Sociology is worth fighting for
Since “Principles of Sociology” got the ax as a core course in Florida’s state university system, chastising and defunding sociology is becoming a favorite pastime. Politicians, chancellors and university professors claim that the discipline of sociology is “brazenly political,” “hijacked by left-wing activists” and not preparing students for “high-demand, high-wage jobs.”
These weak critiques aren’t supported by facts, however. National data show people with social science degrees outearn many other majors, are in demand across industries and have a 5% job growth outlook, which is faster than the national average. And scrutinizing the politics of sociology professors is a longstanding practice, so much so that a tilt toward progressivism cannot credulously be called “hijacking.”
I could go on and on, disproving this and that, but I do not accept these commentators as arguing in good faith. You shouldn’t either. These claims have not earned our well-formulated counter-arguments. The people dismantling sociology are not interested in valid arguments (like the one recently laid out for the Florida Board of Governors from the American Sociological Association).
Howard Becker, a marvelously succinct sociologist, once wrote that you don’t waste time proving a bad-faith argument wrong; instead, you question its major premise. What, then, is the major premise of this anti-sociology project in Florida?
It is this: Politicians can strike down longstanding general education requirements if they disagree with the scientists in the field.
This premise lays out methodical research and debate on the policy chopping block. Accepting the Florida Board of Governors’ decision to cut sociology threatens anyone invested in the American tradition of academic freedom.
Don’t get tripped up by the passion-inflaming, anti-woke rhetoric. Ask instead: Who benefits? Who benefits if people start bickering about reformulated talking points of the McCarthy era? It can’t be the university students and public employees, who were just railroaded by a brazenly political campaign.
Look closer at motives. Sociologists are not, as they say, a plurality of left-wing activists. We are social scientists. We run major research centers and organizations that rely on impeccable data analysis. We analyze great mountains of data. And, we get paid well — at least some of us do — because we do it well. You could say we have it down to a science.
I remember as a graduate student being annoyed by certain abstentions and objections of my professors. I recently reread the lectures of a professor who must have annoyed his students terribly. Theodor W. Adorno worked in American universities after the Nazis raided his home and office. He later returned to Germany to lecture. In the summer of 1968, the final lecture of his career, the audience hissed him down as he spoke soberly of controversial positions:
“I’m extremely sorry,” he responded, “but I consider that to hiss down views which for whatever reason one does not find congenial contradicts the idea of discussion, and I believe I have gained the right to discuss such matters with you, and not to get caught up in this kind of protest … I have never avoided discussion of these matters, nor will I do so in future. But then one really has to discuss, and not try to cut off the debate.”
Now that sociology is losing the right to discuss and is caught in this kind of protest, who is hissing? Who is cutting off the debate? And, who is soberly putting forward a professional opinion?
I can, of course, put mine forward.
In my view, something is being made possible by striking sociology from the general curriculum. Whatever facile pretext has made sociology kindling for a firestorm does not have the features of a real debate. Some set of people have decided that the supply of professional sociologists needs to plummet. Rather than seriously debate us on the merits of sociological research, gubernatorial fiat just wrote us off the page.
Sociology is simply a bullet point in political stratagems seeking to dismantle American institutions from the inside out. When politicians do this sort of thing, they show us their social power. They show us they can demolish academic freedom with unfounded arguments and no effective resistance. We need to show them they can’t hiss us down. We need to show them social power.