Introduction

Abstract

This essay has its origins in the failure of my dissertation research. In 1971, I set out to discover how Thai villagers make decisions. This study was to be the first step toward a distant goal: to learn what makes people do what they do. But when I tried to take that first step, I found that I was facing an impenetrable wall. By dint of some vigorous and elaborate gestures that mimicked forward motion without actually producing it, I was able to complete an acceptable dissertation, but it was full of desperate theoretical fidgeting. I was stuck. For some time thereafter, I agonized over possible alternate ways to achieve my purpose, but the wall proved unyielding. I finally ended my useless thrashing about by giving up, conceding that the project was misconceived.