Jonathan H. Turner is 38th University Professor of the University of California and Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division at University of California, Riverside, and Research Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is primarily a sociological theorist, but has been committed in recent decades to bringing biological analysis into sociology, and sociology to the general public. He is the author of 44 books and several hundred research articles. His most recent book is Inter-Societal Systems: Toward a More General Theory (2023).
1. Much of your work has been formulating theories, models, and laws of sociology. What are the critical features of a sociological law? Could you provide an example or two?
A law in science, more generally, is a statement about the relationship among concepts denoting generic and fundamental properties of the universes relevant to humans: the physical, organic, and socio-cultural universes. Few would argue that the physical and organic universes can be explained by abstract theoretical principles, whereas many dispute that the social world of humans can be explained by abstract principles. But, in fact, many theoretical principles about the dynamics of societies have already been articulated over the last 150 years.
Before offering support for this conclusion, let me first outline some of the key properties of explanatory theories. First, theories are stated at a high level of abstraction; empirical descriptions, historical narratives, or moralistic rants about what is good or bad are not theories. Theories address the fundamental properties and forces of a universe, whether physical, biological, or socio-cultural, that are always present and operative. So, theories abstract above the many empirical variants of more fundamental properties and principles; for, only by being abstract can a theory be fully explanatory.
Second, theories will need to be value free, non-ideological, and otherwise “non-politicized” or “moralized” the way contemporary sociology now often argues. And third, sociological theories should, I believe, be presented in two different formats: one is propositions or abstract statements about the dynamics revolving around the fundamental properties of the socio-cultural universe; the others visual models delineating the causal connections among forces articulated in the abstract propositions. I will give examples shortly of these two strategies that I use to develop explanatory theories.
In my own work, I have taken several paths to arguing and demonstrating how being more abstract and, as best as is possible being human, being value free, increases our knowledge about socio-cultural universe, beyond summaries of empirical events, philosophical discourse, or moralizing about what should exist in the socio-cultural universe. One strategy that I employed early in my career was to take existing theories of the classical theorists that were often, to varying degrees moralized and, in places, too empirical.
Karl Marx, for example, had a “theory” of history as marching through various historical epochs ultimately leading to communist societies. Marx was highly moralized, to be sure, but by kicking the level of abstraction up to all societies and at all times and places, Marx’s theory can be made more explanatory in my sense of what theory should be. Moreover, by drawing a model of the direct, indirect, and reverse causal (feedback) effects among the forces in Marx’s model, his argument can be applied to much more than the historical march from epoch-to-epoch on the road to capitalism. Moreover, the causal model also reveals why Marx’s predictions never materialized in the manner he speculated. Below is Marx’s argument on the forces causing revolution. It is first stated at a more abstract level by a series of propositions:
Marx’s Abstracted Propositions on Conflict Processes (Propositions)
The more unequal the distribution of scarce resources in a society, the greater is the basic conflict of interest between its dominant and subordinate segments.
The more subordinate segments become aware of their true collective interests, the more likely they are to question the legitimacy of the existing pattern of distribution of scarce resources.
Subordinates are more likely to become aware of their true collective interests when: (A) Changes wrought by dominant segments disrupt existing relations among subordinates; (B) Practices of dominant segments create alternative dispositions; (C) Members of subordinate segments can communicate their grievances to one another, which, in turn, is facilitated by the ecological concentration among members of subordinate groups and the expansion of education opportunities for members of subordinate groups; (D) Subordinate segments can develop unifying ideologies, which in turn is facilitated by the capacity to recruit or generate ideological spokespeople and the inability of dominant groups to regulate socialization processes and communication networks among subordinates.
The more subordinate segments of a system become aware of their collective interests and question the legitimacy of the distribution of scarce resources, the more likely they are to join in overt conflict against dominant segments of a system especially when: (A) Dominant groups cannot clearly articulate, nor act in terms of their collective interests; (B) Deprivations of subordinates move from an absolute to relative basis, or escalate rapidly; (C) Subordinate groups can develop a political leadership structure.
The greater the ideological unification of members of subordinate segments of a system and the more developed their political leadership structure, the more likely are the interests and relations between dominant and subjugated segments of a society to become polarized and irreconcilable.
The more polarized the dominant and subjugated , the more violent will be the conflict.
The more violent the conflict, the greater the amount of the structural change within a society and the greater the redistribution of scarce resources.
The argument can also be modeled as a series of direct, indirect, and reverse (feedback) causal relations (This diagram may not be visible or appear at the end of this Q&A when viewing this site on a phone):
Other early theorists in sociology also argued for abstract theories that were, to varying degrees, moralized—scholars such as Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, and Georg Simmel. They were more abstract than Marx. Still, making them more abstract reduces the moralization and also allows for the development of an abstract model outlining the flow of causality for now more general and generic properties of the socio-cultural universe. Indeed, by the simple magic of abstraction and value neutrality, their theories can be converted to theories that are more explanatory and more useful in explaining the universe. And, I would add, with developing scientifically based strategies for developing theories, it is more likely that sociologists can suggest strategies. Again, I have formalized the arguments of Spencer, Durkheim. and Simmel and in doing this, these theories become more value-neutral and, moreover, useful for sociological practice. (See for example, chapters in any edition of J. H. Turner, The Structure of Sociological Theory and (with L. Beeghley and C. Powers) The Emergence of Sociological Theory).
Further Reading
Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation (London & Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985). "A Strategy for Reformulating the Dialectical and Functional Theories of Conflict," Social Forces, 53 (1975), pp. 433-444. Marx and Simmel Revisited: Re-assessing the Foundation of Conflict Theory," Social Forces, 53 (1975), pp. 619-627. "Emile Durkheim's Theory of Integration in Differentiated Social Systems," Pacific Sociological Review, 24 (1981), pp. 379-392. "The Forgotten Theoretical Giant: Herbert Spencer's Models and Principles," Revue Europeenne Des Sciences Sociales, 19 (1981), pp. 79-98. Durkheim's and Spencer's Principles of Social Organization: A Theoretical Note," Sociological Perspectives, 27 (1984), pp. 21-32. "Durkheim's Theory of Social Organization," Social Forces, 68 (1990), pp. 1-15. “Herbert Spencer.” Pp. 623-625 in J. J. Chamblis, ed., Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996). “Herbert Spencer,” in N. J. Smelser and P. B. Bates, eds., International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (New York: Pergamon, 2001). “Herbert Spencer,” in G. Ritzer, ed. Blackwell Companion of Important Social Theorists (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). “Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)” in George Ritzer, ed. Encyclopedia of Sociology (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007). "Herbert Spencer's Sociological Legacy." In Spencer's Legacies. M. Taylor and M. Francis (Eds.) London: Acumen Press, 2014
2. You write that abstract theories that explain the socio-cultural universe are the key to making sociology important. Could you describe a couple abstract theories, including one you created. How can these theories be used to change the social world for the better?
One of the problems with this kind of question - i.e., theories that can be used to change the social world for the better - is that it requires that the scientist make a value judgement: what is better for society? It is not as if sociologists of all stripes don’t have thoughts on this matter, but it asks a question that is inherently ideological: What is a good society? Any answer to such a question is inevitably ideological, which cannot be the basis for building scientific theory. And the problem with American sociology, or perhaps sociology more generally, is that the laws of the socio-cultural universe may work against what sociologists, scientists, or lay persons wants to see happen. I, like any human being have value-premises and, thus, would like to see certain things happen in society, but I am not kidding myself that they can occur. This is why theory cannot be based on what I or anyone else sees as problematic. Rather, scientific theorists need to seek answers to more value neutral questions: What are the basic and fundamental properties of the socio-cultural universe and what models and propositions can we develop to explain the operative dynamics of these properties.
So, the question that needs to be asked is: What conditions produce discrimination against individuals (of some category: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, income, etc.)? We should be able to theorize about those conditions, and then and only then we can ask: Which of these conditions is inevitable and, hence, not easily changed (by agency, laws, and or other introversions) and which conditions are potentially changeable and to what degree given what the laws and models tell us? Individuals and certainly most sociologists often assume that certain dynamic can always be eliminated, which immediately becomes an ideological statement, and leads to ideological formulations as to what must happen.
Below are two simple models that I could make more complex on the dynamics of ethnic/racial and gender/sex discrimination in society (Turner 2006). These are the basic forces in play, and so, we need to ask which can be changed, and how would such change be introduced into this universal dynamic of discrimination? But, we also need to outline which dynamics in societies work against equality in the distribution of resources.
One is size of the population which inevitably generates differentiation [a fundamental law of the socio-cultural universe introduced by Spencer and Durkheim (following August Comte)]. So, we immediately know that some degree of inequality is inevitable in larger, differentiated societies. Now, the question becomes how to reduce inequalities. We have textbook cases in, for example, by comparing societies like those in Scandinavia compared to Russia and the United States. Still if we build a simple model like the ones below and then begin to articulate theoretical principles (see, for example of some theoretical principles in Janet Chafetz, Sex and Advantage: A Comparative Macro-Structural Theory of Sex Stratification, 1984) it will be possible to develop a theory that can provide guidelines for “social engineering” to make American society less stratified.
3. You have written eloquently about the decline of sociology and your fading hope that it will embrace value-neutral research rather than ideology and political activism. Could you succinctly explain what happened to this once thriving field?
I have written a number of articles over the years that criticize the way sociologists operate, and even a book on the problems of American sociology. When I was in graduate school in the second half of the 1960s, sociology was still mostly oriented to the notion of value-neutral science in both research and theorizing—despite the protest evident over the Vietnam War and patterns of discrimination against certain categories of individuals.
Having been an activist myself for much of my life, I still accepted the idea - more and more as I got older - that value neutral science was the way to developing strategies and insights to reduce a wide variety of social problems (probably never eliminate entirely). I marched many times, even got thrown in jail in the south in protest marches against racial discrimination, but that was as a person and citizen concerned about inequalities and discrimination. And, early in my career I wrote several books on social problems. That passion has never left me, even as marching (indeed walking) becomes less easy. Again, and now more than ever, I am convinced that a science of sociology is still the best way to address these the problems of societies, sorting out what is and what is not possible (the world is never going to be fair to all!).
What has occurred in sociology, beginning about 1990, after a series of social movements (i.e., discrimination by race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, etc.), was that graduate students found sociology to be sympathetic to these movements. And so, a market was created for courses beyond existing courses on social problems and ethnic relations, which had been standard courses for many decades. This market was being energized by policies at universities for more diversity among students attending college. Some portion of these students went on the get M.A.’s and PhD’s in sociology and were only interested in teaching and doing research on their experiences with discrimination by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and many other topics where inequality and discrimination were involved.
This new demography in the field has thus changed the discipline, making it more ideological and more oriented to exposing injustices rather than developing value neutral theories and research programs. I applaud the diversity of students. But studying one’s self, one’s gender, one’s sexual orientation, one’s racial/ethnic identity, or one’s political interests in certain social movements is, no doubt, personally gratifying but it changes the entire nature of sociology. So, this situation will probably not change, but the need for a hard social science that studies all dimensions of these socio-universe is needed. And so, perhaps down the road, a harder science sociology will have to be re-evented long after my death, but by another name. It may be a smaller discipline than current sociology, but nonetheless it will be needed because understanding the socio-cultural universe is necessary in this very dangerous world.
And this is very evident when one compares the sociology program course offerings and fields of specialization in, say, 1965 (also an era of political protest) to 2025 today where social issues courses now dominate the field). Increasingly, there is no or little interest in value neutrality and developing theories about the socio-cultural universe in all its dimensions. And when one goes to a sociology meeting, most papers in the program clearly have a political bias. Indeed, from a personal experience, I now find the meeting very sad because of the lack of attention to many other dimensions of the socio-cultural universe that are now completely ignored; and even worse, there is no pretense of value neutral anywhere to be seen. Papers are heavily ideological, and presenters are not embarrassed by this. Indeed, “value neutrality” is considered a nasty word that goes against the emphasis on studying social problems.
The reason that this shift in emphasis depresses me is that, at the moment when sociology has accumulated very sophistical theories that would be accepted at any table of science, sociology has not only abandoned value neutrality but also about two-thirds of the phenomena that sociologist should explore. And as the new demography of the discipline continues to emphasize “activism,” it will increasingly be difficult to do science—as many mid-career scholars have told me. Indeed, they often are considering simply leaving the field rather that deal with the intolerance of of their colleagues to value-neutral hard science. ASA memberships are down by about 40% from their peak and will continue to go down once sociologist who share my views leave the discipline by choice, retire early, or simply die off (never to replaced by younger science-oriented scholars). And so force that can alter this shift in interests among sociologist. Most members of ASA embrace this activist turn, and they are often hostile to those seeking to be value neutral in their empirical research or their theorizing.
Sociology was always vulnerable this large shift in interests because sociology attracts those (such as I) who were interested in making the social world better, and more fair to those who have suffered from discrimination. Sociology, especially in the United States, has always been oriented to social problems but generally with a commitment to science as the best tool for addressing social problems. That commitment is not completely, gone but it is fading at a time when the world needs scientifically-oriented sociologists.
References
“Must Sociological Theory and Practice Be So Far Apart?” Sociological Perspectives, 41 (1998), pp. 244-258; Jonathan H. Turner and Kyung-Man Kim. “The Disintegration of Tribal Solidarity among American Sociologists: Implications for Knowledge Accumulation, The American Sociologist; "Is Public Sociology Really Such a Good Idea?" The American Sociologist 36 (2003), pp 27-45; “American Sociology in Chaos: Differentiation without Integration,” The American Sociologist, 37 (2006), pp. 15-27; "The Practice of Scientific Theorizing in Sociology, and The Use of Scientific Theory in Practice." Sociological Focus 41 (2008), pp. 281-300; “American Journals and Sociology’s Big Divide: A Modest But Radical Proposal.” American Sociologist 2016 47: 289-301; The More Sociology Seeks to Become a Politically Relevant Discipline, The More Irrelevant It Becomes to Solving Societal Social Problems,” American Sociologist, 2019; The Rise of The Academic Justice Warriors and the Decline of American Sociology,” See my blog and web page on The Social Physicist.
American Society: Problems of Structure (New York: Harper and Row, l972); Inequality: Privilege and Poverty in America (Goodyear Publishing, l976); Social Problems in America (New York: Harper and Row, l977); Oppression: A Socio-history of Black-White Relations in America (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, l984), 215 pp. (with R. Singleton and D. Musick); American Dilemmas (New York: Columbia University Press, l985), 385 pp. (with D. Musick).
American Ethnicity: A Sociological Analysis of the Dynamics of Discrimination (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 257 pp. (with Adalberto Aguirre); The Problem with Emotions in Societies. (London and New York: Routledge, 2011); Revolt from the Middle: Emotional Stratification and Changein Post-Industrial Societies (Transaction Press, 2015)
4. You reached the conclusion that sociology is a lost cause, and too far gone to be saved. It is naive to assume that it will right itself. It will need to be reinvented or revived under another name. In contrast, others argue that sociology just needs is to work its way through its current bad patch. Sociology, they contend, has come through post-modernism, Marxist determinism, and the qualitative turn in methodology, so it could survive this too. Could you elaborate on your position?
Many have told me that this “cycle of activism” will run its course, and sociology will right itself. How is this possible when the demography of the discipline is overwhelmingly devoted to an activist agenda. Activists shun the tenets of science and those practicing science. Yes, sociology came through its post-modernism and even crude Marxism (an insult to Marx’s genius), but that was decades ago when the demography of the discipline was different and when abstract theory was highly respected. Such is not the case today. It is much easier to be an ideologue preaching to students and to other colleagues than to be a serious, value-neutral researcher or theorist where “slogans” and emotions about “injustices” are pushed back in an effort to offer explanations of the dynamics in the socio-cultural universe. The question above also assumes that qualitative analysis is non-rigorous, which certainly has not been the case historically. Some of the most insightful works in the history of sociology were ethnographic in nature. So, it is not a problem of methodologies but, rather, differences in how to explain with theories the regularities that emerge from diverse forms of empirical analysis.
Non-rigor begins with an abandonment of value neutrality in doing research or in developing theories. Once this step is taken, research and theorizing become increasingly ideological and highly politicized and, generally, do not produce knowledge that can guide efforts to solve problems. The big difference today as opposed to when I went to college and then to graduate school (1960-1968), which was clearly a period of student activism, is that the activism was political action, not intellectual action. I have always been left-leaning and have risked my life several times in political actions, but I have never been confused by the difference between political and intellectual behaviors. And, the older that I have become, the more I realize how important the difference is. Even as a young man full of activist sentiments, I never mixed the two.
While I wrote books on social problems and issues, I did not view these as theories but rather as descriptions of empirical problems that needed attention. And, as I learned more and more about the socio-cultural universe over the last 60 years, I have recognized ever-more of the importance to suspending (as much as is humanly possible) my beliefs about what I think should happen vs. what can happen as I theorize. My theorizing on everything from the evolution of humans to the analysis of the world system, and everything in between, has made me less confident that “anything is possible.”
There are laws of the socio-cultural universe, just as there are laws of the biotic and physical universes that simply cannot be changed because they generate social formations that we do not like. Thus, politicizing sociology has been too many blinders on scholars which, in the end, will be the undoing of sociology as it moves forward. That is why I advocate for a new sociology, by another name, to emerge to preserve the knowledge that we have accumulated, especially over the last 60 years, that can serve as a strong base for further empirical research and theorizing. It will not like occur in sociology, given current directions of the field. It will require a new general social science committed to science.
5. Defenders of sociology claim that turfing out sociology is not an option. The absence of sociology, they argue, will open the door to the dominance of ideological and partisan statements about the social world and uninformed social policy. I would counter that sociology is huge and sufficiently amorphous so that other disciplines can incorporate sociology subjects into the corpus of their fields. What is your view? Is sociology-qua-sociology necessary?
I think the question ignores the fact that we have already walked through this “door” and that much sociological work is, as stated in the question, already “ideological and partisan” and that much social policy advocated by sociology is based upon ideology and partisanship. And such is ever-more the case. Yet, sociology by another name will have to be created, if social sciences are to prove useful to humanity. Other social science disciplines are narrowly focus compared to the sociology, which seeks to understand the socio-cultural universe in all it dimensions in all times and places.
Economists have a very narrow focus, and although it is a scientific discipline, it is narrow and, from my perspective, surprisingly political when you listen to the comments by economists. So, using equations does not guarantee value-neutrality. Political science also has this problem as well, and so does even cultural anthropology these days. Psychology is more science oriented but very narrow in it focus on behavior, per se, without paying much attention to the vast socio-cultural universe in which behaviors occur.
So, if social science in general is going to be respected, sociology by another name, and perhaps a much smaller discipline, will have to be reinvented by another name—in my dream world, the new discipline would be named Social Physics not because this was the original name for sociology (especially since Comte became highly ideological and even quasi-religious) but because the label say something: a hard social of the social universe.
6. A few decades back, you made the case for an engineering mentality for sociologists, and tracks for careers in engineering in sociology (the term incorporating more vague labels such as “applied,” “practice,” “clinical,” and “policy”). This would help sociology have an impact on the world, and demonstrate that its knowledge is useful to a wide variety of clients and publics. I assume this hope has also flamed out with the self-destruction of the discipline? What could take the place of this engineering role?
I still think that sociology should have an engineering wing; indeed, all good sciences have engineering wings. But, today’s sociology is not likely to tolerate such a wing. There are many labels that sociologists have used to denote applied knowledge - as the question notes, sociological practice, clinical sociology, applied sociology, and other labels. I have given talks and written several articles on this matter and my basic point is also this: In order to give advice on how to build up social structures or tear them down requires theoretical knowledge developed by a hard science of sociology. A number of times, I have had very enjoyable meetings with a variety of sociologist by the labels italicized above. The exercise went like this: Tell me the problematic situation that you are trying to improve by some intervention. After I get the description of the issues involved, I try to lay out some of the more abstract theories that scientific sociologists have developed that might be relevant.
I also usually have to say that the problematic situation cannot be “eliminated” given the structural and cultural conditions in which occurs, but I try to give them theories that, if applied, can reduce and mitigate the problem, given the sociocultural dynamics inhering in the problematic situation. I have also done this at universities, mostly in sociologically oriented social work schools with students beginning their PhD dissertations, where they are desperate for some theoretical anchorage (since social work schools are dominated by psychologists but often the students are often more sociological oriented and are seeking to write sociological dissertations ready by psychologists or MSWs).
One response to these efforts, especially sociologists, is they want a full plan to eliminate a problem, which is almost always not possible. Sociologists want to eliminate the problem, which is why they are attracted to ideologies that, if they are followed, will indeed achieve this outcome. But, in fact, theories that I think are good and useful almost always put a damper on this conclusion, and so, it is not surprising that ideological-driven sociologists of today do not find theoretical sociology very useful to what are the “fantasies,” unincumbered by any real knowledge of scientific theories, about what should and can be done. Still, they have invited back occasionally at meeting to continue the discourse; so maybe there is some hope.
Actually, question 6 above assumes that there is a clear “engineering role” today and even yesterday, but such has rarely been the case in sociology. The problem is, again, that most “problematic situations” are not acceptable to sociologists, even though good theories can tell you why the problems will persist and why they cannot be fully eliminated, only mitigated. Ideologues don’t like this kind of talk; they want certainty that they are on the right moral ground, which often ends up causing more problems than it solves.
Yet, one of the benefits of a science-oriented sociology that has well developed theories and a solid empirical base is that social engineering is possible. But it cannot be like social work—intuitive and often requiring empathy and other human capacities. Social engineering, perhaps by another name (to avoid Big Brother connotations), needs to be scientific, using the best theories that are available and data sets as well. Sociological engineering cannot be therapy but advice about how to solves an organization problem of a client. This requires rigorous training in theory and a broad view of how the social universe operates, not a narrow specialty. There is a large body of knowledge on organizations, communities, interpersonal behaviors, ethnic relations, stratification, institutional systems, and class dynamic in sociology; and this knowledge can be codified not just in abstract theories but it working up programs for clients when theories cannot fully guide the engineer.
But the training for this kind of engineering must be even more rigorous than in an engineering school, because there will be ambiguity in sociological knowledge. Still, sociological engineers certain can do a better job than many “consultants” with less training than a good sociological engineer would need. In fact, the norm one or at most two theory courses in graduate programs are not enough to be a sociological engineer. Nor will specialization in one or two areas in sociology be enough. Because there will be ambiguities for a sociological engineer, and a breadth of clients needing help, even more training beyond the normal PhD will be required. The reward for this extra work is earning much more money than the average academic.
All of this seems more fanciful than when I wrote the articles. In today’s intellectual climate, it seems all but impossible to have an engineering wing, even with a different name, because there is a dramatic drop in the amount of theoretical and methodological training in many universities. And the specialization of current PhD programs are very narrow, and filled with ideology more than knowledge of the narrow range of specialties. If, at some point in the future, scientific sociology can remerge, it can perhaps be possible to have sociological engineering but, alas, this seems very far away.
7. In my opinion, it is difficult for an academic department to teach sociology (or other social science subjects) when there is virtually no viewpoint diversity. Even if researchers set aside their personal values and beliefs in conducting their research, they come to light when they select their topic to study. For example, I have been following current international migration research. Considerable attention is paid to the group identities, rights and hardships of the migrants, but there is very little research on the people and communities adversely effected by the migration. So although the migration scholars may suspend their personal biases and moralities in their studies, their values come through in selecting to only focus on the plight of the migrants. This leads me to conclude that departments need to actively recruit faculty with centrist and conservative views. What are your thoughts?
This is a problem endemic to the species. Humans are overly emotional primates that have the capacity to develop complex cognitions and moralities. Thus, when I say we should be value neutral, this involves overcoming our basic humanity—and it is one of the reasons that I have been writing about human emotions over the last thirty years. It takes a great deal of real work to push emotionally driven cognitions and their derivatives, ideologies, out of analysis. And to do so completely is probably not possible, but the effort must be made, if our goal is to somehow reduce the problematic conditions evident in almost every society of today, especially over the last 20,000 years.
Things were less problematic in very small hunting and gathering bands which was the basic model of social organization of humans for 97% of their life on planet earth. So again, the demographer in the question or any sociologists who wants to explain the socio-cultural universe, and then, to use this scientific derived knowledge to change what is seen as a problematic condition must first focus on explaining with theory this basic dynamic—say, such as the question above prosed about migration—and thereby develop a theoretical explanation of what is going on before turning to what the theories can say about altering the situation. Much of the time, there is not much that can be done. But, also, in theories there are usually viable strategies for mitigating the problematic condition. But ideologues want the whole problem solved, even if their view spits into the wind of powerful socio-cultural dynamics that inhere in the nature of socio-cultural formations that are not easily changed or torn down, without creating even worse problems.
When you say, in the question above, that university might be better to recruit centrist or even more conservative professors, I would agree that there needs to be some rebalancing of faculty members’ politics, even as my politics are left of center. I don’t think that liberals are any worse that conservatives in terms of letting their politics intrude into the science. The key is to get value premises and politics out of the analysis as much as is possible—whatever one’s politics. And, if scholars cannot do so, they cannot be scientists; and if they think that they can be scientists, they will fail. I find it easier and easier to get my politics out of my science, perhaps because I have been doing so for so long.
What this has done to me is for others to often think that I must be conservative or reactionary if I don’t reveal my politics and don’t let my politics decide the research questions or drive my effort to develop theories. These critics are so used to politically driven agendas that they have become basically incompetent at developing theories that matter, although they think that they can this through their ideologically distorted glasses. The key is to separate what you would like to see occur from what actually can occur, once you put on less biased glasses. And, this can be done, if one is trying and committed to doing science. If you cannot do this, you cannot be a good scientist. And to be a good theorists, you must do this but many don’t which makes them much like today’s sociologists.
8. Finally, what are your thoughts on the changing demographics of the field? Looking at the new scholar pipeline - particularly graduate students and assistant professors - the underrepresentation of people who identify as white men is striking. Further, when they appear, they often identify with other oppressed groups, most often LGBTQ.
Well the demographics of sociology do now work against change in the discipline back to a more scientific orientation. The problem is that whatever your demographic category or self-explanation of your category, this should not determine what you study. If you want to study yourself and your social category, you will ideological. I used to argue to make a point that almost always was not well receive. The last thing a scientific sociologists should do is study their category. If you must study a category of person, don’t study your category but someone else’s category. Even better, study social structures and cultural dynamics that are not related to your or anyone else’s category.
This is the problem in sociology today is that too many sociologists study themselves as if that is the only relevant thing that a sociologists can do. I am a white male, perhaps decreasing demographic in sociology, but I don’t study white males, but people of all categories in diverse social structures and cultures. I have written about ethnic subpopulations as part of the process of developing a general theory of stratification dynamics. Of course, if I wanted to study white males, I can only imagine the hostility that this would generate. What I am arguing is that sociologists should not study themselves because the leads to a narrowness of perspective and often leads to ignorance of the other dynamics driving human societies.
I think that sociologists have become too absorbed in studying themselves, thereby making it almost impossible to remain value neutral, and this is why most sociologists today have no interest in being value neutral, which in turn, means they will not produce theories that can be useful. They may produce other types of useful narratives, but ultimately the goal of science in sociology is to produce theories that explain the dynamics of human social organization, interaction, and behavior. Moreover, study self leads to a kind of self-absorption that does not advance sociology as a science. Self-study may make you feel better about yourself, but a career should not lead to 45 years of thinking about self and/or your category along one dimension. Rather, human patterns of social organization, human interactions, and human behaviors are what sociologists should study. If we develop theories at all these levels, we will be much more likely to solve or at least mitigate the social problems of today that are obvious to any thinking person.
