964: 89–90) calls a ‘professional compulsion’ to try to decide which of these or which grouping of them
‘should be regarded “in the last resort” or “in the final analysis” . . .
as the ultimate cause, the cause of all causes’. Not everybody nowadays agrees with Carr in this matter, inasmuch as there are many
post-structuralist authors who resist it in principle, if not always in
practice. Moreover, there are some methodological approaches, such
as factor analysis in psychology or accounting for variable speech
habits that linguists study, which preclude it. But it is undeniable
that the desire to tie heterogeneous things up in a ‘unified vision’ has
exerted a powerful influence on the academic imagination.
So, even though you are not able to establish ‘in the final
analysis’ a wholly unifying interpretation, you should still feel a
‘compulsion’ to reduce the list of issues, factors, reasons, causes,
‘aspects’, variables, categories or whatever they may be, as far as
you can. The number that suggests itself to me is three or four. While
it does not constitute a reason for fixing on these limits, the fact that
in English we routinely say ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’ and ‘thirdly’, rarely
‘fourthly’, and never ‘fifthly’ unless we are having a joke, might
be taken as informal corroboration. There will be exceptions, such
as those noted above, but I recommend that you think very carefully before allowing the factors underlying the organisation of your
answer to multiply beyond three or four.
With this in mind, Introduction 2 can be rescued. First, there
is the problem of how to group these disparate factors. A little reorganisation of the items in this shapeless list will reduce these factors
to a few major ones for which we need to find suitable categorising
labels, for example: