Hi
Here we go again, sociologists arguing about their discipline. No wonder there are popular magazines called the 'Economists' and 'Psychology today but none called the 'Sociologists or 'Sociology Today'. Could it be that sociology as a discipline is inherently self-doubting or is it a discipline that attracts self-doubters? (Just wondering) Or could it be that the subject matter is so broad that it defies out attempts to pigeon hold its values or focus. Gloom/doom or victory/glory are all part of the sociological milieu and what an individual sociologist choose to emphasize will
a product of the times. Evidently these days it is quite fashionable to focus on the positive. The emphasis on the positive is now very popular in psychology; the developmental assets research is one example. I have always seen SI as encompassing all things social whether they are deprived or privileged.
"Del Thomas Ph. D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
John Glass wrote:With all due respect, sociology, social science is a tool. Tools do not have inherent values. It would be like inferring values to a hammer. We IMO should separate the tool from theas I have mentioned on this list and others, numerous times, sociology is a humanistic enterprise (or at least it was at its conception); as such, there are values inherent in that orientation. i believe that one can also tease out what constitutes good, bad, gloom, doom. etc., from that perspective, too.
carpenter.
If you doubt the anti sociological message in the Promise subject it to a beta test. SI is not alone in the escape from sociology. But CWM is insistent on unease. Do you find any reference to
victory, glory, ease or pleasure. Can you say Puritan ethic in new collars and cuffs. Or you could look at the posts on this list.
Perhaps the most noticeable escape from sociology takes place in the sociology classroom.
Del
"Clearly, the social scientist should be accurate and objective but not neutral; he should be passionately partisan in favor of the welfare of the people and against the interests of the few when they seem to
submerge that welfare. In a word, the reason for the existence of the social scientist is that his [sic] scientific findings contribute to the betterment of people's well-being." by Oliver Cromwell Cox
