Rohde Joy
Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
J Hist Behav Sci. 2011 Summer;47(3):232-50. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.20509.
In 1966, the social scientists of the Simulmatics Corporation arrived in Saigon. Tasked by the Pentagon with helping to pacify South Vietnam, they conducted political and social psychological research on Viet Cong defectors, government soldiers, and Vietnamese villagers. This essay argues that Simulmatics's work captures some of the ironies of Cold War social science: its tendency to mask militarization behind the rhetoric of peaceful nation-building, its blurring of data collection and intelligence gathering, and its ambitious dedication to revealing the unseen contents of hearts and minds while remaining ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic contexts in which its subjects lived.
1966年，模拟系统公司的社会科学家抵达西贡。受五角大楼委托协助平定南越，他们对越共叛逃者、政府士兵和越南村民进行了政治和社会心理研究。本文认为，模拟系统公司的工作体现了冷战社会科学的一些讽刺之处：它倾向于在和平国家建设的言辞背后掩盖军事化，模糊数据收集和情报收集的界限，以及在对研究对象生活的历史、文化和语言背景一无所知的情况下，雄心勃勃地致力于揭示人们内心深处看不见的内容。
