Arguments for Sociology

[Comrade Jandar]

I'm taking a sociology class and I'm fairly sure that the teacher is your run of the mill liberal. It seems that liberals within the sociological field generally subscribe to a strict positivism. Can anyone give a critique of positivism within sociology?

[The Douche]

Sociology itself is a bit of a farce by this point, I like this bit from the coming insurrection:


To call this population of strangers in the midst of which we live "society" is such a usurpation that even sociologists dream of renouncing a concept that was, for a century, their bread and butter. Now they prefer the metaphor of a network to describe the connection of cybernetic solitudes, the intermeshing of weak interactions under names like "colleague", "contact", "buddy", "acquaintance", or "date". Such networks sometimes condense into a milieu, where nothing is shared but codes, and where nothing is played out except the incessant recomposition of identity.

Not particularly what you're looking for, but Tiqqun certainly has a lot to say about sociology.

[Generalist]

Comrade,
I think you have gist of it already with your suspicion of positivism. First of all, sociology pretends to be a science, but it is not. It gets so excited about random sampling. Sampling is not science. You know science as being close to Truth, not some democratic opinion. Sociology is the bastard child of philosophy, psychology and ethnology. It will help you to learn these real fields.

[Hit The North]

Sociology itself is a bit of a farce by this point, I like this bit from the coming insurrection:


To call this population of strangers in the midst of which we live "society" is such a usurpation that even sociologists dream of renouncing a concept that was, for a century, their bread and butter. Now they prefer the metaphor of a network to describe the connection of cybernetic solitudes, the intermeshing of weak interactions under names like "colleague", "contact", "buddy", "acquaintance", or "date". Such networks sometimes condense into a milieu, where nothing is shared but codes, and where nothing is played out except the incessant recomposition of identity.

Not particularly what you're looking for, but Tiqqun certainly has a lot to say about sociology.

But, of course, sociology is a complex area of study with inevitable overlap with other social sciences, arts, technologies and philosophy, so while the quote from Tiqqun might be a good critique of some sociological theory and practice, it cannot be universally applied.

In fact, rather than talking 'sociology' we should probably be talking 'sociologies' as, if sociology denotes an attempt to scientifically understand the role of society in human affairs, then we can identify a number of different and separate traditions, including historical materialism.

[Prometeo liberado]

I thought this was "An argument for Scientology" thread. I'm going back to bed.:(

[Rafiq]

Marxism founded modern Sociology, indirectly or otherwise. If you do some digging you'll crush all the Liberals in any debate in regards, guaranteed.

[The Douche]

Marxism founded modern Sociology, indirectly or otherwise. If you do some digging you'll crush all the Liberals in any debate in regards, guaranteed.

Comte is usually considered the father of sociology, if I remember correctly.

[GPDP]

Comte is usually considered the father of sociology, if I remember correctly.

And he hardly comes up in Sociological debate. He more or less coined the term to be sure, but I don't think we can say all sociology is a footnote to Comte the way we do about philosophy and Plato.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Comte is usually considered the father of sociology, if I remember correctly. It's generally considered that Marx, Durkheim and Weber were the ones who got it off the ground, even though Comte was it first.

the way we do about philosophy and Plato. but
that's
not right

[Rafiq]

Comte is usually considered the father of sociology, if I remember correctly.

Indeed, but Marx indirectly founded modern sociology. Sociology has been around for a while, but Marx revolutionized it.

[The Douche]

Probably a consequence of my sociology professor, who was a die-hard anti-marxist. She said once that Marx's concept of revolution was "putting all elements of society in a coffee can, throwing it up in the air and basing a new society out of whatever lands on the ground". I called her a liar and said that with her level of education she knew that wasn't accurate. Luckily she agreed and allowed me to present the lecture on socialism, which was cool I guess.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Probably a consequence of my sociology professor, who was a die-hard anti-marxist. She said once that Marx's concept of revolution was "putting all elements of society in a coffee can, throwing it up in the air and basing a new society out of whatever lands on the ground". I called her a liar and said that with her level of education she knew that wasn't accurate. Luckily she agreed and allowed me to present the lecture on socialism, which was cool I guess. She just up and agreed? Just like that?

[The Douche]

She just up and agreed? Just like that?

Yeah, when she realized I was a communist. I've had other friends take her class, she still repeats the same lie. She's not dumb, just a horribly biased professor, but nice lady, and good professor, aside from, yknow, lying to her students.

[GPDP]

Yeah, when she realized I was a communist. I've had other friends take her class, she still repeats the same lie. She's not dumb, just a horribly biased professor, but nice lady, and good professor, aside from, yknow, lying to her students.

Heh, reminds me of my political theory professor. A nice lady (and very good-looking to boot), but she was pretty damn biased. She somehow managed to call both ancient Sparta AND Plato's Republic examples of communist societies.

[Positivist]

Comte is usually considered the father of sociology, if I remember correctly.

He is but that's just because he invented the word (along with positivism, and altruism.) His writing doesn't resemble anything of a scientific work, though its not a bad philosophical work. Emile Durheim was really the founder of modern sociology.

[Positivist]

Heh, reminds me of my political theory professor. A nice lady (and very good-looking to boot), but she was pretty damn biased. She somehow managed to call both ancient Sparta AND Plato's Republic examples of communist societies.

Yea and to any literate communist who has actually read Plato's republic or studied Sparta this constant statement makes your stomach cringe.

[Rafiq]

Probably a consequence of my sociology professor, who was a die-hard anti-marxist. She said once that Marx's concept of revolution was "putting all elements of society in a coffee can, throwing it up in the air and basing a new society out of whatever lands on the ground".

Wow. I mean, what, does she think Bourgeois revolutions utilized the basis of Feudalism to actualize themselves or something?

[cb9's_unity]

It was remarkable how useless the sociology class I took last semester was. Almost every class consisted of taking a topic, making extremely obvious observations about it, and then building an abstract metaphor to 'explain' it. The vast majority of classes I walked away having learned nothing.

I could chalk it up to the horrible teacher, but the textbook was just as bad. It was clear that the writers had either never read Marx or Engels or didn't take the time to understand them. I can't say that I saw anything specifically within Marx that related to the actual techniques used in my sociology class.

Though I have to admit that I was taking a Critical Theory class at the same time that spent a decent amount of time shitting on modern sociology. That only added to my feeling that sociology is a useless and bourgeois field.

[ckaihatsu]

It was remarkable how useless the sociology class I took last semester was. Almost every class consisted of taking a topic, making extremely obvious observations about it, and then building an abstract metaphor to 'explain' it. The vast majority of classes I walked away having learned nothing.


As someone who's particularly partial to sociology, I'd say give it another chance and see if you can find a subject or class in sociology that interests you. The 'intro' level tends to just define a lot of terms in order to lay the groundwork -- it either comes off as being boring, or completely obvious, or both.

It sounds like the class you were in had you doing drills, probably with the same 'culture-building' purpose in mind. Intro classes in practically *all* fields are 'weed-out' classes, anyway -- only those who are motivated to find something deeper in the field will put up with the basic, inane on-ramp....

[Kenco Smooth]

I'm taking a sociology class and I'm fairly sure that the teacher is your run of the mill liberal. It seems that liberals within the sociological field generally subscribe to a strict positivism. Can anyone give a critique of positivism within sociology?

What do you mean by strict positivism? If you mean logical positivism then you've really managed to miss how decimated that philosophy is across the entire spectrum of natural/social sciences.

[ckaihatsu]

(Gratuitous dissemination of propaganda.)


= )


Humanities - Technology Chart 3.0

http://postimage.org/image/6psghrjot/

[Geiseric]

it could be because i'm in california, however my sociology professor so far seems to actually lay out Marx's theories correctly. It's one of my favorite classes so far, because it actually has to do with society and material issues, as opposed to philisophical concepts that really don't matter.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Comrade,
I think you have gist of it already with your suspicion of positivism. First of all, sociology pretends to be a science, but it is not. It gets so excited about random sampling. Sampling is not science.

Oh man, better not let the user "Que?" see this, he'll get all up in your grill!

[smellincoffee]

Reading this thread, I'm glad the sociologist I took most of my classes under was a Marxist. :lol:

[Thirsty Crow]

Comrade,
I think you have gist of it already with your suspicion of positivism. First of all, sociology pretends to be a science, but it is not. It gets so excited about random sampling. Sampling is not science. You know science as being close to Truth, not some democratic opinion. Sociology is the bastard child of philosophy, psychology and ethnology. It will help you to learn these real fields.
You're being foolish.

First, random sampling is not the only investigative procedure in sociology. And what you call "sampling" is actually statistics, and it is a valid procudere used in science.
Secondly, the "democratic opinion" is not something which sociologists use to determine the "Truth". If a goal of a research is to study attitudes towards abortion among the crust-punk subculture, then you can't pretend that this is used to determine a "Truth" about abortion. On the other hand, this is used to get a better idea of the ways this subculture responds to abortion. You can't do that without a sample of sorts, you can't just pick out one random girl or guy. And the truth you get is the truth of the atittude of crustpunks to abortion.

[Kenco Smooth]

Comrade,
I think you have gist of it already with your suspicion of positivism. First of all, sociology pretends to be a science, but it is not. It gets so excited about random sampling. Sampling is not science. You know science as being close to Truth, not some democratic opinion. Sociology is the bastard child of philosophy, psychology and ethnology. It will help you to learn these real fields.

This is a strange post. First you seem to attack random sampling then you laud psychology. The vast majority of psychology aims towards generalizability, which necessarily presumes random sampling. If there's one potentially massive issue to emerge in the future in psychology it's that it's sampling is massively skewed to white, wealthy students in developed nations. And sociology actually has at least half a century on psychology from when they are typically considered to have begun

[Hit The North]

This is a strange post.

Yes, it is almost like Generalist doesn't know what s/he is talking about.