Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century

158 Pages·2002·0.88 MB·English

by  Karen Bloom

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Social Justice and Sociology:
Agendas for the
Twenty-First Century
Joe R. Feagin
University of Florida
The world’s peoples face daunting challenges in the
twenty-first century. While apologists herald the globaliza-
tion of capitalism, many people on our planet experience
recurring economic exploitation, immiseration, and envi-
ronmental crises linked to capitalism’s spread. Across the
globe social movements continue to raise the issues of
social justice and democracy. Given the new century’s
serious challenges, sociologists need to rediscover their
roots in a sociology committed to social justice, to cultivate and extend the long-
standing “countersystem” approach to research, to encourage greater self-reflection
in sociological analysis, and to re-emphasize the importance of the teaching of soci-
ology. Finally, more sociologists should examine the big social questions of this
century, including the issues of economic exploitation, social oppression, and the
looming environmental crises. And, clearly, more sociologists should engage in the
study of alternative social futures, including those of more just and egalitarian soci-
eties. Sociologists need to think deeply and imaginatively about sustainable social
futures and to aid in building better human societies.
W
e stand today at the beginning of [T]oday the contradictions of American civi-
a challenging new century. Like lization are tremendous. Freedom of politi-
ASA Presidents before me, I am conscious cal discussion is difficult; elections are not
of the honor and the responsibility that this free and fair....The greatest power in the
land is not thought or ethics, but wealth....
address carries with it, and I feel a special
Present profit is valued higher than future
obligation to speak about the role of sociol-
need....I know the United States. It is my
ogy and sociologists in the twenty-first cen-
country and the land of my fathers. It is still
tury. As we look forward, let me quote W. E. a land of magnificent possibilities. It is still
B. Du Bois, a pathbreaking U.S. sociologist. the home of noble souls and generous
In his last autobiographical statement, Du people. But it is selling its birthright. It is
Bois (1968) wrote: betraying its mighty destiny. (Pp. 418–19)
Direct correspondence to Joe R. Feagin, De- Today the social contradictions of Ameri-
partment of Sociology, Box 117330, University can and global civilizations are still im-
of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, (feagin@ mense. Many prominent voices tell us that it
ufl.edu). I would like to thank the numerous col- is the best of times; other voices insist that it
leagues who made helpful comments on various is the worst of times. Consider how the
drafts of this presidential address. Among these
apologists for modern capitalism now cel-
were Hernán Vera, Sidney Willhelm, Bernice
ebrate the “free market” and the global capi-
McNair Barnett, Gideon Sjoberg, Anne Rawls,
talistic economy. Some of these analysts
Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill, Patricia
even see modern capitalism as the last and
Lengermann, Jill Niebrugge-Brantley, Tony
Orum, William A. Smith, Ben Agger, Karen best economic system, as the “end of his-
Pyke, and Leslie Houts. tory” (Fukuyama 1992). In contrast, from
American Sociological Review, 2001, Vol. 66 (February:1–20) 1
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the late 1930s to the 1950s many influential Many of the World’s People Still
economists and public leaders were commit- Live in Misery
ted to government intervention (Keynesian-
ism) as the way to counter the negative ef- First, while it may be the best of times for
fects of capitalist markets in the United those at the top of the global economy, it is
States and other countries—effects clearly not so for the majority of the world’s
seen in the Great Depression of the 1930s. peoples. The pro-capitalist polices of many
The view that a capitalistic market alone national governments and international orga-
should be allowed to make major social and nizations have fostered a substantial transfer
economic decisions would then have been of wealth from the world’s poor and work-
met with incredulity or derision (George ing classes to the world’s rich and affluent
1999; also see Block 1990). Half a century social classes. Social injustice in the form of
ago, Karl Polanyi ([1944] 1957), a prescient major, and sometimes increasing, inequali-
economic historian, critically reviewed the ties in income and wealth can be observed
history of the free-market idea: “To allow across the globe. Thus, in the United States
the market mechanism to be sole director of income inequality has reached a record level
the fate of human beings and their natural for the period during which such data have
environment, indeed, even of the amount been collected: The top one-fifth of house-
and use of purchasing power, would result holds now has nearly half the income; the
in the demolition of society” (p. 73). bottom one-fifth has less than 4 percent.
Since the 1960s, conservative business Moreover, the top 1 percent of U.S. house-
groups have pressed upon the world’s politi- holds holds more in wealth than the bottom
cal leaders, and upon the public generally, 95 percent, and the wealthy have doubled
the idea of a self-regulating market mecha- their share since 1970. Moreover, more
nism, thereby organizing a successful Americans live in poverty than a decade ago.
counter-attack against Keynesian ideas As of the late 1980s, 31.5 million people
(Steinfels 1979). These new apologists for lived at or below the officially defined pov-
capitalism have heralded the beneficial as- erty level, while in 1999 the figure had in-
pects of a globalizing capitalism and have creased to 34.5 million (Collins, Hartman,
exported the free-market model in an eco- and Sklar 1999; Oxfam 1999). In recent de-
nomic proselytizing project of grand scope. cades the number of millionaires and billion-
Free marketeers have persuaded many people aires has grown dramatically. Yet many or-
across the globe that class conflict is in de- dinary workers have seen their real wages
cline and that capitalism and its new tech- decline—even while the costs of housing,
nologies will bring prosperity to all coun- transportation, and medical care have in-
tries. Similarly, other influential supporters creased significantly in real terms.
of the status quo have argued optimistically Of the 6 billion people on earth, a large
that major forms of social oppression, such proportion live in or near poverty and desti-
as racial and gender oppression, are also in tution, with 1.2 billion living on less than one
sharp decline in Western societies. dollar a day. The numbers living in poverty
are increasing in areas of South Asia, Africa,
and Latin America. Today one-fifth of the
THE DOWNSIDE OF A
world’s people, those in the developed coun-
CAPITALISTIC WORLD
tries, garner 86 percent of the world’s gross
Nonetheless, many people in the United domestic product, with the bottom fifth gar-
States and across the globe insist that this is nering just one percent. In recent years the
not the best of times. Karl Marx long ago world’s richest 200 people, as a group, have
underscored the point that modern capital- doubled their wealth, to more than 1 trillion
ism creates bad economic times that encom- dollars for the year 2000 (Oxfam 1999).
pass both social injustice and inequality. While there has been much boasting about
Looking at the present day, I will briefly de- economic growth among those pushing glo-
scribe a few examples of the troubling con- bal capitalism, between 1980 and the late
ditions currently being created or aggravated 1990s most of the world’s countries saw sus-
by modern capitalism: tained annual growth rates of less than 3 per-
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cent per capita, and 59 countries actually ex- ditions, low wages, underemployment or un-
perienced economic declines (Toward Free- employment, loss of land, and forced migra-
dom 1999). Moreover, in most countries tion. Ordinary working people and their
great income and wealth inequalities create families—in most nationality, racial, and
major related injustices, including sharp dif- ethnic groups across the globe—face signifi-
ferentials in hunger, housing, life satisfac- cant negative social impacts from an encir-
tion, life expectancy, and political power. cling capitalism.
Viewed from a long-term perspective, the
high levels of wealth and income inequality,
Capitalism Imposes Huge
and the increase in that inequality, signal yet
Environmental Costs
another critical point in human history where
there is a major foregrounding of social jus- Third, the global capitalistic economy gen-
tice issues. erates profits at the huge cost of increasing
environmental degradation. Since the 1970s,
the levels of some greenhouse gases (e.g.,
Working Families Are Exploited and
carbon dioxide) in the earth’s atmosphere
Marginalized
have grown significantly because of the in-
Second, global capitalism may bring the best creasing use of fossil fuels, widespread de-
of times for corporate executives and the forestation, and industrial pollution. Global
well-off, yet for many of the world’s people warming, which results from this increase in
it brings recurring economic disruption, ex- greenhouse gases, is melting polar ice packs,
ploitation, marginalization, and immis- increasing coastal flooding, generating se-
eration. The international scene is increas- vere weather, creating droughts and reshap-
ingly dominated by highly bureaucratized ing agriculture, and facilitating the spread of
multinational corporations, which often op- disease. In addition, as a result of human ac-
erate independently of nation states. Work- tions, the earth’s ozone layer is severely de-
ing for their own economic interests, these pleted in some areas. This alone results in a
transnational corporations routinely “de- range of negative effects, including in-
velop” their markets—and destroy and dis- creases in skin cancer incidence and major
card regions, countries, peoples, cultures, threats to essential species, such as phy-
and natural environments. For example, toplankton in the oceans (M. Bell 1998;
transnational corporations now control much Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins 1999).
of the world’s agricultural system. In devel- A lack of sufficient water and poor water
oping countries small farmers are shoved quality are large-scale problems in many
aside by large agribusiness corporations or countries. Half the world’s wetlands and
are pressured to produce crops for an inter- nearly half the forests have been destroyed
national market controlled by big trans- in just the last century. The destruction of
national corporations—thereby reducing the forests is killing off many plant species, in-
production of essential foodstuffs for local cluding some supplying the oxygen we
populations (Sjoberg 1996:287). breathe. The consequences of these environ-
Today there are an estimated 1 billion un- mental changes will be the greatest for the
employed or underemployed workers around world’s poorest countries, many of which
the world, with 50 million unemployed in are in areas where the increasing heat of glo-
the European countries alone. Hundreds of bal warming is already having a serious im-
millions, including many millions of chil- pact on water availability, soil erosion, de-
dren, work in onerous or dangerous work- struction of forests, agriculture, and the
places. Some 30 million people die from spread of disease (Sachs 1999).
hunger annually in a world whose large ag- Today, some environmental experts are se-
ricultural enterprises produce more than riously discussing the possibility that most
enough food for every person (Ramonet of the planet’s plant and animal species will
1999). The real effects of expanding capital- be gone by the twenty-second century. Jared
ism for a large proportion of the planet’s in- Diamond, a leading physical scientist, has
habitants are not only greater inequality but reviewed the evidence and concludes that
also job restructuring, unsafe working con- movement toward an environmental catas-
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trophe is accelerating. The only question, in modities. We can have a market economy,
his view, is whether it is likely to “strike our but we cannot have a market society. In ad-
children or our grandchildren, and whether dition to markets, society needs institutions
to serve such social goals as political free-
we choose to adopt now the many obvious
dom and social justice. (P. 24)
countermeasures” (Diamond 1992:362). And
there are yet other related problems facing As Soros sees it, without a more egalitarian
humanity, such as those arising out of the global society, capitalism cannot survive.
new technologies associated with world- In a recent interview, Paul Hawken (Haw-
wide, capitalist-led economic development. ken and Korten 1999), an environmentally
oriented critic of modern capitalism, has re-
counted the story of a business consultant
Global Capitalism Reinforces
who conducted a workshop with middle
Other Injustice and Inequality
managers in a large corporation that makes,
Fourth, in addition to the economic and en- among other things, toxic chemicals such as
vironmental inequalities generated or aggra- pesticides. Early in the workshop the execu-
vated by contemporary capitalism, other tives discussed and rejected the idea that cre-
forms of social injustice and inequality re- ating social justice and resource equity is es-
main central to the United States and other sential to the long-term sustainability of a
societies. I only have space here to note society such as the United States. Later,
briefly such major societal realities as racial these managers broke into five groups and
and ethnic oppression, patriarchy, homopho- sought to design a self-contained spaceship
bia, bureaucratic authoritarianism, violence that would leave earth and return a century
against children, and discrimination against later with its occupants being “alive, happy,
the aged and the disabled. These persisting and healthy” (Hawken and Korten 1999).
forms of discrimination and oppression gen- The executives then voted on which group’s
erally have their own independent social dy- hypothetical spaceship design would best
namics, yet they too are often reinforced or meet these objectives.
exacerbated by the processes of modern The winning design was comprehensive:
capitalism. It included insects so no toxic pesticides
were allowed on board. Recognizing the im-
portance of photosynthesis, the winning
WHAT KIND OF A WORLD
group decided that weeds were necessary for
DO WE WANT?
a healthy ecosystem, so conventional herbi-
The world’s majority now lives, or soon will cides were not allowed. The food system
live, in difficult economic and environmen- was also to be free of toxic chemicals. These
tal times. By the end of the twenty-first cen- managers “also decided that as a crew, they
tury, it is likely that there will be sustained needed lots of singers, dancers, artists, and
and inexorable pressures to replace the so- storytellers, because the CDs and videos
cial institutions associated with corporate would get old and boring fast, and engineers
capitalism and its supporting governments. alone did not a village make.” In addition,
Why? Because the latter will not have pro- when the managers were asked if it was rea-
vided humanity with just and sustainable so- sonable to allow just one-fifth of those on
cieties. Such pressures are already building board to control four-fifths of the ship’s es-
in the form of grassroots social movements sential resources, they vigorously rejected
in many countries. the idea “as unworkable, unjust, and unfair”
A few of the world’s premier capitalists (Hawken and Korten 1999).
already see the handwriting on the wall. Note that this example spotlights the criti-
The billionaire investor George Soros cally important ideas of human and environ-
(1998), for instance, has come to the con- mental interdependence and of social justice.
clusion that free markets do not lead to Even these corporate managers, when hypo-
healthy societies: thetically placing themselves in the closed
system of a spaceship, rejected environmen-
Markets reduce everything, including human tal degradation, a boring monoculture, and
beings (labor) and nature (land), to com- major resource inequalities.
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As I see it, social justice requires re- Perhaps there are clues in the gaia theory
source equity, fairness, and respect for di- for a broader sociological framework for
versity, as well as the eradication of exist- viewing the development of human societ-
ing forms of social oppression. Social jus- ies. We human beings are not just part of an
tice entails a redistribution of resources interconnected biosphere, but are also linked
from those who have unjustly gained them in an increasingly integrated and global web
to those who justly deserve them, and it of structured social relationships. This com-
also means creating and ensuring the pro- plex “sociosphere” consists of some 6 billion
cesses of truly democratic participation in people living in many families and commu-
decision-making. A common view in West- nities in numerous nation states. Nation
ern political theory is that, while “the states and their internal organizations are
people” have a right to self-rule, they del- linked across an international web. Indeed,
egate this right to their representatives—to we human beings have long been more in-
the government leaders who supposedly act terconnected than we might think. Accord-
in the public interest and under the guid- ing to current archaeological assessments,
ance of impartial laws (Young 1990:91–92). we all descended from ancestors who mi-
However, there is no impartial legal and po- grated out of Africa some millennia in the
litical system in countries like the United past. Today, most human beings speak re-
States, for in such hierarchically arranged lated languages; about half the world’s
societies those at the top create and main- people speak an Indo-European language. In
tain over time a socio-legal framework and recent decades the expansion of telecommu-
political structure that strongly support their nication technologies has placed more
group interests. It seems clear that only a people in potential or actual contact with one
decisive redistribution of resources and de- another than ever before. For the first time
cision making power can ensure social jus- in human history, these technologies are rap-
tice and authentic democracy. idly creating one integrated body of human-
The spaceship example explicitly recog- ity (Sahtouris 1996).
nizes the interdependence of human beings Yet, this increasingly interconnected
and other living species. For some decades sociosphere remains highly stratified: Great
now central ideas in physics and biology benefits accrue to those classes dominant in
have stressed the interconnectedness of what international capitalism. Today most of the
were once thought to be discrete phenomena. globe’s political and business leaders, as
Thus, the “gaia theory” in biology suggests, well as many of its academic experts, have
according to Lovelock (1987), that come to accept capitalism as the more or
less inevitable economic system for all
. . . the entire range of living matter on
countries. However, at the same time, grow-
Earth, from whales to viruses, and from oaks
to algae, could be regarded as constituting a ing numbers of people are recognizing that,
single living entity, capable of manipulating because of globalizing capitalism, the earth
the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall is facing a massive environmental crisis,
needs and endowed with faculties and pow- one that has the potential to destroy the ba-
ers far beyond those of its constituent parts. sic conditions for human societies within a
(P. 9)
century or two. Issues of ecological de-
This is more than a metaphorical descrip- struction—as well as broader issues of so-
tion, for in fact we live on a planet that, we cial inequality and injustice—are being
are increasingly realizing, is truly interwo- forced to the forefront not by corporate ex-
ven. All of earth’s aspects—from biosphere, ecutives but by some 30,000 people’s
to soils and oceans, to atmosphere—are seen groups and movements around the globe.
as parts of one interconnected living system These include environmental groups, indig-
with important cybernetic features. Thus, enous movements, labor movements,
environmental irresponsibility in one place, health-policy groups, feminist groups, anti-
such as the excessive burning of fossil fuels racist organizations, and anti-corporate
in the United States, contributes to negative groups (Klein 2000). Such groups agree on
effects elsewhere, such as to global warm- many critical environmental and political-
ing in Australia. economic goals.
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Indeed, many people in other regions of desire to be accepted as a fully legitimate
the world seem to be ahead of us in the discipline in the larger society, especially by
United States in their understanding of the powerful elites. The lead article in the July
damage done by the unbridled operations of 1895 issue of the American Journal of Soci-
multinational corporations. These groups are ology, written by Albion Small, founder of
pressing for meaningful international decla- the first graduate sociology department (at
rations and treaties, such as the various the University of Chicago), listed among the
United Nations declarations on the environ- major interests of the journal editors the
ment and human rights. In the United States analysis of “plans for social amelioration”
awareness of the negative impact of global- (Small 1895:14). A decade later, Small pre-
izing capitalism is now substantial and may sented a paper at the American Sociological
be growing. A 1999 U.S. poll found that just Society’s first meeting in which he argued
over half the respondents said they were vigorously that social research was not an
sympathetic with the concerns of activists end in itself but should serve to improve so-
who had aggressively protested a recent ciety (Friedrichs 1970:73). Small was not
World Trade Organization summit in Seattle alone in this commitment. In the first decade
(Business Week 1999). In many places in the or two of U.S. sociology, leading scholars
United States today there is growing opposi- advocated the pursuit of knowledge for its
tion to the economic and environmental de- own sake and the assessment of that knowl-
cisions of those executives heading trans- edge in relation to its current usefulness to
national corporations. society.
Unquestionably, social justice appears as Moreover, from the beginning there has
a recurring concern around the globe. For been a robust “countersystem” tradition
that reason alone, we sociologists must vig- within U.S. sociology—a tradition whose
orously engage issues of social justice or be- participants have intentionally undertaken
come largely irrelevant to the present and research aimed at significantly reducing or
future course of human history. eliminating societal injustice. The counter-
system approach is one in which social sci-
entists step outside mainstream thought pat-
A LONG TRADITION: SOCIOLOGY
terns to critique existing society (Sjoberg
AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
and Cain 1971). From the perspective of this
Given impending national and international research tradition, social scientists have all
crises, sociology appears to be the right dis- too often accepted the status quo as their
cipline for the time. Sociology is a broad in- standard. It is noteworthy too that much
terdisciplinary field that draws on ideas from countersystem analysis develops ideas about
other social sciences, the humanities, and the alternative social systems. For instance, any
physical sciences. Our intellectual and meth- serious exploration of the countersystem tra-
odological pluralism, as well as our diver- dition must acknowledge the past and cur-
sity of practitioners, are major virtues. Such rent influence of Marx’s critical analysis of
richness gives sociology a particularly good capitalism, which included ideas about an
position as a science to examine the com- alternative social system. Marx’s counter-
plexities and crises of a socially intercon- system analysis has, directly or indirectly,
nected world. Those sciences with diverse influenced many social scientists, including
viewpoints and constructive conflicts over several of the sociologists to whom I now
ideas and issues have often been the most turn.
intellectually healthy. As P. H. Collins In the late nineteenth and early twentieth
(1998) has put it, “Sociology’s unique social centuries, a number of white women, black
location as a contested space of knowledge men, and black women sociologists—as well
construction allows us to think through new as a few white male sociologists—did much
ways of doing science” (p. 10; also see innovative sociological research and at the
Burawoy 1998). same time took strong informed positions in
Views of sociology’s goals have long re- regard to ending the oppression of women,
flected a dialectical tension between a com- black Americans, the poor, and immigrants.
mitment to remedy social injustice and the Among the now forgotten women and black
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male sociologists were Jane Addams, Flo- her colleagues accented a new sociological
rence Kelley, Emily Greene Balch, Ida B. tradition that developed empirical data in or-
Wells-Barnett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, der to better deal with issues of both social
and W. E. B. Du Bois. All were practicing theory and public policy. Their 1895 book,
sociologists, and all developed important so- Hull-House Maps and Papers (Residents of
ciological ideas and research projects. Most Hull-House [1895] (1970), reported on the
were members of the American Sociological sociodemographic mapping of Chicago’s ur-
Society (Deegan 1987). ban areas well before that statistical ap-
Jane Addams was a key founder of U.S. proach became important for the University
sociology. Head resident of Chicago’s pio- of Chicago’s male sociologists. Interestingly,
neering Hull-House complex, she was an ac- these sociodemographic data were used to
tive sociologist and charter member of the help local residents understand their commu-
American Sociological Society. She inter- nity patterns, not just to provide data for
acted professionally with other leading soci- publications in academic journals. More-
ologists and intellectuals. During the 1890s over, one indication of the disciplinary im-
and later, there was great intellectual fer- pact of these early women sociologists is
ment at Hull-House. Not only were union that between 1895 and 1935 they published
leaders, socialists, and other social reform- more than 50 articles in what was then the
ers welcomed there, but a few major male leading sociology journal, the American
social theorists, such as John Dewey and Journal of Sociology (Deegan 1988:47).
George Herbert Mead, regularly interacted In 1896 W. E. B. Du Bois became an as-
with the women sociologists there (Deegan sistant in sociology at the University of
1988:5). Addams was one of the first U.S. Pennsylvania. Du Bois was hired to do a
sociologists to deal conceptually and empiri- study of black Philadelphians using, as he
cally with the problems of the burgeoning noted, the “best available methods of socio-
cities, and she was advanced in her socio- logical research” (Du Bois [1899] 1973:2).
logical analysis of justice and democracy. His book, The Philadelphia Negro ([1899]
She viewed democracy as entailing more 1973), was the first empirical study of a
than fairness and legal equality: black community to be reported in sociologi-
cal depth and at book length. Therein Du
We are brought to a conception of Democ-
Bois not only analyzed sociological data on
racy not merely as a sentiment which desires
the well-being of all men, nor yet as a creed patterns of life in the black community (in-
which believes in the essential dignity and cluding racial discrimination) but also as-
equality of all men, but as that which affords sessed what he viewed as the immorality of
a rule of living as well as a test of faith. discrimination. The last part of this path-
(Addams 1902:6) breaking book includes a study of domestic
In her view ordinary Americans had to par- workers by Du Bois’s white colleague Isabel
ticipate actively in major decisions affecting Eaton, a former Hull-House sociologist. The
their lives for there to be real democracy. research collaboration of these early black
Addams and the numerous women (and a and white sociologists is also part of the now
few men) sociologists working at Hull- forgotten history of sociology. Moreover, in
House not only accented a cooperative and spite of Du Bois’s stellar qualifications—
democratic model of society but also used major sociological research, a Harvard
their sociological research and analysis to Ph.D., and work with leading European so-
ground their efforts for tenement reform, cial scientists—no white-run sociology de-
child-labor legislation, public health pro- partment offered him a regular position.
grams, feminism, and anti-war goals (Dee- Over time, Du Bois would make very impor-
gan 1988). They worked in immigrant and tant contributions to the sociological study
other poor urban communities and sought to of community, family, social problems, and
build a grassroots base for social change. class relations, as well as to the historical
Moreover, working in collaboration, they did study of slavery and Reconstruction.
the first empirical field research in U.S. so- We should recognize too that in this early
ciology. Like Harriet Martineau earlier in the period there were important black women
nineteenth century (see below), Addams and sociologists, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett
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and Anna Julia Cooper, whose work has re- universities. This approach is “instrumental”
cently been rediscovered (Lemert and Bhan in that it limits social research mainly to
1998; Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley those questions that certain research tech-
1998). Though neither was affiliated with niques will allow; it is “positivist” in that it
academic sociology, both were practicing commits sociologists to “rigorous” research
sociologists and theorists of society. In their approaches thought to be like those used in
work they were among the earliest social sci- the physical sciences (Bryant 1985:133). A
entists to analyze data on the conditions of pioneer in this approach was Franklin H.
African Americans and of women in U.S. Giddings at Columbia University. In an early
society in terms of social “subordination” 1900s’ American Journal of Sociology dis-
and “repression” (Cooper 1892; Wells- cussion, Giddings (1909) argued, in strongly
Barnett 1895). gendered language,
By the 1920s and 1930s leading white
We need men not afraid to work; who will
male sociologists were downplaying or ig- get busy with the adding machine and the
noring the pioneering sociological work of logarithms, and give us exact studies, such
the early countersystem sociologists. For ex- as we get in the psychological laboratories,
ample, the dominant introductory textbook not to speak of the biological and physical
of the interwar decades, Park and Burgess’s laboratories. Sociology can be made an ex-
(1921) lengthy Introduction to the Science of act, quantitative science, if we can get in-
dustrious men interested in it. (P. 196, ital-
Sociology, views sociology as an academic
ics in original)
and abstract science. This text contains in its
1,040 pages only a few bibliographical ref- By the 1920s the influential William F.
erences to the work of Du Bois, but no dis- Ogburn, who trained at Columbia University
cussion of his research work, and only one under Giddings and was later hired at the
terse sentence on, and two bibliographical University of Chicago, aggressively argued
references to, the work of Addams. for such a detached and quantitative research
Park and other prominent sociologists approach. In his 1929 presidential address to
were increasingly critical of an activist soci- the American Sociological Society he called
ology and were moving away from a con- for a sociology emphasizing statistical meth-
cern with progressive applications of social ods and argued that sociologists should not
research toward a more “detached” sociol- be involved as sociologists in improving so-
ogy. Their work was increasingly linked to ciety; instead they should focus on effi-
the interests of certain corporate-capitalist ciently discovering knowledge about society.
elites, such as those represented by the Whoever is in power, “some sterling execu-
Rockefeller family foundations. While they tive,” might then apply this objective socio-
frequently researched various types of urban logical research (Bannister 1992:188–90).
“disorganization,” usually in qualitative Survey methods and statistical analyses were
field studies, they rarely analyzed deeply the gradually becoming the emphasized and pre-
harsher realities of social oppression—espe- ferred research strategies in mainstream so-
cially gender, class, and racial oppression— ciology.
in the development of cities. Park and sev- Over the next few decades, most main-
eral of his colleagues played a major role in stream sociologists, including those in lead-
shifting the emphasis from a sociology con- ing departments, did not research major
cerned with studying and eliminating serious public events and issues, especially from a
societal problems to a more detached and critical perspective. One study of 2,559 ar-
academic sociology concerned with “natu- ticles appearing in the American Sociologi-
ral” social forces—without the humanitarian cal Review from 1936 to 1984 examined
attitude or interpretation of what Park some- major social and political events for five pe-
times called the “damned do-gooders” riods within this time frame—events such as
(Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998: the Great Depression and McCarthyism—
15–18; Raushenbush 1979:96). and found that overall only 1 in 20 articles
Moreover, during the 1920s and 1930s dealt with the major events examined for
support for a detached and instrumental- these periods (Wilner 1985). Moreover, from
positivist sociology increased at major U.S. the 1920s to the 1940s remarkably few of the
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leading U.S. sociologists researched, or from corporate foundations and government
spoke publicly and critically of, the agencies. As Deegan (1988) has noted re-
growing fascist movements in the United garding the dominant sociologists at the Uni-
States and Europe, some of which would versity of Chicago,
soon help generate a catastrophic war. Ap-
These later men therefore condemned politi-
parently, one reason for this neglect was the
cal action for sociologists, while the ideas
increasing emphasis on a “value-free,”
of the elite, in fact, permeated their
“pure-science” approach to sociology (Ban-
work.... Rather than condemn the exploi-
nister 1992:175–89).
tation and oppression of daily life, the later
Still, some important critics emerged. Chicago men described it. They justified it
Writing in the early 1940s in an appendix to through their acceptance of it. (P. 304)
his An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal
([1944] 1964) specifically criticized the In the decades after World War II, many
move by Park and Ogburn toward a more mainstream sociologists continued the move
detached sociology: toward the pure-science ideal and away from
the concerns for social justice and the mak-
The specific logical error is that of inferring
ing of a better society. There was a great ex-
from the facts that men can and should make
pansion of federally funded research in the
no effort to change the “natural” outcome of
physical sciences, and leading sociologists
the specific forces observed. This is the old
worked aggressively to grasp a share of the
do-nothing (laissez-faire) bias of “realistic”
social science. (P. 1052) new federal money, often by stressing an in-
strumental-positivist sociology that at-
Anticipating later discussions and debates, tempted to imitate those physical sciences.
Myrdal developed a critique of the new ac- In the late 1950s some 15 prominent social
cent on a “value-free” social science: scientists, including leading sociologists,
signed onto a statement, “National Support
Scientific facts do not exist per se, waiting
for Behavioral Science,” which pressed the
for scientists to discover them. A scientific
fact is a construction abstracted out of a U.S. government for funds for social sci-
complex and interwoven reality by means of ence:
arbitrary definitions and classifications. The
processes of selecting a problem and a basic We assume the probability of a break-
hypothesis, of limiting the scope of study, through in the control of the attitudes and
and of defining and classifying data relevant beliefs of human beings.... This could be a
to such a setting of the problem, involve a weapon of great power in Communist hands,
choice on the part of the investigator. unless comparable advances in the West
([1944] 1964:1057) produce effective counter-measures.
(Quoted in Friedrichs 1970:88)
As Myrdal viewed the matter, value neu-
trality in social science is impossible, for in Contrary to their statements elsewhere about
making choices about how to assess and re- value neutrality, the political orientation of
search society there is always something of these and other influential social scientists of
value at stake. While scientific conventions the time made transparent the centrality of
provide guidelines for choices, they neces- values that were then shaping social science
sarily involve value judgements, and no one research.
can avoid value judgments simply by focus- Also evident is the strong interest of lead-
ing on just social “facts.” ing social scientists in state-funded research.
By the 1930s and 1940s the critical, coun- These researchers were largely successful in
tersystem approaches of sociologists like their efforts, and substantial bureaucracies
Addams and Du Bois were losing out to a have developed to fund social science re-
politically safe, academic, and distancing search under the auspices of the federal gov-
sociology. Sociology was increasingly be- ernment and private foundations. This gov-
coming a discipline whose college and uni- ernment and corporate underwriting of much
versity departments were dominated by mainstream sociological research has fed the
white male sociologists and often linked to emphasis on a quantitatively oriented or in-
elite interests—including ties such as grants strumental-positivist sociology and on soci-
1111100000 AAAAAMMMMMEEEEERRRRRIIIIICCCCCAAAAANNNNN SSSSSOOOOOCCCCCIIIIIOOOOOLLLLLOOOOOGGGGGIIIIICCCCCAAAAALLLLL RRRRREEEEEVVVVVIIIIIEEEEEWWWWW
ologists as research entrepreneurs. Not sur- than any other social science books except
prisingly, social scientists who have secured history books (Bressler 1999:718).
major funding from federal government Let us now consider a few of the socially-
agencies and large corporate foundations relevant agendas for the twenty-first century
have rarely done research that draws on the that can be inaugurated or accelerated by so-
countersystem tradition and is strongly criti- ciologists with many different research per-
cal of established institutions in the corpo- spectives and methods.
rate or governmental realms. From the 1930s
to the present, the accent on academic grant-
Bring Social Justice Back
getting, the heavy emphasis on certain types
to the Center
of quantitatively-oriented research, and the
movement away from the social justice con- First, it is time for the discipline to fully re-
cerns of earlier sociologists have been asso- cover and celebrate its historical roots in a
ciated trends (see Cancian 1995). sociology committed to social justice in ide-
A detached-science perspective has been als and practice. In recent decades no soci-
influential in many areas of sociology for ologist has published even one substantial
some decades now, but not without strong article in a major sociology journal (e.g., the
countering perspectives (e.g., see Vaughan American Journal of Sociology, American
1993). Since the late 1960s there has been a Sociological Review, and Sociological
periodic resurgence of interest in an activist Theory) on the sociological ideas of the
sociology, including an increased concern women sociologists in the founding genera-
with research on (and the eradication of) in- tion (Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley
stitutional discrimination and other forms of 2001). It is time for us sociologists to rem-
social oppression (e.g., see Omi and Winant edy this neglect and help to reclaim the im-
1994). Significantly, the recent history of portant ideas of those women sociologists
sociology has been dialectical, with support- and sociologists of color who are among the
ers of the detached-science perspective of- founders of our discipline.
ten being central, yet regularly challenged A strong case can be made that the British
by those advocating a sociology committed social scientist Harriet Martineau (1802–
to both excellent sociological research and 1876) is the founder of empirical sociology
social justice. in the West. She was apparently the first so-
cial scientist both to use the term sociology
and to do systematic sociological research in
AGENDAS FOR SOCIOLOGY:
the field (Hoecker-Drysdale 1992). She
THE NEW CENTURY
helped to invent a new sociological ap-
Looking toward the next few decades, I see proach that brought empirical data to bear
important conceptual, empirical, policy, and on questions of social theory and public
activist tasks for which the rich diversity of policy. She wrote the first book on socio-
contemporary sociology can help prepare us. logical research methods (Hill 1989), in
These tasks often relate to questions of so- which she argued—preceding Emile Durk-
cial justice. Indeed, one major reason that heim by half a century—that research on so-
some subfields of sociology are periodically cial life is centrally about studying social
attacked by conservative, and often ill-in- “things” accurately and should involve re-
formed, journalists and media commentators search on “institutions and records, in which
is that analyses of discrimination, domina- the action of a nation is embodied and per-
tion, and social justice are generally threat- petuated” (Martineau [1838] 1989:73).
ening to those who desire to maintain the sta- She was a contemporary of Auguste Comte
tus quo. Moreover, we should keep in mind and translated his major work on positive
that sociologists have already had a broad philosophy (sociology) into English.
impact. Sociological ideas and research are Martineau’s first major sociological analysis
frequently used in public discourse by those was based on observations from a field trip
grappling with societal problems, and soci- across the United States—a multi-volume
ology books are more widely reviewed (and set titled Society in America (1837). In that
perhaps even read) outside the discipline work she developed sociological insights as