The War Against Sociology

Xelebes

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Missed this article from Tuesday but found a link of it in the comment of another article. Let's first start with the "another article."

By Christina Vowel, activist for indigenous rights and well. . .safety, writing about the bizarre eruption of opinion columns railing against an inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/d...o-missing-murdered-aboriginal-women-1.2749508

I am seeing a disturbing trend in the multitudinous op-eds streaming out of the mouths and fingers of pundits on the issue of whether there ought to be a national public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW).

While lip service is generally paid to the welfare of indigenous women, two messages are actually coming out loud and clear:

An inquiry will tell us nothing we do not already know and,
We can have either an inquiry, or put the money into addressing the (known) root causes of the problem.
I want to address the second point first, because it is the most insidious, and apparently unquestioned of the two.

. . .

And so it begins.

But the comment brings about a good point about how the Canadian Tories, and neoliberal ilk such as the British Tories and many Republicans, are blithely ignoring or waging a war against what is being uncovered and talked about in sociology, to the point of mentioning sociology as a dogwhistle that rallies support against any fight against social structural change. In Canada, it is mostly being used against granting rights and safety towards the indigenous people; in the US and UK it is used mostly to dismiss the lack of social mobility. However, Harper is becoming more and more explicit with how he refers to the issues that is being brought forward to him. And for the most part, he is successful, although the opposition parties are now starting take him to task for this.


By Jakeet Singh, an assistant professor from Illinois State University who can't help but notice what is going on across the lakes.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...ephen_harpers_vendetta_against_sociology.html

So what does Harper have against sociology? First, Harper is clearly trumpeting a standard component of neo-liberal ideology: that there are no social phenomena, only individual incidents. (This ideology traces back to Margaret Thatcher’s famous claim that “there is no such thing as society.”) Neo-liberalism paints all social problems as individual problems. The benefit of this for those who share Harper’s agenda, of course, is that if there are no social problems or solutions, then there is little need for government. Individuals are solely responsible for the problems they face.

This ideology is so seductive not only because it radically simplifies our world, but also because it mirrors the two social institutions neo-liberals actually believe in — the “free” market and law and order. Everything is reduced to either a simplistic market transaction or a criminal case. In the former, you either have the money to buy stuff, or you don’t and it’s up to you to get more. In the latter, a lone individual is personally responsible for a crime and is punished for it. Easy peasy. No sociology needed.
 

robjvargas

Rob J. Vargas
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This leaves me kinda stuck. It makes a compelling case, but I also believe that we too often turn individual action into a societal issue.

I'm not sure that the two are mutually exclusive. Need time to ponder.
 

Xelebes

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If a person makes a unique decision, then that decision is individual. If everyone makes a decision, then it is possibly a human decision. If a decision is seen within a society, then it is a social decision. IT is one of the breakthroughs of a behavioural economics that lies between micro and macro economics where society lives and where sociology and economics coincide.

Human decision: You are hungry and you decide you must eat.

Social decision: You are hungry and there is a restaurant near you so you go there.

Individual decision: You look at an airplane overhead and realise that you are hungry and so walk into the restaurant near you.