Page 199 - Decoding Culture

192 D E C O D I N G C U L TURE
contemplation of matters cultural. Yet others have seen the theo­
rizing process as central to the very constitution of 'reality' itself, or,
not unconnected, as part of the process of 'deconstructing' the
worlds constituted in culture. Others invoke 'theory' to decode
texts, to unpack ideologies, to lend legitimacy and apparent coher­
ence to judgements of value or moral worth. In the short history of
cultural studies, the term has been employed to designate a multi­
tude of abstractions, generalizations and speculations. Y e t rarely
has anyone stopped to consider the purpose of all this theorizing or
what relation it might bear to the kind of knowledge that we seek.
In consequence, those occupying different positions have all too
often talked past each other - witness some of the 'debates' in the
recent literature - leaning upon quite different epistemologies in
promoting their cases. An outside observer, however benevolently
disposed, would find it well nigh impossible to identify any
common epistemological foundation on which the cultural studies
project is built.
I have outlined my own position earlier in this chapter, prefer­
ring an instrumental concept of theory located within a broadly
realist epistemology. From this point of view, the aim of cultural
studies is explanatory understanding of the realm of culture: texts,
readers, and the relation of both to their larger social context. By
building abstract (and inevitably simplified) models of these
processes, we seek to make sense of observed patterns of human
activity, observations that are made, of course, using methodolog­
ical devices which are themselves theoretically grounded.
Provided that the theories on which observations depend are not
the same as the theories invoked for explanation, circularity can be
avoided, and provided that the methodologies applied are suffi­
ciently diverse, the risk of methodological monism is minimized. In
this way, the models or 'theories' that we generate can be assessed
against each other as instruments of explanation.

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