I would think that in light of the enormity of the crimes that have been committed in this century in the name of things labeled "social" one would exercise a little skepticism towards agendas called socially responsible.
In my always humble opinion, it is an open question whether someone like Henry Ford, who created an enterprise which employed thousands of men, allowing them to feed and cloth their families and send some of their children to institutions of higher learning, and who created enormous wealth--wealth which otherwise would not have existed--which funds such institutions as the Ford Foundation are less socially responsible than people like Hillary Clinton.
[quoting Reeves, 27 Oct 96.b] (Those holding the pure "knowledge for knowledge's sake" view might even defend Josef Mengele's horrific experiments with twins which he viewed as "medical research.")
This kind of argument is socially irresponsible.
The type of empirical media research that Steve Tripp conducts is irresponsible in terms of its lack of contribution to the general body of educational knowledge. When I challenged Steve to provide evidence of the progress he proclaimed to have resulted from his approach to research, he brought up "pharmaceutical research and things like that." Steve knew I was referring to progress in education, so he had to escape...
I did not know that. In fact if you go back and look at the dialogue you will see that I began by referring to "fields that are making good progress" which is clearly a reference to areas wider than education. Here is the dialogue to refresh your memory.
[Tripp] People in fields that are making good progress usually don't worry about philosophy too much.
[Reeves] What is the evidence for this progress, Steve?
Frankly, I find all this talk about "social responsibility" to be a little scary. Especially if some self-elected judge working for the government of Georgia (a state located in the Southeastern part of the USA) is to be the arbiter for the world.