>Empirical science is for describing nature rather than man-made institutions.
Human behavior can be described in empirical terms as well - but it is more difficult to model, especially for those who look for deterministic models. Empricism and determinism are two different things.
>Also if you think empirical science is value-free, well, what can I say?
No - but there is plenty of shades of grey between "value free" and "everything is subjective" (hence everything goes). Although the viewers standpoint will invariably interfere with what is seen and described, there are also ways of minimizing and controlling that interference (e.g. by self-reflection as Bourdieu suggested).
>How men decide to regulate their relations to one another and to larger
>social formations is not for empirical science to decide but for men and
>women to decide.
There is a difference between decision making and describing a decision-making process. The latter can be described either in empirical terms i.e. by empirically determining interests and knowledge of actors, social relations and patterns of interaction among theme and their influence on the outcome, or in moralistic terms i.e. by imputing motives, interests and outcomes according to an apriori script. It is the latter that I objected to by calling it fundamentalism - which implies precedence of an apriori script, scripture or a set of beliefs over empirical findings and an interpretation based on them.
>I took advantage of a reference to Coriolanus to make some wry remarks
>about the asymmetrical relationship of U.S. patriots to the ruling regime.
>How this is equivalent to moral tyranny, I don't know.
The world is full of asymmetries, and that fact alone does not explain much. A more interesting approach is to find what different people do under different asymmetry conditions. For example - why women stay in what others see as abusive relationships or why people support what others see as abusive political systems, etc.
wojtek