Naming a phenomenon
(a) Paolo Friere, a Brazilian educationalist, has spoken about such a phenomenon at length in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He calls it as an ‘internalisation of the oppressor by the oppressed’. Whether we use Paolo Friere’s terminology or the much later one of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, the problem is the same: both name the phenomenon without explaining it. In and of itself, not such a big problem if it is not for a cognitive tendency that is dominant in the ‘social sciences’, which brings me to the second point.
(b) Often, names supplant the search for explanations by ending up as one. It is like saying that ‘patriotism’ causes one to fight for one’s country. The former names the latter and is not an explanation.
(c) Thirdly, once a name is given to a phenomenon, oftentimes it happens that the ‘why’ question gets ad hoc explanations. ‘How to understand the Stockholm syndrome?’ has been provided with so many ad hoc explanations that these explanations themselves are in need of further explaining.
An example: what is it about the Indian culture that it can mute the proselytizing drive of Semitic religions? To say that Indian culture is ‘pluralist’ and that is why this happens is the wrong answer: it is like saying that Opium induces sleep because it has sleep-inducing properties (Virtus Dormitiva as the good doctor put it in Moliére’s play from which I borrow this example). The question is this: what is this ‘pluralism’ about? Is it the same thing as ‘tolerance’ that the secularists of today talk about? Or is it something different? If the former, why are we not all secularists? If the latter, what is the difference about?
Another example: Consider a situation where a group of people fight a war against another group of people. You could, if you so choose, name this phenomenon as “patriotism” or “jihad” or just “territorial behavior”. None of the three terms render the phenomenon intelligible; they merely baptize it. At times, it does appear as though these terms do explain, because arguments and reasoning are brought in, motivations are adduced, etc. But none of these is explanatory in nature: considerations are provided to classify this event as an instance of that phenomenon; they do not explain why that comes about at all. “Patriotism” is not the cause/reason for fighting for one’s country, ‘fighting for one’s country’ is called patriotism. (p. 53 of ‘We shall not cease …’
Yet Another example: why do babies have their fists clenched almost all the time? Dr W. Adams on Quora says: “When I asked that question in medical school on nursery rounds, my professor’s answer was “It’s the palmar grasp reflex.” Hey, I saw what you did; you just put a medical name on my question and repeated it. That’s not an answer.”