]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] THE PLAGUE OF SOCIOLOGY [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

by Roger Scruton (10/24/88)

[From Untimely Tracts (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1987), pp. 237-9]
[This originally appeared in the Times (London), 8 October 1985]

[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC, who comments:

Although Scruton writes about Britain, his remarks apply
to America as well. Our country plays catch-up to the Left-wing
looniness which plagues what was once the greatest nation on
earth.]

Auguste Comte [1798-1857], the father of sociology, was a

naive and shallow thinker. But he had a concern for truth and a
nose for problems. Under his tutelage sociology did not remain
an academic dream, but established itself as a science. Comte
was followed by four great men -- Marx [1818-83], Durkheim
[1858-1917], Pareto [1848-1923] and Weber [1864-1920] -- each of
whom provided concepts and observations indispensable to a full
understanding of the modern condition. Furthermore, at the
fertile interface of sociology and philosophy arguments and ideas
have flourished which touch on the deepest and most enduring
concerns of humanity. Pope John Paul II, for example, owes many
of his moral ideas to such sociologically-minded philosophers as
Max Scheler [1874-1928].
Why then does sociology have the reputation that it has
acquired? Why is it so often regarded as ideology,
indoctrination and pseudoscience? Why does the mere mention of
academic sociology serve to conjure images of an ignorant rabble
lost in jargon, fired by doctrine and profoundly hostile to all
forms of authority and power?
It seems to me that the image is not wholly unjust. Recently
several academic sociologists, speaking at the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, staged what amounted
to a show trial of the 'New Right', denouncing their colleagues
who had departed from the fold of socialism as morally corrupted
and intellectually void. Not one of those colleagues was invited
to reply, and the authority of the British Association was used
as a badge of office with which to consign to silence all those
whose opinions offended the bigots.
Academics who in this way silence discussion and who adopt a
political stance as both unquestionable and the foregone
conclusion of their subject are the enemies of scholarship. When
the resources of a discipline are diverted to the task of
fortifying a political dogma and protecting its intellectual
weaknesses behind an impenetrable barrier of abstraction, and
when those who question the dogma are dismissed as intellectually
worthless and morally corrupt, we might justly suspect that we no
longer have to do with an impartial science.
Consider the charge 'racist', so popular among members of the
sociological establishment and now used to discredit the 'New
Right'. The charge could be applied, on the grounds usually
offered, equally to Marx, Pareto, Durkheim and Weber, and even to
Comte himself. This is one small but significant instance of the
way in which sociology has broken free from the intellectual
discipline that created it and launched itself, a hysterical and
overburdened boatload, on the sea of pure opinion -- with nothing
to guide it but its conviction that wherever it drifts is the
right, or rather the left, direction.
Perhaps the most lamentable effect of second-rate sociology is
its undermining of the natural language of moral intercourse.
For bad sociology has only one intellectual device: the
proliferation of spurious equivalences. Consider the favourite
trick of the 'peace educators' -- the representation of all
power, however legitimate, however much the outcome of consent
and compromise, as a form of 'structural violence'. (The trick
was perfected by Mussolini's [1883-1945] mentor, Georges Sorel
[1847-1922], who himself took it by a devious route from Marx.)
Every social order requires a structure of authority and law
whereby people are permitted to do some things and prevented from
doing others. Hence every order, we are told, is founded on
violence. Moreover, since those prevented and those permitted
belong to different classes, every system involves 'structural
violence' whereby the dominant class 'polices' the remainder.
Against violence, violence is a legitimate response, and against
the vast accumulation of 'structural violence' in the modern
state any extreme becomes permissible -- even terrorist violence.
Look at any course of 'peace studies' and you will find this
nonsense purveyed as though it were a matter of dispassionate
science. By the same argument, the power of the beloved over the
lover, of the conductor over the orchestra, of the man who gives
over the man who depends on his charity -- all these legitimate
relations become forms of 'structural violence'. However absurd
the conclusion, we should not ignore the effect of the
sociologist's language on the semi-educated. If you consider the
change in modern attitudes to terrorism, in particular the
changes displayed by the language of journalism, you will begin
to see the extent of intellectual corruption. The terrorist
gains legitimacy as soon as we are encouraged to condemn the
'system' against which he is fighting in the same terms that we
condemn his deed.
'Peace education', child of sociology's most polluted slums,
depends entirely on such spurious equivalences for its persuasive
power. Totalitarian and democratic systems are represented as
equal and opposite contenders in the game of nuclear defence,
each reacting to an equivalent 'threat' presented by the other.
Single-party government acting by conspiracy to suppress all
rival sources of power is 'equivalent to the class oppression' of
western democracy. The rule of law is 'equivalent' to a tyranny
of judges. And so on.
The use of these devices by town hall fanatics and street
revolutionaries is to be expected. But their repeated occurrence
in the academic discipline that dominates the polytechnics and
universities of Britain is the sign of an appalling intellectual
coarseness. I do not suggest that the founders of sociology are
entirely blameless for the present corruption. On the contrary,
impatient as they were for 'deep' conclusions, they too missed
the fine distinctions and painted in the same grey colours the
machinations of the wicked and the actions of the good. But even
in their most impetuous moments they did not mutilate the common
language of morality -- our best reminder that in human affairs
it is the fine distinctions which matter, and upon which our
happiness depends.
8 October 1985
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[The following notes are not part of the original article.]

Sources: Concise Columbia Encyclopedia (NY: Columbia University

Press, 1983); Encyclopedia Britannica (1963); Julian Marias,
History of Philosophy (NY: Dover Publications, 1967); Roger
Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (NY: Hill and Wang,
1982).

Comte, Durkheim, Weber and Marx are widely regarded as the

founders of modern sociology.

Comte, Auguste (1798-1857). "French philosopher and exponent

of positivism ... and inventor of the term `sociology', together
with many parts of the study that now goes by that name. ...
While he admired many of the ideals of the French Revolution, he
sought to reconcile them with a respect for social order and
progress. His search for a `middle way' between Jacobinism and
conservatism led to his development of positivism, which aimed to
derive political doctrine from a science of society. ...
`Positive' is a term used to denote knowledge and understanding
which confines itself to the actual empirical world, and refuses
to transcend it in search of hidden causes and final ends. All
genuine human knowledge is scientific and methodical, and no
question that cannot be answered by science has an answer. The
nineteenth-century man possesses an ever-growing understanding of
his position, and on the basis of this can plan a total
reordering of society to meet actual and scientifically
determinable needs." (Scruton 1982)
Durkheim, Emile (1858-1917). "French sociologist, considered
a founder of modern sociology. Influenced by the positivism of
Comte, Durkheim applied the methods of the natural sciences
(particularly empirical evidence and statistics) to the study of
society. He held that the collective mind is the source of
religion and morality, that common values are the bonds of social
order, and that the loss of such values leads to social and
individual instability and suicide." (Columbia 1983)
Pareto, Vilfredo (1848-1923). Italian economist, sociologist
and philosopher. Pareto was born in Paris where his father had
emigrated because of his political activities. The family
returned to Italy in 1858 under the political amnesty of that
year. Pareto became an engineer but had time to study the
classics, philosophy and politics. He succeeded to the chair of
political economy at Lausanne in 1893. At the university he
expanded upon the mathematical approach to political economy.
Pareto considered himself a hard-headed realist and thus favored
free trade and authoritarian politics and opposed socialism and
(classical) liberalism. He recognized that people do not behave
according to his ideas of rationality and developed theories of
irrational conduct. Pareto is considered one of the founders of
modern welfare economics. Mussolini's Fascist government praised
Pareto, but Pareto died before expressing any opinion of it.
(Pareto is not as bad as this condensed account may seem to
imply. For a fuller account see Scruton.) (Britannica 1963,
Scruton 1982)
Scheler, Max (1874-1928). German philosopher. "[Scheler] was
a professor at the University of Cologne, and is one of the most
important thinkers of our age. ... Scheler entered the Catholic
Church and in one phase of his life was a true apologist for
Catholicism; nevertheless, in his last years he strayed from
orthodoxy in the direction of pantheism. ... Scheler's
systematic thought cannot easily be reduced to an essential
nucleus from which his many varied ideas can be shown to
emanate." (Marias 1967, p. 422)
Weber, Max (1864-1920). "German sociologist and political
economist who greatly influenced sociological theory. His
concept of ``ideal types,'' or generalized models of real
situations, provided a basis for comparing societies. Opposing
the Marxian view of the pre-eminence of economic causation, he
emphasized the role of religious values, ideologies and
charismatic leaders in shaping societies." (Columbia 1983)

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