In my discipline, sociology, there is a great deal of hand wringing over our relevance, and, in particular, how we can become a more ‘public sociology.’ One blog that goes by that name has been even more idle than this one (to be honest, there is some blogging: one by a collective of bigger names in the discipline, one by a University of Arizona Prof, and the American Sociological Association has spent a little energy on a new magazine that sits in Barnes & Nobles everywhere, called ‘Contexts‘–full disclosure, this writer is a student editor and modest contributor).Crooked Timber, a great academic blog, has a fine honor roll of public voices, and in this arena, political science, history, and economics are kicking sociology’s ass: headlined by Daniel Drezner (who has a nice entry about this very topic), Juan Cole, and Paul Krugman, respectively. New to the field is a powerhouse duo, which includes someone at least a joint appointment in sociology: Nobel Prize-winning Professor of Economics and Sociology, Gary S. Becker and federal circuit judge and Professor of Law Richard Posner (who has written a book on the decline of public intellectuals, which I discussed a few months ago, if you recall). They believe that blogging “is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge.” Check them out.
david brooks, lampin’ on the communist manifesto
“The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left.”
Of course, he then blows it, by writing:
“Poor children are less likely to live with both biological parents, hence, less likely to graduate from high school, get a job and be in a position to challenge the hegemony of the privileged class. Family inequality produces income inequality from generation to generation.”
Ugh. At least he pretends to read Marx. Notice the use of ‘hence.’ Inequality, again, falls at the feet of the working class and the everyday folk. Don’t put the left and the right together on this one, David. The ‘Go it on Your Ownership Society’ is in full swing, and it ain’t coming from the left.
testing your readability
Although currently having troubles, ‘juicy studio‘ has a test that allows you to check the ‘readability’ of your web content (or any content that you’ve put in an html format). Sadly, my dissertation, which was aimed for the ‘public’ hit the ‘academic paper’ mark. I’m not exactly sure how it works (i.e., How can it tell the difference between pronouns and complex words? Could my diss have been poorly graded because I site lots of people?), but it might be a nice marker for those interested…
certitudo salutis!
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber, and From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills: dueling corps, virtuoso religiosity, magical asceticism, expert officialdom, old civilized countries, civic strata, active asceticism, emissary prophecy, office prebends, certitudo salutis, ascetic conduct, capitalistic development.
The Field of Cultural Production by Pierre Bourdieu: art competence, cultural consecration, symbolically dominant, symbolic revolution, symbolic goods, dominated fractions, aesthetic disposition, scholarly culture, dominant fractions, artistic field, positions and dispositions, bourgeois artists, autonomous field, dominated position.
Identity and Control by Harrison White: embedding ratios, commit interfaces, servile elite, compound actors, council species, select arena, molecular disciplines, discipline species, valuation orderings, differentiation ratio, social molecules, acquaintance dance, fresh control, hieratic style, arena disciplines, multiplex tie, network populations, getting action, interface species, dual hierarchy.
capitalism triumphs, frankfurt school sighs
desparately seeking new growth industry
With the new year comes wonderful new quirks. Right outta the gate comes the fun consequence of an America ‘Almost-Equal-But-Compromise-Makes-A-Monster.’ California’s gay community might not get all the privileges of marriage, but they do get access to all the fun of divorce. The Los Angeles Times says that “Sociologists have suggested that the rights and responsibilities of marriage benefit both partners.” Neat. It’s good news for lawyers. According to a member of one gay couple: “It is very, very confusing. We need lawyers to figure out what to do.” I hope they mean the judicial code. First person to say ‘See, they are ruining marriage’ is going to get my foot up their ass.
President Bush said in a speech last February that that “marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots” without weakening society. The San Francisco Chronicle had a nice discussion around that time, and hopefully, some nice longitudinal studies are on the way–Putting the morals aside, a great chance to see how changes in the social structure might shift the norms and practices of everyday folk.
Within the article, Esther Rothblum, a psychology professor at University of Vermont who is conducting a study on civil unions in Vermont in 2000-2001, said that “Heterosexuals get more socialization to marry. They are much more likely to have children and it’s easier to break up relationships if you don’t want children… Heterosexuals also have legal marriage and up to that point gays and lesbians did not.”
Also: Is anyone else amazed that Montana’s public universities must provide their gay employees with insurance coverage for their domestic partners?
warm, comfortable, global socks
Classical theorists were deeply concerned over the specialization and rationalization of the working class. Famously, Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, looked at the result of capitalism upon the proletariat as taking four colors. Roughly: alienation from the worker’s labor, from his product, from his fellow worker, and from his own ‘species being.’ Just in time to trigger feelings of guilt in the hearts of Wal-Mart holiday (or post-holiday, bargain) shoppers, the New York Times buzzkills yuletide cheer with a Christmas Eve story about ‘Sock City.’ According to the Times, the city of Datang, China “produces an astounding nine billion pairs of socks each year – more than one set for every person on the planet. People here fondly call it Socks City, and its annual socks festival attracts 100,000 buyers from around the world.”
It’s no joke. And it’s not the only ‘commodity town’: To the southeast of Datang there is the necktie capital, to the west is ‘Sweater City,’ and to the south is ‘Underwear City.’ I’m not sure how fun a socks festival can be, but I wonder if it could possibly balance out the alienation of an entire city producing hosiery. Yes, there were, and still are ‘company towns,’ but, is this a logical extension? Is it what geographer Neil Smith called the jumping scale of a particular condition of capitalism?
Evoking Marx, the NYT article continues:
The niche cities reflect China’s ability to form “lump” economies, where clusters or networks of businesses feed off each other, building technologies and enjoying the benefits of concentrated support centers – like the button capital nearby, which furnishes most of the buttons on the world’s shirts, pants and jackets.
David Barboza, author of the Times piece, writes that Marx couldn’t have imagined such developments. But of course he could have. Standing upon Marx’s shoulders, we might theorize a great deal, centering our inquiry around questions like: Is there a communality between the cities? Does the social network at the municipal level translate to a communal tie at the interpersonal level, or does it create a rift? Does the ‘imagined community‘ of the nation get undermined by the segmentation of industry writ large (a la the dissemination and reconfiguration of Germany’s industries post WWII)? Can there be municipal alienation – a kind of blue state-red state disjunction at the city level? Have the forces of ‘centralization’ and ‘concentration,’ so described by Marx (add Saskia Sassen and David Harvey, too) brought about a new wave of ‘commodity town’?
(Looking for more in the realm of Holiday Buzzkill? Don’t miss the story of a California father who sold his kid’s toys on eBay. Also for a great post on the nature of ‘the gift,’ check out PubSociology.