You have the all discussion bellow. I will make my points briefly:

 1) It is not rational to mix political and professional toughs as being a continuum, as if there were not different issues, different ways of reasoning and different opportunities to act. Society differentiates professional, scientific, political, family, sport and other social spheres of social influence and social behaviour.

2) Aneta, as other colleagues, will to change the world in a better place. This is OK. Very Ok. They hope (wrongly) sociology can do that. They know sociologists they know won't to that. They solve the contradiction between their won will and reality they experience in a non scientific way: they force the reality they dream of to become real and the people who do not fit with it, they are bad people, false people. That is why they look for "real" and "true" sociologists.

3) This kind of wishful thinking has been used by XIX century positivism. And it continues to be used today, in sociology. Mainstream sociology support modernization, which is today a panglossian theory. That is why Risk society becomes a famous concept. Many things are falling apart (including social theory). What means to be in favour of modernization? It means to be neo-liberal form the left, supporting the façade of Social State does not contain any more no solutions for the social problems.

4) This kind of wishful thinking, in politics, support terrible social secrets, such as Gulags and genocides and ethnic transportation to other territories and ecological disasters and political failures and corruption.

5) As professionals of sociology we must support priority to social issues (not psychological or economic ones). Of course, we can - as a citizen - be against that kind of priority. The problem is: why a sociologist should be attracted to SSF to support inside priority to psychological or economic themes? Why s/he would not go to discuss the matter with economists without borders? Or why the question of disciplinary priorities is not discussed openly instead of being brought only at the end of the discussion?

6) My feeling is that sociology needs to free it self from inferiority complex facing economics, politics and other more important sciences. Or sociology will dye of fear of being attacked, instead of fighting back. This is crucial: to go forward sociology needs to believe (as Durkheim teaches us) that moral issues are crucial when it comes to profound structural changes, such as we are living these days.   

 melhores cumprimentos

APD

-----Mensagem original-----
De: António Pedro Dores [mailto:Antonio.Dores@iscte.pt]
Enviada: terça-feira, 24 de Abril de 2007 17:16
Para: The SSF mailing list
Assunto: FW: FW: [ssf] RE: [ssf] "Sociologists Without Borders" - amisnomer?

 Dear Aneta,

I understand what you mean. I just do not agree with you.

For personal raisons: during the Portuguese revolution, because I join a student's revolutionary mini-tiny-group, one fellow student working for Communist Party (near USSR politics) makes record of my personal data. I have not been persecuted, unlike other comrades. I will never forget it.

For professional raisons: I prefer to give priority to moral issues (Human Rights, solidarity) than to economic issues, even if they are Marxist like.

I believe that is the special character of sociology.

For political raisons: I prefer to support politics that do not conceive the better world as a paradise to come (plan/blueprint). I prefer to think in politics in a positivistic fashion: the better for the people (not for GPD).

Nothing can excuse Stalin genocides and the official silence and secrecy about it. I do not accept tyranny and despotism, even if they are revolutionary. I have the experience of the Portuguese military that show the world that people in charge can give way their power for people sake. 33 years ago. At the same time Portuguese Communist Party behave as contra-revolutionary, because Portugal was out of USSR control sphere ate the time of Cold War (the same USA and Western European countries have done after winning the second world war, abandoning us to Salazar, our private dictator, till 1974 or USA did with Iraq under Bush the father). 

Please: do the experiment: change socialism and capitalism in your speech and read it again. Slowly and in a way to try to understand what is being written. Maybe you feel surprised.

No one can, at the same time, to teach (or to preach?) to the people and listen to the people. I prefer to listen to the people (even when people do not talk) and teach my students about how and what I discover. Maybe they, too, like to listen.

melhores cumprimentos

APD 

-----Mensagem original-----

De: Aneta Galary [mailto:agalary@luc.edu]

Enviada: terça-feira, 24 de Abril de 2007 0:40

Assunto: Re: FW: [ssf] RE: [ssf] "Sociologists Without Borders" - amisnomer?

Dear Antonio Pedro Dores,

The state socialist economies you referred to did work for a while.

Please consider their quite impressive industrialization records, growth in GDP (frequently in double digits), success in combating illiteracy, national healthcare, public education, state-funded daycare, vacation/summer camps, growing presence of women in the workplace, management, politics (which has declined after 1989 with the advent of capitalism) - the list goes on and on. You claim that these economies “worked against the people”... I assume you are referring to the unmatched power of the apparatchiks, chronic shortages, and limited political freedom (or, if you prefer, oppression). To be objective, however, we have to take all of the above into consideration. Therefore, I think it is not entirely correct to assume that these systems “worked against the people”. In some ways they did, and in others they didn’t. Importantly, aware of the problems of state socialist economies, I would not advocate replacing capitalism with state socialism, as you seem to have suggested...

Instead of dismissing the state socialist model altogether as a failure, we could draw lessons from it for the future. I personally think that supply constraints on production (shortages) were the only irremovable/inherent problem of state socialist economies (economist

Janos Kornai, 1980, provided a very compelling analysis of this problem). I think that most of its other problems, including political oppression, were only their consequences. If it were not for the chronic shortages, state socialism would still be here today. If state socialist leaders had known how to eradicate shortages and thus guarantee a higher standard of living, they wouldn’t have had to fear political opposition and deny political freedoms to their citizens. Who, after all, would want to oust leaders and/or abolish a system that extended the most comprehensive benefits to all citizens with a system that apparently works for only very few? (Remarkably, having had the experience of living under two different economic systems, many Eastern Europeans today, not to mention Russians, show a preference for state socialism.

Should we listen to them or to the neoclassical economists and rational choice sociologists reporting about the alleged miracles of “free market” and “success” of the transformations?) Our challenge today is to develop a system that overcomes state socialism’s and capitalism’s inherent problems.

I could not agree more that as sociologists we cannot ignore history. I would like to urge you to do the same: look at capitalism as a relatively recent and so far very brief episode in human history.

History has taught us that just as capitalism replaced other systems (feudalism, state socialism), we can expect that one day capitalism itself will be replaced. By what? That was my original question/concern.

We need to work on this. We could start by becoming familiar with the works Judy recommended and with Nikitah’s forthcoming book...

You asked which of our (sociologists’) problems would the new economic system solve? I cannot answer this question because we haven’t yet proposed what the new system would be. Frankly, I care more about solving our human problems.

I agree with David that convincing people in the “first world” (roughly 18% of the world’s population minus those who are already victims of capitalism), where the majority of those who in many ways benefit from globalization lives, about the attractiveness of a systemic change will be a big challenge. In other parts of the world, where the majority of the world’s population=“losers” of globalization live, I do not think we need to worry about this. I think that more people in the “first world” will start experiencing negative effects of globalization and more will become its "losers" as the problem of demand constraints (overproduction) becomes more severe, placing a further squeeze on corporate profits and a further downward pressure on wages, leading to increased migration of jobs (both in quantity and kind), intensification of work, more outsourcing, cuts in benefits, and so on. However, we definitely should not assume that systemic change could only come from the west.

aneta

-----Mensagem original-----

De: António Pedro Dores [mailto:Antonio.Dores@iscte.pt]

Enviada: segunda-feira, 23 de Abril de 2007 17:21

Para: 'Aneta Galary'

Assunto: RE: [ssf] RE: [ssf] "Sociologists Without Borders" - a misnomer?

Aneta, 

Remember: the last plan/blueprint has been wonderfully made by many impressive scientists and activists and politicians. The problem was it did not work. Worse: it worked against the people. We are sociologists but we have to face history.

If you are telling us you think we should try again to join the Proletarian party: a) I will not do that; 2) What problem would it solve to sociology, as a science or as a profession?; 3) what proletarian party you are talking about? - just for discussion sake.

melhores cumprimentos

APD

-----Mensagem original-----

De: Aneta Galary [mailto:agalary@luc.edu]

Enviada: segunda-feira, 23 de Abril de 2007 14:52

Assunto: Re: [ssf] RE: [ssf] "Sociologists Without Borders" - a misnomer?

 Dear Comrades,

I think that our main problem is that while most of us are critics of capitalism (I assume), we do not have a plan/blueprint for an economic system that could replace it – a system in view of which we could organize all our activities. Everything we do to assuage the many injustices generated by capitalism - of course, with the exception of consciousness raising - ultimately only serves to prolong the capitalist reign. (I think many of you would agree that improvements in redistribution, introduction of worker protections, etc., throughout the last century are among the main reasons why we have not had a revolution in the west, and why capitalism is still here today.) Therefore, I think it is imperative that, as an organization, we first think about, decide, and declare what kind of economic system we envision for our future. Do we just want to continue making endless adjustments to capitalism and live with its irremovable/inherent injustices, or do we want to create a system where complete equality/classlessness are achieved?

aneta

 >>> António Pedro Dores <Antonio.Dores@iscte.pt> 04/21/07 10:00 PM >>>

Dear Aneta,

Sorry about my English. My first Language is Portuguese. I write Engish by the electronic dictionary.

Why don't we, sociologists, help enough our communities and societies to be better? That is your main questioning. Why can't we do as doctors do? To go to emergency fields and help to save lives?

There are many questions we should inquiry first.

Can we compare our profession with doctor profession? What would mean be a critical doctor?

Please, count the number of doctors and the number of sociologists in the world. Please, count the money invested doing medicine and doing

sociology. Can we compare these two professional worlds with each other? What kind of support have sociologists to go to, lets say Africa, to help people there?

Do the African governments receive sociologists open arms to help their countries do develop? And if you present your self as critical sociologist the chances of being well received increase or decrease?

Doctors go to South countries or zones to help in emergency crises. And come back after few months. Doctors are not scientific innovators as critical sociologists are: they are practicians. They use the South people to train themselves to professional practices as craft, not allowed any more in "normal" situations. Of course, doctors without borders like to be with "poor" people and live difficult situations and solidarity for a while.

But they come back to their homes, leaving thDo doctor without borders help enough? They do what they can. One thing we must take care: a big part of the money and the products to "give" to "developing" countries is to help bourocracies, NGÓs and their staff, corrupt people (few years ago the bigger European Union corruption scandal as been found at the office of the commissar who take money from the aid to development) at any/every stage of the circuit of send resources to help the South. That is why it has been impossible (at least in Europe) that any humanitarian mission produce an assessment report about what each mission learn and about the practical results of the mission for the people.

As critical sociologists we tend to think that to change exploitation, domination, segregation, discrimination, economic systems, values, and so on only changing societies has the power to do it. No king, president or government are strong enough to stop social change, since the people want it bad. The reverse is also true: if the people do not want to change, powers in charge always try a little bit harder to explore and use people as slaves.

As single persons and as a profession are we able to change societies?

Any answer you can use, you have to agree with me: it is easier and faster to heal someone ill. So: being a sociologist means to have less resource and face a mush bigger challenge to help people I do not think so. I think we have to try to develop sociology in a way that makes it possible to know how sociologists can help people better. What to do? Easy: let́s help doctors to help people. Let́s join doctors who goes helping people and help them to help people, for instance, producing the needed assessment reports that are missing.

I did try to do that, in Lisbon, where I live. Here it is not so easy to that, because doctors feel we, sociologists, are not of their kind. They feel we can change their (good) self image, showing what really happens in the field and criticising the bad behaviours. They argue they do not want to spend money and resources out of the needs.

My guess is that: main sociology serves national States and conceives it self as separate from other kinds of knowledge. To help needing people, sociology should think global, without borders, and should find the ways to join other kind of knowledge that are doing the some kind of trajectory, as health care, law business or education - all structural social business.

As teachers we need to show south countries that (as engineering or

medicine) they need sociology (each is not the case for mainstream sociology). In changing legal global ambience, maybe sociology should understand better what justice is and how it works, to help locals to think about how they can help to build a better world. In emergence cases, sociologists must be prepared to help emergence teams, in security and health care organization taking in account different cultures and civilizational sensitivities to accept and reject help from abroad, to assess and learn with the standard helping programs, to organize the continuation of the benefits of what has been done during the weeks following the emergency event, when doctors come home and leave the people. 

Dear Aneta, 

I think you have a point: why do sociologists do not engage more deep with human kind and do look for bigger space of action in the world, as doctors eventually do? SSF can be a forum to build a new sociological approach without borders. I hope so.

The proposal I am working on tries to organize privileged relationships with the law world (the world of the ethic speech for practical proposes) and with the healing world (to cure the bodies and the minds of people, as person and as group). It is not common or easy. But it is not impossible. Of course, I have a good professional situation at university and I am able to conceive two master degrees and receive teachers and students to help me to reach that propose.

melhores cumprimentos

APD

-----Mensagem original-----

De: Aneta Galary [mailto:agalary@luc.edu]

Enviada: sexta-feira, 20 Assunto: [ssf] “Sociologists Without Borders” – a misnomer?

 The name of our organization was selected to be reminiscent of the exemplary Doctors Without Borders. I can only guess that the intention was not just to emulate the latter organization in name, but also in its aid to humanity. Have we been successful in this mission? Can we compare ourselves to the organization that inspired our name? Sadly, we do not even come close... While Doctors Without Borders has a well-established record of saving countless lives of victims of the ruthless world we live in, Sociologists Without Borders merely has a record of reiterating its “commitment” to human rights by cluttering cyberspace and mailboxes - mostly of its own members, who are already converts and do not need to be convinced of the righteousness of its goals. Occasionally, moved by injustice, we send letters and sign petitions here and there. While the “doctors” constantly expose themselves to danger and risk their own lives trying to save the lives of others, we (I’m referring to sociologists in the west, who at least for now, can express themselves quite freely without major risks, not those who can not) merely expose ourselves to electro-magnetic radiation from our computer Someone recently told me that she had not met greater hypocrites than sociologists; I regretfully had to agree with her... Is empty blubber all we can produce in our service to humanity? I am convinced we can do much more. For starters, we could change our priorities from “having” to “being”. The desire to create a designer name for oneself in the field and to teach the privileged at a first-class research institution (yes, I do recognize that not all of us share this desire) should be replaced by a desire to serve the victims of this world the way the Doctors Without Borders do. I do not think that we necessarily need to become Che Guevaras to work toward this goal. Maybe we could start by reconsidering our career choices. I think that underprivileged students in community colleges and “sub-tier” universities need us more than students at “ivy league” schools. Maybe those who have designer names could use their clout to serve the needs of those who need them most?

After all, wouldn’t teaching the underprivileged be more compatible with the “leftist” ideologies many of us seem to share?

The above views were not intended to offend anyone. I apologize if they did. Also, despite of what I wrote, I would like to acknowledge that I frequently find the emails from fellow SSFers reassuring and stimulating. We just need to do more...