[Note: I apologize in advance if this question seems politically biased; I don’t know how to ask this without coming off as biased. I hope that I can be schooled here if my assertions are without merit.]
Sociology in academic institutions is notorious for being a haven for those who subscribe to leftist politics. I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking to sociologists and spending time in sociology courses, but to date I have not found a single person within a sociology program who claims any allegiances to rightwing politics. I admit to being a liberal, and have generally found that the more I learn about sociology and the more I gain a deep understanding of the sociological literature, the more I find that it does a very good job of refuting a lot of mainstream conservative arguments (e.g. why the poor stay poor, the interconnectedness of cultural/social capital and economic capital, etc., etc.). My question is: are there are any prominent conservative sociologists, or is it too hard to simultaneously understand sociology while maintaining a conservative view of how society works?
understanding sociology shouldn’t be hard, it’s more likely to be hard to get tenure among a group of people whose attitude towards you is similar to Duke of Alba’s attitude towards the good people of Flanders for (quasi)religious reasons.
A fairly well known Soviet/Russian sociologist Belanovsky is conservative-pragmatic within the context of Russian political spectrum. Then again, sociology was not a dumpster profession under the Soviets - it wasn’t enough to run around publishing boilerplate articles about “gaps”, you would have needed to have considerable can-do and entrepreneurial skill to just carry out the surveys in that environment. When his group did a study on Russian draftees, they got noticed by counter-espionage service, for example.
I would think conservatives might gravitate more to socioeconomics or poli sci, especially given the established trends in academia - they would just be more welcome.
Umm… I can’t see how it would apply. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time in sociology classes; from my experience there are some trinitarians kicking around in academia… you know, people who insist that the holy trinity (Weber, Durkheim, Marx) is always correct, and all research should be analyzed based on their work. That’s about as conservative as you’re likely to get.
…oh man, I’m having a hard time formulating this coherently.
I’m assuming you’re a young American male, correct?
you forgot to make a public assumption about the color of his skin, didn’t you? He probably wouldn’t qualify for courageous diversity awards, I will give you that.
Not really, at least in the US. I’m not sure about overseas. But when you think about it, the field of sociology is basically about looking for the social causes of social problems. The conservative movement in the US is very much about “personal responsibility” or whatever the catchphrase is these days. They’re different worldviews. Conservative folks who are interested in studying society will probably find economics. The dominant paradigm in economics is that of the rational individual who seeks to maximize utility. That’s definitely more in tune with American conservatism.
All that being said, there is certainly a spectrum within sociology. For example, in my field, family sociology, there are a handful of scholars who insist that the two parent, heterosexual, nuclear family is the best place to raise children, and think that public policy should reflect that. From my point of view, that’s pretty conservative!
He does seem to spend time in an environment where he’s in contact with college students… and the language used indicates he’s most likely not a professor. Also I doubt any professor would deign to actually ask about another field of study.
Young is a fair assumption.
He’s also dividing things left/right, which in my experience is an American trait. It sounds like he’s using conservative as a shorthand for right wing republican poltical views. While not exclusive to the Americans, it’s not too common globally.
American, or at least Americanized.
And male… hell, that’s a 50/50 shot anyways. And on a board like this… it’s probably skewed towards males anyways. Besides, the wording seems masculine, the prevalence of personal pronouns and the use of active voice for example is totally saying male.
The thing is… I could try to explain things to him. Without knowing what he means with the terms, I wouldn’t know where to start… If he’s not an American, I can assume he’s talking about conservatives as I understand them, if he is, there’s a good chance he’s actually talking about Republican right-wing authoritarians. See where it might cause a confusion? Personality type versus political view?
Hell, even the term “sociology” is hard for Americans in general, what with it being a communist thing and all. For non-Americans I could assume they know it’s about the study of societies… for Americans I’d first have to explain that no, it’s not related to socialism.
Do you have even a hint of a rational reason to think this is the case, or is it just unfounded personal prejudice with a side of nationalistic jingoism?
Mostly just a hyperbole. But in general terms, I’ve noticed that the average American seems to have trouble distinguishing “social” from “socialist” and by extension any word beginning with “soci” is assumed to be one step away from communism,; people here, perhaps not so much. If you admit to having a social agenda, it’s hardly unheard of to be called a communist. OP did call sociology left leaning… and I would contend sociology is based on value neutral observations. Speaking globally, it’s usually the politically right-wing people who criticize sociology as being left leaning, usually because the results rarely agree with their poltical agenda. I’ve never seen a self-confessed liberal make that claim outside the US.
Why? Do you have evidence of the opposite? I’d be interested in taking a look.
Doesn’t Education in general tend to make people more liberal?
(Or people who are more liberal tend to go further in higher education?)
Most studies I’ve seen, and even common polls that are sub-divided by educational level, seem to show that the group with the higher education level tends more toward the ‘liberal’ position. These seem to be commonly correlated – education and ‘liberalism’.
Actually, I didn’t say that. I said that I’ve found that people in sociology are left-leaning, and I said that the literature I’ve read seems to directly contradict many conservative talking points. I fail to see how this is commensurate with me saying that the literature in the field itself is “left leaning.” Instead, I would say that my experience suggests that many of the most basic tenets of sociology tend not to be aligned with conservative worldviews. This does not make it de facto “left leaning.” A contradiction does not automatically mean an espousal of an opposing political ideology.
I won’t bother answering your questions about my racial and national identity, as it seems to move this conversation into ad hominem territory, and I would rather this conversation not go there.
I’m working on an M.A. in a program that combines musicology with cultural studies.
I find that cultural studies, in general, is a bit incestuous (or inbred? whichever works better for what I’m trying to say). I play in a softball league with the other grads and PhDs. I’ve sat down for beers with sociologists, economists, history majors, the comparative lit. people, the public policy and administration dept., and political economy.
I asked the political economy people what the hell political economy was, and the things they were describing seemed to line up with a lot of the same things I would study in my music department. Not to say they were studying the same things, but we were familiar in each others areas, and using the same cultural theories in the same ways. In turn, I can see some of my studies fitting in sociology.
Heck, one of the readers on my thesis is a sociologist by profession, trained as a musicologist. Came out of the Birmingham school which is very much known for its afinity of Marxist thought. He opined that sociology was sort of a “big tent refuge” for cultural study people who couldn’t find any work in their own department, if they had a department to speak of. Thus, you see a lot of left of centre philosophers (Adorno, Horkheimer and Habermas off the top of my head) finding safe haven in sociology departments, even if people like Adorno are more rightly musicologists.
This supposedly happened as a result of the conservativeness of their own “home” departments. I don’t know if that’s accurate, or extends beyond musicology or not, but it’s an interesting theory to throw out if nothing else.
My understanding of the Steven Levitt/Roland Fryer region of things is that poor financial values are taught to children by their parents, encouraging them to stay away from banks, to not invest, to not take on debt, etc. I don’t know what their view of their personal politics is, but telling parents to tell their kids to trust The Man and play the stock market doesn’t sound like a terribly left-wing answer.
Other than the celebrity, talk show types can you name a prominent psychologist? The answer in most cases is “no”. Both psychology and sociology have followed the hard sciences model and most 'serious" sociologists these days are, effectively, simply an overgrown statistician with a hypothesis, or hired guns for marketing analysis of various types. The old focus on determinative macro paradigms is dead, and everything these days is (mostly) limited, piece work analysis on sharply defined and limited environments/cohorts.
There isn’t much room for “prominent” intellectual heroes in that context.
Robert Nisbett was a conservative sociologist, but he’s dead now. He founded the Sociology department at Berkeley, and Vice Chancellor at UC Riverside. A lot of his studies focused on attitudes towards progress and the “Idea of Progress”; the idea that we’re moving towards a better future and that technological advancement will help lead to utopia. He was also a political conservative.
There was also Edward Shils, a professor of Sociology primarily at the University of Chicago and winner of the 1983 Balzan Prize. A lot of his work was focused on intellectuals and the way that they shaped public policy.
Both of these people were pretty prominent in their fields. It is generally a leftwing discipline, though.
