sociology in the mood of society

8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society

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The Heart of Sociology

James Moody

The Ohio State University

Department Brown Bag, 4/29/05


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Introduction

Points of DepartureA battle for symbolic power

Is anybody listening?

What Knowledge?

Where does sociology fit?

Sociologically unique theory

Making Sociology Relevant

What do we want to say?

How do we get the message out?

Conclusions


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Knowledge of the social world and, more precisely, the categories

which make it possible, are the stakes par excellence of political

struggle, a struggle which is inseparably theoretical and practical, over

the power of preserving or transforming the social world by preserving

or transforming the categories of perception of that world. (p.236)

Every field is the site of a more or less openly declared struggle for

the definition of the legitimate principles of division of the field.

(p.242)

Pierre Bourdieu Language and Symbolic Power

Why name it Public sociology?

Points of Departure:A battle over symbolic power


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The power to name is the essential step in any battle over the legitimate principles ofdivision in a social field, such as the discipline of sociology.

Appropriating sociology is an attempt to legitimate a political project

Reifies the practice of appending non-scientific adjectives to sociology

(Critical sociology, Policy Sociology, Professional Sociology)

This is a brilliant tactical move,

Uses our general practice of defining sub-fields (Organizational

Sociology), but slyly changes the meaning of sociology in the process.

Compare:

Political Sociology Sociology of politics

Public Sociology / Sociology of Public(s)

Once the term is in circulation, the defining details are largely irrelevant.

Power comes in establishing the term, not by filling in the particulars.




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How has this symbolic move been so easily perpetrated?Linguistic familiarity

We are so used to the sociology construction in our

scientific practice, that we easily misread the significance of the new

appropriation.

Repetition & (mis)recognition

Simple repetition in debates, talks, and plenary sessions reifies the

concept by selectively (mis)recognizing the meaning & content of

these events assupportfor the project.

This would be like counting the number of people at a rally without

accounting for which candidate they supported.

Plays on a social activist bias in the discipline



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Why do it?

Internal:

The appropriation of power through naming is a covert way to change

the direction and values of a field. Since this particular project plays

well into the generally progressive politics of most sociologists, itsoften well-received.

This move has a well-repeated history in sociology (see Abbotts

Chaos of Disciplines).

External:

By casting the project associology the legitimacy of a scientific field

is appropriated for political projects.




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What should we do about it?

Nothing

The best response to this project would have been to simply ignore it. You

kill a bad book by not reviewing it, not by giving it a bad review. The best

counter-move in a symbolic battle is to not acknowledge the move in the first

place.

Turn the debate

Its too late to do nothing, so lets change the focus of the question. We

should use this as an opportunity to ask:

What is sociology and where does it fit in the social sciences?

How can we make our scientific work relevant to wider audiences?



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Points of Departure:Is anybody listening?

What would effective public sociology look like?

Burawoy says public sociology is :

A dialog between sociology and its publics

Sociologists as sociologists engage in direct political discourse &

action.

This should rest on moralquestions regenerating sociologys

moral fiber

Effectiveness would thus imply getting noticed, failure is equal to

public indifference.


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Points of Departure: is anybody listening?

Burawoy lists 5 recent exemplars of public sociology, all taken by the

ASA, how many of them appeared in the press?:

Brief to supreme court on the Michigan decision:

Statements on Race (proposition 54, 2003 importance):

Resolution against the war in Iraq:

Resolution against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex

marriage:

Protesting the imprisonment of Saad Ibrahim:

1

0

4

0

1

Nobody is paying attention to these political statements.

The media does, however, report our substantive findings


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What effect would effectiveness have?

This is probably good news.

Coupling sociology for politics is more likely to delegitimate sociology than

legitimate our political programs.

Consider Nadars involvement in the 2000 ASA meeting.

The only coverage the N.Y. Times gave to that meeting was an editorialtitled Sociologists to the Barricades1 that ridiculed the overly political,

simplistic, and clearly ideologically motivated presentations, mocking any

scientific activity.

Richard Tommasson, summarized this by saying Three and four decades

ago people confused sociology with social work, now they may confuse it

with a revolutionary party.2

If sociology is equated with liberal politics our scientific workwill be similarly

read. Our ability to remain above the fray is crucial to being heard at all.

1 http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/asameetings.htm

2 http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/septoct00/publicforum.html#Sociologists


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What effect would effectiveness have?

A counter argument is that sociology need not take aparticularpolitical

stance.

Public sociology has no intrinsic valence it can as well support

Christian Fundamentalism as it can Liberation Sociology or

Communitarianism -- Burawoy , p.11

But every example weve seen so far has been for left and far-left

causes and positions.

It doesnt matterthat this might well follow from good social

science. It will be interpreted as just political.

Ultimately, the goal of using sociology to legitimate politics is self-defeating.

The same power of naming that allows claiming a space for public

sociology will let those best skilled at using symbolic power simply equate

sociology with politics.


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This does notmean we should do nothing.

The lackof direct political action can be politically relevant.

Tendencies to stay out of politics can be seen as extremely

conservative: it favors what is currently in place.

Fixing the points of debate

The role of sociology (I think) should be to identify the social facts thatpolitical actors will have difficulty denying. We should provide the is to

politicians ought.

Which implies

(1) We need to have something useful to say

(2) What we say needs to be seen as legitimate descriptions of the worldpeople are interested in.

(1) follows from sociologys unique empirical and theoretical position.

(2) Combines our claim to objective, scientifically grounded knowledge with

disseminating that knowledge more widely.


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What Knowledge?: where does sociology fit?

Can sociology lay any legitimate claim to unique knowledge?

Perennial debates over the existence of a theoretical core to the

discipline

Rapid growth in the internal diversity of topics sociologist study:

0

5

10

15

2025

30

35

40

45

50

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Number of ASA Sections


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Rapid growth in the number of social science journals:


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Thisgrowth & diversity has been seen as evidence for the ultimate

emptiness of sociology as a scientific discipline.

But disciplines are created dynamically by the exchange of ideas, not

the number of ideas. That is, we recognize work as much by who theyspeak to as by whatthey speak about.

The clearest empirical trace of this communication is citation.

Disciplines can then be defined as clusters of work that speaks

more to each other than to anyone else.


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Sociology fits at the center of the social sciences. We are not as internally

cohesive as Economics or Law, but more so than many (anthropology, allied

health fields).

This represents a tradeoff. We have traded unique dominance of a topic

(markets, politics, mind, space, history) for diversity & thus centrality.

Sociology is interstitial discipline (Abbott, 2004) in at least two-senses:

There is no content topic we can reasonably exclude

We pull together, and generate, the ideas and topics covered by

specialty disciplines.

This makes us uniquely positioned to provide comprehensive insights on

particular empirical questions.


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What Knowledge?: Sociologically Unique Theory

Is there a set of unique theoretical tools & concepts that sociology uses to

understand substantive topics?

These are the core elements that form our scientific collective conscious

making possible the wider organic solidarity that comprises the empirical

scientific work of the discipline.

My strategy is to ground the abstract ideas ofstructure and agency

embedded in Sewell, Giddens or Bourdieu by embedding them in key

action arenas (Networks, Organizations, & Markets ) which are intimately

linked to questions of meaning (culture) and regular, repeated rules for

social action (institutions), all of which rest ultimately on the distribution of

people in places (population & ecology).


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InstitutionsCulture

Population / Ecology

A proposed schema for primary sociological elements

Markets

Networks

Organizations

Scope of

individual

agency

Determinacyof social

structure


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TheAction arenas (Networks, Markets, and Organizations) are were actors

do things.

We have currently given much of this domain to other disciplines, but

theres no reason we cant re-appropriate it.

The meaning regions (Culture & Institutions)rest squarely on Sewells

treatment of schemas (rules that guide social action but that are

simultaneously re-created in their use), differing only in their regulatory

power and resilience.

Population & ecological distributions result from the combinedbehaviors of

actors use and reaction to the meaning and regulatory dimensions, but in

turn shape the possible actions actors can take. (This is nearly Durkheim

wholesale).



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The typical substantive topics that sociologists deal with on a

day-to-day basis then emerge from the intersection of these sets.

For example:

Powerorexploitation result from access to resources

embedded in the action arenas and shaped by the meanings

dimensions

Categories like class, race orgenderbecome a pattern of

relations instead of essential social or biological elements.

Any substantive domain can be treated in this way and, I think,

typically is treated this way even if not put in this particular

language.


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The point, of course, is not the correctness of thisparticularproposal.

Its that our interstitial position in the field of social science allows us to

take a wider view of the social world than any other discipline.

If, as Arendt claims, science rests on the ability to take a view from

nowhere, then sociologists have a distinct advantage, because we

dont carry with us the kinds of disciplinary blinders needed to maintain

strong boundaries.

This should allow us to more effectively communicate to the wider public.

But what do we want to say?


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Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?

A few empirical facts: World HIV Prevalence: 38M in 2003

Source: World Health Organization


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Effect of Friendship Structure on Suicidal ThoughtsNet of demographic, family, school, religion and personal characteristcs.

Males Females

OR 95% CI OR 95% CINetworkIsolation 0.665 (0.307 - 1.445) 2.010 (1.073 - 3.765)Intransitivity Index 0.747 (0.358 - 1.558) 2.198 (1.221 - 3.956)Friend Attempted Suicide 2.725 (2.187 - 3.395) 2.374 (2.019 - 2.791)Trouble with People 0.999 (0.912 - 1.095) 1.027 (0.953 - 1.106)


A few empirical facts: Social isolation affects suicide more for

females than for males


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A few empirical facts: but isolated males are more likely to carry

weapons than isolated females.

Percen

tCarryingW

eapons

0

5

10

15

20

25

Outsiders(8%)

Bridges(25%)

Members(67%)

Males

Females


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A few empirical facts: Some racially heterogeneous schools are

socially segregated


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A few empirical facts: while other heterogeneous schools are

socially integrated. Why?


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and of course we could go on like this for many more.

Each of these empirical points arepolitically relevant:

HIV / AIDS questions about world position & sexual

behavior

Social Isolation in Youth Role of schools, meaning of

gender

Racial IntegrationMeaning of race, Assimilation


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We need to ensure that those with political agendas are

getting the facts right.

Our training is in understanding & explainingthe world,

not in political action. We can win debates and arguments

about data, method and findings. We cannot compete inthe political spin cycle.

Often, however, the answer will be We dont know.

Hence the strong need for basic social science research,

research that is not tied directly to a policy outcome, but

instead focuses on fundamental properties of social

interaction.


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Making Sociology Relevant:How do we get the message out?

Burawoy points out that one of our best arenas for politicalsociology is the classroom, since we graduate ~25,000 majors a

year.

Note that this plays directly into the hands of those chargingthe academy with political bias.

I agree that we should use our classes, but not to preach a

specific political message.

Instead, we need to generate a population of social science

research literate graduates, who can be honestly critical of

the kinds of data and claims they hear in the political realm.

Teaching


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Our best bet for being relevant will be to advertise our findings.

Most of our work is funded by the public, either directly through

grants or indirectly through our university salaries. We should

be accountable for that funding and do our best to expose themto our research.

This means using the media.

Research


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The public finds (quality) research on social life as interesting as we do, andthe science press is very eager to publish solid scientific findings.

Ive had 3 pieces get significant media coverage. This work has appeared in:

Talk of the Nation (NPR): 3 Million Listeners2

Time Magazine: 4.1 Million (Circulation1)

NY Times: 1.1 Million (Circulation)

Washington Post: 746,000 (Circulation)

Glamour: 2.2 Million

Mens Health: 1.7 Million

The Economist: 800,000Harpers: 800,0000

Playboy: 3.1 Million

Total: 16.75 Million readers, plus 2nd tier newspapers, wire

& web.

Media Coverage

1) http://www.magazine.org/Circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/11186.cfm

2) http://www.npr.org/about/press/020319.recordbreak.html
http://www.magazine.org/Circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/11186.cfmhttp://www.npr.org/about/press/020319.recordbreak.htmlhttp://www.npr.org/about/press/020319.recordbreak.htmlhttp://www.magazine.org/Circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/11186.cfm


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Working with the media comes with certain costs:

We have to make it accessible.

They will get it wrong. But thats probably OK.

The interest of the science press is inversely proportional to the

prominence of political motives in the work.

Media Coverage


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Conclusions

1) The current push for public sociology is a classic exercise in symbolic

power.

The attempt to place public sociology as just another type of

sociology is a ploy designed to borrow scientific legitimacy for a

political project.

The move risks a two-fold backfire:

Scientific sociology will be delegitimized by politics Illegitimate science will have no positive policy effect.

2) As a discipline, sociology is uniquely situated (a) to bridge other social

science disciplines, (b) bringing to bear unique theoretical insights (c)

about empirical puzzles that are of genuine interest to the public.


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Conclusions

Marx famously said:

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the

point, however, is to change it.

Theses on Feuerbach, XI

Before we can change the world, we need to understand it. As it turnsout, the world is much more difficult to understand that Marx and his

optimistic 19th century companions ever imagined.

The sociologists primary purpose is to contribute this understanding. It ispossible to change the world without understanding, but you will

rarely be happy with the result.

sociology in the mood of society

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