THE SAVING LIE

The Saving Lie Truth and Method in the Social Sciences F. G. Bailey Ambitious, erudite, well worth a read.--Journal of Anthropological Research This book explores the distinction between selflessness and self-interestedness, between acting for ones own advantage and acting, even when disadvantageous, for reasons of duty or conscience. This apparently straightforward contrast (exemplified in the difference between rational-choice models in economics and holistic models in social anthropology) is a source of confusion. This is so, F. G. Bailey argues, because people polarize and essentialize both actors and actions and uphold one or the other side of the contrast as concrete reality, as the truth about how the social world works. The task of The Saving Lie is to show that both versions are convenient fictions, with instrumental rather than ontological significance