Has Sociology Progressed?: Reflections of an Accidental Academic [1st ed.] 978-3-030-19977-7;978-3-030-19978-4

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii
Who Now Reads Ginsberg? (Colin Campbell)....Pages 1-15
“Sociologists Eat Each Other” (Colin Campbell)....Pages 17-28
Sociological Groundhog Day (Colin Campbell)....Pages 29-40
Slash and Burn Sociology (Colin Campbell)....Pages 41-53
The Death of Scholarship (Colin Campbell)....Pages 55-62
The Collapse of the Ivory Tower (Colin Campbell)....Pages 63-75
Sociology as “Just an Academic Pursuit” (Colin Campbell)....Pages 77-88
Sociological Turn-Taking (Colin Campbell)....Pages 89-103
Sociology, a Work in Progress? (Colin Campbell)....Pages 105-117
Back Matter ....Pages 119-134

Citation preview

Has Sociology Progressed? Reflections of an Accidental Academic

Colin Campbell

Has Sociology Progressed?

Colin Campbell

Has Sociology Progressed? Reflections of an Accidental Academic

Colin Campbell University of York York, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-19978-4  (eBook) ISBN 978-3-030-19977-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19978-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Verna

Preface

I never intended to be an academic. That happened by accident. A lucky accident as it turned out as I have enjoyed my career immensely. The story starts in the VI-form of Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School in Sutton Coldfield when the then headmaster informed me that he didn’t think that I was “university material” and hence wouldn’t support my application for a university place. This would appear to have been on the basis that the only subject I had managed to fail during my school career was Latin, which, as it happened, was the subject he taught. Given this, coupled with my parents’ ignorance about universities and the manner in which students were funded (no one in my family had been to university), I only applied to the nearest university on the basis that my parents couldn’t afford for me to live away from home. That was of course the University of Birmingham and then admissions officer, a certain A. H. Halsey, turned me down on the basis that I had failed A-level mathematics (I met “Chelly” Halsey many years later at Nuffield College and he was very amused to hear that he had once turned me down for a university place). Not knowing quite what to do next I went to the City of Birmingham College of Commerce with the intention of retaking the A-level Math’s exam. However, when talking to the staff at the College, they informed me that, given that I had passed two A-level subjects (English and Geography), I was qualified to enrol on their external

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London University degree course in social science (the subject I had applied for at Birmingham University). So, the question was, would I be interested in doing so? I should explain that the London University external degree system had been devised with the needs of the empire in mind, external students being those who did not attend approved courses of study in a School or Schools of the University, and whose sole connexion with the University was that they presented themselves to it for examination. This meant that students in any far-flung part of the British Empire, whether in Singapore, Lagos or Madras, could study for a London University Degree, while being spared the need to travel to London as the exam papers would be flown out to whatever educational institution they were attached to. Now it seems that after the end of the Second World War colleges in the UK realized that there was nothing stopping them from also offering such courses, and the City of Birmingham College of Commerce was one of these. Typically, such courses were offered on a part-time basis, with prospective students fitting their studies around a full-time (or occasionally a part-time) job. This had been the case with the Birmingham College for some time but it so happened that at precisely the time I turned up to retake my A-level Maths exam, they were planning to run such courses on a fulltime basis. So, the question wasn’t simply would I be interested in taking an external London degree course, but would I be interested in doing so at the College on a full-time basis? The course in question was the B.Sc. (Econ.). Given that I had intended to live at home while studying full time at the local university, doing the same thing at the local College of Commerce seemed as good a prospect as any. So, I accepted the offer. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized quite how different an experience it was to be taught by the people who will be examining you from being taught by those who will have no hand whatsoever in the examination process. The latter is unnerving in the sense that no amount of assurance from your teachers that you are indeed “making progress” or that you work is “up to the mark” actually registers. For you know only too well that it is not their judgement that matters, but that of mysterious individuals about whom you know nothing. It was also rather unnerving to be studying alongside students who had a track record of taking the external London University Part 1 exam in social science— after a period of part-time study—only to fail two or more of the eight

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papers; and who had done so more than once: often failing a different combination of papers each time. Luckily, in 1960, I passed the Part 1 in all eight subjects.1 It was at this point that a particular difficulty arose. The B.Sc. (Econ.) degree was structured in such a way that, after studying eight subjects for two years one then specialized in one of the these for the final third year. Now as it happened I had rather taken a fancy to the subject of sociology (taught in the first two years under the heading of Elements of Social Structure) and so wanted to take this further in my third year. The problem was that no one had chosen this as their specialist subject before (economics, political thought or government were the subjects usually chosen) and so there was no one on the College staff qualified to teach it. Consequently, either I had to change my preference or the College would need to bring someone in to teach me, which I am pleased to report, was what happened. My very good friend (as she is now) Jenny Williams, newly graduated as she was at that time from Bedford College, was appointed so that I could be taught sociology in my final year. It was therefore with her help that I managed to pass my finals and graduate in 1961. It was then, at this point, that fate took a hand and my future was decided. In order to discover my degree result I had to travel to London and visit Senate House, where the degree results for many hundreds of students, including mine, were posted on the wall of a long corridor. I remember quite distinctly emerging from one corridor to find myself roughly facing the middle of this wall of paper. This put me in a quandary. Did I go right and start with the names of those who had failed or go left and start with the names of those who had obtained a firstclass degree. Luckily, I saw my name fairly quickly, listed under those who had been awarded an upper-second. My next task was to return to Birmingham and inform the staff at the College that I had passed. This I did, to be confronted with the unforgettable response, “Congratulations: would you like a job?” The job in question being a full-time teacher at the College. I had no hesitation in accepting this offer. Not only was it the only job offer I had received, but it was also the only way that I could continue my study of sociology, a subject that had begun to 1These were: Principles of Economics, Applied Economics, Elements of Social Structure, Political History, Economic History, History of Political Thought, Psychology and Origins of British Government.

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engross me, and which, I was only too aware, I knew so little about. Consequently, I took up my appointment as an Assistant Grade “B” lecturer at the College on the 1 September 1961, with a grand annual salary of £895. Teaching at the College did more than improve my knowledge of sociology. It also served as an excellent apprenticeship for the career of lecturer. It was not simply that one was faced with a sizeable teaching load (thirty hours a week was normal), but also that there was considerable variety in both the subject material (I was expected to be able to teach any one of the eight subjects I studied for the Part 1) and the students. I distinctly remember teaching psychology to St Johns’ Ambulance personnel and British Government to local authority staff on a day-release scheme. Incredibly, I was also tasked with teaching some of my fellow external London degree students who had failed their exams. How, looking back, I had the gall to do that I don’t know. But I do remember that they were very good about it, accepting it would seem that, as I had passed and they hadn’t, there must be something I could teach them (although, in reality, that didn’t amount to very much). It was then, at this point in my budding academic career, that I took a decision which, viewed in retrospect, was somewhat foolish. In January 1963, I decided to embark on a Ph.D. What I had discovered was that if one had acquired an external London University first degree, at a second-class honours level or better, then one could register for an external Ph.D. Given therefore my determination to continue studying sociology to the best of my ability, this did seem, at the time, to be a reasonable step to take. Unfortunately, there were a number of things I hadn’t taken into account. One was the heavy teaching load I was committed to. Another was the fact that my wife and I were planning on starting a family. While a third was the fact that I was committing myself to undertaking a Ph.D. even though I would be without the advice and support of a supervisor. I did discover, after I had registered, that the University of London did have a scheme whereby external students could arrange for a member of staff to offer help for an external student undertaking a Ph.D. This “help” consisted of an hour’s tutorial at a fee of—if I remember correctly—five guineas. I decided not to take up this offer. As for what was to be the subject of my Ph.D., that was a question I found relatively easy to answer for, having taken a special interest in the sociology of religion, while also being a founder member of the Birmingham Humanist Group, it seemed

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obvious to me that I should study non-belief (or, as I subsequently came to call it, “irreligion”) in the UK.2 I was still struggling to make progress with my Ph.D. when I was lucky enough to be appointed Assistant Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York in October 1964.3 What happened next is, in essence, discussed in the pages that follow. York, UK March 2019

Colin Campbell

2The actual title of the thesis was “Humanism and Professional Ethics: A Study of the British Humanist and Secular Movements”. 3I was eventually awarded my Ph.D. in March 1968.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to a number of colleagues and ex-colleagues for their help and encouragement in the writing of this book. These include— in no special order—Peter Baehr, Roger Burrows, Paul Drew, Chris Renwick, Mike Savage, Merran Toerian, Emma Uprichard and Jim Walvin. Needless to say, none of these scholars is in way responsible for the errors, or indeed the views expressed, that are to be found in the pages that follow. I am also indebted, as always, to my wife, who has tolerated my continuing academic activity at a time when it was far from convenient.

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Contents

1 Who Now Reads Ginsberg? 1 2 “Sociologists Eat Each Other” 17 3 Sociological Groundhog Day 29 4 Slash and Burn Sociology 41 5 The Death of Scholarship 55 6 The Collapse of the Ivory Tower 63 7 Sociology as “Just an Academic Pursuit” 77 8 Sociological Turn-Taking 89 9 Sociology, a Work in Progress? 105 Bibliography 119 Index 129

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About

the

Author

Colin Campbell  is Emeritus Professor in Sociology at the University of York, where he has been a member of the department since its establishment in 1964. He is the author of half a dozen books and over one hundred articles dealing with issues in the sociology of religion, consumerism, cultural change and sociological theory. He is probably best known as the author of The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism (Macmillan, 1987; Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), while his other well-known publications on consumerism include The Shopping Experience (co-edited with Pasi Falk, Sage, 1997), and “The Craft Consumer: Culture, Craft and Consumption in a Postmodern Society”, Journal of Consumer Culture 5 (1) 23–41 (2005). In the sociology of religion, he is known for his contributions to work on the cult and the cultic milieu (“The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularisation” A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5, 119–36, 1972), as well as irreligion (see Toward a Sociology of Irreligion, Macmillan, 1971; Alcuin Academics, 2013); while his contribution to sociological theory is evident in The Myth of Social Action (Cambridge University Press, 1996) as well as a number of papers on Weber and the concepts of “action” and “agency”. His latest work on cultural change is The Easternization of the West (Paradigm Publishers, 2007).

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About the Author

Colin is also a well-known writer and lecturer on The Beatles, being the author of The Continuing Story of Eleanor Rigby: Analysing the Lyric of a Popular Beatles’ Song (Troubador, 2018) and co-author (with Allan Murphy) of Things We Said Today: The Complete Lyrics and a Concordance to The Beatles’ Songs, 1962–1970 (Pierian Press, 1980).

CHAPTER 1

Who Now Reads Ginsberg?

Abstract This chapter sets out the key questions that are explored in the book, notably whether sociology could be said to have progressed and, relatedly, given the assumption that desire for lasting fame is a motivating force for academics, whether there are grounds for believing that our work contributes to this process. These questions are raised because some sociologists who were famous in their day are virtually unknown today, while the conventional measures of academic success are of doubtful validity. The exploration of these questions is then set within an autobiographical framework, that is within the 50-plus years that the author has been a British sociologist, a period during which the nascent discipline not only expanded rapidly but also gained official acceptance. Keywords Academic reputation · Growth of sociology in the UK · Defining “progress” · Citations and altmetrics

Who now reads Ginsberg? When I was an undergraduate in 1961, I bought Maurice Ginsberg’s Essays in Sociology and Social Philosophy [it came out that year]. I bought it because I was told it was an important book and consequently was keen to consult it. But, I repeat, who now reads Ginsberg?

© The Author(s) 2019 C. Campbell, Has Sociology Progressed?, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19978-4_1

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The answer, I suspect, is no one.1 Yet Maurice Ginsberg was an important figure in British sociology. He was instrumental in founding the British Sociological Association, being its first chairman in 1951 and then President from 1955 to 1957. He was also the editor of The Sociological Review in the 1930s and the holder of the prestigious post of Martin White Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.2 When I was reading Ginsberg, in the 1960s, Donald MacRae was the Martin White Professor at the LSE, at a time when this was still considered the most prestigious post in the country. MacRae was in fact known, unofficially, as “The King Maker” as a consequence of his role as an external assessor, called upon by a number of universities in the UK, including York, to help with the appointment of professors in the newly established discipline of sociology. He was also the editor of the British Journal of Sociology, from its founding in 1950 until 1965. But again, one can ask, as I have of Ginsberg, who now reads MacRae? I suspect that the answer here is the same as in the former case: no one. Now if such figures of obvious importance in their time as Ginsberg and MacRae can be so easily forgotten does the same fate await today’s leading sociologists? Will the name of my former colleague, Mike Savage (who is the current holder of the Martin White Chair at the LSE) be as unknown to sociologists sixty years from now as Ginsberg’s and MacRae’s are to today’s generation? And if indeed that turns out to be the case, does it matter? I ask the question because it has a bearing on how we view our discipline and specifically on the issue that bothers me, which is whether or not it could be said to have progressed. And as it happens the name of Maurice Ginsberg is not unconnected with this topic, as one of the books for which he was famous in his day was called, The Idea of Progress . You will perhaps be unsurprised to hear that he believed in it. The question is, do we? As far as sociology is concerned that is.3 What I can’t help but wonder is whether Ginsberg would be surprised to learn that, some forty-nine years after his 1 Ginsberg’s books are referenced in Scott’s bibliography (see Scott 2006) and he is referred to once in the text (p. 67), even though his name does not appear in the index. 2 Westermark and Hobhouse preceded Ginsberg in this post. Its subsequent holders included T. H. Marshall and David Glass. 3 It should be clear that in talking about disciplinary progress I am making no assumption about societal progress, as the two judgements involve different criteria. Thus, while disciplinary progress refers to advances in understanding, societal progress would involve invoking moral criteria and hence judgements concerning the good, the just and the equitable. This means that, theoretically, it would be quite possible for sociology to progress without there

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death (he died in 1970), he is forgotten. That no one reads his books or articles anymore. Would he be disappointed? Would we, if the same fate befell us? It is a question that I am almost in a position to answer, for I published an article in 1972, one that is still cited today, some 47 years later. So, perhaps I should count myself luckier than poor old Maurice. But, of course there is no guarantee that this will remain the case. By the time I reach 81 (which was Maurice’s age at death), it too may be cited no more. Why does any of this matter? Why am I talking about long-dead sociologists and their enduring reputation, or rather the lack of it? The answer is because I believe that this topic relates, quite directly, to a matter of concern to us all, and that is the question of why we do what we do: what it is that motivates us. Obviously at one level one could say that, like anyone in paid employment, we simply do our job to earn a living and all that goes with it, such as being able to support those dependent on us or to ensure that we have a pension sufficient to live on when we retire. But I would suggest that there is more to it than that. Some of us are probably also motivated, to some degree, by a sense of public duty, that is by a desire to use our expertise to ensure that policy decisions, either those made by local and central government, by the voluntary sector, or by business, are properly evidence-based. Or alternatively, we may be motivated by a more distinctly idealistic motive, such as a desire to use our expertise to combat what we perceive to be the evils of our age, such as racism, sexism or homophobia, or even, if our motivation is more explicitly ideological, to help build utopia. However, I would suggest that there is another motive that drives many of us on to do what we do: one that is not really at odds with any of the above, although it may not be articulated as frequently or as explicitly. This is the desire for fame. For, as Miguel de Unamuno expressed it, “The man of letters [the woman of letters is equally applicable] who shall tell you that he [she] despises fame is a lying bastard” (Cave 2012). In one respect such a conclusion is obvious enough, for as sociologists, and like most academics and indeed many professional people, we are bound to be motivated by a desire to obtain the esteem of our colleagues, if only because this is usually an essential requirement for promotion. However, I would suggest that for many, if not most of us, there is something that lies beyond this immediate concern with reputation and the associbeing societal progress and vice versa, although an advance in scientific understanding could conceivably be one element of the latter judgement.

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ated desire to see oneself as “a success”, and this something is the desire to believe that our work has, if only in a small way, contributed to the advance of the discipline and to believe, in effect, that we have helped it to progress. This is what, for many of us, makes doing what we do a vocation, which is to say, as Weber put it, that we are “living for” rather than “living off” the discipline (Weber 2004 [1919]). And it is by holding on to this truth that we are able to believe that we have attained a small degree of immortality, that is to say to believe that our work will live on in some way after our death. This is not necessarily to assert that we believe sociologists in generations to come will still be citing our work—after all Maurice Ginsberg’s fate, as well as that of McRae’s, cannot necessarily be taken to mean that their work has had no lasting effect on the discipline—but simply that the works they do cite will necessarily be built, if only in a small way, on our achievements. The problem that concerns me is whether this is actually true. Does the evidence really support the contention that disciplinary knowledge accumulates in this way and hence that understanding progresses, with the consequence that we have good reason to believe that there is this possibility of our attaining even a small measure of immortality? Or, to express it more simply, have we really progressed beyond Ginsberg and MacRae? When I was a young sociologist, reading my Ginsberg, and then a little later teaching my first courses in the discipline while still struggling to finish my Ph.D., I rather took it for granted that the discipline was cumulative, with the knowledge acquired by one generation built on the achievements of the one before, as the discipline slowly progressed in an understanding of the workings of societies, and of social life more generally. It never crossed my mind that this might not be the case and that, far from progressing, the discipline I had taken a liking to and decided to choose as my career, might not actually be going anywhere, except perhaps in circles. But then I suspect that those assumptions are shared today by many a young sociologist who is in the position that I was then, taking their first steps on the academic ladder. Only I suspect that it isn’t just the novices who share this assumption. Indeed, I would be surprised if there are many members of my profession who don’t believe that we have a better understanding of the nature of social life and social interaction, of societies and their institutions, as well as the processes of social and cultural change, than was the case fifty or sixty years ago. For this tends, in my experience, to be a tacit assumption underlying our activity as researchers as well as a fairly explicit one in our role as teachers. But is it true? Or more pertinently, can it be demonstrated

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to be true? Looking at this question from my personal standpoint, I am tempted to ask whether my younger colleagues have a better understanding of the core issues in the discipline than I had at their age. This is not an easy question to answer, given both the unreliability of my memory and the fact that I have not had the nerve to give them the necessary detailed grilling. However, anecdotal evidence would suggest to me that not only is the theoretical material they are acquainted with somewhat different from mine at their age, but also that it is rather more limited and specialized in character. Talking to them has certainly not led me to believe that there has been a quantum leap in the general understanding of the nature of social life during my lifetime. What I can’t help but wonder, is whether our much-vaunted successes, those we believe to constitute progress, will be rubbished by a future generation of sociologists, just as has happened more than once in the past? We may believe that we are standing on the shoulders of giants, but those deemed giants today could well be regarded as pigmies by a future generation of sociologists, standing, as they might be, on the shoulders of those who are either unknown to us now or who we, in our foolishness, neglect to consider? This is a concern raised by John Holmwood who, in a reference to Andrew Abbott’s description of academic disciplines as prone to “fractal dispersal”, observes that “there is always a risk that one’s own engagements over a career turns out to have been attached to a fractal cul de sac and one’s (younger) colleagues are happily and productively engaged with a different set of priorities, equally deserving of being described as definitive of the discipline as one’s own!” (2010, p. 673, exclamation mark in original). But then what if, heaven forfend, it could be shown that our understanding of social life is really little better or more penetrating than that of the founding fathers? Or that sociology, as Herbert Gintis suggests, “is like fine art”, with the consequence that “the sociological theorist today weaves a complex story that does not build upon, nor does it have positive synergy with, the work of his [sic] predecessors. The situation would be amusing— so many intelligent men and women huffing and puffing and saying nothing worth noting and building upon—were it not so tragic” (Gintis 2010). Or, as James Davis was tempted to suggest, having just returned from attending the annual meeting of a professional sociology society in the USA, that the discipline might amount to little more than, “embarrassing, pretentious, painfully obvious, turgid, humbug” (Davis 1994, p. 179). Or even worse, as Andrew Abbott expresses it, that our discipline, like Macbeth’s view of

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life, could turn out to be no more than, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (2001, p. 58).

Progress and the Growth of the Discipline When I first became aware of sociology, in the late 1950s, I didn’t know just how new it was, in the UK that is. As mentioned above, Maurice Ginsberg was the first president of the BSA, an organization that was only founded in 1951 and had a mere 400 members by 1956, at a time when only six UK universities offered sociology degrees (Worsley 1987, p. 11). It then expanded very rapidly during the period of what I think of as my academic apprenticeship, in the 1960s, with full-time teaching and research staff doubling in UK universities between 1960 and 1970 (Halsey 2004, p. 108). This was a time when a number of new departments of sociology were established in England, Scotland and Wales, including that at York, which was newly formed when I joined it in 1964.4 Interestingly, Halsey refers to the fact that in the mid-1960s, “Demand absurdly outstripped supply” as far as sociologists were concerned (2004, p. 119) something that was not unrelated to the relative ease with which I obtained my own appointment (how times change).5 As far as official acceptance and public respectability is concerned the establishment of a government-backed research council for the social sciences, one that included sociology within its remit, occurred in 1965, and although Oxford and Cambridge held out much longer than other universities against the intrusion of this upstart discipline, both finally had formally established departments by the beginning of the twenty-first century. One might have thought that this period of expansion represented a real success for the discipline, so it is interesting to read Anthony Giddens’ judgement that what he calls “the chequered

4 This makes me a member of what Philip Abrams called, “The school of ’63”, that is “the small army of us who between 1956 and 1971 rushed or stumbled into (posts and careers in) sociology” (1981, p. 55). 5 Peter Berger (2002) refers to the 1950s as “a sort of golden age for sociology”. This was a little early for me, as I didn’t graduate until 1961, but I would claim that this “golden age” extended into the mid-1960s, which was when I first started teaching the subject. By contrast, Urry (1981, p. 37) refers to the 1970s as a “Golden Age” for UK sociology—but mainly it would seem because of the sheer number of new perspectives imported into the discipline during that period—many introduced by Anthony Giddens. I’m not sure that I share this judgement. In my view, the introduction of these new perspectives was something of a mixed blessing (see discussion in Chapter 8).

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history of sociology in the UK”, could be seen as originating in the special problems that the discipline experienced during this period of expansion. For this was a time when, as he puts it, “the discipline suffered from both sides. In the academic world it was seen as an upstart, while to its leftist critics it was the opposite, a set of establishment doctrines” (Giddens in Halsey 2004, p. 212). This growth in the number of departments and the increased availability of research funds necessarily brought with it an increase in graduates, journals, books and conferences. It was an expansion that was especially marked by increased specialization, something that can be seen in the fact that the British Sociological Association now lists some 43 different “Study Groups” covering such topics as youth, the arts, science and technology, sport, death, childhood, education, gender and climate change, and this is without counting the sixteen groups—many geographically differentiated— that are specifically concerned with medical sociology.6,7 But should this be counted as progress? Could the ever-increasing division of the discipline into more and more sub-fields, each with its own specialist journal and conference, be an indication of progress? It’s debatable. Turner and Turner (1990) argue that the rapid proliferation of sociology journals has the effect of harming the intellectual cohesion of the field. While Irving Horowitz considers this to be evidence of the “decomposition” of the discipline, as in “the separation of a substance into its elements” (Horowitz 1993, p. 12).8 Of course, if by “progress” one means growth, institutional development, or the degree to which the discipline has gained official acceptance, then it is very clear that the subject has indeed “progressed”, quite significantly, during my fifty-plus years of association with it. But that is not really what I have in mind. It has to be admitted that “progress” is not an easy term to define. Typically, a dictionary definition will specify “forward” or “onward” movement towards an “improved” or “advanced condition”, and while this seems 6 See https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups. Accessed 20 July 2018. 7 There has been a similar expansion internationally, with the number of International Soci-

ological Association research committees growing, over its 60 years of existence, from an initial five to 54 (Kalekin-Fishman and Denis 2012, p. 1). 8 Devorah Kalekin-Fishman and Ann Denis also note the possibility that the rapid expansion of sociology may signal fragmentation and hence constitute a danger to its existence as a distinct domain of knowledge (2012, p. 1)

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straightforward enough, it is surprising how difficult it is to specify, with any clarity, quite what “progress” would look like even in what we naturally think of as “progressive” disciplines such as physics or biology.9 It follows that this is hardly likely to be at all easy as far as sociology is concerned. What hopefully makes it just a little bit easier is that my attempt to measure progress is very time-specific, as it involves looking at the difference between point A (when I embarked on academic life) and point B (where we are now). Clearly, a different measure would be comparing where we are now with where the discipline was, say in 1904–1905 when Weber published his essay The Protestant Ethic. Or, of course, any time between that date and when I started my career in the 1960s. So, whether “progress” did indeed occur at some point between the origins of the modern discipline in the late nineteenth century and the 1960s is a question that falls outside my remit. Equally, I need to accept that it is also possible that progress was made, at some point between the 1960s and today, but that this advance in understanding has since been lost and hence will not feature as “progress” as I understand it. So, let me cut to the chase. What do I mean by “progress”? Progress, as I understand it, would involve obtaining more satisfying empirically validated answers to what are viewed as the central theoretical questions in the discipline. Now while there might be some difference of opinion among sociologists as to the precise nature of these, the anonymous author of the Wikipedia page on “Sociological Theory” is probably roughly correct in asserting that “there is a strong consensus concerning the central theoretical questions and the central problems” in the discipline, these being, “the following three questions: (1) What is action? (2) What is social order? (3) What determines social change?” As the author then goes on to explain, attempts to answer these questions naturally give rise to others, notably the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity, between structure and agency, and the relationship between synchrony and diachrony (or statics and dynamics), not to mention that between the micro and the macro. One could add that, historically, the struggle to answer these questions was also closely tied in with an attempt to understand the forces that drove history and especially the nature and origins of modernity, at least as this was manifest in the West. This last “problem”, although absent from the above list, is included in Anthony

9 See, “Scientific Progress” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2015).

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Giddens’ list of central theoretical problems, or—as he puts it—“basic theoretical dilemmas” that are to be found at the heart of the discipline. He identifies it as relating to “modern social development” and centring around the question of “How far has the modern world been shaped by economic factors…[or] other influences (such as social political or cultural factors)” (1997, p. 568). His other dilemmas, in the order that he introduces them, concern, “human action and social structure”, the dilemma here being “How far are we creative human actors, actively controlling the conditions of our own lives?” (ibid., p. 567, italics in original). Then, he mentions “consensus and conflict ”, the dilemma here being the extent to which societies are marked by order and harmony as opposed to “divisions, tensions and struggles” (ibid., italics in original). While the third is “how to incorporate a satisfactory understanding of gender within sociological analysis” (ibid., p. 568, italics in original). A somewhat more elaborate way of identifying the key theoretical questions or dilemmas in the discipline would be to identify them in the way in which they would be formulated by different approaches to the discipline. Regarded in this light, the key questions from a structural-functionalism perspective might be “1. How is society integrated? 2. What are the major parts of society? 3. How does society influence behaviour”, while those from a social conflict perspective might be “1. How is society divided? 2. What are the major patterns of social inequality? 3. How do some categories of people protect their privilege?” Finally, seen from a symbolic interactive perspective, the questions might be, “How is society experienced? 2. How do human beings interact to sustain and create change? 3. How does individual behaviour change from situation to situation?” (Wikiversity). Now it is my contention that, despite the differences discernible between the three examples given above, it is still the case that there is a considerable degree of similarity between the key theoretical questions outlined and hence that it is possible to conceive of progress as consisting of having more comprehensive and empirically valid answers to what are considered to be the key concerns (or theoretical dilemmas) that lie at the heart of the discipline, and hence that it is realistic to define “progress” as possessing more satisfactory answers to these than was previously the case, or—given that my exploration of this issue is also a personal inquiry—than was true in the 1960s. Let me return to the crucial question posed above. Has sociology actually progressed? And, crucially, from the point of view of those of us who are practitioners in the discipline, do we have any good reasons for believing that our own success, such as it is, has contributed to this process? In

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other words, that it would be possible for us to claim a small degree of immortality for ourselves. Perhaps the best place to start would be with the somewhat simpler question of the conventional measures that determine fame or reputation and whether it is reasonable to see these as indicators of our contribution to its progress. Here, I first turned—rather too automatically as it turned out—to the matter of citations, as I assumed that this was the principal basis on which one’s reputation was built. I was of course aware that there were other possibilities, such as the number and size of grants awarded, the number of books published, or even the extent of one’s popularity in the media, but regarded these as unlikely, in themselves, to be sufficient to guarantee the acquisition of esteem or prestige in the eyes of one’s peers.

The Problem with Citations Unfortunately, the problems associated with using citations as indices of the extent to which publications constitute a valuable contribution to the discipline are all too well known. There are, for example, many different reasons for citing (see Garfield 1972; Bornmann and Daniel 2008), only one of which constitutes an accolade. In addition, citations may merely be an acknowledgement that a given article or book exists, or simply offered as proof that one has read the article in question. Then again, the citation may be in order to demonstrate that the work referred to is fundamentally mistaken in its argument or interpretation of data, or indeed may simply take the form of a self—citation. But then we also know that the probability of being cited depends on many factors that do not necessarily have anything to do with the accepted conventions of scholarly publishing, as time-dependent, field-dependent, journal-dependent and articledependent factors all play a part, while being cited by many of one’s peers may simply be the result of a coterie effect, the citation equivalent of mutually beneficial back-scratching. Finally, mention has to be made of review papers, for these are frequently the most cited papers of all. Such papers are undoubtedly useful, as they summarize currently important topics and are typically written by leaders in their field and hence serve as a convenient source of reference on a specific subject. However, this does not mean that they constitute a significant contribution to an understanding of any of the central problems or issues in the discipline or contain any “original” insights. Indeed, it is almost guaranteed that they do not. Their status as highly cited papers is simply a testament to the extent to which

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the discipline is increasingly characterized by specialization. But then, as far as serving as an indicator of success is concerned, being cited is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring that one’s articles are published in the most highly ranked journals. Unfortunately, this also turns out to be largely a matter of citations as this is the measure typically used as a criterion for deciding on which are the most highly ranked journals in the first place. Roger Burrows (2012, p. 359) refers to this as “a shadow metric”. This makes the use of citations a double-edged weapon from the individual sociologist’s point of view, given that “success” is judged not just by the extent to which one’s articles are cited, but also the extent to which they are published in highly ranked journals. Needless to say, the use of citation rates as a basis for ranking journals is open to many of the same objections as those mentioned above. Finally, before leaving the issue of citations and the justification for employing them as a measure of reputation, it is also worth noting that even the number of citations that an article receives is not a given. For it can vary depending on the data source used. Thus, in the social sciences, Scopus will generally find more citations than ISI (Web of Science) (Harzing 2017). All-in-all one is forced to conclude that there is a considerable body of research literature that queries the validity of citation counts as an indicator of scholarly impact. This, of course, makes it all the more disappointing to discover that the widespread use of citations as a standard measure of one’s academic success has served to encourage some sociologists to engage in dubious practices aimed at artificially inflating this figure, practices such as salami-slicing. That is dividing articles into shorter subsections that can be published separately, thereby artificially inflating the number of one’s publications. Self-plagiarism can achieve a similar effect, as too—as Gloria Origgi observes—is using a position of authority (e.g. as a referee for journal articles) to compel others to cite one’s works (2018, p. 235). While my initial thought was that an academic reputation was almost exclusively linked to citations, I have since discovered that the situation which has developed in recent years is one that compels me to recognize the importance of the rise of social media and online forums, together with increasingly sophisticated data-recording sites. For it is now the case that there are many additional measures, other than citations, that academics can consult, measures that may also be employed as indicators of their “success”. What is so significant about many of these sites is that, instead of measuring the degree to which an academic’s work has been referred to by others, they record the degree of publicity that the research has received.

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This has the advantage, from the academic’s point of view, of serving as a possible indicator of “impact”. Unfortunately, this development seems to have had the consequence of pushing academics into effectively becoming their own publicity agents, devoting an increasing amount of their time to promoting their research. Indeed, this is now seen to be an essential part of a researcher’s professional role as is indicated by the advice, summarized below, offered to new recruits to academe on an unnamed US university website (and paraphrased here). These new recruits are encouraged, in order to use the full array of contemporary metrics to discover and, more crucially to establish, their reputations, to first of all to obtain an ORCID identifier and a ResearcherID. Then, he or she is told that they should create a Google Scholar Citations Profile in order to discover their H, G, and i10-index. Following this, they will need to discover which journals they should publish in, and so accordingly will have to consult sources such as Journal Citation Reports, Eigenfactor and/or Article Influence and Scimago. Then, in order to measure and track their research output, they will need to consult Web of Science, Google Scholar, Publish or Perish and—to avoid confusion with other authors with a similar name—Author Disambiguation. More experienced scholars are also encouraged to consult the m-factor. This is an index calculated by dividing the h-index by the number of years the academic has been active, with the latter defined as the number of years that have passed since the publication of their first paper. They are also encouraged to check on the “immediacy index” of their articles (this divides the number of citations that an article in a journal receives in a given year by the number of articles published in the same year—see journal Immediacy Index) as well as their cited “half-life”, that is the number of years it takes for the rate by which an article is cited to decline by 50%. Next, in order to broaden the impact of their research they will need to turn to altmetrics, such as Academia.edu, LinkedIn, Mendeley and ResearchGate, ScientistsDB or VIVO, while also being advised to share their research in non-traditional ways, through the use of such mediums as SlideShare, Figshare, Twitter, Vimeo, Vine or WordPress and The Conversation. Finally, they will also need to employ alternative impact Metrics, such as Altmetrics Directory, Impact Story or Plum Analytics. Only by following a long, complex and tortuous path such as this, is it suggested that today’s scholars can have any hope of securing an established reputation for themselves. For, as Origgi says, “An article published in a reputable journal is now far from being the only way to acquire a scholarly or scientific reputation” (2018, p. 225).

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It needs to be acknowledged that some of the above measures appear to offer the possibility of obtaining a more reliable indicator of the impact of one’s research than do citations alone (e.g. ResearchGate offers a measure of the extent to which an article is “read”, or at least downloaded, while the Altmetric doughnut includes a measure of the extent to which an article is included on course syllabi). However, it is also necessary to recognize that many of these measures have similar limitations to those noted above for citations. Crucially, a high number of shares or social media mentions do not necessarily mean that an article is of high quality. It may be mentioned simply because it contains something amusing or unusual (articles awarded an Ig Nobel award tend to be widely reported in the media). In addition, social media can be easily manipulated with “likes” or mentions paid for or artificially generated, thereby not accurately reflecting the real degree of public interest in the findings in question. Unfortunately, university management tends to be overly impressed by the extent to which the findings of academic research are reported in the media, with the consequence that it commonly mistakes the extent of such coverage for an indication of the significance of the work in question, as too one suspects, do those assessors who sit on the Research Excellence Framework panels. One unfortunate consequence of this development is the inevitable tendency for academics to spend time promoting, rather than simply undertaking, research. What can we conclude from the above discussion? Well, it would seem that while there is some evidence for accumulation—that is to say the more frequently an article is cited today the more likely it is that it will be cited in future—the underlying truth is that the extent to which one’s work is cited is dependent on a range of variables that are not directly related to its intrinsic quality. While it goes without saying that coverage in the media probably bears no relation to its academic significance. Why then, given that this is the reality, do we attach so much importance to citations (as well as the other metrics mentioned above)? Is it simply because these data are required if we hope to advance in the profession? Or could it be that they serve as our “doctrine of signs”, the empirical proof we need that enables us to confirm our moral worth, to help us believe that we are members of an elite, the few who really help the discipline to progress? In which case, their function, rather like Puritan’s worldly success, is not so much to serve as an indicator of membership of the elect—for as we have seen, this cannot actually be established—but rather to provide us with a means of boosting our self-confidence sufficiently to enable us to assume that we are, a state of false consciousness apparently essential for the maintenance of our morale.

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Bibliography Abbott, A. (2001). Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abrams, P. (1981). The Collapse of British Sociology? In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 53–69). London: Allen & Unwin. Berger, P. L. (2002, October). Whatever Happened to Sociology. First Things. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/10/whatever-happenedto-sociology. Accessed 7 October 2018. Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H. D. (2008). What Do Citation Counts Measure? A Review of Studies on Citing Behavior. Journal of Documentation, 64(1), 45–80. Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the h-Index? Metric Assemblages in the Contemporary Academy. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 355–372. Cave, S. (2012). Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization. https://aeon.co/essays/why-on-earth-would-we-sacrifice-our-livesfor-lasting-fame. Accessed 5 October 2018. Davis, J. A. (1994). What’s Wrong with Sociology? Sociological Forum, 9(2), 179–197. Garfield, E. (1972). Citation Analysis as a Tool in Journal Evaluation. Science, 178, 471–479. Giddens, A. (1997). Sociology (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Gintis, H. (2010, June 24). Sad but True: Gouldner as Bearer of Zeitgeist. Published on Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Crisis-Western-SociolGouldner/dp/0465012787. Accessed 10 October 2018. Halsey, A. H. (2004). A History of Sociology in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harzing, A.-W. (2017). Citation Analysis Across Disciplines: The Impact of Different Data Sources and Citation Metrics. Harzing.Com, Saturday 6 February 2016 16:10 (Updated Saturday 20 May 2017 18:49). Holmwood, J. (2010). Not Only Our Misfortune: Reply to Rosenfeld and Savage. British Journal of Sociology, 61(4), 671–676. Horowitz, I. L. (1993). The Decomposition of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kalekin-Fishman, D., & Denis, A. (Eds.). (2012). The Shape of Sociology for the 21st Century. London: Sage. Origgi, G. (2018). Reputation: What It Is and Why It Matters. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Platt, J. (2004). Epilogue in Eight Essays. In A. H. Halsey (Ed.), A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scott, J. (2006). Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology. London: Sage. Turner, S. P., & Turner, J. H. (1990). The Impossible Science: An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

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Urry, J. (1981). Sociology as a Parasite: Some Vices and Virtues. In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 25–38). London: Allen & Unwin. Weber, M. (2004 [1919]). The Vocation Lectures: ‘Science as a Vocation’; ‘Politics as a Vocation’. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Worsley, P. (1987). The New Introducing Sociology. London: Penguin Social Sciences.

Reference Works Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2015). First published Tuesday 1 October 2002; substantive revision Monday 15 June. s.v. ‘Scientific Progress’. https:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-progress/. Accessed 12 November 2018. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Introduction_to_sociology. s.v. ‘Introduction to Sociology’. Accessed 20 November 2018.

CHAPTER 2

“Sociologists Eat Each Other”

Abstract The assumption that sociology is both cumulative and progressive is characteristic of most teaching and research. But such claims are doubtful given that merit is commonly awarded to work considered “original” even though such judgements are both subjective and the easier to make the less one knows of the discipline’s history. In addition, the fact that societies change makes it is easy to generate apparently “novel” findings, even though generating new data is not equivalent to adding to sociological understanding. The discipline is hamstrung by the prevalence of the fallacy of the latest word, coupled with the immediacy effect and the shortness of sociological memory. Finally, rejecting established perspectives in the name of “progress” is an established means of acquiring a reputation. Keywords The problem of “novelty” · Faux novelty · Ignorance of history · Fallacy of the latest word · The limit of sociological memory Progress is a topic that is likely to be of concern to most academics. After all, it is something that we tend to talk about much of the time, as we measure the progress that is being made (or sometimes not) by our students. Indeed, in this context, it is simply taken for granted that the more familiar a student becomes with the literature in our discipline and is able to both understand and critically evaluate this material then he or she is said to be “progressing”. But then I would like to suggest that we also commonly think of our own intellectual journey in the same way—that, © The Author(s) 2019 C. Campbell, Has Sociology Progressed?, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19978-4_2

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as a consequence of study and research—our own understanding of the world around us is also “progressing”. But do we not also assume that such individualistic micro-progression is but part of a larger disciplinary one? However, it is possible that we are deluding ourselves. Perhaps, we are more like our students than we would like to think and that in reality we are only repeating processes that many have gone through before us, and that there is no evidence that where we end up, that is to say our general level of understanding of social life and social phenomena, is any more advanced than that of previous generations? But if that were to be the case, and it is truly difficult to demonstrate that disciplinary progress has been achieved, why is it that so many of us tend to assume, or at least act as if we assume, that this is happening? Could it be that we are the victims of an illusion? There is certainly at least one good reason why this might well be the case, and it is to do with novelty. If we ask ourselves why some articles and books are widely cited while others are not. Or indeed, why some academics are published and others not, or indeed why some sociologists are rewarded with accolades and awards while others are not, we are likely to find that the answers are usually framed in a common language that stresses “novelty” or “originality”. Indeed, this is the answer one commonly finds embodied in the justifications for these awards, as it is too for the decisions concerning publication. Over and again, these words crop up and in one sense that seems reasonable enough: after all, no one is going to be praised for repeating the same old formulas or presenting the same old interpretations, explanations or accounts. However, this is worrying all the same and for very good reasons. The first is the obvious degree of subjectivity underlying judgments of this kind. As Karen Cerulo observes (2016), articles that have come to be seen in the passing of time as possessing this crucial characteristic—classics one might say—were often not seen in that light when first presented for publication, or at least not by a majority of the referees. What this rather suggests is that many truly innovative articles might never be published. Equally, this is a judgment that may well be reversed in the future when new information and data comes to light. This necessarily brings me on to the second reason for disquiet. This is that the extent to which an observation, argument, methodology or theoretical perspective is judged to be novel or innovative is heavily dependent on the degree to which those who make these judgments are acquainted with the past history of the discipline. After all, the less one knows about the past the easier it becomes to see arguments

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or ideas as novel and innovative when this simply isn’t the case. This is a point made by Herbert Gans, who observes that “forgetting the past is functional for increasing (artificially to be sure) the number of original findings”, and hence, of course, the number of articles and books that can be produced (1992, p. 707). Yet the fact that sociology does suffer from a collective amnesia of this kind is well established. Of course, as Andrew Abbott has observed (2006 p. 58), sometimes one can actually reinvent the wheel. However, all too often the new wheel can look remarkably like the old wheel. What is worrying in this respect is the degree to which the curricula of the majority of undergraduate and postgraduate sociology degrees omit any detailed discussion of the history of the discipline. There will, one can be sure, be some discussion of its early stages, with a special focus on those considered its “founding fathers”, while recent developments will also probably figure in the curriculum. However, there are likely to be large gaps in between, decades of sociological activity that remain terra incognita to contemporary generations of sociologists.1 In fact, the odds are that, as time passes, each generation of sociologists will know less about the history of the discipline than their predecessors as the amount to learn grows while the size of the curriculum remains roughly the same. In addition, current concerns will tend to determine which periods in the past—if any—are seen as relevant to an understanding of the present. Is this indifference to the history of the discipline really accidental, an unfortunate by-product of a crowded curriculum, or could it be a convenient way of avoiding confronting the discipline’s chequered history, with its false starts, radical changes of direction and back-to-the-future theoretical perspectives? It certainly provides opportunities for aspiring young sociologists, should they wish to take advantage of them. All they need do, if they desire to make a reputation for themselves, is scour the journals of fifteen or twenty years ago with a view to plucking what look like interesting approaches, arguments or concepts and then recycle them for contemporary use. It is very unlikely that anyone will notice that they have been around before (for evidence that this is the case see example on page 25).

1 This problem is then aggravated by national differences in sociological traditions.

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Faux Novelty But then the very nature of the subject matter of the discipline means that it is also likely to lead to this emphasis on the novel given that the ongoing processes of social and cultural change, not to mention technological change, necessarily results in sociologists being presented with an effectively endless new range of objects to study. It follows that what are widely judged to be “novel” insights are attained through the simply process of studying “novel” phenomena (this is very apparent in the current wave of interest in the Internet, social media and digital technology). Unfortunately, knowing something that one did not know before does not constitute an advance in understanding unless this knowledge relates to one or more of the ongoing core problems in the discipline. In other words, understanding a novel phenomenon is not the same, from a disciplinary point of view, as a novel understanding. It may of course lead to such an insight, but the reality is that, in all probability, the majority of such studies will have little or no impact on the overall level of disciplinary understanding. Hence, such studies are probably best characterized as possessing faux novelty, with data that is in reality perfectly unremarkable masquerading as original. In this respect, a comparison with the natural sciences is instructive. To discover a new kind of star (not simply a new star) will almost certainly add to the theoretical understanding of stellar formation and may even be an addition to astrophysics more generally. Similarly, the discovery of a new species of amphibian is likely to help biologists understand the development of that genus and may aid in understanding the processes governing species diversity. By contrast, the study of what is widely regarded as a new social phenomenon, such as a new dance or music genre, or a new form of criminal activity, will usually have no such theoretical significance, as novelty of this kind does not normally constitute a new class of phenomena, merely the latest form of a well-understood and long-established class. Consequently, this is unlikely to result in an advance in theoretical understanding. The fact that sociologists are prone to assume that charting the changes that are occurring in society constitutes a real addition to disciplinary understanding is probably one of the major reasons why it is assumed that the discipline is progressing when this is simply not the case. It is all too easy, for example, to assume that a study of a major social phenomenon, such as social class, must result in a real addition to sociological understanding. However, although the findings that stem from such a project will probably add to a deeper understanding of the society in question and hence in

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that respect will be both valuable and interesting, they will not represent an real increase in disciplinary understanding unless they succeed in shedding light on the general phenomenon of social stratification. This is the central problem of measuring “progress”. New data is all very well, but unless it can be shown to illuminate the general on-going central questions at the heart of the discipline, then that is all it is: just new data. The reality is that it is the easiest thing in the world to generate new data in the social sciences. If nothing else the mere passing of time allows for the continuous collection of fresh data. But then one can also add to such time-dependent novelty space-dependent forms in which data is collected for different regions, or from different socio-economic groups, or is novel in a method-dependent or analysis-dependent fashion. In fact, even if two investigators study precisely the same phenomenon over the same time period using the same methodology the odds are that there will be differences in the conclusions drawn, thereby giving each an element of “novelty” simply by being different from each other.2 It is for this reason that, as James A. Davis notes, unlike the natural sciences, there are no conflicts over priority in sociology, given that, “no two sociologists ever study the same thing” (1994, p. 180). But then the ease with which new data is generated is one of the main reasons for the popularity of research as opposed to scholarship (for discussion of the latter see Chapter 5). If this were not the case, then it would prove impossible to award the high number of Ph.D.s that are handed out each year. Sadly, very few of these are likely to pass the “so what” test, which is to succeed in showing how the conclusions reached have any significance for the ongoing issues at the heart of the discipline. Indeed, as Peter Abell has stressed, the reality is that “many (if not the majority) of the PhD theses written…are of no real use” (1981, p. 124). In mitigation, it could be said that it is exceptionally difficult to come up with genuinely innovative insights of the kind that do indeed have such significance. However, what is depressing is the fact that 2 I remember, when undertaking my Ph.D., being quite neurotic about the extent to which my work would count as an “original contribution” to the discipline, more especially after I discovered that someone else was studying exactly the same topic as I was. And what was more, she was doing so as a full-time student, while I was working on my thesis in my spare time. However, I remember being somewhat reassured when a senior academic told me that it was unlikely, even if we studied the same topic, that we would come up with exactly the same observations, data or conclusions, and hence that the crucial criterion of novelty would in all probability be met in both cases. But then if the truth is that novelty can be generated so easily can it really be an indication of “progress” in disciplinary understanding?

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so few theses are framed in such a manner that there is any possibility of this outcome occurring.3 This propensity to mistake faux novelty for genuine advances in understanding is helped by the assumption that societal change renders older studies and analyses irrelevant. That is to say, the tendency of sociologists to ignore past research simply because it was conducted on past society, the assumption being that since the society on which the research was conducted no longer exists, the research itself must also be out of date. This tendency, as John Scott observes, has led some sociologists to conclude that “the founders [of the discipline] could not be expected to provide us with accounts of the new social conditions” and consequently went on to “incorrectly conclude that the founders had nothing to contribute to sociological understanding” (2006, p. 2, italics in original). In fact, as he explains, while nineteenth-century theorists cannot be expected to provide accounts of the cultural impact of such recent technological innovations as television or the Internet, what he calls “the formative concepts of culture and the processes of cultural transmission” which they outlined “can still provide the central basis on which any form of communication can be understood” (ibid.). Essentially, what Scott is saying is that we can hardly cite, as evidence of disciplinary progress, that we have a better understanding of the role of social media in people’s lives than did Emile Durkheim or the role of automation on the world of work than did Max Weber. Progress involves an increase in our understanding of core issues in the discipline and only in so far as the results of studies of such features of modern life as these can be generalized to become applicable across societies with varying technologies would this be the case. For the reality is that if the research is conducted on core issues it cannot be out of date. But then this basic mistake—that of imagining that social change renders earlier analyses of social life redundant—is closely allied with another reason why sociology probably does not progress, and that is what has been called sociology’s evolutionary myth, together with the closely associated fallacy of the latest word.

3 A different form of widely encountered faux novelty arises from the increased pressure to publish, for this can lead to research papers being submitted that effectively contain only minor changes from ones that have already been published.

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The Fallacy of the Latest Word Sociology’s evolutionary myth is the assumption that sociological research is always improving and hence that past research is methodologically and theoretically less sophisticated than more recent research (Gans 1992). This myth clearly persists, even though it was comprehensively debunked by no less a person than Robert Merton in the 1980s. Referring to it in its form of “the fallacy of the latest word” he describes “the assumption of an inexorable, unilinear progress in knowledge” as “one of those half-truths which, especially when it remains tacit, leads to a naïve belief in a steady unilinear rather than in a variously selective and uneven cumulation of scientific knowledge” (1984, p. 1107).4 One of the sad consequences of this belief in the latest word is that it can easily lead to past masterpieces being overlooked. For, as Andrew Abbott says, “How many students of immigration have read The Polish Peasant in Europe and America?” Which, as one of the classic works of sociology, was first published in 1918. He then answers his own question by suggesting that the answer is, “Not many” adding, “but that’s because a belief in cumulation lets them assume that all the crucial nuggets of Thomas and Znaniecki’s masterwork have been preserved by the careful sifting of criticism and ‘cumulation’” (2001, p. 58). It is, however, as he implies, far from certain that this is the case. There are a number of institutional factors that are likely to strengthen this tendency to give the impression that “latest is best” even if this is not explicitly avowed. The majority of sociology textbooks and as well as the majority of introductory sociology course curricula effectively embody the assumption that, “formerly we thought that this was the case, but now we know better”. Then, there is the fact that reading lists for courses are likely to feature the publications of those academics who teach on them, together in all probability with the works of some of those who taught them. But then a similar predisposition is likely to be a feature of research, with friends and colleagues, as well as others the author may wish to impress, cited more often than academics from previous eras. Then, in addition, students may put pressure on staff to be “up-to-date” and omit what they consider to be ancient references, believing—mistakenly—that the social sciences are similar to the natural sciences, where students are commonly encouraged

4 The fallacy of the latest word can be seen as a form of chronocentrism, that is, as “the belief that one’s own times are paramount, that other periods pale in comparison”. Wikipedia. Accessed 18 October 2018.

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to believe that there is no point reading material that is more than ten years old. In addition, there is a temptation, experienced by sociologists when teaching undergraduates, to highlight research undertaken on contemporary phenomena, as this is seen as helpful in persuading students of the relevance of the discipline for an understanding of the world around them. Then again, students will press to be trained in the latest material if they are hoping to go on to undertake research themselves, aware that they will be expected to contribute to what is considered “frontier research”. While the funding agencies themselves—all too aware of government priorities as well as the need to show ‘impact’—are also likely to favour research that gathers fresh data and is focused on “the latest thing” rather than fund work that aims to builds bridges or make connections, especially if this involves trawling through “old data”. All of these tendencies are then supported by the convenient belief that sociological knowledge is cumulative, an assumption that, as Abbott puts it, works to, “lets us off the hook”, so that we only need to read material published in the last ten years instead of the last 100 (2006, p. 58).5 Finally, Mike Savage has suggested that British sociologists may actually be more tempted to fall for the error of the latest word than sociologists in other countries given that focusing on the study of “the new” has long been a distinctive feature of British sociology.6 For it was, as he puts it, a characteristic of this newly emergent discipline that it “staked its disciplinary expertise around the excavation of the ‘new’ as a means of justifying its own legitimacy” (2009, p. 227). Sociologists are also prone to accept the truth of the suggestion that “latest is best” simply because of the manner in which they view their own career. Given that we are actively engaged in research and publication it is unlikely that we would want to believe that our own work—viewed chronologically—is declining in quality and significance. And even if we don’t actually believe that our more recent work is of a better quality or greater significance than our earlier work, it is in all probability built on the foregoing, and hence we are unlikely to regard it as of less worth. For sociologists, unlike mathematicians, are unlikely to be past their prime at thirty-five. What this means is that for us, as acting sociologists, to cast doubt on the assumption that latest is best is to risk undermining ourselves; 5 This can be seen as part of what Abbott calls, “the ideology of cumulation”, or in simple terms, our need to believe that cumulation has occurred (2006, p. 65). 6 While studying new social phenomena is not directly equatable with ignoring work undertaken in previous decades, it is almost certain to have this effect.

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to in effect cast doubt on the value of our own work, and if we take it for granted that our own work is on an upward trajectory, then surely this must be true of others (if not, in our opinion, that of all of our colleagues in the discipline). What follows is the assumption that the discipline itself must be “improving”. What also facilitates the acceptance of this “latest is best” assumption within academe is the widespread prevalence in the wider society of the ever-more pervasive cult of the new (Campbell 2015). Another way of looking at the belief that latest is best is to recognize quite how short is the sociological memory. Herbert Gans attempted to measure this by studying the discipline’s “bibliographic attention span” (1992, p. 707). What he did was gather together those book-length empirical studies that he judged to be better-known and highly respected in four sociological fields with which he was familiar (ethnicity, race, urban/community and media) and classified the cited references in ten-year intervals counting back from each book’s date of publication. Thus, for a book published in 1978, he counted all cited references for 1978–1969, 1968–1959, 1958–1949, etc. He then examined books published from each field in each decade between the 1980s and 1930s or 1920s. The results suggested, as he put it, that the “attention span is indeed short” (1992, p. 703), as in all four fields over half of all references were from the previous decade prior to publication, with another quarter from the immediately preceding decade. What is more he found that this wasn’t a recent development, as in every decade from the 1920s on 80% of references were from the twenty years prior to publication. He concludes that this supports the “immediacy of interest in recent work” or the “immediacy effect” as described by Derek de Solla Price (1986). Gans goes to point out that this immediacy effect and its associated amnesia affects editors of journals as well as authors (1992, p. 707) as Dwight G. Dean demonstrated (1989). The latter re-submitted papers to journals that had published them only a few years earlier only to discover that the editors had forgotten about their previous publication. Notably, in one case, the article concerned had been published a mere three years earlier. Andrew Abbott attempted to replicate Gans’ study in 2006, only to come to a rather different conclusion. His study of citations showed that over the period 1970s to 2004 articles published in five prestigious US sociology journals actually had fewer citations that dated from less than ten years prior to publication as one moved closer to the present day. Consequently, his results did not show that contemporary scholars payed less attention to earlier work than did their predecessors (2006, p. 59). How-

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ever, he does suggest that particular research programmes and their associated theoretical schemas are time-sensitive, with something like “a 25-yearlife-cycle” (ibid., p. 60). He deduces from this that, “sociology is littered with research programs that are exciting for a couple of decades, then peter out into routinism and time-serving”, going on to suggest that what explains this twenty-year cycle is “career structure”, noting that “Twentyfive years is about the length of time it takes a single group of individuals to make up new ideas, seize the soap boxes, train a generation or two of students, and finally settle into late career exhaustion” (2006, p. 61). Then, he suggests that their students may keep things going, but their students “tend to be fairly mechanical appliers of the original insights”. In other words, what passes for cumulation within the discipline may indeed occur, but only within specific “generational paradigms”, that is, “invisible colleges that tend to accept a set of conventional assumptions about the social world and ways of studying it, and that tend to work out all the various permutations and combinations of social knowledge possible within these assumptions” (ibid., p. 61).7 Crucially, he finishes by observing that, “The really creative people don’t make their careers by hitching themselves to other people’s wagons” (ibid.). In other words, this cumulation is not passed on because each generation is busy rejecting the paradigm employed by their predecessors, a process that may happen less because, as Abbott suggests, it is exhausted, than as Geoffrey Hawthorn claims, sociologists have simply become disillusioned with it (1976). In other words, the new theoretical framework is adopted less because it is better than the old but simply because sociologists have become disillusioned with, or even just tired of, the old. In either case, this generational rejection of what came before brings to mind David Zeaman’s famous quote about the difference between the natural and the social sciences, which was that, “in the natural sciences [we are told] each succeeding generation stands on the shoulders of those that have gone before, while in the social sciences, each generation steps on the faces of its predecessors” (Gans 1992, p. 703). Whether each new generation of sociologists does actually treat their predecessors as badly as this is debatable, but what is clear, as Abbott points out, is that the practices of empirical sociologists do seem to fit the general pattern first reported by Mannheim (1993 [1952]), which is that each genera7 Randall Collins (1998) makes a similar point about the significance of generations in understanding disciplinary change, identifying a period of around 33–35 years as the crucial accounting unit.

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tion seem almost inherently reluctant to acknowledge the value and utility of the work undertaken by its predecessors, that of the founding fathers excepted of course. Thus, it is that at any one time, the sociologists of one generation, rather than building on the achievements of their predecessors, are busy criticizing their theoretical predispositions and playing down their achievements and highlighting their deficiencies, somewhat in the manner of adolescents who confuse reacting against their parents with growing up. Or, as Harvey Molotch puts it, rather more succinctly, “sociologists eat each other” (1994, p. 235).

Bibliography Abbott, A. (2001). The Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, A. (2006, Summer). Reconceptualizing Knowledge Accumulation in Sociology. The American Sociologist, 37, 57–66. Abrams, P. (1981). The Collapse of British Sociology? In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 53–69). London: Allen & Unwin. Campbell, C. (2015). The Curse of the New: How the Accelerating Pursuit of the New Is Driving Hyper-Consumption. In K. M. Ekstrom (Ed.), Waste Management and Sustainable Consumption: Reflections on Consumer Waste (pp. 29–51). London: Routledge. Cerulo, K. A. (2016, September). Why Do We Publish? The American Sociologist, 47 (2), 151–157. Collins, R. (1998). The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Davis, J. A. (1994). What’s Wrong with Sociology? Sociological Forum, 9(2), 179–188. Dean, D. G. (1989). Structural Constraints and the Publications Dilemma: A Review and Some Proposals. American Sociologist, 20(2), 181–187. de Solla Price, D. (1986). Little Science, Big Science and Beyond. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Gans, H. (1992). Sociological Amnesia: The Noncumulation of Normal Social Science. Sociological Forum, 7 (4), 701–710. Hawthorn, G. (1976). Enlightenment and Despair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luce, R. D., Smelser, N., & Gerstein, D. (Eds.). (1989). Leading in Social and Behavioral Science. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Mannheim, K. (1993 [1952]). The Problem of Generations. In K. H. Wolf (Ed.), From Karl Mannheim (2nd expanded ed.). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

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Merton, R. (1984). The Fallacy of the Latest Word: The Case of Pietism and Science. American Journal of Sociology, 89(5), 1091–1121. Molotch, H. (1994). Going Out. Sociological Forum, 9(2), 221–239. Savage, M. (2009). Against Epochalism: An Analysis of Conceptions of Change in British Sociology. Cultural Sociology, 3(2), 217–238. Scott, J. (2006). Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology. London: Sage.

Reference Works Wikipedia s.v. ‘Chronocentrism’.

CHAPTER 3

Sociological Groundhog Day

Abstract Sociology is trapped in a kind of perpetual Groundhog Day as what looks like progress largely consisting of the recycling of old but largely forgotten perspectives. This occurs because, in addition to an ignorance of the discipline’s history, over-specialisation has resulted in the lack of a collective common memory, that is of material known to virtually all sociologists. The vast increase in books and journals has accelerated this “Balkanization” or decomposition of the discipline, with the expansion of the frontier at the expense of the core making it increasingly “incoherent”. At the same time, the discipline has been subject to the influence of fashion, with the result that it is prone to import dubious theoretical perspectives while actively exporting whole subject areas. Keywords Sociological Groundhog Day · Lack of collective memory · “Decomposition” of the discipline · Sociology as importer and exporter · Sociology subject to fashion and fad

It is very hard to see how the discipline of sociology could possibly be said to “progress” if, as has been suggested, it is characterized by a short attention span and associated limited collective memory. For these features would necessarily imply that material is continually being recycled, leading to the discipline being trapped in a kind of perpetual Groundhog Day, with what looks like progress largely consisting of the recycling of old but

© The Author(s) 2019 C. Campbell, Has Sociology Progressed?, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19978-4_3

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largely forgotten perspectives. John Scott is one of those who believes this to be the subject’s fate noting that, “the history of sociology is marked by frequent rediscoveries and restatements of key themes” (2006, p. 257). This is a point that he had also made in the opening pages of his text stressing that, “Contemporary theorists frequently cast their work as ‘a new approach’ or ‘a new direction’ for social theory, one especially attuned to contemporary conditions. All too often however, these new ventures have ended up as restatements, in whole or part, of ideas already well explored by earlier writers” (ibid., p. 1). Naturally enough, he suggests that a better acquaintance with the work of the founding fathers of the discipline would have prevented “such frequent reinventions of the wheel” (ibid.). John Urry is another sociologist who has expressed this view, arguing that no one perspective is thoroughly explored, through an exhaustive process of normal science—type puzzle solving, only to be replaced when sufficient unexplained anomalies accumulate to force its abandonment and replacement by another paradigm (1981, p. 32).1 Rather, new theoretical frameworks are adopted simply because they are novel, and given the shortage of real novelty, this necessarily means that effectively a cyclical replacement occurs.2 As a consequence he claims that, “…there is little that can be described as sociological progress in the sense understood by that notion within science” (1981, p. 33). An indication of the extent to which rediscovery is a characteristic feature of sociology is nicely illustrated by Abbott’s material on articles entitled “Bringing the Something or Other Back In”. He notes that since George Homans first used this phrase in his 1964 ASA presidential address, it has been used a further 91 times in articles and books. He goes on to list the many different things that it has been suggested needed to be “brought back in” (2001, p. 16). Abbott concludes that, “there is no real progress, no fundamentally new concept. We simply keep recalling a good idea” (ibid., p. 17). But then the claim that sociology is trapped in a kind of endless Groundhog Day, that is in a situation in which not only is knowledge not cumulative but where previous research findings, concepts and perspectives 1 Urry helpfully lists what he considers these perspectives to be. He names eight: critical theory; ethnomethodology; functionalism; interactionism; Marxism; positivism; structuralism and Weberianism (1981, p. 32). 2 John Urry thinks that “new tendencies” in the discipline are “taken up and incorporated every four or five years” (1981, p. 37). Peter Abell also thinks that “five years” is about the “life expectancy” of reigning orthodoxies in the discipline (1981, p. 121).

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are continuously replicated and recycled, is a view that is itself repeatedly recycled, having been a central theme expressed by Pitirim Sorokin in his 1956 book, Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences , before being echoed by Scott and Urry, as well as Herbert Gans (1992) and Andrew Abbott (2006), mentioned earlier.3 This raises the ironic possibility that the realization that sociology is trapped in a kind of perpetual Groundhog Day could itself be seen as a form of progress. In which case, we haven’t made any since the 1950s.4

“Things Fall Apart; the Centre Cannot Hold” The fact that sociological memory is typically very short has already been mentioned and it is, as suggested, one of the principal reasons why sociology experiences a kind of perpetual Groundhog Day. But there is, in addition, another feature of sociological memory that is relevant in this context, and it is the relative dearth of a collective memory in the discipline, which is to say the common possession, by the majority of sociologists, of a similar knowledge and understanding. Herbert Gans notes this, pointing out that, apart from a general “worship of Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and a handful of other classical and contemporary theorists” (1992, p. 708) ever-increasing specialization ensures that no such memory exists, and it is this “relative dearth of collective memory in sociology that also helps to explain the lack of cumulation” (ibid., p. 708). The lack of cumulation then in turn explains why “we are going round too much in circles” (ibid.). Now I would claim that there was some sense of a collective or shared memory when I set out on my career in the early 1960s. Most sociologists of my acquaintance, no matter what their specialism or indeed preference for theoretical perspective, would be aware of and in all probability have read, many of the same books, and consequently we would discuss any new publication, especially on theory, among ourselves. I am not suggesting that there was agreement on which were the superior or most viable theoretical perspectives. Quite the opposite: there were 3 He also refers to this as “the amnesia hypothesis” That is, how many so-called new policy ideas are in reality rehashes of previous suggestions. 4 The problem here is not simply that ignorance of the past ensures that perspectives are recycled, but also that because data is “added to” it is tempting to believe that cumulation is occurring. A belief that then serves to justify ignoring the past. Unfortunately, true cumulation is more than simply “adding to” data. It involves deepening our understanding of core issues.

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stark differences, especially when those who endorsed a Marxist sociology or conflict theory came up against supporters of Parsonian functionalism. But this in itself revealed the existence of a common collective memory in so far as sociologists still read the publications of those whose position they opposed. For, as Charles C. Lemert notes, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was quite normal for sociologists to read Marx and Parsons (1998, pp. x–xi). One wonders how true that is today. This recollection of mine is echoed by Ivan Szelenyi, who also notes that in what he calls the “good old days in the golden years of the 1960s and 1970s”, sociology faculty often had “a good fight over whose authors one should include in the required sociological theory course. Now there is…less agreement” (2015, p. 4). Now although he doesn’t spell out the reason for this disagreement, the implication of Szelenyi’s comment is that this is less because of stark differences over the value of different theoretical perspectives than because of a lack of a common or shared knowledge of these perspectives. In other words, people don’t engage in “good fights” anymore simply because they are largely unacquainted with any perspectives other than those they use themselves. It follows that calls for “the good old days” when sociologists engaged in “infighting and internal disputation” to be revived—as this made the discipline “an exciting critical, counter-intuitive and interdisciplinary kind of intellectual enterprise” (Savage 2010, p. 661)—are hence doomed to go unheeded. For this is only possible if sufficient collective memory exists.5 What of course greatly helped to foster a sense of a common or collective knowledge in the 1960s and early 1970s (and hence of memory)—and consequently the occurrence of these “disputations”—was the relatively small number of books published in any one year; a number small enough to make it possible for any eager and voracious reader to keep up with newly published work. At the same time, the relatively small number of journals also helped to foster this sense of a collective awareness of developments. Something that, unfortunately, is barely possible today.6 In fact in the early 1960s, all one had to do to ensure that one didn’t miss any article of importance was to keep an eye on the four UK journals of concern to sociologists, 5 As Jennifer Platt notes, in the 1960s it was possible to “know ‘everybody’ in British sociology.” “Epilogue in Eight Essays: Halsey, Crouch, Giddens, Oakley, Platt, Runciman and Westergaard”, pp. 217–219. 6 For details of which significant sociology books were published in which year see https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sociology. Accessed 12 November 2018.

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that is the British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, Sociological Review and, possibly, Work Employment and Society. One would also, in addition, check out the two leading American journals (that is the American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology) as well, in all probability, as one or two continental ones (I used to read Social Compass ). But that was about it. Today there are several additional British Sociological Association journals (Cultural Sociology, Sociological Research Online and Medical Sociology Online) as well as Media, Culture and Society, Gender and Society and the British Journal of the Sociology of Education. In addition, the general increase in journals that are effectively international in nature means it is no longer quite so obvious what actually constitutes a “British” journal.7 Indeed, as the total number of sociology journals worldwide is estimated as somewhere between 70 and 80,8 all sociologists, of whatever nationality, are faced with the difficult question of which to try and keep abreast of. One suspects that the answer, for the majority, is most likely to be, “those that deal with issues in my own particular area of interest”; in addition, one assumes, to their own national or regional journals. In which case, we have clear evidence of what Horowitz called the “Balkanization” or “decomposition” of the discipline (1993). What is especially distressing about this development is the extent to which it means that the mainstream journals have become side-lined. For although these are still among the most prestigious (the ASR, AJS and BJS have the highest impact factor), it is no longer the case that they feature the most cited articles. This was the case in the 1950s, but by the 2000s only one of the most cited papers appeared in the ASR while none had appeared in the AJS.9 Why this is a matter of concern is because it implies that decomposition is linked with incoherence. It was James A. Davis, in an article entitled “What’s Wrong With Sociology?” who suggested that what is wrong is that “sociology is incoherent”. That is to say, “It does not cohere (‘to stick together; be united; hold fast, as parts of the same mass’)”. He continues, “While each article/book/course may be well crafted, they have little or nothing to do with each other. They may share methods and even data sets…but each is about a unique problem with a unique set of 7 The editors of the AJS and the ASR consider these to be international rather than US journals. 8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sociology_journals. Accessed 15 October 2018. 9 https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2014???/11/15/top-ten-by-decade/. Accessed

10 October 2018.

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variables”. It is this incoherence that, he suggests, principally explains why “we do not build anything cumulative” (1994, pp. 179–180). This incoherence is clearly manifest in the extent to which the core of the discipline, that is to say theory and methods, has itself become ghettoized. For as Kieran Healy notes, the material supplied by his colleague Jim Moody, in the form of data extracted from the Web of Science database, reveals that “Outlets like Sociological Methods and Research and Sociological Methodology now publish articles that might in the past have appeared in more general journals. Similarly, big-idea pieces that might once have gotten in at ASR or AJS may now be more likely to find a home at places like Theory and Society or Gender and Society” (Healey 2014). In other words, whereas in the past articles dealing with issues central to the discipline would have appeared in mainstream journals—where there was a real possibility that most sociologists might come across them—they are now increasingly siphoned off into such specialist journals such as Sociological Theory, or Theory and Society, or Sociological Methods and Research and Sociological Methodology. Disturbed by this development, Lowell L. Hargens argues that—in order to off-set this tendency—major journals should expand and take more articles (1991, p. 349). While the discipline can easily survive the hiving off of the study of specialist sub-fields, such as education, crime, medicine or gender, into their own specialist journals, it is hardly likely to thrive if theory and methods are also treated as if they were niche topics, for then the core and the frontier will become even further apart. What is more, this development is also worrying as it suggests that the discipline’s centre of gravity has shifted from the core to the frontier, as this is where most sociologists now ply their trade, as the above data suggests.

Sociology’s Role as an Importer or Exporter Discipline While “frontier” is being used here to suggest the place where sociologists are busy collecting data within specialized sub-fields of study rather than investigating the central theoretical questions to be found at the core of the discipline, there is another sense in which the discipline’s frontier is relevant to the possibility of its “progression”. This, of course, is its frontier with other disciplines and hence the question of the significance of its role as an importer or exporter and whether, in particular, such “trades” benefit or damage the discipline. While it is a commonplace to suggest that sociology has “a weak core” (Dogan 2001), some go so far as to suggest

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that it doesn’t have a core at all and hence the importing of ideas and perspectives from elsewhere can only be of benefit. John Urry is one of these. He thinks the belief that the subject has “some essential characteristics that give it and its practitioners a unity, coherence and common tradition” is “a myth” (1981, p. 25). He continues by asserting that “it has no essence, no essential unity”, and that consequently sociology should be thought of as more of “a site” or “a context” in which various issues can be debated and discussed (ibid.).10,11 But then Urry also considers that sociology is best described as “parasitic”, busily “appropriating theoretical and empirical work conducted in neighbouring disciplines” (ibid., p. 26), with the result that “in so far as one can refer to ‘progress’ in the discipline it takes the form of ‘theoretical innovation’ that largely derives from sources ‘outside sociological discourse’”. What is also clear is that he approves of this parasitism, noting that there are distinct “benefits that follow from sociology’s parasitic character” (ibid., p. 36).12 I disagree with this diagnosis. In the first place, I don’t understand how the discipline can “progress” (Urry uses this word, as we can see) if there is no “essence”, no core. It is hard to see how “a site” or “a context” could be said to “progress”. But then there are also good reasons for being sceptical about the supposed benefits of this parasitism, and there is a sense in which Urry reveals this himself in a couple of additional remarks. One is the observation that “graduate students have been particularly important in effecting this parasitism” (ibid., p. 37), while the other is the observation that, “established sociologists…have to run hard to keep up with the latest fashionable foreign import” (ibid.). In other words, Urry seems to accept that the importation of new perspectives into the discipline does not occur primarily because these are seen as resolving existing disciplinary problems, but rather because a new generation of sociologists—often influenced by graduate students—are eager to embrace the latest “fashion”, a process that

10 John Holmwood is someone else who suggests that sociology does not so much have “a core” as “a sensibility” (2010). 11 But then it could be that Urry’s idea of what constitutes the “core” of the discipline’ is different from mine. He seems to assume that it is “society” that is commonly regarded as the central subject matter of sociology. I would disagree. As stated elsewhere, I consider the central subject matter to be an agreed set of questions—not a topic. 12 It has been suggested that one possible reason for the marked tendency of sociologists to import theoretical perspectives from other disciplines is, as John Scott has suggested, because when it comes to “social theory”, British sociology is “felt to be weak” (2006, p. 54).

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has the distinct advantage of helping to distinguish them from their own, more elderly, tutors. Charles Lemert notes this phenomenon, observing that some generations of sociology students are not averse to ignoring their tutors’ recommendations altogether, replacing them with their own preferences. He says of these rebels, “whatever teachers require them to read is not what they read with seriousness”, quoting one unnamed young sociologist as saying, “Assign us Parsons if you will; but we’ll read Foucault” (1998, p. x). This process whereby material is introduced into sociology as a consequence of a new generation falling victim to fashion does not seem to me to be a description of a practice in which the discipline is likely to be refreshed or revitalized through the drawing off of intellectual “blood” from another academic discipline. On the contrary, it would seem to be just as probable that this is a process in which sociology ends up being poisoned by a foreign virus. But then, as James A. Davis suggests, sociology could be considered to be likened to an “organism with a weak immune system” and consequently it “must play hotel to whatever bugs seek a free lunch. Since sociology is incoherent, we have a hard time rejecting foreign objects…Consequently, we have put up with an appalling amount of bunk (postmodernism, ethnic ‘studies,’ ‘feminist methodology,’ ‘humanistic sociology,’ ‘critical theory,’ ‘ethnomethodology’, ‘grounded theory,’ and the like) simply because we cannot draw a firm line between what is legitimate academic sociology and what is not” (1994, p. 188). In a similar vein, F. L. Jones refers to the dangers attendant on importing “the mysterious views of parvenu (and not so parvenu) German and French philosophers” (1983, p. 136). Although there is a case to be made for the claim that academics in general are prone to be victims of fads and fashions (see Sunstein 2001), what is obvious is that sociology is especially susceptible to such tendencies. Andrew Abbott reels off the various methodological “enthusiasms” that succeeded each other in rapid succession and that featured in the pages of the AJS in the 1960s through to the 1980s (2006, p. 60), while I remember how, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, one could effectively guess the date of a Ph.D. thesis simply by the identity of the principal theorist who featured in it. For example, if it was Lucien Goldmann, then it was probably the late 1970s or early 1980s, but if it was Sartre then it would more probably

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be the mid 1970s.13 But then if importing theoretical and methodological material into the discipline is closely linked to fads and fashions, the growth of new interdisciplinary subject fields seems to result—both through the processes of importing and exporting across the frontier—in the loss of subject matter. In one respect, this can be seen as another aspect of this postulated “parasitism”. While it is conceivable that importing “theoretical and empirical work” from other disciplines might serve to invigorate or revitalize a moribund sociology, introducing whole new areas of study, ones that are by definition interdisciplinary, into the entity that goes by the name of sociology, is a very different matter; a development that one would have thought is more likely to dilute the discipline than invigorate it. However, Urry actually seems to approve of such developments noting that, as he puts it, “In recent years, the students’, black, and women’s movements have all become, in a sense, part of sociological discourse” (2010, p. 33). Precisely, how he thinks this helps sociology itself to progress is not clear. But then Szelenyi also comments on this “broadening up” of the discipline, observing that it now includes, “interdisciplinary programs such as women’s studies, African-American studies, Asian-American studies, Chicano studies, cultural studies, and so on”. However, unlike Urry, he does not judge these developments to be of benefit to the discipline, observing that, while “These are all legitimate fields of instruction and scholarly inquiry, which should have their place in universities…[however] including them in sociology blur[s] the disciplinary boundaries of sociology” (2015, p. 4). It is hard to disagree with this judgement, which means that the discipline is not just decomposing, in the sense that most work now takes place in the frontier while the core is largely neglected, but also that the discipline is extensively diluted, with more and more interdisciplinary topic-subjects gate-crashing the space formerly clearly marked as belonging to sociology. There is also a school of thought that considers sociology to be weakened as a discipline because it is primarily an “exporter” rather than an “importer” discipline in the first place. John Holmwood echoes the widely held opinion that “sociology is not a strong, coherent discipline”, and what is more that whatever strength and coherence it once had is in decline. But he also suggests that its character as a “loosely coupled” and “weakly bounded” discipline is precisely because of its nature as an exporter discipline 13 Abell is another sociologist who comments on the extent to which sociology is “subject to” “fashion and fad” (1981, p. 121).

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(2010, p. 644). But then Holmwood points out that as an exporter subject sociology does not simply export frameworks or concepts and methodologies, but in addition, it actually exports whole sub-fields of study to “applied subject areas”, such as criminology, business studies or applied health studies, and that it is this “exporting” that significantly weakens the discipline (2010, p. 645). This is a point that was made back in the 1990s by Irving Horowitz, who also argued that sociology’s tendency to export was weakening rather than strengthening the discipline, observing that “a critical source of its [the discipline’s] weakness has been the degree to which [it] has spun off areas [he mentions demography, criminology, urban research and policy research] that were formerly part of its canonical offerings” (1993, p. 18). All of which means, as Holmwood puts it using a metaphor that originated with Andrew Abbott, that “our bread and butter is vulnerable to be taken off our plates to become a full meal in an importer subject” (2010, p. 648). Lopreato and Crippen make a similar point, emphasising how areas of study previously considered integral to sociology are being “increasingly appropriated by a proliferating number of Schools or Programmes like social work, business administration, criminal justice and urban studies” (2001, p. 21). But then one can also add to this loss of subject areas the actual loss of sociologists as academics see greater opportunities for advancement if they adopt a new professional identity, preferring, for example, “criminologist” to “sociologist”.14 Clearly, if it is the case that sociology is prone to import dubious theoretical perspectives while actively exporting whole subject-areas (not to mention personnel) then the future prospects for the discipline do not look too rosy. This debate, over the perceived benefits or drawbacks of sociology’s open boundary with other disciplines and fields of study—and the resultant importing and exporting that occurs across this boundary—would appear to be related to the extent to which one approves of the nature of what is seen as the discipline’s “mainstream”. In general, approval of the mainstream is associated with disapproval of the discipline’s dilution as a consequence of the importation of both perspectives and subject-areas from elsewhere. On the other hand, identifying a “mainstream” necessarily creates “backwaters” and hence marginalizes approaches and topics that others value. Gouldner was one of the first to articulate this latter position, suggesting that cumulation, along with “convergence” was not actually a

14 See Paul Rock’s comments (1994).

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good thing (he, of course, had Parsons in his sights). The reason being because he saw this as marginalizing traditions that are not included in the “ideology of convergence and continuity” (1970, p. 17). This is a view that has since been echoed by others, mainly those who, endorsing radical positions, see the opening up of the boundaries of the discipline to “new voices” as a good thing (see Stanley 2007).

Bibliography Abbott, A. (2001). The Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, A. (2006, Summer). Reconceptualizing Knowledge Accumulation in Sociology. The American Sociologist, 37, 57–66. Abell, P. (1981). W(h)ither Sociological Methodology? Generalisation and Comparative Method. In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 120–123). London: Allen & Unwin. Davis, J. A. (1994). What’s Wrong with Sociology? Sociological Forum, 9(2), 179–188. Dogan, M. (2001). Sociology Among the Social Sciences. Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacstranscripts-and-maps/sociology-among-social-sciences. Accessed 12 October 2018. Gans, H. (1992). Sociological Amnesia: The Noncumulation of Normal Social Science. Sociological Forum, 7 (4), 701–710. Gouldner, A. W. (1970). The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books. Hargens, L. L. (1991, May). Impressions and Misimpressions About Sociology Journals. Contemporary Sociology, 20(3), 343–349. Healey, K. (2014, November 15). Sociology’s Most Cited Papers by Decade. Blog. https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2014/11/15/top-ten-by-decade/. Accessed 26 November 2018. Holmwood, J. (2010). Sociology’s Misfortune: Disciplines, Interdisciplinarity and the Impact of Audit Culture. British Journal of Sociology, 61(4), 639–658. Horowitz, I. L. (1993). The Decomposition of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, F. L. (1983, July). Dialogue: Crisis in Sociology. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 19(2), 195–203. Lemert, C. (1998). Introduction. In J. C. Alexander (Ed.), Neofunctionalism and After (pp. ix–xiii). Oxford: Blackwell. Lopreato, J., & Crippen, T. (2001). The Crisis in Sociology: The Need for Darwin. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

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Platt, J. (2004). Epilogue in Eight Essays. In A. H. Halsey (Ed.), A History of Sociology in Britain (pp. 217–219). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rock, P. (1994). The Social Organisation of British Sociology. In M. Maguire, R. Morgan, & R. Reiner (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Savage, M. (2010, December). Unpicking Sociology’s Misfortunes. British Journal of Sociology, 61(4), 659–665. Scott, J. (2006). Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology. London: Sage. Sorokin, P. (1956). Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences. Chicago: Henry Regnery. Stanley, L. (2007). Sociology and Its Strange Others: Introduction. History of the Human Sciences, 20(2), 1–5. Sunstein, C. R. (2001). Academic Fads and Fashions (with Special Reference to Law) (Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law, 2001). University of Chicago Law School. Szelenyi, I. (2015). The Triple Crisis of Sociology. Guest Post, Contexts (2017, Summer). https://contexts.org/blog/the-triple-crisis-of-sociology/. Accessed 12 October 2018. Urry, J. (1981). Sociology as a Parasite: Some Vices and Virtues. In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 25–38). London: Allen & Unwin. Urry, J. (2010). Sociology’s Misfortune: Disciplines, Interdisciplinarity, and the Impact of the Audit Culture. British Journal of Sociology, 61(4), 640–658.

CHAPTER 4

Slash and Burn Sociology

Abstract It has been suggested that since sociology cannot be described as a science, it would be unrealistic to expect it to “progress”, while there are those who dismiss the idea of progress itself as a social construct. However, there are also those who believe that it has progressed. But progress requires that advances are made in the core knowledge of the discipline, not at the frontier, which is where new data is collected. Unfortunately, too many sociologists act like slash and burn horticulturalists, continually “harvesting” new findings but rarely doing the work of consolidating these data so that they form additions to the core. This is largely because sociologists prefer to study topics that interest them rather than focus on solving important sociological problems. Keywords Cult of the ancestors · Believers in progress · Theories sociologists really use · Converging perspectives? · The hollow frontier · Sociologists neglect problems for topics

How should we envisage progress as occurring in sociology? Should we regard this, as John Urry has suggested, “in the same sense [as that] understood by that notion in science” (1981, p. 33)? For that would mean, according to Whitehead’s maxim, that we should “forget [our] founders”, something we show little sign of doing. For, as Lee Freese observes, “We do not study sociological theory as a body of principles regardless of who

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first formulated them; we study the thought of Durkheim, the work of Weber, the theories of Parsons” (1972, p. 473).1 In other words, while it seems that we have little trouble in forgetting our immediate forebears, as the fate of Ginsberg and MacRae clearly demonstrates, we continue to cling to the likes of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. In that respect, the sociological cult of the ancestors is very much alive and well, at least judging by the space given to discussing the works of these figures in textbooks. What is somewhat ironic here is that Max Weber appears to have accepted the truth of Whitehead’s assertion, declaring that, “each of us knows that what he has accomplished will be antiquated in ten, twenty, fifty years” (2004 [1919], p. 6). Yet this has most certainly not been the case as far as his own work is concerned. Perhaps a better indicator of Whitehead’s measure of progress would be evidence to show a steady decline in the number of citations to these pioneers of the discipline in successive generations of books and articles. It is not clear that this is the case, at least as far as textbooks are concerned, although it would appear to be possible—judging by the comparative lack of citations—to do research in many of the sub-fields of the discipline without any reference to, or indeed knowledge of, the works of the ancestors. But then there are sociologists who would contest the suggestion that progress requires the abandonment of the close study of their work. Paul Adler is one of these (2009), as too is John Scott. Indeed, the latter goes so far as to invert Whitehead’s assertion, claiming that, “a science that forgets its founders is lost, or is, at least in considerable difficulties” (2006, p. 1).2 Of course, there are those who would dispute the claim that sociology is a science, or indeed should even aspire to become one, being in reality more like the humanities, and hence that we should be aiming for no more than Gertzian style “thick description” of phenomena, rather than the more ambitious aim of hoping to discover the laws of human behaviour. Robert Nisbet, in suggesting that it would make more sense to view sociology as an art form, would appear to be one of these (1976). But then given that most commentators would argue that the humanities cannot be said 1 As Lee Freese notes, this reveals the extent to which sociology lacks an integrated body of theory (1972, p. 473). 2 One issue here is a possible difference over the reasons for remembering “the ancestors”. As Arthur L. Stinchcombe suggests, there are a number of different reasons why one might want to consult the classic works in sociology, some of which relate more to their pedagogic value than their current theoretical relevance (1982).

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to “progress” in the manner of the natural sciences, this would also mean that those sociologists who hold this opinion would no longer be in a position to see themselves as gaining some degree of immortality—however small—from helping the discipline to advance. Consequently, one assumes that they manage to find some other source of motivation, one perhaps that is more closely linked to the other possibilities outlined earlier. It should be noted, however, that there are those who claim that the humanities, while clearly not progressing in the manner typical of the natural sciences, could still in some measure be said to “advance”. Volney Gay is one of these, arguing that, “by revealing the unseen and making abstract ideas tangible, the arts create meaningful wholes, which is itself a form of progress” (2009, dust jacket). Is this perhaps the best we could hope for as far as our own discipline is concerned? That all we can expect to achieve is to contribute towards the creation of “meaningful wholes”, whatever precisely that might mean? Whether sociology can properly be described as “a science” would require a book all to itself. Intriguingly from my perspective, A. H. Halsey suggests that the struggle over whether sociology should be regarded as a science came to the fore just as I was learning to be a sociologist, in the late 1960s and early 1970s [in the UK that is]. Indeed, he asserts that by 1975 “Sociology was no longer one subject. Those who defined it as cumulative and explanatory in its aspirations, with due respect for natural science models…had one credible answer. Similarly, those who assimilated the subject to the arts as intellectual history and theoretical interpretation had a related, but different…solution” (2004, p. 121). Personally, I am not sure that sociology, even before 1975, was ever really “one subject”, for the tussle between what Halsey elsewhere calls “Literature and Science” would seem to have a history reaching back into the nineteenth century. But then the sharp contrast he draws here between an explanatory science that is also, of necessity, quantitative in nature, and a sociological tradition that is “literary”, “historical” and “interpretive”, is not one I recognize. For me, sociology is a discipline that, as Weber put it, “attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects” (1964, p. 88). Consequently, I have never thought of the “literary” and “interpretive” tradition as implying that explanation was rendered impossible, or that as a result sociology could not “progress”. But then I am pleased to see that Andrew Abbott also refuses to recognize the distinction between “interpretive” and “positivistic” work in sociology,

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referring in passing to a perspective I would happily identify with; one he dubs “positivistic interpretivism” (2001, p. 58). It is important to note that not only have there been sociologists who are convinced that sociology does qualify as an “explanatory science” but who also believe that it has progressed. This was largely true of those now considered its founders, as well as many of their successors, such as Maurice Ginsberg, mentioned earlier. But then these early disciplinary pioneers also tended to associate progress in the understanding of society with societal progress. Auguste Comte—the inventor of the word “sociology”—clearly associated the two. For he identified his formulation of the basic stages of progress as “the great discovery of the year 1822” (Timasheff 1955, p. 26.). The other founding fathers of the discipline, such as Comte’s successor, Emile Durkheim, also believed that progress made in understanding the nature of the forces governing society was linked with societal progress, while it goes without saying that Karl Marx assumed that advances made in identifying the forces that determined the dominant forms of social life also revealed the progressive direction of historical change. More recent believers are not only less easy to find but are unlikely to link progress in sociological understanding with progress in general. Nevertheless, they do exist. One of these was Edward Shils who, writing in 1980, asserted that in his opinion sociology had, “made some intellectual progress”, with the result that understanding was now “richer in its perception of possibilities and its estimates of why one rather than another is realized”, with the consequence that “a greater subtlety of interpretation” existed (1980, p. 12). He then went on to refer to a “greater sophistication in observation and in the analysis of observation”, before finally claiming that a greater “theoretical reflection has also developed” (ibid.). What he had in mind, in making these claims, was that form of system functionalism associated with the name of Talcott Parsons. But then Parsons himself had made the same claim, ending The Structure of Social Action with the observation that “Notable progress on both empirical and theoretical levels has been made within the short space of a generation” (1949, p. 775). This claim can be seen, in hindsight, as especially intriguing, if only because another, and more recent believer in progress, John H. Goldthorpe, explicitly links his assertion with a critique of this very perspective. Thus, while making it clear that his claim relates specifically to the sub-field of social mobility research, he nonetheless confidently asserts that substantial progress has been made, and that while some of this is down to improvements in the quality and extent of the data available, as

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well as some clarification of concepts, the essential feature of this advance has been a rejection of the “macro-to-macro” approach typical of Parsonian functionalism, and its replacement by a “micro-to macro” perspective that builds on rational action theory (2003, p. 21). We can see from this example how what is confidently asserted by a leading sociologist in one decade as constituting progress in the discipline is subsequently explicitly rejected by another a couple of decades later; someone who then makes another and very different claim. Not only does this suggest a marked lack of agreement within the discipline concerning which of these two theoretical perspectives does constitute progress, but it is quite possible that many contemporary sociologists would hesitate before endorsing either claim. Of course, by claiming that a particular theoretical perspective represents progress one is also, of necessity, effectively labelling other, rival paradigms, as old-fashioned and outdated, as indeed Goldthorpe does as far as system functionalism is concerned. Naturally, this is unlikely to endear those who make such claims to sociologists committed to such perspectives. However, there is one way of trying to avoid this direct challenge to those of a different persuasion and that is to argue that the favoured perspective is the one that all sociologists are actually committed to, whether they acknowledge it or not. Kingsley Davis argued this back in the 1950s, suggesting that functionalism was actually synonymous with sociological analysis (1959). Then, George C. Homans made a similar claim in relation to behaviourism in the 1980s, asserting that, “many social scientists who in fact use behaviourism do not realize that they are doing so” (1987, p. 65). Finally, rational action and rational choice theorists have made similar claims, with Joan Huber suggesting that, “a common-sense version of rational-choice theory, typically implicit, already underlies much sociological research” (1997, p. 43), while Hechter and Kanazawa make a similar claim, asserting that all sociologists are “really” committed to this paradigm, “unwittingly” relying on rational choice mechanisms in their research (1997, p. 23). However, the reality is that, to date, none of these exhortations to sociologists to acknowledge that this or that theoretical perspective is the superior paradigm—the one that all sociologists really use—has found widespread acceptance, with the result that the associated claim to have identified disciplinary progress is also necessarily rejected.3 3 As Abbott notes (2006, p. 62), such claims can never succeed because of the very diverse nature of the theoretical traditions that are acknowledged to be essential ingredients of the discipline. Indeed, such strong claims inevitably spark critical reactions.

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There are other sociologists who appear to express a more qualified belief in progress, which is to say that some advances have been made, even if it is patchy and not always cumulative. Thus, John Scott says that, “we may be able to identify areas of intellectual progress in which genuine advances in sociological understanding have been made” (2006, p. 3). Later he suggests that this might be true of “the study of both cultural formation and systemic organization” (ibid., p. 6). But then Scott does illustrate another approach to the contention that sociology has progressed. Not, as the above writers do, by claiming superiority for one theoretical perspective, one that they then go on to assert all sociologists unwittingly accept, but by claiming that divergent approaches to studying the discipline actually converge. In his concluding remarks in a book devoted to outlining the numerous “competing” approaches to the discipline, he emphasizes that these approaches actually have “convergences and interdependences among them” (2006, p. 257). This leads him to suggest that theoretical differences exist principally because “theorists have been concerned with exploring different sets of issues”, and that as a result, “the history of sociology is not simply a succession of divergent intellectual positions but shows real progress in understanding in which successive writers are able to build on the achievements of others” (ibid.). Encouraging though this conclusion is one wonders how far it is shared by Scott’s fellow sociologists. For the history of the discipline would not seem to suggest that the majority of sociologists regarded theoretical differences as little more than a procedural artefact, the outcome of a tendency to focus on different issues. On the contrary, the degree of animosity that has typically marked debates between the proponents of different theoretical traditions would rather suggest otherwise. But then Scott’s general claim that “successive writers…build on the achievements of others” is also refuted by the numerous occasions on which successive generations of sociologists have rejected the work of their predecessors, as exemplified by Goldthorpe’s rejection of Parsonian functionalism, mentioned above. What I find interesting about these comments is that they appear in a textbook and one could suggest, without necessarily being overly cynical, that this is precisely where one would expect to find such a view being articulated. After all, unless one adopts an explicitly latitudinarian approach of this kind one would encounter the inevitable difficulty, when it comes to teaching sociological theory to undergraduates, of explaining quite why one is introducing them to perspectives that are judged to be valueless. In addition, when it comes to presenting the subject to each new genera-

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tion of students, it is almost incumbent on the writer to sound an upbeat tone, to convey not simply an enthusiasm for the subject (Scott refers to sociology as “an exciting enterprise” (2006, p. 6), but also a sense that the discipline is actually going somewhere, effectively journeying from the thicketed forested valley behind to the sunny uplands ahead. But then just such an impression is frequently conveyed implicitly, even when not stated explicitly, in the majority of textbooks, simply by the general tendency to treat topics (or indeed theorists) in a chronological order. The belief that divergent theoretical approaches can be seen as actually converging and interdependent, rather than in conflict, and consequently that it is possible to regard the discipline as “progressing” rather than simply going round in circles, is a view that, perhaps understandably, also appeals to those who represent the discipline’s professional bodies. Thus, the editors of the volume that contained papers from the BSA’s annual conference for 1980, in which the focus had been on “developments in the discipline” over the thirty-year period 1950–1980, note that these had rarely taken the form of sharp breaks a la Thomas Kuhn, but are rather changes in which “substantial elements of previous approaches are always apparent in new perspectives” (Abrams et al. 1981, p. 1). Such a conclusion clearly supports the idea of cumulation, although it is not clear whether the authors also believed that this constituted progress. But then one reason why they might have baulked at the latter suggestion is that they also note how “popular movements” (they mention the New Left and Black Power) have also shaped and influenced areas of the discipline over the same period (ibid.). John Westergaard asks, of A. H. Halsey’s history of sociology in the UK in the twentieth century, whether “the story” is “one of cumulative growth” (we can presume that the reference to “growth” here refers to understanding, not size of the discipline). The answer given is “in part yes…in respect of methods of enquiry…Otherwise, only debatably so” (2004, p. 224). It is debatable because although there is evidence of “shorter cumulative runs”, there are also “major shifts in orientation, theme and interpretation” (2004, p. 223). His main point, however, is the claim that there has been progress in research methods in so far as there has been a process of “empirical testing” that has led to “progress…by cumulative refutation” (ibid., p. 224).

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The Hollow Frontier In the course of his argument in favour of the claim that progress has indeed occurred in the sub-field of research on social stratification, John Goldthorpe attacks those sociologists who believe it is mistaken to imagine that the discipline can progress. These he calls “the impossibilists” and subdivides them into those postmodernists who believe that it is a mistake to imagine that any form of disciplinary progress is possible, and those sociologists who believe that progress occurs in the natural sciences, but because of the peculiar nature of its subject matter, cannot occur in sociology (he places S. Cole, J. B. Rule, C. G. A. Bryant and B. Flyvbjerg, in these two categories) (2003, p. 3). One intriguing feature of the impossibilist position— in either formulation—is that as we have seen it differs markedly from that of the founding fathers of the discipline, who—with a few exceptions—seem to have believed, in true Enlightenment fashion, not only that progress was possible, but that this was manifest in their own work. I would presume that most sociologists accept this to be the case. Why otherwise would their work feature on the syllabi for degrees in the subject? What is more it is difficult to see how there could be any sociologists who don’t believe that the arguments advanced by the likes of Durkheim, Weber and Marx didn’t constitute an advance on what went before, as if they really believed this to be the case then it is difficult to see how there could be a discipline of sociology for them to identify with. On the other hand, if the work of the founding fathers did indeed constitute progress then this would rather suggest that progress is possible, even if we are not making any today. So how, since the discipline of sociology does actually exist, can progress be an illusion? And if, as is generally accepted, Marx, Weber and Durkheim made progress, then it should surely be possible for us to build on their insights in a meaningful fashion. But then the impossibilist’s position must, even when viewed from its own standpoint, be judged to be selfcontradictory. For surely, the “discovery” that intellectual progress is not a reality but merely a social construct must itself count as progress? In other words, it is not so much that these writers believe that progress is impossible as that no further progress is possible, a position that one would imagine rather advertises its own weakness. But then one of these writers, one who doesn’t subscribe to the postmodern position, but rather, accepting the reality of progress in the natural sciences, considers that it does not characterize sociology, is Stephen Cole, and he has a particular take on why this might be the case.

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In essence, Cole’s argument makes use of a distinction between two kinds of disciplinary knowledge that we have already encountered, that between the core and the frontier (1994).4 He describes the former as consisting of a small group of theories, methods and exemplars almost universally accepted by the relevant scientific community as being both true and important. He cites quantum mechanics in physics and Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology as examples of this core. Contrasted with this is the frontier, which consists of all newly produced knowledge. The vast majority of this, he asserts, is ignored, with the majority rapidly discarded as wrong. Crucially, only a tiny percentage of this new knowledge moves from the frontier to the core, yet it is the core that is the basis of progress in all sciences. The problem with sociology then, in this analysis, is that there is virtually no core knowledge. The discipline has a booming frontier but hardly any of the knowledge generated here makes it into the core. In other words, there is little sociological work that the vast majority of the sociological community considers to be both true and important. One interesting feature of Cole’s thesis is the extent to which it echoes the argument advanced by George C. Homans back in 1967, and in which the term “frontier” is also central, although this time prefaced by the adjective “hollow”. Homans, while pointing out that sociology has some of the same characteristics of a slash and burn system of horticulture, notes that this leads to the creation of what social geographers call “a hollow frontier”. He continues: In Brazil, for example, successive bands of adventurers, seeking gold, diamonds, or rubber, have swept through the backwoods, advancing the frontier but leaving behind it little in the way of settled territory, consolidated for civilization. So it is with social science. We adventurers reach more and more “exciting” findings; foundations give us more and more money to advance the “growing edge” of our fields, but behind the growing edge the intellectual work that would organize the findings remains largely undone. It can only be done if we take the job of explanation seriously – for to explain is to organize-and to try to explain at least the more familiar features of social life. (These are the last words of The Nature of Social Science 1967, p. 109)

4 Khalil (1995) also uses the core-periphery contrast in his historiographic analysis of the question of whether the discipline of economics could be said to have progressed.

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In other words, just like Cole—only nearly three decades earlier—Homans bemoans the fact that sociology makes little progress because almost none of the vast amount of new knowledge that is generated annually actually makes it into the core. This necessarily means, as he expresses it, that these “discoveries” actually have little significance; simply constituting nothing more than “oddities” (ibid.).5 What Cole adds to this somewhat depressing analysis is a suggestion as to why this might be the case. Part of this is a none-too-convincing argument about the “mutable” nature of social phenomena, but a more persuasive suggestion is that it primarily results from the fact that the majority of sociologists actually have little interest in adding to the core. He writes, “Instead of sociologists selecting their research problems to address pressing theoretical issues, most sociologists do descriptive work that is motivated by their personal interests and sometimes experience. Most of this research has virtually no impact on the growth of sociological knowledge because its results are not relevant for any important sociological problems” (1994, p. 148). He continues by noting that not only do most sociologists select their research topics on the basis of what interests them rather than what might advance the discipline but also that they are frequently given “more credit for working on an interesting topic than for effectively solving a sociological problem” (1994, p. 150). In other words, not only is it the case that most sociological research projects do not result in knowledge of the kind that would qualify as an addition to the core, they are not even designed to achieve this end. More than this, for not only are projects primarily designed to satisfy the sociologist’s curiosity rather than add to the core, but sociologists are frequently rewarded by their peers simply for adding to the frontier rather than adding to the core. Talcott Parsons had already outlined this problem back in 1954. While observing that there had been a “fairly substantial amount of genuine empirical research” in the discipline he noted that, “the most disappointing thing about it has been the degree to which the results of this work have failed to be cumulative”. He then continues by observing that, “probably the most crucial factor [responsible for this] has been precisely this lack of an adequate working theoretical tradition which is bred into the ‘bones’ of 5 What Cole, Homans and indeed others, calls the core and the frontier, Andrew Abbott calls “general frameworks” as opposed to “data”, observing that in sociology “data churns and grows at an exponential rate while our general frameworks grow not at all” (Abbott 2006, p. 65).

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empirical researchers themselves, so that ‘instinctively’ the problems they work on, the hypotheses they frame and test, are such that the results, positive or negative, will have significance for a sufficiently generalized and integrated body of knowledge so that the mutual implications of many empirical studies will play directly into each other” (1954 p. 350, italics in original). Now while there are considerable obstacles to the development of Parsons’ “generalized and integrated body of knowledge”, the central point made here is still valid, which is that too many researchers do not frame their investigations in such a way that the results could have the kind of theoretical significance that Parsons is referring to.6 But then if one of the reasons why sociology fails to progress is because most sociologists fail to frame their research in such a way that the results obtained have any theoretical significance for the core, the other—as suggested by Homans’ quote given above—is that very little of the findings that are generated by work undertaken at the frontier ever make it to the core. And one of the obvious reasons for this is the decline of scholarship.

Bibliography Abbott, A. (2001). The Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, A. (2006, Summer). Reconceptualizing Knowledge Accumulation in Sociology. The American Sociologist, 37, 57–66. Abell, P. (1981). W(h)ither Sociological Methodology? Generalisation and Comparative Method. In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 120–133). London: Allen & Unwin. Abrams, P. (1981). The Collapse of British Sociology? In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 53–69). London: Allen & Unwin. Abrams, P., Deem, R., Finch, J., & Rock, P. (Eds.). (1981). Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980. London: Allen & Unwin. Adler, P. (2009). A Social Science Which Forgets Its Founders Is Lost. In G. Morgan et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Vol. 1, Classical Foundations (pp. 3–19). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cole, S. (1994). Why Sociology Doesn’t Make Progress Like the Natural Sciences. Sociological Forum, 9(2), 133–153.

6 Peter Abell makes a similar point about the lack of progress in sociology being attributable to the “separation of theory and method…from practice” (1981, p. 121), while Abrams also refers to “theory and practice seem[ing] to dwell in ‘separate realms’” (1981, p. 55).

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Davis, K. (1959, December). The Myth of Functional Analysis as a Special Method in Sociology and Anthropology. American Sociological Review, 24, 757–772. Freese, L. (1972). Cumulative Sociological Knowledge. American Sociological Review, 37 (4), 472–482. Gay, V. (2009). Progress and Values in the Humanities. New York: Columbia University Press. Goldthorpe, J. H. (2003). Progress in Sociology: The Case of Social Mobility Research (Sociology Working Papers Number 2003-08). Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/swp.html. Accessed 12 October 2018. Halsey, A. H. (2004). A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hechter, M., & Kanazawa, S. (1997). Sociological Rational Choice Theory. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 191–214. Homans, G. C. (1967). The Nature of Social Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Homans, G. C. (1987). Behaviourism and After. In A. Giddens & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Social Theory Today (pp. 58–81). Cambridge: Polity Press. Huber, J. (1997). Rational Action and Rational Choice Theory. American Sociologist, 28(2), 42–53. Khalil, E. L. (1995). Has Economics Progressed? Rectilinear, Historicist, Universalist, and Evolutionary Historiographies. History of Political Economy, 27 (1), 43–87. Nisbet, R. (1976). Sociology as an Art Form. London: Oxford University Press. Parsons, T. (1949). The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Parsons, T. (1954). Essays in Sociological Theory. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Scott, J. (2006). Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology. London: Sage. Shils, E. (1980). The Selected Papers of Edward Shils, Volume 3: The Calling of Sociology and Other Essays on the Pursuit of Learning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stinchcombe, A. L. (1982). Should Sociologists Forget Their Mothers and Fathers. The American Sociologist, 17 (1), 2–11. Timasheff, N. S. (1955). Sociological Theory. New York: Random House. Urry, J. (1981). Sociology as a Parasite: Some Vices and Virtues. In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 25–38). London: Allen & Unwin. Weber, M. (1964). The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: The Free Press. Weber, M. (2004 [1919]). The Vocation Lectures: ‘Science as a Vocation’; ‘Politics as a Vocation’. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

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Westergaard, J. (2004). Epilogue in Eight Essays. In A. H. Halsey (Ed.), A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society (pp. 214–217). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

The Death of Scholarship

Abstract If the discipline of sociology is to progress, then it needs scholars as much, if not more than, researchers. While research involves the collection and analysis of data, scholarship involves looking for connections between bodies of data and especially seeks to build bridges between theory and research findings in the search for explanations. Scholarship is not simply threatened by the current emphasis on research but also by the associated increase in specialization as scholarship necessitates the linking of apparently unrelated bodies of data, both within different branches of sociology and between sociology and related disciplines. It follows that scholars are sociological generalists for whom a qualifying adjective or adjectival phrase (of religion, of health, of education, etc.) would be inapplicable. Keywords Scholarship as looking for connections · As interdisciplinary inquiry · Scholars as generalists · Scholars as sociologists who tackle core problems

Type the word “scholarship” into Google and it will bring up a series of sites that deal with the granting of money to students to fund their education. But its true—and older—meaning relates to academic study, to book-learning if you like. As the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) Guidance document puts it, “scholarship is activity that updates or maintains the knowledge of an individual…The knowledge base already exists

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elsewhere…Scholarship is therefore different from Research”.1 Of course one may still employ the phrase “researching a topic” to refer to study and reading. However, for most academics “doing research” typically means something rather different; it means the collection and analysis of data, frequently, if not always, freshly generated data. What is also crucial is that this activity is typically externally funded. Scholarship on the other hand can be undertaken without external funding, for what the academic as scholar needs above all is not so much money as time. Unfortunately, the fetishization of research has reached such an intensity that it is increasingly unlikely that academics will be promoted, or indeed even employed, unless there is a strong prospect of their obtaining research funds, for these have, in effect, become the dowries that universities increasingly demand as the price for tenured posts. As Ernest Boyer has persuasively argued, the focus on the “tired old ‘teaching versus research’ debate” has caused the significance of scholarship to be rather neglected. He distinguishes four separate but overlapping forms of this activity, these he calls, “the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching” (Boyer et al. 1990, p. 16). Noting that the first and fourth receive amply attention, he stresses that “the work of the scholar also means stepping back from one’s investigation, looking for connections, [and] building bridges between theory and practice” (ibid., italics in original). This then is the crucial activity, increasingly squeezed out by the obsession with research, that is so essential if the discipline is to progress. This “looking for connections” and “building bridges” is clearly necessary if the frontier is to be related to the core. But then scholarship involves erudition, which is the process of absorbing and assimilating information, making sense of it if you will, which is precisely the job of explanation that Homans (in his reference to the hollow frontier) identifies as missing. One inevitable result of this move away from scholarship has been the tendency to turn away from history, as it is difficult to generate new data retrospectively, while scholarship commonly involves absorbing a large body of data that has accumulated over a period of time. Unfortunately, as the majority of research techniques are necessarily only applicable in present time, the unfortunate consequence is that the current obsession with teaching research techniques (rather than methodology proper) simply acts to reinforce this neglect of past data. 1 https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/ps/finance/fec/media_78706_en.doc. August 2018.

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The decline of scholarship is also critical because it works against the need to look for connections with other disciplines. Those who are considered major sociological theorists (whether one thinks of the founding fathers or more recent examples) could all be described as social theorists rather than mere sociologists, aware of and knowledgeable in relation to, work in political thought and economics, as well as philosophy, linguistics and history. The increased specialization that has marked the history of the discipline during my lifetime has thus worked not just against the possibility of making connections between different sub-fields within the discipline or indeed between the frontier and the core, but also between the central problems facing the discipline and material relevant to their solution that is to be found in related disciplines.2 This decline of scholarship and its supplanting by research have serious repercussions. One is that, as noted, focusing on scholarship rather than research is no longer a viable career path for an ambitious academic in the discipline of sociology (at least in the UK), or indeed the social sciences more generally. Hence the discipline is in real danger of losing its scholars, a “scholar” being, as the dictionary tells us, “a learned person”, a “man [or woman] of letters”. Scholarship was a realistic academic career path when I was learning my trade back in the 1960s and early 1970s. One did not need to have research grants to be regarded as a successful sociologist, let alone in order to be employed or promoted. Indeed, had this been the case I would never have advanced in the discipline, given that I have only ever had one research grant (as opposed to fellowships) in my whole career, and that was in the very early days. The crucial point is that in those days one’s time could be spent reading and researching a topic, only for the resultant scholarly work to emerge several years later, a luxury that is generally denied to today’s overly pressured and harassed academics. It is also worth noting that another crucial feature of scholarship is that it is commonly undertaken by lone academics rather than by groups of associates, as is evidenced by

2 In emphasizing that the founding fathers were social theorists rather than just sociological theorists I do not mean, as Kenneth Allan has suggested (2006), that the former term concerns those who focus solely on commentary and critique rather than on explanation. For Marx, Weber and Durkheim were indeed most certainly concerned with explanation; if not only that. I mean that their concern was not limited to what today we understand as sociology, but embraced not just an interest in, but also a knowledge of, related disciplines, such as history, economics, law and philosophy. Why this was crucial was because material to be found in these disciplines was essential to the resolution of key sociological problems.

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such figures as Anthony Giddens or Zygmunt Bauman.3 I believe this to be significant as it allows greater scope for individuality and hence, I would suggest, creativity, there being less pressure to accommodate the interests, opinions and judgements of a number of different contributors. But then perhaps it is worth noting that, here too, the pattern set by the founding fathers is typically at odds with contemporary practice, for Marx, Weber and Durkheim were not exactly renowned for their habit of eschewing sole in favour of co-authored publications. Sadly, largely because of the fetishization of research at the expense of scholarship, the typical number of authors of an article in a sociology journal has been steadily rising over the past two decades such that less than one-third are now single authored (Taylor and Francis 2017). This really does make me feel like a relic from an earlier age, given that only 7% of my publications have more than one author. But then the average number of authors per academic paper in general has increased five-fold over the last century, with some papers, especially those written by scientists working at CERN, frequently listing over 1000 authors (Aboukhalil 2014). More than thirty years ago, a library scientist at the University of Chicago, Don Swanson, recognized the enormity of the problem posed by academics focusing solely on reading publications that related to their own chosen field of interest. He went on to coin the phrase “undiscovered public knowledge” to refer to what he believed was a vast realm of discoveries that academics could make as a consequence of reading already published work against the grain, as it were, of their default disciplinary specialisms (Swanson 1986). What Swanson’s insight clearly demonstrated is that true scholarship means more than simply keeping up with the work in one’s chosen field of study, or field of teaching if one is employed on a purely teaching and scholarship contract. It means reading outside one’s specialist field, if not also outside one’s discipline. But then this is also a lesson one can learn by taking the founding fathers as models to be emulated, one that is also related to the importance of scholarship, and that concerns the importance of being a generalist rather than a specialist. For a notable feature of their work, and indeed of most of the major figures who have come after them, is the sheer diversity of topics they investigated. One thinks of Durkheim tackling suicide, the division of labour, and religion, or Weber studying the economy, religion, law and even music, or indeed Marx 3 Bauman (2013) quite explicitly suggests that excellent sociology can be undertaken without the need for research funding.

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on Hegelian philosophy, types of society, forms of economic organization and social stratification, or indeed Parsons on social action, the economy, system theory and societal evolution. The value of the work undertaken by these figures did not come just from the fact that they worked on a large canvas, but also from the fact that they studied diverse aspects of social life. One only has to think about which topic qualifier would be appropriate in the case of these figures to realize the wide-ranging nature of their work. Should Durkheim be labelled a “sociologist of work” because he wrote about the division of labour, or Weber “a sociologist of religion” because he wrote about Protestantism, or Marx “a sociologist of class” because he wrote about class conflict? While all these designations are perfectly valid, they are also quite inappropriate, given that all three studied much more than work, religion and class. In this respect, the key point is that all three were sociologists in the sense of individuals whose expertise lay, not in accumulating information and understanding in relation to a specific topic or area of social life, but in knowing how to tackle key theoretical issues. When I started my career all those years ago, I thought of myself as a sociologist of religion. This was because my Ph.D. thesis primarily fell under that heading. Then, later, as my interests broadened, I came to think of myself as a sociologist of culture. However, after the publication of The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism in 1987 I found that I was increasingly regarded as a sociologist of consumption, a label I was never entirely happy to acknowledge. Now, in more recent years, I have come to think of these terms as particularly unhelpful and consequently have increasingly dropped any such qualifier, regarding myself, quite simply, as “a sociologist”. For I now strongly believe that it is not helpful for sociologists to disaggregate themselves by topic in this fashion. Indeed, I believe that this practice is one reason why the discipline makes so little progress, and hence that we should be content with the single oneword label. But then if the appended qualifier is unhelpful the addition of an ideological prefix is even more so (such as “Marxist” or “Feminist” for example). For what distinguishes a sociologist is not a preoccupation with a given topic or area of study, and certainly not an a priori assumption concerning the most appropriate theoretical framework to adopt when investigating social phenomena, but rather an ability to focus on, and strive to resolve, sociological puzzles, in whatever form they may take. Hence, if indeed it is thought appropriate to talk of specialization, then the defini-

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tion of a sociologist should be that a sociologist is one who specializes in tackling core problems in the discipline.4,5 It seems obvious to me that progress is not going to be made by those sociologists busy toiling in the sealed bunkers of specialization, or to change the metaphor, by those indulging in monoculture, but rather by those prepared to engage in mixed farming.6 For specialization, as Les Back notes, can, somewhat paradoxically, lead to a form of anti-intellectualism, as specialists retreat from commenting on anything that does not fall within their narrow area of expertise (Back 2016, p. 12). What the discipline needs are fewer specialists and more generalists, more people prepared to turn their hand to tackling any theoretical issue, no matter what sub-field of the discipline is best suited to its study. Unfortunately, the present tendency within the discipline, driven largely by the obsession with obtaining evermore research funding, works directly against the idea that sociologists should routinely study a diversity of topics. But it would greatly enhance the discipline if it was taken for granted that departments would hire sociologists and not seek to specify any given area of expertise. For the discipline is not in any special need of sociologists of religion, or sociologists of health, or sociologists of education or indeed of any other specified sub-field of work. The discipline just needs competent, thoughtful and widely read sociologists. For real insights are far more likely to occur when academics work across or between specialist fields, following the often-winding path that is likely to lead to the solution of core problems. Unfortunately, given that there are powerful institutional forces working to embed specialization ever more firmly in the discipline—whether through journals or organized subgroups with their specialist conferences—there probably needs to be a special initiative to counter this tendency. Perhaps through the establishment of a series of fellowships awarded to those sociologists who seek to change their specialization, or perhaps more aptly indicate a determination

4 There are, however, what one could call specific puzzle-solving traditions, or preferences, among sociologists. My interest is in the puzzle that is “action” as well as the mechanisms governing cultural change. So, as a consequence, I tend to identify with the Weberian rather than the Durkheimian tradition of sociological puzzle-solving. 5 Edward Said is on record as observing that, “Specialization…is laziness”. Quoted by Back (2016, p. 118). 6 For a conscious attempt to address the problem of excessive specialization in the discipline, see Philips et al. (2002).

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to tackle fundamental issues, ones that necessarily do not fall within any one specialist field of study. There is an additional reason why it is important that sociologists should move from topic area to topic area or from problem to problem and it is related to the need for creativity. I consider it to be self-evident that if sociologists are to make headway in the struggle to answer the key questions that lie at the heart of their discipline then they need to be creative as well as curious and determined individuals and it is a characteristic of creative people that they do not focus on just one aspect of their art or employ simply one mode of approach. Picasso went through a number of different “periods” during his seventy-plus year-long career as an artist (cubism, surrealism, expressionism, symbolism, modernism, etc.) while Mozart, even in his relatively brief life as a mature composer, produced—among other musical pieces—sonatas, piano violin, horn and woodwind concertos, quartets, quintets and trios, chamber music, serenades, organ music and operas. So, given these clear examples of how creative people are necessarily driven to repeatedly change tack, or at least to change focus, why should we expect sociologists to choose just one area or sub-field of study and stick with it throughout their career? Of course, being a generalist rather than a specialist is hard in the contemporary climate, as I know to my cost. For if you acquire something of a reputation for work in one field, it becomes very difficult to then move on to something different, as you have in effect become labelled. This means that you will continue to receive requests to either review work or contribute pieces of your own in that particular field, while polite refusals on the grounds that you have “moved on” are either ignored or treated as implausible: implausible because that is not what successful academics are supposed to do. I often wonder how Durkheim or Weber would have coped in the present academic climate. Would Durkheim have become irritated by endless requests to write yet more books and articles about the division of labour (this was his first major publication) while he was busy writing The Rules of the Sociological Method? Would he have even been allowed to leave these topics behind and move on to studying suicide? For today to turn from studying one topic to studying another is simply not a sensible strategy for a successful academic. Indeed, one is in a sense penalized for doing this, as one’s colleagues then don’t know who you are, that is to say they don’t know in exactly what pigeonhole to place you. This in turn is likely to mean that you will end up feeling isolated if not actually lonely given that it is highly unlikely that there will be any sociologists who are

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actually acquainted with your complete body of work. Personally, I regard this as sad given that—in my experience—moving from topic to topic is one reason why I have enjoyed working in this discipline, while also being—at least in my eyes—the reason why I have been able to make any sort of contribution. But then both the decline of generalists and their replacement by academics engaged in evermore closely focused specialization and the associated decline of scholarship are clearly consequences of the changing environment in which UK academics now work, an environment so very different from the one I encountered when I first became an academic back in the 1960s.

Bibliography Aboukhalil, R. (2014). The Rising Trend in Authorship. The Winnower, 6. https://thewinnower.com/papers/the-rising-trend-in-authorship. Accessed 12 November 2018. Allan, K. (2006). Contemporary Social and Sociological Theory: Visualizing Social Worlds. Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press. Anon. Co-authorship in the Humanities and the Social Sciences: A Global View. A white paper from Taylor and Francis. https://authorservices. taylorandfrancis.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Coauthorship-whitepaper.pdf. Accessed 12 November 2018. Back, L. (2016). Academic Diary: Or Why Higher Education Still Matters. London: Goldsmiths Press. Bauman, Z. (2013). What Use Is Sociology? Conversations with Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester. Cambridge: Polity Press. Boyer, E. L., Moser, D., & Ream, T. C. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Philips, B. S., Kincaid, H., & Sheff, T. J. (Eds.). (2002). Toward a Sociological Imagination: Bridging Specialized Fields. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Swanson, D. R. (1986, April). Undiscovered Public Knowledge. The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 56(2), 103–118. https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/ps/finance/fec/media_78706_en.doc. Accessed 24 November 2018.

CHAPTER 6

The Collapse of the Ivory Tower

Abstract A revolution has occurred in university life in the UK since the 1960s, one that has made it harder for sociologists to help the discipline to progress. The expansion of the undergraduate population and the introduction of fees have led to students being turned into consumers. In addition, attempts to measure the quality of research and to relate the results to funding have had a damaging effect. The consequence of these changes is that universities now act like corporations, more concerned with profit than adding to knowledge, while staff are divided into the two classes of high-flying academic entrepreneur and stressed and depressed members of the precariat. These changes have demolished what remained of the ivory tower, making it all but impossible for universities to focus on the vital function of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Keywords University expansion · Students as consumers · Negative consequences of the REF · The academic entrepreneur · Quit-lit · The need for ivory towers

My object, in writing this essay, was to try and establish, for my own satisfaction, whether there was evidence to support the suggestion that the discipline of sociology had progressed during my fifty-plus years of association with it. However, it is impossible for me to give serious consideration to this question without at the same time acknowledging the huge change

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that has occurred in academic life over that same time period, changes so dramatic as to render the environment in which academic sociologists now work completely different from that I experienced fifty years ago. This was, after all, not only before the Internet, email and social media, not to mention the introduction of student fees or the REF, but even before most academics could type (as my ex-colleague Roger Burrows correctly observes in his instructive and entertaining lecture, “Ancient Cultures of Conceit Reloaded” (Burrows 2016)). Indeed, I remember Lord James (the first Vice Chancellor of the University of York) querying the request for staff to have access to secretarial help with the memorable repost, “but surely gentlemen [sic] write their own letters”. So, it is obviously necessary for me to note the dramatic change, one might even say the revolution, that has occurred in the nature and function of the university during the last half-century, and the extent to which this has made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for academic sociologists to conduct themselves in a manner that is conducive to enabling the discipline to progress. The first thing to note is that I entered university life at precisely the time that it was expanding rapidly as a consequence of the 1963 Robbins Report.1 This I regarded—as indeed I believe did most of my colleagues—as a good thing, conscious as I was of the fact that I was the first member of my family to go to university. But then, as mentioned earlier, sociology was a relatively new subject in UK universities in the early 1960s, only becoming “an autonomous discipline”, as Mike Savage notes, in “the later 1950s” (Savage 2009, p. 227). After which point it expanded very rapidly, with full-time teaching and research staff doubling in UK universities between 1960 and 1970 (Halsey 2004, p. 108). Unfortunately, although this seemed to me to be a good thing at the time, as A. H. Halsey outlines in his Decline of the Donnish Dominion (1995), this expansion presaged a period in which power gradually ebbed away from academics towards government, and also towards students and industry as consumers of education and research. I don’t think I was particularly aware that this process was underway at the time, not that is, until the introduction—by a Labour Government—of student fees in 1998. Originally set at just £1000, it was subsequently increased in 2003 to £3000 while in 2010 the cap was raised to £9000 (this figure now rises in line with inflation, meaning that 1 This was The Report on Higher Education, chaired by Lord Robbins, commissioned by the government and published in 1963. Its main recommendation was that there should be a significant expansion of the university system.

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as of writing it is somewhere around £9250).2 Shocked as I was by the abandonment of the central principle of free higher education, I also recall that the immediate consequence was the almost instant disappearance of mature students from the regular undergraduate intake, with the unfortunate consequence that from then on seminar discussions largely lacked the interesting dynamic that stemmed from mixing those with experience of living in “the outside world” with those who had come straight from school. The more serious long-term consequence has been the tendency for students to see themselves (and indeed to be actively encouraged by government, the media and even their parents to see themselves) as consumers of a product called “a degree”. This in turn causes them to believe that, like all consumers, they have an automatic right to have their needs and preferences catered for. Unfortunately, although students are often all too clear about what it is that interests them, they are rarely in a position to judge what is in their best interests. In addition, the benefit to be gained from a higher education is often not apparent at the time, only becoming so after it has been “consumed” (fully digested one is tempted to say). An even more serious consequence was that introducing fees helped to embed the misleading idea that a university degree was to be thought of as primarily a form of monetary investment, something to be evaluated in terms of a subsequent career return rather than the more intangible benefits that generally accrue from a higher education. While the introduction of student fees was to be deplored, it did not appear to directly impact on the opportunities that were available for sociologists to help the discipline to progress, as the negative effects have only really become apparent more recently, as a consequence of the significance that is now accorded to student feedback. The more immediate threat came from the other major change that occurred during my half-century of association with the discipline. This was of course the introduction of a system designed to measure the quality of research undertaken at UK universities and the allocation of funding on the basis of the results. The first such attempt, known as theResearch Assessment Exercise (RAE), was instituted by the Margaret Thatcher Government and took place in 1986. Subsequent exercises in “research selectivity” as it was called occurred in 1989, 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2008. There is little doubt that these exercises had a disastrous impact on the UK higher education system, leading 2 Currently, there are rumours to the effect that the present government plans to reduce this figure to a figure closer to £6500.

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to the closure of departments with strong research profiles and healthy student recruitment. It was thus judged responsible for job losses, discriminatory practices, widespread demoralization of staff, the narrowing of research opportunities through the over-concentration of funding and the undermining of the relationship between teaching and research.3 One of the more obvious reasons why this attempt to measure research quality was essentially unfit for purpose was the extraordinarily short time-scale employed. This was no more than five or six years, even though important research may take decades before its true impact can be assessed (this is perhaps another example if the baleful influence of the fallacy of the latest word). A good example of the way this arbitrary system of measurement fails to take this into account is revealed in the example of Professor Peter Higgs, the physicist who, in a seminal paper published in 1964, predicted the boson that is now named after him. The research at CERN that finally demonstrated that he was right—and hence the importance of his paper —did not happen until 2012, some 48 years after the original paper was published. So much for measuring the significance, or ‘impact’, of publications within a five- or six-year time period. The consequence of this focus on such a short time frame is, as Peter Higgs himself noted, that it is unlikely a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today’s academic culture. Nor is this simply a matter of the short time frame, for as he notes, “It’s difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964”. Indeed, as he notes, no university would employ him in today’s academic system because he would not be considered “productive” enough (Higgs 2013).4 This shows rather clearly how—as a result of the attempt to measure research quality—universities’ main objective has become to achieve better grades, rather than to produce excellent science and scholarship. This has not only become a subsidiary goal that only matters to the extent that it delivers top 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Assessment_Exercise. Accessed 12 November 2018. 4 While I would not wish to compare myself with this distinguished winner of the Nobel Prize, my own experience bears out the same point. Notably that many years may pass before the true impact of research becomes apparent. In my case, I published a book in 1971 that received an average of 1.5 citations per year over the next 20 years. However, during the last seven years this has risen to an average of 17 citations per year, peaking at 19 in 2017. Yet here too, as in Professor Higgs’ case, the long delay between publication and impact means that this work would also not have been recorded as having had any “impact” (if indeed, there had been a REF back in the 1970s).

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grades, but the importance of obtaining these grades has led to universities increasingly looking for ways to “game the system” (Scott 2018). If the RAE was a bad idea, its successor, the Research Excellence Framework (or REF), that replaced it in 2014, was worse. The reason that this change represented a more serious threat to universities than had its predecessor was because it now included a specific assessment of research “impact”, with impact defined as “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” (italics added).5 Now while there had always been some opposition to the idea of measuring the quality of university research, the inclusion of this specific criterion was widely condemned.6 Given, as we have seen, the obvious difficulty of measuring the impact of research when the focus is on its significance for the academic discipline concerned, it is hardly surprising that attempts to measure its impact on the larger society should also prove to have undesirable consequences. For example, the introduction of this criterion inevitably steered research towards disciplines and indeed topics in which impact is more easily evidenced and especially where it is economic in character. What is strange about this innovation is that one would have thought that it was unnecessary, as research that has clear practical, especially economic, significance would be precisely what one would assume that business and industry are busy funding under the heading of research and development, thereby leaving government free to fund basic research. After all, if government does not fund basic research, who will? It follows that the introduction of the criterion of impact outside academe threatens to devalue pure or blue-sky research and thus undermines the essential value of seeking knowledge for its own sake. When one considers the effect of both the introduction of student fees and the REF, it is hardly surprising that university authorities have become as overwhelmingly concerned with monetary issues as their students, with 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Excellence_Framework. Accessed 5 November

2018. 6 The University and College Union organized a petition calling on the UK funding councils to withdraw the inclusion of impact assessment from the REF proposals once plans for the new assessment of university research were released. This petition was signed by 17,570 academics (52,409 academics were returned to the 2008 RAE), including Nobel Laureates and Fellows of the Royal Society (University and College Union 2011). https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/6776/Survey-finds-widespreaddissatisfaction-amongst-university-staff-with-research-assessment.

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the end result that, as Bill Readings puts it, the university has become “a corporation driven by market forces, more interested in profit margins than in thought” (1997, cover summary). One consequence of which is that, “the values of the old university, of scholarship, truth and freedom… [have been] replaced by the values of the market” such that “education became a product, the university a firm, and the university system an industry” (ibid.). This development marks the emergence of what Robert Nisbet has called “the higher academic capitalism” (1971, p. 172), with the university a unique hybrid institution that strives to unite the scientific search for truth with the economic maximization of profits; the result of which is that universities act more like rival enterprises, each seeking to maximize its reputation and revenues rather than as disinterested, public-spirited institutions. My own experience of this process is encapsulated, as John Holmwood expresses it, by the replacement of “The old collegial system, based on professorial hierarchy… by a managerial hierarchy based upon functional representation” (2010, p. 4). It is all deeply depressing, with the latest step along the path of what Peter Scott calls the “road to serfdom” being the tendency for UK universities to be recruited as agents of the state, enforcing an anti-immigrant agenda, along with so-called antiradicalization programmes (May 2018). This is yet further evidence, if any was needed, that contemporary UK university vice chancellors have abandoned any real attempt to defend the independence that is crucial to their very survival as universities.

The Academic Entrepreneur One of the more depressing consequences of this reform of UK universities, as represented by the REF, is that academics are being forced, as Roger Burrows puts it, to either “play or get played”. As he says, “we are forced to use the language of statistical measures whether we want to or not; if we attempt to resist we know that not playing ‘the numbers game’ will have implications for us and our colleagues” (2010, p. 368). This is the inevitable consequence of the metricization of the academy, and it creates a real dilemma for academics, one that is perhaps felt more by sociologists than those in other subjects given that, while the decline of academe and its associated submission to managerialism and consumerism does not just affect sociology, this discipline is probably more at risk than many simply because the temptation to succumb to an unthinking utilitarianism is that much stronger. For a discipline that studies society is always at risk of being

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browbeaten into becoming a discipline that focuses on resolving social rather than sociological problems. However, to challenge this tendency runs the risk, as Burrows notes, of making life more difficult for others as well as oneself. Understandably perhaps, many decide to “play along”, becoming therefore effectively complicit in the very processes that threaten to destroy the university in its traditional form. But then, “playing along” is a trend that is closely associated with the emergence of a new kind of academic, one that has been dubbed the academic entrepreneur. I do not mean by this someone who, although trained as an academic, decides to start their own company. Rather I mean someone who, although remaining in academe, behaves in very much in the manner of an entrepreneur (see Slaughter 1999). For the reality is that the changes outlined above have opened up opportunities for the ambitious academic, that is for the person who is more than prepared to play the game of performance ranking with the associated grant-generated kudos that it brings to those who succeed; someone who has bought into the market system—that is the market for academic talent—with talent here judged in terms of research-grant income as much as highly cited publications in top-ranked journals. To the extent that sociologists are following this path, the image of a successful academic increasingly comes to resemble that of a successful businessman; that is one who succeeds in cornering the market in a selected topic, who seeks out media exposure wherever possible while playing up the “practical relevance” of their research. Such a person will also have succeeded in building up a team of people working for him or her as “assistants”, while becoming adept at networking and the art of “selling oneself” and one’s research, especially in the popular media, all underpinned by large research grants and the consequent ability to buy oneself out of the tedious business of teaching. Robert Nisbet’s use of Veblen’s terminology to refer to the new breed of academic sociologists is highly pertinent here. He refers to such people as those who engage in “conspicuous research” (1971, p. 109, italics in original). He continues, “Ordinary research was not enough. It must be made conspicuous not merely through sheer bulk of project, but through one’s conspicuous exemption from all ordinary academic activities…[especially] teaching, or from a significant share of teaching”. Other features of this conspicuousness that he mentions include having a title that includes the word “research” as well as “ownership” of one’s own distinctly named research unit, which may, for all practical purposes, exist outside, or at least alongside of, the normal university departmental structure. One may also

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add that such a person will also frequently be absent from their department or research unit for, as Les Back observes, “absenteeism is a hallmark of being in demand” (2016, p. 103). Hence, somewhat ironically, engaging in conspicuous research requires that the academic should “scatter the self in order to propagate ideas and harvest citations of one’s published work”, with the consequence that their actual office may look “only intermittently inhabited” (ibid.). Any person who has decided to go down this route, which is to say to focus on becoming successful in academe rather than merely successful as an academic sociologist, will in all probability, as a consequence of adopting what is essentially a business ethos, have become a follower of the North American cult of busyness. In essence, this cult represents an inversion of Veblen’s famous thesis concerning the status-signifying effects of leisure. For no longer is it the case that conspicuous absence from labour signifies status; quite the reverse in fact, for in today’s world it is conspicuous busyness in work that confers status; a disturbing development that one would have thought inimical to the effective discharge of the crucial obligations that attend the role of academic. But then this cult of busyness fits perfectly with the cult of research—the latter understood as the institutionally funded collection of fresh data—as it is all too easy for academics to be so taken up with the tasks of applying for grants, administering grants, supervising research workers, submitting reports to funding institutions, not to mention writing up and publishing the results of the research—all of which is conducted at a breathless pace—that there is little time left to reflect on larger issues, especially perhaps that of the real significance of the research itself, especially when considered in relation to the fundamental core issues in the discipline. This is “fast academia”, and it is inimical to serious thought.7 Such individuals could be said, in Weber’s terminology noted earlier, to be living off rather than living for the discipline.8 But then such busyness fits perfectly with the current government agenda, and especially with its

7 The extent to which speed has become a dominant feature of academic life is examined in Filip Vostal’s book, Accelerating Academia: The Changing Structure of Academic Time. For a response to this acceleration of academic time, see Berg and Seeber, The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. 8 Interestingly, Robert Nisbet reports that—as long ago as 1971—an American “industrial vice-president” was reported as saying, “Scratch a faculty member today and you almost always find a businessman” (1971, p. 82).

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single-minded and predominantly utilitarian concern with the STEM disciplines, as well as with university management agendas and their understandable obsession with top-slicing income from funded research projects. It seems almost rude—in relation to the contemporary university research context—to point out that Einstein never had a research grant or conducted experiments, except those of the thought variety, while Darwin was able to pursue his researches because he was privately wealthy. Crucially, the insights of neither man owed anything to state funding, but what both men did have in common was ample time to think.9 When I first entered the academic profession in the 1960s, I too was lucky enough to have time to think, as the workload on academics was far less than it is today. Indeed, it was not uncommon for academic staff to take a little downtime in their offices after lunch, or indeed to be “unavailable” at other times during the working week. Now I won’t pretend that this common practice of taking time out from actively engaging in one’s academic duties was directly correlated with intellectual creativity, but I would contend that it increased the possibility that this might be the case.10 What I do know is that, although when I entered academic life the days of the gentleman scholar—if indeed any of this endangered species still existed—were clearly numbered,11 I did benefit greatly from having times when, freed from interruption by students or the need to deal with the demands of management, I could just relax and allow myself to reflect—both consciously and also I would discover later sub-consciously—on those intellectual puzzles that bothered me. Unfortunately, circumstances have changed and life for today’s sociologists is nothing like as easy-going as it was for me in the 1960s and 1970s. On the contrary, things have changed so dramatically that I am not at all sure that I would wish to be a tenured academic in today’s university system. The Times Higher Education University Workplace Survey of 2016 revealed that UK academics experienced high levels of stress, with many working between 60 and 100 hours a week, while frustration with dete9 While the ship The Beagle and the voyage it went on was paid for by the Navy, Darwin had to pay for himself. It was his father, a wealthy doctor, who funded his portion of the trip. 10 Research clearly demonstrates that individuals are likely to be more productive if they work fewer hours: periods of no more than four hours being the ideal (see Pang 2016). 11 For evidence that the gentleman-scholar did exist, even as late as 1962, see Brian Wilson, where he refers to “older [academic] staff” and the fact that “Scholarship is for them a gentlemanly pursuit” (1970, p. 78).

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riorating working conditions was widespread. Common complaints centred round the growth in managerialism and associated “market-driven and rankings-driven policies”, together with “constant performance monitoring and target setting” and the erosion of standards, while reports of bullying and harassment were common (Grove 2016). One consequence of this, as Anna Fazackerley found in her survey of nearly 200 early career researchers after the last REF, was that “many were experiencing anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, in part because of the REF, and exacerbated by being in precarious positions in an increasingly competitive job market” (2018, p. 34). In view of this, it is hardly surprising that, as R. Gill expresses it, “Many academics are exhausted, stressed, overloaded, suffering from insomnia, feeling anxious, experiencing feelings of shame, aggression, hurt, guilt and ‘out-of-placeness’” (Gill 2010, cited by Burrows 2010, p. 355). Unsurprisingly, research by the Royal Society and the Welcome Trust in 2017 found that academia is now “one of the worst careers for stress, with four in ten academics suffering mental health conditions” (Fazackerley 2018, p. 34). An obvious consequence of this scenario, especially when it is coupled with the fact, as Anthony Giddens observes (1966), that there has been a considerable reduction of the total funds available to support thinking and research, not to mention the erosion of salary levels compared with earlier decades, is that being an academic is now an increasingly unattractive prospect. As a result, more are leaving the profession that ever before, a phenomenon that has led to the emergence of a whole new genre of writing, that of academic “quit-lit”, or the confessions of those academics who have decided to abandon academe. Although some have questioned whether these accounts really qualify as literature, while also suggesting that many of its authors were pushed rather than actually quit (thereby implying that these are “pushed-pieces” rather than “quit-lit”) what is striking about the reasons given for leaving the profession is the extent to which these relate less to frustration at not getting on in the system than disappointment with scholarly work itself. But then, this is hardly surprising as the evidence clearly shows that most academics are motivated by a desire to add to knowledge and are consequently frustrated by the growing influence of academic capitalism (Camille and Blackmore 2018). As a result, increasing numbers have begun to question the value of their work, and indeed learning more generally, declaring that their time in academe didn’t matter in the way that they had hoped it would (Cassuto 2018).

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To summarize: recent decades have seen a sustained attempt—by governments, politicians, business, the media and even by students themselves—to demolish what small section of the original ivory tower is still standing. This phrase, generally understood to mean an environment of intellectual pursuit or inquiry, one disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life, has become a derogatory term, and hence the sustained attack on any institution that is considered to resemble this description, or indeed any person foolhardy enough to defend its existence. And yet the reality is that universities need to be ivory towers in precisely the sense indicated if they are to fulfil their unique societal function. That is to say the academic agenda, the topics chosen for study, and especially those puzzles identified as in need of resolving, should be those determined by academics themselves in the light of the current state of knowledge—or more accurately perhaps the current state of ignorance—of their respective disciplines. In other words, “the concerns” addressed should be academic in nature, and not those of “a practical nature” encountered among those living outside the ivory tower. As Stanley Fish, ex-dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, expresses it in his advice to academics, “don’t surrender your academic obligations to the agenda of any non-academic constituency” (2004). He adds, “Performing academic work responsibly and at the highest level is a job big enough for any scholar and for any institution…it does not seem to me that we academics do this so well that we can take it upon ourselves to do everyone else’s job too”. In other words, working in an ivory tower—if done properly—is a full-time job and does not leave time for academics to also take on board the “practical concerns” of the larger society. As Stanley Fish went on to say, “Don’t confuse your academic obligations with the obligation to save the world” (ibid.). Or, as Robert Nisbet puts it, “There is simply no way by which a community can be built around the vital functions of teaching, learning, and scholarship…and, at the same time, make its members available for any and all the needs of the social order that at any given moment are likely to be thrust upon the university” (1971, p. 135). I believe that we academics need to remind ourselves that universities were established to embody the simple assertion that knowledge is good. Not that knowledge is good for something or other, such as boosting the economy or helping individuals find employment, let alone eliminating social evils or building utopia. As Robert Nisbet has emphasized, the “heart of the academic dogma is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge and the processes of coming to know are good in themselves,

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and the university, above all institutions, is-or used to be- devoted to them” (1971, p. vi, italics in original). If we lose sight of this essential fact, then quite simply universities cease to be universities in any meaningful sense of the word. Unfortunately, this essential fact is being lost sight of, which is why in 1998, a date chosen to mark the 900th anniversary of the founding of the University of Bologna, some 338 heads of universities in Europe met to draw up what they called the Magna Charta Universitatum. What this document stated was that the university was built upon two principles, the idea that a university was “an autonomous institution at the heart of societies” and that “Freedom in research and training is the fundamental principle of university life, and governments and universities …must ensure respect for this fundamental requirement” (Collini 2018, p. 36). However, as Stefan Collini points out, neither of these two principles really apply in the UK as, “Barely a month goes by without a new diktat issuing from Whitehall” while, “genuine academic freedom is in a parlous state”, with the UK being “the sick man of Europe” when it comes academic freedom (ibid.).

Bibliography Back, L. (2016). Academic Diary: Or Why Higher Education Still Matters. London: Goldsmiths Press. Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2017). The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Burrows, R. (2010). Living with the h-Index: Metric Assemblages in the Contemporary Academy. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 355–372. Burrows, R. (2016). Ancient Cultures of Conceit Reloaded. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=RhodhPqhMO4. Accessed 23 November 2018. Camille, K., & Blackmore, P. (2018). Motivation: The Role of Prestige in Academic Life (0176). Programme No. L8. https://www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2011/ abstracts/0176.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2018. Cassuto, L. (2018, February 25). The Grief of the Ex-academic. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Grief-of-the-ExAcademic/242612. Accessed 12 December 2018. Collini, S. (2018, April 24). In UK Universities There Is a Daily Erosion of Integrity. The Guardian. Fazackerley, A. (2018, June 12). Publish or Be Damned: University Staff Urged to Open up About Mental Health Issues. The Guardian. Fish, S. (2004, May 21). Why We Built the Ivory Tower. New York Times.

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Giddens, A. (1966). In Defence of Sociology: Essays, Interpretations and Rejoinders. Polity: Cambridge. Gill, R. (2010). Breaking the Silence: The Hidden Injuries of Neo-liberal Academia. In R. Flood & R. Gill (Eds.), Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections (pp. 228–244). London: Routledge. Grove, J. (2016). The University Workplace Survey 2016: Results and Analysis. The Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation. com/features/university-workplace-survey-2016-results-and-analysis#surveyanswer. Accessed 26 October 2018. Halsey, A. H. (1995). Decline of the Donnish Dominion: The British Academic Profession in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halsey, A. H. (2004). A History of Sociology in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Higgs, P. (2013, December 6). I wouldn’t Be Productive Enough for Today’s Academic System. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/ dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system. Accessed 24 November 2018. Holmwood, J. (2010). Sociology’s Misfortune: Disciplines, Interdisciplinarity and the Impact of Audit Culture. British Journal of Sociology, 61(4), 639–658. Nisbet, R. (1971). The Degradation of the Academic Dogma: The University in America 1945–1970. London: Heinemann. Pang, A. S.-K. (2016). Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less. New York: Basic Books. Readings, B. (1997). The University in Ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Savage, M. (2009). Against Epochalism: An Analysis of Conceptions of Change in British Sociology. Cultural Sociology, 3(2), 217–238. Scott, P. (2013, November 4). Why Research Assessment Is Out of Control. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/ 04/peter-scott-research-excellence-framework. Accessed 20 October 2018. Scott, P. (2018, May 1). Universities Are Not Border Guards—If They Ask for My Passport Again, I Will Decline. The Guardian. Slaughter, S. (1999). Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. University and College Union. (2011). https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/ 6776/Survey-finds-widespread-dissatisfaction-amongst-university-staff-withresearch-assessment. Accessed 12 November 2018. Vostal, F. (2016). Accelerating Academia: The Changing Structure of Academic Time. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Wilson, B. (1970). The Youth Culture and the Universities. London: Faber & Faber.

CHAPTER 7

Sociology as “Just an Academic Pursuit”

Abstract Sociology has long been regarded as in crisis, with sociologists repeatedly agonizing over its status, nature and role. One of the main disputes has been over whether being a sociologist means that one is should aim to change social life rather than merely explain it. However, the role of academic is specifically to interpret the world, not to change it. Unfortunately, all too often sociologists have ignored their duty in this regard and engaged in either ideological advocacy or moralizing, thereby preventing the discipline from making progress. Although this has been a feature of UK sociology for 50 years, a disturbing recent trend has been for some sociologists to claim that re-dressing grievances justify rejecting the very idea of impartial scientific inquiry. Keywords Discipline in crisis · Academic trumps sociologist · Adding to knowledge as higher purpose · Ideological advocacy · Grievance studies

While the previous chapter dealt with developments in the UK university system that have occurred over the past fifty years which have clearly worked against the possibility of sociology making progress, it is important to stress that there are other obstacles which long predate this period of change. Thus, while the threat to the traditional conception of the nature and function of the university represented by government policy—through the transformation of student into consumer and the attempt to measure

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the quality of research by its short-term impact (both within and without academe)—have only occurred relatively recently, effectively during my academic career, a sense that the discipline might be under threat, or at least in trouble, and as a result in no state to make progress, has a long history. Not that this debate has traditionally been structured around the issue of progress, for the more usual reference is to the discipline being “in crisis”.

A Discipline in Crisis When I started out on my career as a sociologist, I was quite unaware that the discipline might be thought of as in crisis. But then, I’m not sure that this was a prevalent feeling back in the 1960s as this was a time when the very novelty of the discipline helped to generate a sense of optimism. However, it was not a feeling that lasted very long, as claims that it was in crisis came quick and fast. There was of course Alvin Gouldner’s famous “Coming Crisis ” in 1970, followed by Raymond Boudon’s “The Crisis in Sociology” in 1971. Then, in the 1980s, there was Philip Abrams’ ‘The Collapse of British Sociology? In Abrams et al., Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (1981) as well as a special issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology devoted to “Dialogue: Crisis in Sociology”; while the 1990s saw Horowitz’s The Decomposition of Sociology, a special issue of Sociological Forum devoted to the topic, “What’s Wrong with Sociology?” and Lopreato and Crippin’s, Crisis in Sociology: The Need for Darwin. This was then followed, in the 2000s, by Peter Berger’s, “Whatever Happened to Sociology” in First Things in 2002, Steven Thiele’s “The Problem with Sociology” in Quadrant in 2005, together with Ivan Szelenyi’s, “The Triple Crisis of Sociology” in Context in 2017, and Sigurd Skirbekk’s, “Crisis of Sociology” in Journal of Sociology (Sosiologisk Tidsskrift ) in 2008. Finally, as the 2000s passed into the 2010s there are three works by existing and former colleagues of mine that also announced a crisis in the discipline, notably Mike Savage and Roger Burrows’ article, “The Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology” (2007), as well as the follow-up, “Some Further Reflections on the Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology” in 2009, and David Beer’s Punk Sociology in 2014. Now, I don’t suppose for a minute that this is a complete list of all the books and articles published over the past fifty years that, in one way or another, have suggested that the discipline is—or is about to be—in crisis. But it is sufficient to show that, if these assertions are to be believed, this has been the

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characteristic state of the discipline during my period of association with it. Could this be the reason why so little progress has been made? Of course, not all these “crises” took the same form but varied in relation, for example, to whether the crisis was largely an internal matter, related to such issues as the inadequate nature of the dominant paradigm (Gouldner) or the failure of sociologists to be truly scientific (Lopreato and Crippin), or more related to external factors, such as the degree of societal support (see Abrams and also Szelenyi), or the challenge represented by mode 2 knowledge (Savage and Burrows). And yet it is also possible to suggest that, at root, the underlying claim is the same in nearly all the instances mentioned above, this being the suggestion that the discipline was facing an identity crisis; there being a question mark over sociology’s nature and role. This can be illustrated by looking at one of the very latest of these crises. This is that relating to sociology’s previously privileged place as the natural authority offering insights into the social world, as this position is increasingly challenged by the rise of Big Data (Burrows and Savage 2014). The development that is of concern in this context is the fact that professional sociologists are no longer the only people who investigate and analyse “the social”. Among those now engaged in such activity are “statisticians, economists of certain persuasions, educationalists, communications analysts, cultural theorists … journalists, TV documentary-makers, humanitarian activists, [and] policy makers” (Osborne et al. 2008). At the same time, the rise of Big Data allows the development of a more extensive “commercial sociology” in which research methods are employed to obtain data that can be used to generate profits (see Burrows and Gane 2006). While it is generally recognized that the use of Big Data in this way does not necessarily lead to a better understanding of the social than that portrayed by conventional social science, it does permit a different kind of more temporally and spatially specific set of analyses, one that can lead to a finely detailed conception of the social. Does this then mean that the availability of Big Data will challenge the predominant authority of sociologists to define the nature of social knowledge, as Savage and Burrows suggest? Possibly, but much depends on the extent to which data can be turned into knowledge in the true sense of that word, a process that traditionally has more to do with theoretical understanding than an ever-more finely grained description of the social. Savage and Burrows provide an example of just this crucial point when they observe that Big Data, using unobtrusive measures, allows peoples’ actual conduct to be contrasted with their accounts of their behaviour. Yet precisely how one should resolve any resul-

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tant apparent contradiction between these two sources of information and hence the extent to which it can be said that people “know what they are doing” has long been a central issue within sociology and hence one would imagine remains quintessentially a sociological matter, and as such one that cannot be resolved through data analysis alone, no matter how fine-grained that might be. Hence the issue at the heart of this “crisis” would appear to be whether a sociologist is simply one who reports on “the social” or whether this role necessarily involves developing theories that make it possible to explain the social. Reaching this conclusion leads me to suggest that most of the crises referred to above relate to this problem of the role that is to be attributed to the discipline. However, in most cases this is less a matter of whether being a sociologist means that one is merely reporting on social life as opposed to explaining it, than whether being a sociologist means that one is concerned with changing social life rather than merely explaining it.

Academic Trumps Sociologist My position on this debate has always been in accord with Stanley Fish’s injunction, noted earlier, to the effect that academics should not surrender their obligations to “the agenda of any non-academic constituency” (2004). Indeed, I judge the use of the word “academic” in this context to be highly significant as it is important to recognize that this is not simply a name applied to those who work in institutions of higher education, but a vocation in its own right. For the word “academic”, when employed as an adjective, means “of theoretical interest”, that is to say, “not of practical interest”. This should be a good guide to any sociologist who is uncertain about the nature of the activity they are supposed to undertake. For most of us, our role is that of an academic, while sociology is merely our area of expertise. Unfortunately, this often seems to be forgotten. So, it is important to stress that most of us are academics who happen to be sociologists, not sociologists who happen to work in universities. There is a crucial difference.1 Sadly, I have encountered sociologists, especially younger ones, 1 See Robert Nisbet’s observation that, “From being primarily and essentially a university member whose field was, more or less incidentally, sociology, one is today, increasingly, a sociologist whose job is, more or less incidentally, held within the university. No single transition within the past quarter-century has been more fateful it seems to me, than this one” (1971, p. 107).

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who have indicated that their motivation for doing sociology is to make the world a better place, without apparently realizing that this is contrary to their primary obligation as an academic.2 Do palaeontologists I wonder engage in the study of life on earth prior to the Holocene in order to make the world a better place? Do medieval historians? Or astrophysicists? It is hard to imagine that they do, but of course I could be wrong. Why then, because we study social life, should sociologists think differently? Marx famously said that our job is not to interpret the world, but to change it. However, as Dean Stanley Fish rightly observes, “In the academy…it is exactly the reverse: our job is not to change the world, but to interpret it” (2004). In addition, if sociologists insist on doing the job of politicians and strive to change the world who do they think is going to do their job: that of understanding it? Of course, sociologists, like everyone else, are entitled to work to change the world—and thus become active in the political process—but in their role as citizens, not in their role as academics. What I find especially hypocritical in this matter is that it is frequently the same sociologists who complain the loudest about the government interfering in academic life who are the most active in politicizing their own sociological activity. Quite why it is wrong for the UK government to attempt to politicize academic activity but OK for them to do so has always baffled me. But then what naturally follows is that their own activity serves to justify government interference, thereby exacerbating the very problem they complain about. Only by striving to ensure that their own activity is free from ideological advocacy can academics hope to mount an effective campaign against government interference in academic freedom. But then, it is a common occurrence, as I suggest above, to encounter sociologist who seem to take it for granted that the discipline should serve some purpose other than that of adding to knowledge. It is a question—that of whether sociology should have “social relevance”—that Max Travers discusses in his 1997 assessment of the state of the discipline (essentially this is a review of Horowitz’s book The Decomposition of Sociology). He ends with the observation that, “It would be nice to find more academics who are prepared to admit that, even if it is just an academic pursuit, without any higher purpose, sociology is still worth doing” (1997). Well, I am happy to number myself among the academics Travers is referring to here, my only complaint 2 Indeed, there are some not so young members of the profession who seem to think that sociology should be “an engine of moral progress”. See Oakley in Halsey (2004, p. 215).

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being that it is a serious mistake to imagine that treating sociology as “just an academic pursuit” means that it therefore lacks a high or “higher” purpose. For, in my eyes, I’m not sure that there is any “higher purpose” than that of adding to knowledge and understanding (though there are certainly others of equal significance).3 There is also a good case for arguing that to be seen to be politically active as a sociologist is liable to make one worse at the primary task of seeking the truth, as Bas van der Vossen emphasizes. He writes, “People who take up a certain role or profession thereby acquire a prima facie moral duty to make a reasonable effort to avoid things that predictably make them worse at their tasks” (2015, p. 1055). In this case, the task in question is to seek the truth about social issues. Therefore, sociologists have a prima facie moral duty to make a reasonable effort to avoid those things that predictably make them worse at seeking the truth about social issues. Being politically active—or more accurately perhaps being seen to be politically active in one’s role as a sociologist—is highly likely to have this effect. Therefore, sociologists have a prima facie moral duty to avoid being visibly politically active. Interestingly, he goes on to consider an obvious objection to this position, which is that, “there maybe those who think that the need to make the world a better place really does trump considerations of truth” (ibid.). However, as he points out, in order to make the world a better place, we first need to know the truth about society and social life. The one is necessarily dependent on the other. Consequently, “the primary obligation to pursue the truth cannot be avoided” (ibid., p. 1052). However, being politically committed greatly increases the temptation to believe that one has already found the truth, otherwise one’s commitment to the cause may be seriously undermined. But believing that one has already found the truth is incompatible with the natural scepticism that is so essential to good-quality academic work, and so necessarily has the effect of pushing the sociologist involved towards dogmatism. In other words, any action aimed at changing the world presupposes that one possesses the knowledge necessary to successfully bring about the desired change. Yet if it was really the case that one was in possession of such knowledge, there would be little left for the sociologist to do. In effect, a serious ideological commitment implicitly renders the sociologist’s task redundant. 3 It has always seemed odd to me that it is easy to get people to accept that art or music is good in themselves and don’t need justifying in terms of their usefulness in promoting some further end, yet they have difficulty in seeing knowledge in the same way.

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An Instrument of Ideological Advocacy This danger, that sociologists are tempted to see their role as one that involves intervening in the political process, is something that Peter Berger identified in his classic work, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. I remember reading his warning against turning the discipline into what he called “an instrument of ideological advocacy” when I read this book shortly after it first came out, in the early sixties (1963).4 I also remember taking to heart his advice that, “As a scientist, the sociologist tries to be objective, to control his [sic] personal preferences and prejudices, to perceive clearly rather than to judge normatively” (1963, p. 16). Now while I may have been impressed by this injunction, it would seem that many of my colleagues in the discipline were not, for as Halsey notes, ideological advocacy has, over the past four or five decades, extensively penetrated the discipline of sociology in the UK (2004, p. 206).5,6 But then it was Max Weber himself who, well before Peter Berger made his observation, outlined the “irresponsibility” of the academic who takes advantage of the fact that students are obliged to listen to their words to harangue them, that is to espouse personal political opinions without any attempt to balance them with “inconvenient facts”, which is to say, facts “inconvenient for their own party opinions” (2004, p. 10). Indeed, as Weber stresses, the teacher must “see that it is one thing to state facts…while it is another thing to answer questions of the value of culture and its individual contents and how one should act in the cultural community and in political associations”. Why, he continues, “can one not deal with both problems in the lecture room?” And the answer he gives is that, “the prophet and the demagogue do not belong on the academic platform” (ibid., p. 11). Weber’s words are unequivocal, spelling out the clear message that, if sociologists wish to use their expertise to advance political or semi-political 4 This is one of two tendencies that Berger considers to be “severe deformations” currently plaguing the discipline. The other is “methodological fetishism” (2010). 5 That this is predominately left wing is also a point stressed by Halsey. This does seem to be supported by Platt’s study of UK sociology textbooks, for she mentions that while there have been several “with a left-wing approach of one kind or another, whether intellectual Marxism or political feminism…none take a clearly right-wing approach” (Platt 2008). There has however been a counter-argument, one that has viewed the discipline of sociology as “an instrument of the ruling class”. See Shaw (1974). 6 Irving Horowitz complained back in the 1990s that “sociology has been profoundly…politicized by its practitioners” (1995, p. 22).

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causes (e.g. championing the rights of minority groups or addressing manifest social injustices) then they should do it in their own time, as concerned citizens, not pretend that it forms part of their role as an academic. As he goes on to stress, “Go you ways out into the street and speak openly to the world, that is, speak where criticism is possible, but remain silent in the lecture room” (ibid.).7 Yet the reality is that his words have been consistently ignored. For it has repeatedly been the case in sociology that practitioners have been both prophets and demagogues, something that has become almost normal practice as far as feminism is concerned, and not just in the classroom either, but in the course of undertaking their research. Indeed, what has happened in recent decades is that the suggestion that complete objectivity is impossible to obtain has been widely employed as an excuse to avoid any attempt to strive for it, thereby allowing free rein to ideological advocacy, a tendency that postmodern thought, with its attack on reason, logic and epistemological realism, has only served to exacerbate.8 Sadly, as Donald Black has emphasized, too many contemporary sociologists actually express contempt for the idea of a value-neutral sociology, even though a valueladen sociology is, as he notes, “a contradiction in terms” (2000, p. 706). All of which has made it more important than ever that sociologists should strive that bit harder to treat inconvenient facts with special respect, while interrogating their own views to ensure that they do indeed accord with the facts. This then is clearly one reason why sociology has not progressed as it should, for it has repeatedly been high-jacked to act as a vehicle, either for advancing an ideology, or indulging in moralizing, thereby diverting resources away from the primary task of advancing the understanding of social life. A recent exercise deliberately intended to expose the extent to which ideologically motivated scholarship, radical scepticism and cultural constructivism had penetrated academe was undertaken by three academics, Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian, the results of

7 I take Weber’s words as implying that sociologists need to be more “disciplined” in the way that they conduct themselves within the discipline, that is, more careful in policing their behaviour and ways of thinking. 8 Not that the tendency for sociologists to substitute moralizing for analysis and explanation is at all new. On the contrary, it has a long history in the discipline, as I came to realize when reading the works of Thorstein Veblen, as well as those who inherited his dislike of consumer practices, such as Riesman and Galbraith.

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which were published in the magazine Areo in October 2018. Taking their lead from the Sokal hoax of 1996, in which Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, succeeded in having an article published in the journal Social Text which purported to propose that quantum gravity was a social and linguistic construct, these three attempted a similar exercise, but on a considerably larger scale. For they submitted up to twenty papers to journals in the field of cultural studies or, as they put it, “identity studies”, together with “critical theory”, areas of academic study that they came to collectively refer to in shorthand as “grievance studies” because “of their common goal of problematizing aspects of culture in minute detail in order to attempt diagnoses of power imbalances and oppression rooted in identity” (Lindsay et al. 2018). Each paper embodied a thesis that was either ridiculous or absurd but was suitably framed in the language common to the field in question, while also buttressed with fictitious data and as well as some rather dubious ethical practices. A good half of the papers were published, and these covered such “subdomains of thought in grievance studies”, as “(feminist) gender studies, masculinities studies, queer studies, sexuality studies, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, critical whiteness theory, fat studies, sociology, and educational philosophy” (ibid.). Given the extraordinarily improbable nature of most of the papers in question, it is quite astonishing to discover that, not only were many of these accepted for publication, but several were highly praised by the referees. The authors of this spoof are careful to make clear that the results do not warrant concluding that the academic fields of study listed above are necessarily corrupt, noting that in the majority of cases the scholarship is sound and that the peer review process is rigorous. However, as they rightly observe, they shouldn’t have been able to get any of these papers published in reputable journals, let alone the seven that were. And, as they go on to observe, there is every possibility that these seven are just the tip of the iceberg. Most worrying was their discovery that, for grievance studies scholars, science itself and the scientific method are deeply problematic, if not outright racist and sexist, and need to be remade to forward grievance-based identitarian politics over the impartial pursuit of truth. This, of course, is nothing less than a straightforward denial of scholarship, a position in which prejudices and opinions are called “truths”. No wonder that they conclude by stating that “Something has gone wrong in

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the university—especially in certain fields within the humanities.9 Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars increasingly bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to their worldview” (ibid.). What is so disturbing about this exercise is not so much the evidence it provides to show how far ideological advocacy has come to dominate in certain fields in the humanities and social sciences as the evidence, given above, of the extent to which certain academics have come to believe that re-dressing grievances justifies rejecting the very idea of impartial scientific inquiry. Should this view, currently espoused by a relatively small minority, become mainstream, then the future prospects for sociology, and indeed for the social sciences and humanities in general, are very bleak indeed.

Bibliography Abrams, P. (1981). The Collapse of British Sociology? In P. Abrams, R. Deem, J. Finch, & P. Rock (Eds.), Practice and Progress: British Sociology 1950–1980 (pp. 53–69). London: Allen & Unwin. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology. (1983, July). Special Issue devoted to, Dialogue: Crisis in Sociology. 19(2). Back, L. (2016). Academic Diary: Or Why Higher Education Still Matters. London: Goldsmiths Press. Beer, D. (2014). Punk Sociology. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Berger, P. (1963). Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. Berger, P. (2002, October). Whatever Happened to Sociology? First Things. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/10/whatever-happened-tosociology. Accessed 12 December 2018. Black, D. (2000). The Purification of Sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 29(5), 704–709. Boudon, R. (1971). The Crisis in Sociology: Problems of Sociological Epistemology. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Burrows, R., & Gane, N. (2006). Geodemographics, Software and Class. Sociology, 40(5), 793–812. Burrows, R., & Savage, M. (2014, April 1). After the Crisis? Big Data and the Methodological Challenges of Empirical Sociology. Big Data and Society, 1(1).

9 See also in this context the growing concern over a similar “corruption of the humanities” in the teaching of English Literature (Delbanco 1999; Ellis 1999).

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Delbanco, A. (1999, November 4). The Decline and Fall of Literature. New York Review of Books. Ellis, J. M. (1999). Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fish, S. (2004, May 21). Why We Built the Ivory Tower. New York Times. Gouldner, A. W. (1970). Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books. Halsey, A. H. (2004). A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horowitz, I. L. (1995). The Decomposition of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lindsay, J. A., Boghossian, P., & Pluckrose, H. (2018, October 2). Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship. Areo Magazine. https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studiesand-the-corruption-of-scholarship/. Accessed 20 December 2018. Lopreato, J., & Crippin, T. (2002). Crisis in Sociology: The Need for Darwin. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Nisbet, R. (1971). The Degradation of the Academic Dogma: The University in America 1945–1970. London: Heinemann. Oakley, A. (2004). Epilogue in Eight Essays. In A. H. Halsey (Ed.), A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society (pp. 214–217). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Osborne, T., Rose, N., & Savage, M. (2008). Editors’ Introduction: Reinscribing British Sociology: Some Critical Reflections. Sociological Review, 56(4), 519–534. Platt, J. (2008). British Sociology Textbooks from 1949. Current Sociology, 56, 165–182. Savage, M., & Burrows, R. (2007). The Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology. Sociology, 41(5), 885–899. Savage, M., & Burrows, R. (2009). Some Further Reflections on the Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology. Sociology, 43(4), 762–772. Shaw, M. (1974). Marxism Versus Sociology: A Guide to Reading. London: Pluto Press. Skirbekk, S. (2008). ‘Crisis of Sociology’—And the Consequences for an Adequate Understanding of Contemporary Cultural Conflicts. Journal of Sociology (Sosiologisk Tidsskrift ) (3), 281–291. Sociological Forum. (1994). Issue Devoted to the Topic, What’s Wrong with Sociology? 9(2). Szelenyi, I. (2015). The Triple Crisis of Sociology. Guest Post, Contexts (2017, Summer). https://contexts.org/blog/the-triple-crisis-of-sociology/. Accessed 12 October 2018. Thiele, S. (2005, October). The Problem with Sociology. Quadrant, 49(10), 11–19.

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Travers, M. (1997). The Decomposition of Sociology. Sociological Research Online. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/4/travers.html. Accessed 10 December 2018. van der Vossen, B. (2015). In Defence of the Ivory Tower: Why Philosophers Should Stay Out of Politics. Philosophical Psychology, 28(7), 1045–1063. Weber, M. (2004 [1919]). The Vocation Lectures: ‘Science as a Vocation’; ‘Politics as a Vocation’. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

CHAPTER 8

Sociological Turn-Taking

Abstract Three possible forms of progress are considered: the emergence of new fields of study, the adoption of new theoretical perspectives and the contribution of certain celebrated scholars. The problem with the first is that “new” fields of study often turn to be new in name only, while also not necessarily focused on addressing core issues. The problem with most “turns” is that they are the result of outside influences, while also involving a loss as well as a gain in significant insights. Also, new theoretical frameworks can only really count as “progress” if they are incorporated into the discipline’s mainstream. Finally, the work of four prominent sociologists— collectively identified as canonical—is considered, concluding that the work of two of these might possibly be considered, in time, as constituting progress. Keywords New fields of study · New perspectives or “turns” · Sociology influenced by wider culture · ‘Turns’ not incorporated into mainstream · Sociology as zero-sum game · Sociologists of distinction

If the discipline of sociology had indeed progressed over the past halfcentury what form might this have taken? What developments in other words might have occurred over this time period that could be construed as indicative of such an advance? There would seem to be three possible candidates. The first could be the emergence of entirely new fields of study,

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while the second might be the adoption of new or—in the light of the earlier discussion—perhaps we should say widely considered to be new, one or more theoretical perspectives. The latter, following popular usage, I shall refer to as theoretical turns. While the third possibility—itself not unconnected with the first two—is the contribution that it is deemed certain widely celebrated individual scholars have made to the discipline. Each one of these, or indeed any combination, could be considered as evidence of progress and hence need to be considered. Indeed, it is of interest to note that such changes as these are frequently described in textbooks as “recent developments ” in the discipline, a choice of words suggestive of “evolution” or “growth”, if not exactly “progress”. Yet there are reasonable grounds for scepticism in each case. Several new fields of study came to prominence during my time as a sociologist. One example would be post-colonial studies, which I think I first became aware of in the 1970s. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember that the sociology of the emotions came to the fore, followed by queer theory and globalization in the 1990s. Could not developments such as these, in so far as they represent the opening up of new fields of study, be said to represent genuine progress? This is a question that in some respects I am particularly well qualified to answer as I was instrumental in helping one other apparently new field of study to develop, that of consumption, or rather the study of modern consumer society and consumerism, which occurred in the 1980s. Do I not consider that this constituted a step forward in our understanding of social life? And if so, then would not the other topic areas mentioned above also qualify as evidence of “progress”? I will concede that one might wish to make such a claim, but I also believe there are good grounds for scepticism. In the first place, it is possible to exaggerate the novelty of such developments. In the case of the study of consumerism and consumer society, for example, significant work had been done by Veblen and Sombart at the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, there is the matter of how changing one’s perspective on social life can have the effect of creating new fields of study simply through a process of re-categorizing or re-naming the phenomenon being studied. Thus, although Veblen’s work is now typically studied under the general heading of “consumerism and consumer society” earlier textbooks would more probably have listed his contribution to the discipline under the heading of “leisure and the leisure society”. Although leisure and consumption are not identical activities, they do closely overlap and so employing the one label; rather than the other is not quite equiva-

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lent to identifying an entirely new field of study. Then, thirdly, there is the matter, mentioned earlier, of how societal change itself helps to create new subjects of study and how it is a mistake to regard studying novel societal phenomena as equivalent to a novel sociological understanding. Thus, one can hardly claim that the discipline has progressed simply because we can study phenomena—such as shopping malls or the widespread availability of credit—that were unknown to the likes of Veblen and Sombart. Finally, it is necessary to return to the crucial issue of how genuine progress is essentially a matter of gaining a better understanding of the key or core questions that lie at the heart of the discipline. Only in so far as the emergence of a new field of study can be said to lead to a breakthrough of this kind would the use of the term “progress” be justified. Whether this has actually happened in the case of the study of consumption and modern consumer society must remain in doubt, as I would suggest is also probably the case for the other fields mentioned above.

A Turn for the Worse? Apart from the emergence of new fields of study, there has also been, over the past half-century, the rise or emergence of new theoretical perspectives, developments that have commonly been referred to as turns. The first that I was aware of was the linguistic turn that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This followed a major development in Western philosophy that took place during the early twentieth century, the most important characteristic of which was the focus by philosophy (and to some degree the other humanities) on language. Here Ludwig Wittgenstein was the major figure, while his ideas, as developed by philosophers like Peter Winch, had a significant impact on the discipline of sociology. This was then followed, in the early 1970s, by the cultural turn. This was a movement among scholars in the humanities and social sciences to make culture the focus of contemporary debates, with the term used to cover a number of widely different perspectives and fields of study, such as post-structuralism, cultural studies and literary criticism, the common element being the focus on meaning and a move away from a positivist epistemology. Then of course there was the turn towards ethnomethodology, a movement that started in the USA following Harold Garfinkel’s critique of Parsons, and which also had an impact in the UK in the 1970s. This was a development that, although receiving enthusiastic support in some quarters, also met with fierce opposition. Then, there was the not unrelated rise of social constructionism, which

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also came to the fore in the middle years of my career. Although having its origins in Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) book, The Social Construction of Reality, I only really became aware of this movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s, largely in the form of a rejuvenated sociology of science. This was followed by the turn towards postmodernism, a movement that also began to have a significant influence on sociology in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A difficult and contested term that prompted much criticism,1 it came to be applied to a philosophical position that was critical of modern theories of knowledge, while its major proponents, who were nearly all French, included Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard, together with such post-structuralist thinkers as Lacan, Barthes, Foucault and Derrida. Then, there was the turn to rational choice, for although this theoretical perspective can claim a considerable pedigree, it has only really been, as Peter Hedstrom and Charlotta Stern put it, “since the 1980s […that] we have seen the emergence of a more clearly defined rational-choice approach within sociology” (2017), something I only became aware of during a brief sojourn at Nuffield College in the mid 1990s.2 Finally, this brief review of “turns” that occurred in the discipline during my time as an active sociologist would be incomplete without a mention of the rise of feminism, or “the gender turn”, which has obviously also had a major impact on the discipline and which, as Sylvia Walby puts it, subjected sociology “to a ‘wave’ of feminism from the 1970s onward” (2011). The use of the word “turn” implies that each of these events marked a change in the discipline’s direction of travel. Whether that involved a turn in the direction indicated by the signpost pointing towards “progress”, or in another direction altogether, is not an easy question to answer. No doubt one can find sociologists who are prepared to argue—in relation to each of the several turns mentioned above—that it represented progress. If I am disinclined to accept this judgement it is in part because almost all the above turns were primarily the consequence of intellectual and cultural developments that occurred outside of the discipline. Developments that were as a consequence imported into sociology rather than ones that emerged as a consequence of what one might consider a normal process of disciplinary critique and debate. Essentially, the discipline was modified 1 See attacks on postmodernism by Gellner (1992) and Goldthorpe (2000). 2 Whether this actually warrants describing as a distinct “turn” is debatable, especially given

that, as John Scott notes, these theories have “gone little beyond the important insights of George Homans”, as formulated in his 1961 work, Social Behaviour (2006, p. 172).

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in order to accommodate changes that had occurred, or where occurring, elsewhere, whether this was in another discipline, such as philosophy, or in Western culture in general. Neither the cultural turn nor the turn to postmodernism for example can be regarded as logical developments arising from a studied critique of the theoretical traditions that constituted the pre-existing sociological mainstream. At the same time, the linguistic turn, as noted, has its origins in philosophy, not sociology, while rational choice theory is essentially an import from economics. Finally, it goes without saying that feminism or “the gender turn” also has its origins outside the discipline. Crucially therefore these turns cannot be seen as paradigm shifts occurring in response to a widespread recognition of the accumulated weaknesses of existing perspectives. Rather they would seem to have been adopted either in order to bring sociology into line with intellectual developments that occurred in other disciplines, or in the wider culture, or indeed simply because of their novelty. Andrew Abbott has suggested that one reason it is impossible for sociologists to generate laws of human behaviour is because people will naturally violate them; or as he puts it, “understand the rules of the game they are playing and actively seek to subvert them” (Hirshman 2011). This argument has always seemed to me to greatly exaggerate the influence that sociological ideas have upon the population at large. My own belief is that, as illustrated by the origins of the turns mentioned above, the wider society and its culture have a far greater influence on the discipline of sociology than the discipline has on the wider culture. Indeed, if the discipline was to develop according to the standard assumptions concerning scientific advance, this should be through a process by which existing theoretical frameworks are fully explored and developed prior to being replaced by manifestly superior paradigms. If there is one turn among those mentioned above that can claim to resemble this process, the one that developed primarily from a detailed critique of existing theories, rather than relying on importing ideas from elsewhere, it is ethnomethodology. This turn therefore has a better claim than most of the others to the label of “progress”. However, there is a significant proviso. For any new perspective to count as “progress”, it really does need to be incorporated into the disciplinary mainstream, and hence become a body of theory recognized by all sociologists as constituting an advance on what went before. It would seem that this has not really happened in this case. For ethnomethodologists have found it difficult to persuade their fellow sociologists that their adopted perspective does constitute such an advance. Thus, although conversation

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analysis, itself a spin-off from ethnomethodology, now features in some sociology curricula, not all sociologists accept that ethnomethodology itself is an essential ingredient of mainstream sociological theory. One can see this from the fact that some introductory textbooks give the subject far less space than other perspectives, or even ignore it altogether. See, as one instance of the latter among several, Daniel Nehring, Sociology: An Introductory Textbook and Reader (2013). The index to this book does not include “ethnomethodology” or even “conversation analysis”. But then the same is true of feminism or the gender turn for although, as Sylvia Walby states, “Feminism has changed sociology”, she also admits that, “gender analysis is unevenly mainstreamed into parts of sociology”, continuing, “Gender is present in some social theory, but relatively absent from the ‘core’” (2011). This sentiment is echoed by William Outhwaite, who also observes that although “the growing field of feminist theory” has “fundamentally reshaped the discipline”, this has not really affected its core (2009, p. 1036). But then the fact that feminist theory is absent from the core is probably because of widespread uncertainty concerning, as Giddens expresses it, whether gender should be regarded “as a general category in…sociological thinking”, or alternatively whether gender differences should be “explained mainly in terms of other differences which divide societies” (1997, p. 568). But then uncertainty over whether this theoretical development truly belongs in “the core” is something that feminists have in common with ethnomethodologists, as Ann Oakley observed. She writes that, “the problem noted by feminists and other ethnomethodologists, that knowledge is reached through everyone’s experience of everyday life, is not a perspective which has been incorporated into modern mainstream sociology” (Halsey 2004, p. 215, italics in original). I draw two conclusions from these twists and turns of direction that have featured in the history of the discipline since I joined it in the 1960s. The first is that most of these did not happen because a careful study of existing theoretical positions indicated that the adoption of the new direction in question would help resolve long-standing or core problems within the discipline, but rather as a consequence of the pressure of external cultural forces, ones that the discipline seemed unable to resist. In fact, virtually all the turns mentioned above have their origins in the cultural upheaval that occurred in advanced Western societies in the 1960s. The cultural turn has its roots in the reorientation of the radical left in Europe as Western Marxism and the rise of the New Left shifted the focus of concern from economics and class structure to the realm of the cultural and psychological,

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while French left-wing intellectuals adjusted to the failure of the May 1968 protest movement to bring about radical social change.3 But then a concern with the role of language was not unconnected with this reorientation as revealed in the rise to prominence of the issue of politically correct speech, while the postmodern movement itself also has its roots in the events of the 1960s, being in effect an intellectualized version of the New Age movement (Campbell 2010). Finally, feminism, although clearly boasting a pedigree stretching back into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, also received a significant new emphasis at this time. Clearly it would have been better for the discipline if changes in direction stemmed more from internal debate and discussion rather than from pressures exerted from outside. But then sociologists would have been in a better position to resist some of these external influences if greater effort had been directed at understanding the nature and causes of cultural change in the first place. It would, for example, have been far better for the discipline if sociologists had focused more on a careful examination of the origin and nature of the postmodern movement instead of the—frequently uncritical—adoption of its premises and doctrines. But then it is important to recognize that one advantage of a change in the discipline’s direction of travel—no matter whether originating as a consequence of internal or external pressures—is that it necessarily opens up new opportunities for career advancement and consequently is bound to appeal to ambitious academics. Finally, I can’t help but think that, if any of these turns had indeed resulted in significant empirically verified insights into the key theoretical issues at the heart of the discipline, then this would have resulted in their incorporation into the sociological mainstream. Since, as we have seen, that has not actually happened—or at least to date only in part—then the jury must still be out on whether any of these turns actually did constitute a marked “turn for the better”.

Sociological Understanding as a Zero-Sum Game There is another point that needs to be made about these “turns”, one that is implicit in the very terminology employed. For to “turn” towards something, to embrace it, is necessarily and inevitably at the same time to “turn away” from something else, perhaps even to “turn one’s back” on it.

3 See Campbell (2007, chapter 11).

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In other words, while each of these “turns” may well have resulted in new insights of one sort or another it is also very possible that they also involved the loss of another yet pre-existing form of sociological understanding. What first brought this possibility to my attention is the fact that the most obvious change in sociology textbooks in the period of my association with the discipline has been the marked turning away from anthropology. The presence of anthropology and its close connection with sociology is a very marked feature of the textbooks published in the UK in the 1950s, and yet is largely absent from those published from the 1970s down to the present day. While this is partly explicable by the fact that functionalism fell out of favour (together with an evolutionary perspective),4 this can still be seen as a loss in so far as sociology became less cross-cultural and less historical, more focused on contemporary industrial society, with a consequent decreased awareness of the variation in societal types. But then, as Donald Black has stressed, one of the major failings of contemporary sociology is its very insularity, the direct result of the fact that too many sociologists focus on studying some aspect of their own society. Observing that the vast majority of American sociologists study only a narrow range of human behaviour in modern America, he judges that their field of study might better be called “Americology than sociol-ogy” (2000, p. 707). For rarely, as he notes, is the subject of study social life in general or even social life in a number of different times and places. This is a criticism that can also be levelled at the majority of British sociologists. But then, as already noted, there are three powerful tendencies that serve to reinforce this preoccupation with studying one’s own, present day, society. One is the fetishization of research at the expense of scholarship and consequently the prioritization of the gathering of fresh data over the analysis, or more significantly the synthesis, of existing data, a trend that has been given fresh emphasis by the inclusion of the criterion of impact outside academe into the measure of research excellence. The second is the prevalence of ideological advocacy as this also has the consequence of directing the attention of the sociologist to one’s own society and at one’s own time. While the third is the pressure, exerted by students—in their new role as consumers—and experienced by their

4 The significance of evolutionary theory in the early development of sociology in Britain is outlined by Renwick (2014).

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lecturers, to study topics of “contemporary relevance”.5 Consequently, just like their American cousins, British academics can also be accused of being more like UK-ologists than sociologists, consistently neglecting both other societies and British society at earlier times. But perhaps a more obvious example of how gains may involve losses can be seen in the linguistic turn. For, while regarding talk as a form of action clearly yielded some valuable insights, ethnomethodology’s desire to abolish the distinction between talking and acting only works one way. In other words, treating saying as a form of doing is one thing. Treating doing as a form of saying is something very different. Indeed, read in this direction, the analogy breaks down. For, apart from a very small subset of actions, such as greetings, it is simply not the case that actions have widely agreed discrete boundaries and associated shared meanings (there is no dictionary of actions for people to consult as there is for words). What is more, only the actor is really in a position to determine what constitutes an action, even though embracing the action-as-talk assumption necessarily prioritizes inter-subjective over intra-subjective meaning. This tendency is also strengthened because people rarely talk to themselves, or if they do this phenomenon is not easily studied (as it may not be articulated out loud). Consequently, focusing attention on talk as doing means that “doing” is automatically seen as interacting, rather than as “acting”. Hence a concern with what is commonly referred to as “social action” has displaced a former focus on “action”.6 Finally, while talk is so easily accomplished that its character as behaviour can easily be overlooked, this is simply not the case with most actions, which as real physical events need to be understood dynamically, as conscious responses to stimuli and hence as involving both emotion and effort. For all these reasons, I cannot help but conclude that, if the linguistic turn led to significant advances in the understanding of the structure of talk, it also involved a significant step backwards in the understanding of action. But other “turns” also imply a turning away as well as a turning towards. Or, in the case of the turn to rational choice, what one may describe as “a turning back”, because contemporary rational choice has a remarkable resemblance to that individualistic utilitarian strand of thinking that Parsons 5 While this may seem a sensible strategy, I fear that it may simply result in reinforcing a certain ethnocentrism in students, something an exposure to a wide variety of types of society could well help to off-set. 6 See Campbell (1996).

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had identified as the prevailing intellectual framework of thought against which sociology had to wage a long and difficult struggle in order finally to emerge as a distinct discipline. In other words, sociology has its origins in the exploration of the non-rational and irrational aspects of human behaviour, precisely those features of social life on which rational action theory turns its back. In my eyes therefore this “turn” represents a significant going back in time as it were, a return to the days before sociology emerged as a distinct discipline. However, even if one ignores this similarity, it was clear from the earlier discussion of John Goldthorpe’s endorsement of the micro-perspective of rational action theory that what he was advocating was a turning away, or at very least the relative sidelining, of macro and functionalist traditions of thought. But then what the interactionist, ethnomethodological turn and the rational action turn both have in common is an emphasis on cognitive processes, whether these are perceived of as “making sense of” or as “exercising choice”, and hence a necessary downplaying of the role played by emotion, imagination and effort in human life. What is also very evident is the way that “turns” feed off each other, with the justification for the adoption of a given perspective lying more in playing up the perceived weakness of its rivals than in outlining its own strengths. But then perhaps this is the very nature of change in the discipline, with a turn in one direction, a turn that seems to promise new insights, being of necessity at the same time a turn away from a perspective that has proved itself in the past; something that helps to explain the ambiguous nature of disciplinary “progress”. Andrew Abbott recognizes that this is a feature of the discipline, noting that, even if each newly triumphant position does not necessarily go so far as to reject other perspectives, it will almost certainly have “omit[ted] central matters of concern” (2006, p. 64). It is almost as if sociological understanding is a zero-sum game, such that an insight gained in one place necessarily means the loss of an insight somewhere else. Though one could possibly view this in a more optimistic light, which would be to regard that which is rejected as, in effect, Kuhn-losses. That is to say, while in normal science paradigm-changes or revolutions are progressive in the sense that a relatively large part of the problem-solving capacity of the old theory is preserved in the new, this is not always the case. For, as Thomas Kuhn has argued, it may happen that some problems solved by the old theory are no longer relevant or meaningful for the new theory. These cases are called “Kuhn-losses” and imply that while progress normally involves cumulation, it may also, on some occasions, involve a

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rejection of much of what went before. However, it is doubtful if a convincing case of this kind could be made for any of the turns mentioned above. This issue of generality, or the extent to which one paradigm only explains some of the central issues in the discipline, while obscuring or simply downplaying the significance of perspectives that address other theoretical questions, means that it is important to compare like with like. A claim that progress has occurred inevitably implies that the more recent x is better than the previous y that one paradigm or research programme is better than the one that preceded it. But better at what? We noted earlier that Goldthorpe is very specific in claiming that rational action theory is “better” than system functionalism at explaining social mobility. But perhaps system functionalism is “better” than rational action theory at explaining other social phenomena? In which case abandoning system functionalism altogether might be a mistake. This issue would seem to suggest that generality is a crucial consideration when assessing a paradigm; in this case which theoretical perspective, rational action theory or system functionalism is capable of explaining the widest range of social phenomena. But then the more “general” the theory the more it is likely to relate directly to the key questions identified as constituting the core of the discipline. And it is of course just this very claim to generality that marks the advocates of one paradigm or theoretical perspective to the exclusion of all others. The problem with a situation like this, one in which advocates of competing paradigms each seek to have their choice recognized as the answer to the discipline’s needs is that, as James A. Davis puts it, “Sociology is like a class room where everyone’s hand is up but there is no teacher in the room” (1994, p. 194).

Sociologists of Distinction The third of the changes mentioned above, that is changes that occurred during my association with the discipline, concerned the prominence accorded to the work of certain widely celebrated individuals. Unlike the other two discussed so far—the emergence of new fields of study and the adoption of new (or presented as new) theoretical perspectives—this development is of special interest because it connects more directly with the issue that I raised at the very beginning of this investigation, that of how one acquires a reputation, and more significantly, whether reputations, once acquired, are likely to endure. There, I mentioned that two of those who

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had acquired significant reputations in UK sociology in their day, Maurice Ginsberg and Duncan McRae, are rarely mentioned today. Here I need to consider those individuals who have acquired similar reputations in more recent times, although the crucial question remains the same. Notably, will their reputations endure or prove as ephemeral as those acquired by Ginsberg and McRae? William Outhwaite’s discussion of canon formation in late twentiethcentury British sociology provides an opportunity to consider this question (2009). He identifies four individuals in his paper, the four being Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens. Interestingly, Outhwaite makes the point—echoing the observation made earlier about the significance of being a generalist—that these individuals have attained this canonical status not simply because of their contribution to sociological theory but to social theory more broadly, in addition that is to offering theoretical perspectives on issues of current concern. In other words, canonical status would seem to be awarded to those whose work has a marked resemblance in character, if not necessarily perhaps ultimately in significance, to those of the founding fathers of the discipline. What is also clear is that these four individuals (and perhaps one or two others one could think of)7 have attained this distinctive status in the profession because what they have to say is widely seen as intriguing or stimulating and could as a result be said to enable sociologists to see modern society in a new way. Does this then justify claiming that their work represents progress? No doubt a case could be made, but once again there are grounds for caution. This is not so much because all four have been subject to criticism as because the nature of their contributions can, as far as most sociologists are concerned, generally be reduced to the importance attached to certain key terms or concepts, such as “structuration”, “risk”, “liquid modernity” or “habitus”. However, it is important to distinguish here between concepts, such as “liquid modernity” and “risk society” that concern how one understands the nature of contemporary society and those such as “structuration” and “habitus” that relate more closely to the core issues, or questions, in the discipline. For, as stressed above, I do not consider the aim of sociology to be simply to gain a better understanding of contemporary society. This, I would suggest, is only true to the extent that this is made possible 7 Other possible candidates for canonical status could be Garry Runciman, Norbert Elias or Michael Mann, or even Manuel Castells and his concept of a network society (2000). But—in the latter case—see the critique by Abell and Reyniers (2000).

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through a deeper understanding of all types of society and forms of social life. In this respect, one can claim that the work of Bourdieu and Giddens is potentially of greater significance than that of Bauman and Beck, and on this basis would be more likely to earn them an enduring reputation. What is of especial interest here is the extent to which the reputations that these four scholars have acquired could be said to rest on—or at least be consistent with—the criteria discussed earlier. In other words, are these the most cited of contemporary sociologists? Well, the results here are mixed. For example, if one consults the 102 most cited works in sociology for the years 2008–2012, it is interesting to discover that Bourdieu’s Distinction is the highest ranked item (with 218 citations) while he also features at nos. 20, 41, 47 and 59 in the list. Giddens then comes in at 18, 58 and 90. However, Beck gets only one mention, which is at no. 86, while Bauman is not mentioned at all (Caren 2012a). Bourdieu also tops a list of the top 25 most cited sociologists (which includes Giddens at 24, but again there is no Beck or Bauman) (Caren 2012b) while also featuring in a list of 10 most cited sociologists in history.8 It is obviously necessary to bear in mind the many qualifications mentioned earlier concerning the problems involved in interpreting such data, while in the case of these four scholars we also need to be aware of the degree to which national differences will come into play in determining the attention they, and their work, is likely to receive. Even bearing this proviso in mind, these results are still of considerable interest. For the contrast that is revealed, between Bourdieu and Giddens on the one hand, and Beck and Bauman on the other, is consistent with the very distinction made above between scholarly work that directly addresses one or more of the central theoretical puzzles in the discipline on the one hand, and work that merely sheds light on contemporary society or contemporary social life on the other. It is a distinction that one would expect to be relevant to the chances of any sociologist (or social theorist) acquiring an enduring reputation, as opposed that is to a reputation that lasts for little longer than their own lifetime. It is of course rather too early to know whether this will prove to be the case as far as these four individuals are concerned. It would also be unwise to assume that because what could be called the quantification of scientific reputation has in this case seemingly coincided with the more impressionistic peer-based award of reputation in the case of 8 See https://scholar.google.com/citations?mauthors=label%3Asociology&hl=en&view_ op=search_authors.

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two of the four scholars in question that this serves to justify metrification. For not only is there the little matter of how the “canonical status” of two of the four is not represented in the metrics, but other studies have suggested that, as Gloria Origgi puts it, “there is no one-to-one correlation between the prestige researchers enjoy among their peers and their prestige [as] measured by scientometrics” (2018, p. 224). Although, intriguingly, she does suggest that there is evidence that the quantity of a researcher’s publications might correlate with their salary, while still having a zero or even a negative effect on their reputation, as indicated that is by the prestige accorded them by their peers (ibid.).9

Bibliography Abbott, A. (2006, Summer). Reconceptualizing Knowledge Accumulation in Sociology. The American Sociologist, 37, 57–66. Abell, P., & Reyniers, D. (2000, December). On the Failure of Social Theory. British Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 739–750. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Random House. Black, D. (2000). The Purification of Sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 29(5), 704–709. Campbell, C. (1996). The Myth of Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, C. (2007). The Easternization of the West: A Thematic Account of Cultural Change in the Modern Era. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Campbell, C. (2010). The New Age and Postmodern Movements: Contrasting or Corresponding Responses to Modernity? Unpublished lecture. Caren, N. (2012a). The 102 Most Cited Works in Sociology, 2008–2012. http:// nealcaren.web.unc.edu/the-102-most-cited-works-in-sociology-2008-2012/. Accessed 16 November 2018. Caren, N. (2012b). The Most Cited Works in Sociology (2012 ed.). https://scatter. wordpress.com/2012/12/21/cited/. Accessed 16 November 2018. Castells, M. (2000). The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Vol. 1, 2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Davis, J. A. (1994). What’s Wrong with Sociology? Sociological Forum, 9(2), 179–197. Gellner, E. (1992). Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1997). Sociology (3rd ed.). Oxford: Polity Press.

9 See Hamermesh and Pfann (2011).

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Goldthorpe, J. H. (2000). On Sociology: Numbers, Narratives, and the Integration of Research and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar. https://scholar.google.com/citations?mauthors=label% 3Asociology&hl=en&view_op=search_authors. Accessed 16 November 2018. Halsey, A. H. (2004). A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hamermesh, D. S., & Pfann, G. A. (2011, April 26). Reputation and Earnings: The Roles of Quality and Quantity in Academe. Economic Inquiry, 50, 1–16. Hedstrom, P., & Stern, C. (2017, December 4). Rational Choice Theory. Wiley Online Library. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118430873.est0305. Accessed 20 November 2018. Hirshman, D. (2011, June 12). Andy Abbott QOTD: Cumulativity and Progress in Sociology. A Budding Sociologist’s Common Place Book: Thoughts on Politics, Economics, Sociology and Such. https://asociologist.com/2011/06/12/ andy-abbott-qotd-cumulativity-and-progress-in-sociology/. Accessed 12 October 2018. Homans, G. C. (1961). Social Behaviour: Its Elementary Forms. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace and World. Jappe, A., Pithan, D., & Heinze, T. (2018, June 14). A Sociological Study of Reputational Control, 1972–2016. PLOS. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.019903. Accessed 20 November 2018. Nehring, D. (2013). Sociology: An Introductory Textbook and Reader. Harlow, UK: Pearson. Origgi, G. (2018). Reputation: What It Is and Why It Matters. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Outhwaite, W. (2009). Canon Formation in Late 20th-Century British Sociology. Sociology, 43(6), 1029–1045. Renwick, C. (2014). Evolutionism and British Sociology. In J. Holmwood & J. Scott (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sociology in Britain (pp. 71–96). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Scott, J. (2006). Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology. London: Sage. Walby, S. (2011). The Impact of Feminism on Sociology. Sociological Research Online, 16(3).

CHAPTER 9

Sociology, a Work in Progress?

Abstract Deciding whether an academic discipline has progressed is not easy, while gaining a reputation for oneself and helping the discipline to progress do not seem to be closely related. Many obstacles have prevented sociology from progressing, some of which are beyond the control of sociologists: but many are not. Indeed, if no progress has been made, it is largely because few sociologists have set themselves this goal. Many have given priority to their personal interests rather than tackle difficult theoretical questions, while there has been a tendency to confuse studying social life with adding to sociological understanding. But progress was made in the past (why otherwise would we study the works of Durkheim, Marx and Weber), and so—if more favourable circumstances were to come to pass—there is no reason why this could not happen in the future. Keywords Difficulty of identifying progress · “Progress in paradigms” thesis · Looking back with regret? · Sociologists “rarely say anything” · Definition of a sociologist · Little progress made—yet there is still hope

I started this discussion of whether sociology could be said to have progressed by asking who today reads the published works of Maurice Ginsberg or Duncan McRae, sociologists who, in the 1950s and 1960s, were leading figures in the discipline in the UK, and I answered my own question by suggesting that the answer was no-one—or practically no one—an

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answer that then led me to ask the question of whether the same fate would befall today’s leading figures, and significantly, if it happened, whether it would really matter. The reason I engaged in this speculation was because I had become fascinated by the issue of whether the discipline could be said to have progressed, which is to say to have accumulated more and better answers to the key theoretical questions to be found at its heart and, more specifically, whether this could be said to have occurred during the half-century or so of my association with it. I now have to come to a conclusion and decide, after considering all the evidence presented in the previous pages, what answer I am going to give. However, before doing so I feel that it is worth noting some of the salient points that have emerged from this discussion. The first thing I feel that I should confess is that I can now see, with the benefit of hindsight, how naïve I was to believe, way back in the early 1960s, that sociology was progressing. For, as the foregoing discussion has clearly revealed, it is exceptionally difficult to demonstrate that this is the case. In fact, I have since discovered that sociology is no exception in this respect, as scholars in other disciplines have also found it hard to show that such a process is at work. Eric Dietrich (2011) and Marcus Arvan (2014) have struggled with just this issue in relation to philosophy, as have Blaug (1985) and Khalil (1995), in the case of economics. Interestingly, none of these writers have been able to supply a definitive answer, although Blaug does claim that there has been “progress in the history of economics” and that such progress provides a substantial raison d’etre for the subdiscipline (1985, p. 78, italics in original). As for biologists, well they seem to be too busy arguing about whether the evolutionary process itself should be regarded as progress to examine whether the same term can be applied to their discipline (see Shanahan 2000). Given this, I suppose we sociologists should draw some comfort from the fact that we are not alone in finding this a difficult question to answer. I believe that there is some excuse for my naivety back in the early sixties as there was an air of optimism surrounding the discipline at that time, one that, as suggested earlier, was closely related to its relative novelty. I can also plead that I was encouraged to believe in the progressive nature of the discipline because at the time others seemed so confident that this was the case. We saw this in the comments made by both Parsons and Shils, mentioned above, a view that was then echoed in several of the textbooks of the time. For example, Harry M. Johnson, in his textbook, proclaimed, without any qualification whatsoever, that sociology, “is cumulative; that

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is sociological theories build upon one another, new theories correcting, extending, and refining the older ones” (1966, p. 2, italics in original). Not only would I now not subscribe to such an unqualified and self-confident assertion, but I also feel that most contemporary sociologists might also hesitate before making such a bold claim. I also need to confess to naivety in assuming, at the beginning of this inquiry, that gaining an enduring reputation and making progress in the discipline would be closely related. Thus, when I posed the question of whether any of today’s sociologists read the works of such figures from the past as Maurice Ginsberg or Duncan McRae, I was assuming that this would be the case if the publications of these writers actually contained insights of the kind that gave us a better understanding of one or more of the key questions at the heart of the discipline. However, I have now come to realize, as a result of my investigation, that reputation and progress may be much more loosely connected than I had originally thought. For while I still believe that those who make a real contribution to our understanding of those theoretical puzzles that lie at the heart of the discipline are very likely, as a result, to acquire a lasting reputation, I now realize that the cyclical nature of paradigm change, coupled with the tendency for many sociologists to be ignorant of the history of their discipline, means that even those who have made such a contribution may well be forgotten, if only for a while. On the other hand, I have also become all too aware of the extent to which sociologists may acquire a significant reputation, one that could even last beyond their own lifetime, even though they have made no such contribution. Indeed, it is probably pertinent to observe that one may obtain an enduring reputation for entirely the wrong reasons, at least as far as the progress of the discipline is concerned. For example, a sociologist may acquire a reputation for the obscure or impenetrable nature of their prose or the sheer vitriol with which they have denounced the work of others. But then this conclusion is closely related to a major realization that dawned on me during my investigations, one that perhaps should not have come as quite such a surprise. This is that it is not just Maurice Ginsberg and Duncan MacRae who have been forgotten, for so too it would seem has much of the history of the discipline. It is true that books, articles and sometimes even special editions of journals, do occasionally feature the work of past major figures, most especially of course the early pioneers. But this still leaves a huge body of work, especially that undertaken in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, which rarely seems to be mentioned,

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let alone discussed at any length. But then, as noted earlier, this terra incognita is growing all the time, as the body of sociological findings and associated analyses continues to expand, while the collective disciplinary memory gets shorter and shorter as the fallacy of the latest word tightens its grip. Of course, none of this would matter if disciplinary knowledge was truly cumulative as present-day understandings would be built on those of the past. Given however the lack of clear evidence in support of cumulation, it is hardly surprising that the discipline is prone to the repeated experience of Groundhog Days, in which significant insights, theoretical perspectives and modes of analysis are continually recycled. The other point that is worthy of note is that although, over the period covered by my survey, the discipline has expanded considerably, gaining in the process what could be considered official recognition as an established and significant branch of academe, and now boasts thousands of practitioners engaged in research that is funded to the tune of many millions of pounds, this has not resulted in any significant breakthrough in the understanding of social life. Or, at least, no widely accepted breakthrough, one that a clear majority of sociologists are ready to accept. But then, the reality would appear to be that this considerable expansion of the discipline has almost all occurred at the frontier, rather than at the core, with the result that while one would have hoped to have seen greater success in resolving key theoretical issues, there has mainly been a form of disciplinary inflation, with ever-increasing expansion linked to ever-increasing specialization, without any concomitant deeper penetration in the understanding of social life. A further point to note is that although most of the sociologists cited in the previous pages could be regarded as being at best agnostic as far as the likelihood of sociology progressing is concerned there have been those who, over the period under discussion, have explicitly claimed that progress has been achieved. However, as we have seen, their claims have not been widely—or at least universally—accepted. We saw this in the case of Shils’ assertion that Parsonian system theory represented progress and also in John Goldthorpe’s similar claim on behalf of rational action theory, both of which have failed to achieve widespread acceptance in the sociological community. Essentially, these claims are examples of the “progress within paradigms” thesis, that is to say those sociologists who have adopted a specific theoretical paradigm find it relatively easy to claim, and indeed

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also to some extent demonstrate, that progress has occurred.1 They can do this because in these cases there usually is evidence of cumulation, as Andrew Abbott has observed. Unfortunately for those who make these claims, they are simply not able to convince their fellow sociologists that the paradigm they are committed to warrants adoption as the paradigm to which all should be committed. Thus, rival paradigms continue to be championed and consequently there is no general acceptance of the suggestion that the discipline as a whole has progressed. This is a point that Thomas Kuhn makes, noting that, “If we doubt, as many do, that nonscientific fields make progress, that cannot be because individual schools make none. Rather, it must be because there are always competing schools, each of which constantly questions the very foundations of the others” (1962, pp. 162–163). Of course, this issue is only problematic if what Kuhn refers to as “schools” do actually espouse incompatible theoretical positions. For if this is not the case, then progress within any one could count as evidence of disciplinary progress. Even then incompatibility need not necessarily rule out the possibility of progress. In theoretical physics, quantum mechanics and relativity theory are not truly compatible, yet most physicists accept that progress has been made in both and hence in the discipline as a whole. That this does not happen in sociology would seem to be largely due to the fact that successive generations of sociologists are more likely to react against their predecessors and their work than build on it, a phenomenon that would appear to be closely related to the question of how best to carve out a career for oneself within the discipline. But then, it could also be that each new generation of sociologists has a need to revolt against their forebears, not simply to ensure new career opportunities for themselves but in order to convince themselves that the discipline is progressing.

Looking Back with Regret? I realize that at several points in the foregoing discussion I have made unfavourable comparisons between the state of sociology today and my experiences as a junior academic back in the 1960s and 1970s, comments that risk my beginning to sound like one of those old fogies who is always going on about the “good old days” and consequently subscribes to the 1 See Abbott’s contention that cumulation occurs “within paradigms” but that no paradigm gains universal acceptance as they are generally seen as “too insular” (2006, p. 61).

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belief that, “the world has gone to the dogs”. Well, it is undoubtedly the case that my experience of life as an academic, especially in the early years, was very different from that of today’s struggling young academics, desperate as they are to get a foot on the ladder of academic success, while frequently overwhelmed by the burden placed on them by a managerial system obsessed with target setting and performance management. Indeed, the prospects for today’s apprentice academic are grim compared with the situation when I entered the profession in the 1960s and, as I suggested earlier, I’m not at all sure that I would want to be an academic in the contemporary university environment. However, it would be misleading of me to suggest that there was some kind of golden age of sociology in the early sixties in the UK. Because what is clear from the foregoing analysis is that many of the problems that act as significant obstacles to progress in the discipline are not new but are, on the contrary, of long-standing. This is true of the curse of ideological advocacy for example, as well as the tendency to engage in abstracted empiricism and excessive specialization, while Robert Nisbet charts how the “degradation of the academic dogma”—that is the failure to see universities as specifically charged with the task of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake—began in the post-war world of the 1950s (1971). One can add to this list the immediacy effect and the fallacy of the latest word along with the prevailing belief that past studies cannot be relevant to contemporary society, as well as the decomposing and diluting effect of importing interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary areas of study into the discipline (such as gender studies, criminology, communication or media studies). But what is also clear is that new obstacles, most of which are the direct result of government policy, now need to be added to this list. Effectively, these amount to the further re-ordering of the nature and purpose of universities together with the rejigging of the funding system so as to not simply promote research at the expense of scholarship, but research deemed of social, political or economic relevance—as well as that deemed of special interest to students and prospective students—at the expense of that which is of theoretical significance. All of which can be seen as the demolition of whatever small pieces of the ivory tower were left standing as universities become transformed into neoliberal capitalist corporations, with their associated two new classes of successful academic entrepreneur and exploited precariat. While all the above factors have clearly combined to work against the probability of disciplinary progress, what has surprised me most in undertaking this investigation is that if little or no progress has been made, this is

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not because large numbers of sociologists have tried and failed, but rather because so few have even tried. That is to say, so little progress has been made largely because so few sociologists have even set themselves this goal. This is a point made by Stephen Cole, quoted earlier, and is worth repeating. He wrote, “Instead of sociologists selecting their research problems to address pressing theoretical issues, most sociologists do descriptive work that is motivated by their personal interests and sometimes experience. Most of this research has virtually no impact on the growth of sociological knowledge because its results are not relevant for any important sociological problems ” (1994, p. 148, italics added). If this is indeed the case, then it raises the further question of why is it that most sociologists are busily engaged in work of a kind that cannot have the effect of enabling the discipline to progress? Is it, as Cole suggests, simply because they are too busy pursuing “their personal interests” to care about the interests of the discipline? Or could it be because they mistakenly believe that the work they do undertake, even though it is not focused on any of the key theoretical issues at the heart of the discipline, nevertheless constitutes “an advance”? That they are unable to distinguish between simply filling in a gap in knowledge and solving a significant sociological puzzle? This is a real possibility given the point made earlier about how understanding a novel phenomenon can easily be confused with gaining a novel understanding. But perhaps it is the realization that solving sociological puzzles is no easy task and hence that the likelihood of failure is high, with the consequence that, quite sensibly, they settle for an easier option. It could be argued that this is a perfectly rational strategy for sociologists to pursue, in so far as they are more likely to gain credit in the eyes of their peers for, as Stephen Cole puts it, “working on an interesting topic than effectively solving a sociological problem” (1994, p. 150). But then, it is also the case that resolving core problems is not at all easy, which means that sociologists are even less likely to gain credit in the eyes of their colleagues if they spend their time “trying to solve a sociological problem but failing”. All of which means that avoiding tackling a difficult sociological problem and choosing to focus instead on investigating an interesting—and in all probability a highly topical—aspect of social life, could be considered a perfectly rational strategy, even though the end result is the advancement of the sociologist’s career rather than the discipline.2 Unfortunately, taking this path is likely 2 It is possible that there are sociologists who have succeeded in convincing themselves that, in studying topics that interest them, even though no significant theoretical puzzle is involved,

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to mean, as James A. Davis suggests, that sociology can’t progress because sociologists rarely actually “say anything”—of any substance that is, and hence—as he points out, if you don’t say anything then you cannot be shown to be wrong. However, if you cannot be shown to be wrong, then it becomes impossible to progress from there to a better answer (1994, p. 184).3 As we can see, there are a number of possible reasons why the majority of sociologists do not engage in research activity or scholarship that would have the effect of advancing the discipline, depending largely on how one interprets Coles’ reference to “personal interests”, with the phrase serving to cover advancing one’s career, meeting the requirements of the REF, promoting an ideology or acting to redress a grievance, any one of which could trump the goal of helping the discipline to progress. However, it is possible that the answer could be more straightforward and involves a simple misunderstanding of what it means to be a sociologist, with the idea that a sociologist is someone who “studies social life” displacing the more pertinent definition of a sociologist as “one who attempts to solve sociological puzzles”. It is important to note that the fact that sociologists tend to select research topics on the basis of what interests them is not necessarily at odds with work that has the effect of advancing the discipline, as the crucial issue here is less the chosen topic or area of investigation than the manner in which the research is undertaken. Crucially, not only must the research be formulated in such a way that it is focused on seeking the answer to a problem (far too much research takes the form of a discussion of a topic rather than an attempt to find a solution to a problem) but that the problem itself must be related, if only indirectly, to one or other of the key theoretical or methodological questions to be found at the core of the discipline. Or, as Giddens expresses it, the aim of an investigation should not simply be to fill in a gap in knowledge—that is to find out how many people do this, or what has been the effect of that—but rather the problem needs to be “a gap in sociological understanding” (1997, p. 539) one that is related to the key questions in “the core”. What this means is that, in principle, almost any topic or aspect of social life is potentially capable of being studied in such a way as to shed light on one or more of these key they are nonetheless contributing to the advancement of the discipline. To the extent that they believe this to be the case, they could be said to be suffering from false consciousness. 3 See also in this respect Max Steuer’s suggestion that sociology—along with related disciplines—could be dubbed “pretend social science” (2003, p. 424).

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questions, as the wide range of subjects tackled by the founding fathers of the discipline would suggest. It is simply that the investigator has to keep the core theoretical problem clearly in focus throughout and not allow it to become obscured by a simple concern with the accumulation of data. Unfortunately, it seems that for many of the practitioners in the discipline the term “sociologist” is seen as just a name for someone who studies social life (or society, or social interaction) rather than someone who consciously and deliberately strives to add to the sociological understanding of social life. What I have come to believe, after many years of asking myself what it means to be a sociologist, is that the answer is that a sociologist is someone who asks themselves the deceptively simple question, “to which of the central core issues in the discipline is my chosen area of work likely to contribute?” Not, as I might have thought at one time, “to which sub-field of work am I contributing”, but rather “to which important theoretical question am I seeking an answer?” Could it be to help contribute to our understanding of the nature of action for example, or the forces that create or maintain order, or how social structures emerge from the collective actions of numerous individuals or the extent to which cultural processes were involved in the creation of modern society? What I have come to believe is that unless sociologists keep the central issue of the theoretical significance of their work clearly in view at all times, then there is an ever-present danger that their work will have little lasting impact on the discipline. Consequently, it is here that the question I posed at the very beginning of this essay—the one concerning fame and immortality—becomes relevant.4 For although there is no guarantee that one’s work will be cited in years to come or that it will become a permanent addition to that stock of sociologically validated knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next, there is a greater chance of this happening if we routinely ask ourselves this question. It follows that those who want to have an enduring reputation for themselves would be wise to address core issues, and not be sidetracked into focusing on what is most distinctive about contemporary society. For societies change, while the central problems at the heart of the discipline do not.

4 I do recognize that fame and immortality are hardly synonyms. I am simply assuming that the desire for fame is in effect a desire for one’s name to live on for a period after one’s death, not that it will live forever.

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Yet there is something of an irony here. For in reality, there is of course no such thing as simply reportage. No such thing as a sociological investigation of a phenomenon that does not involve reference to central theoretical issues. It is merely that the answers to these are implicit in the assumptions made by the investigator. Hence by not directly addressing key theoretical questions, the sociologist is necessarily presuming to know the answers, with this presumption acting as the implicit framework underpinning the research. In this respect, good sociological research cannot avoid taking the key questions at the heart of the discipline into account. It is merely a question of whether the answers to these are implicitly assumed or explicitly examined. What this suggests is that if sociological work is to be of a kind that earns the researcher an enduring reputation, then it will need to be of a kind that outlives its time, a form of exploration of issues that—irrespective of the apparent area of interest—penetrates to a depth of analysis that inevitably results in an encounter with these perennial issues. It is, in that sense, work that has necessarily gone far beyond mere reportage. We can see this in the contributions that the founding fathers made to the discipline. Often the ostensible topic under discussion may seem quite circumscribed. Thus, Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life for example, or Weber Protestant Ethic thesis, could be said to be “about religion”. But this would be far from the truth, as they actually use the study of this topic to explore issues that go beyond a mere study of religion to focus on such core issues as the nature and origin of social identity, or the circumstances under which ideas (or ideals) become effective forces for socio-economic change.

Conclusion So, I can put it off no longer. Has there really been progress, over the period of my association with the discipline, in sociological understanding? Well, although it would be rather unfair to suggest, as Andrew Abbott did, that the work undertaken by sociologists might amount to “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (2006, p. 58), good reasons have been advanced for scepticism concerning the claim that progress has been made. Indeed, powerful forces are currently at work that make this outcome less and less likely. However, the above discussion has not excluded all possibility of this being the case. It was noted, for example, that there might be a real chance of Bourdieu’s theory of power and practice, which centres on the concept of the habitus, becoming incorporated

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into the core of sociological knowledge, possibly accompanied by Giddens’ theory of the creation and reproduction of social systems through the central role he accords to structuration. It is even possible that the majority of sociologists might eventually come to agree that ethnomethodology should be accepted into the mainstream, along perhaps with gender analysis as an “independent general category” (1997, p. 568). But this would seem to be about as far as one can go in asserting that progress has occurred over the past fifty-plus years, while the evidence on the other side, evidence suggestive of little or no progress, is considerable. In the light of this conclusion, it is perhaps worth summarizing the case for a negative answer. The discipline of sociology has not really progressed during my fifty-year association with it largely because sociologists have shown a marked preference for studying topics that interest them rather than focusing on trying to solve sociological problems, a tendency that all-too-easily leads to the discipline being diluted by the introduction of multi- or cross-disciplinary fields of study (such as criminology or gender studies). This tendency is then supported by the belief that “doing sociology” is equivalent to studying social life rather than solving sociological problems, a practice that is further strengthened by sociologists feeling that they are justified in embedding their sociological investigations in either overt ideological advocacy or moralizing (forgetting, in the process, their obligation as academics). This then, in turn, tends to lead to a primary focus being placed on investigating contemporary British society rather than on different types of society and social organization, effectively signalling a triumph of UK-ology over sociology, a process that is also greatly strengthened by the fetishization of research (especially that deemed of practical rather that academic relevance) at the expense of scholarship. This latter trend to side-line (if not actively discourage) scholarship is clearly a major obstacle to progress, especially as it has the serious consequence of leading sociologists to believe that there is little point in studying the history of the discipline, as the fallacy of the latest word and the immediacy effect become widespread. On top of this, there is the fact that specialization has been encouraged when it should have been discouraged, that teaching and research have been increasingly separated when they should be combined, that students have been turned into customers when they should be co-investigators, and all against a background in which the UK university system itself has been re-structured in such a manner as to make it exceptionally difficult for these institutions to discharge their unique function of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. In view of all this, it

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is no wonder that little progress has been made. Does this mean that the answer to the question I raised at the beginning of this inquiry, concerning our hope of acquiring a tiny bit of immortality for ourselves, has to be that there really is little chance of this happening? Probably, although as outlined above, what is clear is that if we want to have any chance of securing an enduring reputation for ourselves then it is essential to ensure that we address core issues in our work and that we are not sidetracked into believing that a sociologist is someone who merely studies social life. Is this a depressing, or at least a discouraging, conclusion? Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. For three things give me hope. One is that such a depressing conclusion is hardly surprising given the number and extent of the forces that have been working against the possibility of progress, especially the fact that so few sociologists have actually been striving to make this happen. Naturally, this makes me wonder, if these pressures had been resisted, if for example instead of engaging in ideological advocacy or succumbing to external cultural influences, following fashion, indulging in theoretically irrelevant data gathering, or indeed opting for the easy route to career advancement by deliberately disparaging the work of the preceding generation, sociologists had instead focused on addressing the key theoretical issues, how different the outcome might have been. But then, there is no reason why this could not happen in the future, no reason why sociologists—if modifications are made to their conditions of work and they are given enough encouragement—should not resist the temptation to succumb to such pressures. One might consider this to be a big “if” given the current tendency for the traditional idea of the university to be undermined on all sides, but this process cannot proceed indefinitely without its self-defeating nature becoming ever more apparent. There must surely come a point in the near future when the decline of UK universities, in comparison with their overseas competitors, becomes such as to force the government to re-think the current policy on higher education (see SI News 2018). The third thing that gives me hope is the knowledge that progress has been made in the past. As suggested earlier, sociologists must believe that the work of Marx, Weber and Durkheim represents an advance on what went before, or it is hard to see how they could call themselves sociologists. However, if these individuals made progress, then so can we, even if our efforts amount to little more than footnotes to their achievements. What this possibility offers us is a reason to believe that progress, in the form of genuinely cumulative knowledge, does actually exist, while this in turn means, as Andrew Abbott

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puts it, that “we can then feel that…we are part of something that is going somewhere” (2001, p. 65).

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Index

A Abbott, Andrew, 5, 19, 23–26, 30, 31, 36, 38, 43, 45, 50, 93, 98, 109, 114, 116 Aboukhalil, Robert, 58 academia (fast), 70 academic as businessman, 69 as entrepreneur, 68, 69, 110 meaning of word, 55, 73 working conditions of, 72 action, 43, 45, 59, 60, 82, 97–99, 108, 113 Adler, Paul, 42 advocacy (ideological), 81, 83, 84, 86, 96, 110, 115, 116 Allan, Kenneth, 57 alt-metrics, 12 American Journal of Sociology (AJS), 33, 34, 36 American Sociological Association (ASA), 30 American Sociological Review (ASR), 33, 34

Americology, 96 amnesia hypothesis, 31 anthropology, 96 arts, the, 7, 43 authorship, 58

B Back, Les, 60 Bauman, Zygmunt, 58, 100, 101 Beck, Ulrich, 100, 101 Beer, David, 78 behaviourism, 45 Berger, Peter, 6, 78, 83, 92 bibliographic attention span, 25 Big Data, 79 Black, Donald, 84, 96 Bornmann, L., 10 Boudon, Raymond, 78 Bourdieu, Pierre, 100, 101, 114 Boyer, Ernest, 56 British Journal of Sociology (BJS), 2, 33 British Sociological Association (BSA), 2, 6, 7, 33, 47

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Campbell, Has Sociology Progressed?, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19978-4

129

130

INDEX

Burrows, Roger, 11, 64, 68, 69, 72, 78, 79 busyness, cult of, 70 C Campbell, Colin, 25, 95, 97 canonical status, 100, 102 capitalism, 68, 72 career, 4–6, 8, 24, 26, 31, 57, 59, 61, 65, 72, 78, 92, 95, 109, 111, 112, 116 Caren, Neal, 101 Cerulo, Karen, 18 chronocentrism, 23, 28 citations, 10–13, 25, 42, 66, 70, 101 Cole, Stephen, 48–50, 111, 112 Collini, Stefan, 74 Collins, Randall, 26 Comte, August, 44 consumerism, 68, 90 conversation analysis, 94 core issues (in the discipline), 5, 22, 70, 100, 113 creativity, 58, 61, 71 criminology, 38, 110, 115 cultural turn, 91, 93, 94 cumulation, 23, 24, 26, 31, 38, 47, 98, 108, 109 ideology of, 24, 39 curriculum, 19 D Darwin, Charles, 49, 71 Davis, James A., 5, 21, 33, 36, 99, 112 Davis, Kingsley, 45 Dean, Dwight G., 25 Decline of the Donnish Dominion, 64 Decomposition (of sociology), 7, 33, 78, 81 The Decomposition of Sociology, 78, 81 Denis, Ann, 7

Departments, of sociology, 6 de Solla Price, Derek, 25 de Unamuno, Miguel, 3 discipline, 2, 4–10, 13, 17–22, 24–26, 29–39, 42–50, 56–65, 67, 68, 70, 73, 78–81, 83, 84, 89–96, 98–101, 105–115 Distinction (book), 101 doctrine of signs, 13 Dogan, Mattei, 34 Durkheim, Emile, 22, 31, 42, 44, 48, 57–59, 61, 114, 116

E economics, 49, 57, 93, 94, 106 erudition, 56 ethnomethodology, 30, 36, 91, 93, 94, 97, 115

F facts, 83, 84 Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences , 31 fallacy (of the latest word), 22, 23, 66, 108, 110, 115 fame, 3, 10, 113 fashion, 21, 35–37, 48, 59, 116 Fazackerley, Anna, 72 fees (student), 64, 65, 67 feminism, 83, 84, 92–95 Fish, Stanley, 73, 80, 81 Foucault, 36, 92 founding fathers, 5, 19, 27, 30, 44, 48, 57, 58, 100, 113, 114 Freese, Lee, 41, 42 frontier (of the discipline), 34, 57 hollow, 48, 49, 56 functionalism, 9, 30, 32, 44–46, 96, 99 parsonian, 32, 45, 46

INDEX

G Gans, Herbert, 19, 23, 25, 26, 31 Garfield, 10 Garfinkel, Harold, 91 Gay, Volney, 43 gender, 7, 9, 34, 85, 92–94, 110, 115 generalist, 58, 60–62, 100 generational paradigms, 26 Giddens, Anthony, 6, 7, 9, 32, 58, 72, 94, 100, 101, 112, 115 Ginsberg, Maurice, 1, 2, 4, 6, 42, 44, 100, 105, 107 Gintis, Herbert, 5 Goldmann, Lucien, 36 Goldthorpe, John H., 44–46, 48, 92, 98, 99, 108 Gouldner, Alvin, 38, 78, 79 grievance studies, 85 Groundhog day, 29–31, 108 H Halsey, A.H., 6, 7, 32, 43, 47, 64, 81, 83, 94 Hargens, Lowell L., 34 Hawthorn, Geoffrey, 26 Healy, Kieran, 34 Hechter, Michael, 45 Hestrom, Peter, 92 Higgs, Professor Peter, 66 history (of sociology), 7, 19, 30, 46, 47 Holmwood, John, 5, 35, 37, 38, 68 Homans, George C., 30, 45, 49–51, 56, 92 hope, 12, 13, 43, 72, 81, 108, 116 Horowitz, Irving, 7, 33, 38, 78, 81, 83 I The Idea of Progress (book), 2 immediacy effect, 25, 110, 115 immortality, 4, 10, 43, 113, 116 impossibilists, 48

131

incoherence (of sociology), 33, 34 Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, 83 irony, 114 ivory tower, 63, 73, 110

J Johnson, Harry M., 106 Jones, F.L., 36 journals, 7, 11, 12, 19, 25, 32–34, 60, 69, 85, 107

K Kalekin-Fishman, Devorah, 7 knowledge, 4, 7, 20, 23, 24, 26, 30–32, 42, 49–51, 55, 57, 72, 73, 79, 81, 82, 92, 94, 108, 111–113, 115, 116 for its own sake, 67, 73, 110, 115 undiscovered, 58 Kuhn-losses, 98 Kuhn, Thomas, 47, 98, 109

L Lemert, Charles C., 32, 36 linguistic turn, 91, 93, 97 Lopreato, Joseph, 38, 78, 79 Lord James of Rusholme, 64

M MacRae, Donald, 2, 42, 107 Magna Charta Universitatum, 74 mainstream (disciplinary), 38, 93 Mannheim, Karl, 26 Marxism, 30, 83, 94 Marx, Karl, 31, 32, 42, 44, 48, 57–59, 81, 116 memory (collective), 29, 31, 32 memory (sociological), 25, 31

132

INDEX

Merton, Robert, 23 methodology, 18, 21, 36, 56 metrics, 12, 13, 102 Molotch, Harvey, 27 Moody, Jim, 34 moralizing, 84, 115 motivation, 3, 43, 81

progress, disciplinary believers in, 44 as illusion, 18, 48 societal, 2, 3, 44, 91 within paradigms, 108 The Protestant Ethic, 8 puzzles (sociological), 59, 111, 112

N The Nature of Social Science, 49 Nisbet, Robert, 42, 68–70, 73, 80, 110 novelty, 18, 20–22, 30, 78, 90, 93, 106 numbers game, 68

Q quit-lit, 72

O Oakley, Ann, 32, 81, 94 optimism, 78, 106 Origgi, Gloria, 11, 12, 102 originality, 18 Osborne, Thomas, 79 Outhwaite, William, 94, 100

P paradigms, 45, 93, 109 competing, 99 parasitism (and sociology), 35, 37 Parsons, Talcott, 32, 36, 39, 42, 44, 50, 51, 59, 91, 97, 106 peer review, 85 PhD, 21 philosophy, 57, 59, 85, 91, 93, 106 Platt, Jennifer, 32, 83 Pluckrose, Helen, 84 The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, 23 postmodernism, 36, 92, 93 precariat, 110 problem (sociological), 49, 50, 57, 69, 78, 111, 115

R rational action theory, 99 rational choice theory, 93 Readings, Bill, 68 reputation, 3, 10–12, 19, 61, 68, 99, 101, 102, 107, 113, 114, 116 research conspicuous, 69, 70 cult of, 70 fetishization of, 56, 58, 96, 115 impact, 12, 13, 66, 67, 96, 111 problems, 50, 51, 111 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), 65, 67 Research Excellence Framework (REF), 13, 64, 66–68, 72, 112 The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, 59 The Rules of The Sociological Method, 61 S Said, Edward, 60 Sartre, John Paul, 36 Savage, Mike, 2, 24, 32, 64, 78, 79 scepticism, 82, 84, 90, 114 scholar, 12, 25, 56, 57, 71, 73, 85, 86, 90, 91, 101, 102, 106 gentleman, 71 scholarship, 21, 51, 55–58, 62, 68, 71, 73, 84, 85, 96, 110, 112, 115

INDEX

science, 20, 21, 23, 26, 30, 42, 43, 48, 49, 57, 66, 79, 85, 86, 91, 98 Scott, John, 2, 22, 30, 31, 35, 42, 46, 47, 92 self-promotion, 12 Shils, Edward, 44, 106, 108 Skirbekk, Sirgurd, 78 Slaughter, Sheila, 69 Social Behaviour, 92 social class, 20 The Social Construction of Reality, 92 social media, 11, 13, 20, 22, 64 sociologist (what it means to be a), 112, 113 sociologists (and political activity), 82 don’t ‘say anything’, 112 and personal interests, 50, 111, 112 sociology (as exporter, as importer) as academic pursuit, 81, 82 in crisis, 78 history of, 19 interpretive, 43 golden age of, 110 ‘living for’, 4 ‘living off’, 4 mainstream, 33, 34, 38, 86, 93–95 and new fields of study, 89, 90, 99 as new subject, 64, 91 positivistic, 43, 44 its role, 34, 79 as science, 21, 30, 42, 43, 92 and social relevance, 81 and societal change, 22, 91 Sokal, Alan, 85 Sombart, Werner, 90, 91 Sorokin, Pitirim, 31 Stanley, Liz, 39 STEM disciplines (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics), 71 Steuer, Max, 112 Stinchcombe, Arthur L., 42 The Structure of Social Action, 44

133

students, 17, 18, 23, 24, 26, 35, 37, 47, 55, 64, 65, 67, 71, 73, 83, 86, 96, 97, 110, 115 as consumers, 64, 65, 96 Sunstein, Cass R., 36 Swanson, Don, 58 syllabi, 13, 48 Szelenyi, Ivan, 32, 37, 78, 79

T Taylor and Francis, 58 textbooks, 23, 42, 47, 83, 90, 94, 96, 106 theoretical turns, 90 theory, sociological (problems in) (and analysis?), 8, 9, 45, 69, 79, 80, 94, 110, 113, 115 social, 79, 80, 100, 114, 115 Thiele, Steve, 78 Timasheff, Nicholas, Sergeyevitch, 44 Times Higher Education, 71 Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC), 55 Travers, Max, 81 Turner, Jonathan H., 7 Turner, Stephen P., 7

U UK-ology, 115 understanding, 2–5, 8–10, 18–22, 24, 26, 31, 43, 44, 46, 47, 59, 79, 81, 82, 84, 90, 91, 95–98, 100, 101, 107, 108, 111–114 universities as agents of the state, 68 as corporations, 110 social function of, 64, 73 University and College Union (UCU), 67 Urry, John, 6, 30, 31, 35, 37, 41

134

INDEX

V van der Vossen, Bas, 82 Veblen, Thorstein, 69, 70, 84, 90, 91 vocation, 4, 80 Vostal, Filip, 70

Whitehead, Alfred North, 41, 42 Wilson, Brian R., 71 Winch, Peter, 91 Y York, University of, 64

W Walby, Sylvia, 92, 94 Weber, Max, 4, 8, 22, 42, 43, 48, 57–59, 61, 70, 83, 84, 114, 116 Westergaard, John, 32, 47

Z Zeaman, David, 26 zero-sum game, 98