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Social Natures
working group of sociologists without borders
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Free discution topicsWhat I am trying to say cannot be reduced to a philosophy. Till 2001 I am developing social theory to enable sociologists to look at sociological inheritance and to the future of our profession in a different way. In short, I propose to the users of social theory to look deeper and more attentively to the classic theorizations of social instability (political changing opinion efficiency, revolutionary actions, social regulation of animal instincts, and so on) instead of insisting on merging at a technical inquiry level, reduce to variables, lifeless classic inspirations. I call the attention of professionals that sociology business is not going well these days and we can fight for a better future for the inheritance if we are able to adapt our practices and strategies to the new coming world. I wrote it down in three books in Portuguese language, and other papers. I wrote an essay about the violent social nature of man kind. I wrote a monograph about Lisbon immigrant interviews about what they think about justice, and I found the will of sharing our western concepts of justice and the will to fight for improvements, even they know (and want to forget) all bad behaviour of many people, including authorities, against the law and against immigrants. I wrote a didactic book on social nature theory to help me to teach my students. I wrote an English language slide show to support English presentations. I have two article translated into English. You can find then at the right column of the main/first page of this website. It is my job, this new academic year of 2007/08, to diffuse these proposals of mine where ever I can reach. If you can help me, I will appreciate it very much. APD, 2007-09-12
De: judith blau [mailto:jrblau@email.unc.edu]
Greetings all, This may veer from the direction of the conversation, but I believe it is relevant for the topic. The emphasis in western interpretations of human rights is the self-determining, autonomous individual so that human rights are universal and apply to every single person. I find that "unnatural" in the sense that individuals have organic (natural) group memberships, culture, language to which they have rights. Do we want western (American) individualism, market capitalism, to take over the world? NO!!NO! However, we also run into problems with my position - namely, the problem of cultural relativism. Can we say that the practices of every culture are acceptable? OF COURSE NOT. We must condemn racist, sexist, homophobic practices even if they are part of a culture. Maybe all this seems obvious, but it took me the good part of a day concluding this, after going through lots of examples. I think where I end up is that human rights are universal, and human rights trump culture, but societies need to protect cultural practices that do not interfere with human rights (else markets will trample cultural diversity) Does that sound right? Cheers, Judith Hi Judith, I left this discussion of yours behind because I had nothing to add. Though I had doubts: should we split human beings in two? The natural part of people (the body as medicine look at us) should be thought separate from the social part of the same people (the cultural side of the people as social sciences look at us)? Western north-American people are culturally isolated from community and folk culture and folk people are unable to conceive them-selves as singular and self determined human beings living and bargaining as bourgeois? As Durkheim notice, modernization of society tied social relations tidier and not less than traditional societies. We depend on technological and political systems more than before. We do not fear nature in everyday life - we feel our self well defended - and we fear bad governance, war, corruption, crime, Katrina´s like or 9/11 like consequences when we depend on big ineluctable symbolic systems. Isn't it a cultural bias thinking human beings as the real/physical human being and his soul? Sociology sometimes thinks about people as bodies (observation of social regularities) other times as cultural innovative person (biographical methods) other time as cultural users (inquiry on social perceptions). Shouldn't sociologists try to bring together these three different ways of analyse together, at the same time, in order to build the realistic puzzle: all people needs cultural ties, even when they are inconvenient or they are not showed or even they are secret. Urban life helps people to live on privacy. (It is good because communitarian controls do not work - on women and sexual life control, for instance - and it is bad when we have to face domestic violence cases). Market pushes societies to recognize privacy as a value. That is a good time, at least some times. Is it this freedom a condition of capitalistic exploitation? Yes, it is. Should we regret to be free from communitarian controls? No. So, as you see, I arrive to the same kind of problem you define. Between two different kind of human lives, both have good aspects and both have bad aspects. Human Rights are universal in the sense that every human society or community are able to develop pure ideas about what kind of life would be paradise, even everybody knows that it will not happen. (as you though us, many civilizations did produce not only some kind of social idea of what would living in paradise but also produce documents about what should not happen to anybody, as human being: this is the negative philosophy of Human Rights bills). Take the concept of natural law: it is a concept to oppose divine legitimating process using the universal feeling of repugnance of the people as a political support to give power to the society, to the People. What is the People? As Hegel teaches us, people denied many times the People. But we never know when the people transform it self on the People. These two historical characters use the some body and are lighted by very different spirits. For instance, your constitutional discussion would depend on the P(p)eople. You hope that the people use it. But only the People have the power to declare valid a new Constitution. Analytically we can define different plans of study: a) socio-economic as we commonly do as sociologists; b) a bio-ethical plan to distinguish the capability of different people to act as social agency - hill people, children, handicapped people, weak people, uneducated people are less opportunities of living social as protagonists: they consume more solidarity than they can spread; Human development index could be useful here; c) a normative plan where people project, as a movie, the symbols of equilibrium, equity, peace or chaos, ait, war. It support religious, philosophy, science and law statements as well, as Durkheim show at his "Primitive Religious Life Forms" as producing "absolutely" different kind of structural social relations between the same people. As it happens too with us, now-a-day, if one believes on something different from what one believed the day before, one becomes a different person. Modernity teaches us to jump from different kind of "theatrical" parts whenever we live different social ambiance, "never being one self". We, as human, are several at the same time. Modernity enables us to experiment whatever we like. For many moderns these opportunities are shorter and harder. Traditionally the opportunities were less. This is nothing to do with culture. This has to do with development, integral holistic development. Human Rights are one legal and ideographic (not ideological) strategy to make clear worldwide that none of the kind of human development, so fare, are good enough to warranty to every one have the minimum opportunities to live in order with natural justice. APD, 2007-09-11 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 the people some times helpless. Do 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, NGO´s 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 than doctors do. Do we have to accept that? Should we resign? 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: let´s help doctors to help people. Let´s 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. APD
HI Antonio,
I agree Durkheim's discussion of
the sacred is important to consider. You reminded me of this point.
I also was taught mainly the conservative aspects of Durkheim's
analysis. You are right that most of the depth and critique of all
of the classical theorists has been left out of mainstream sociology
(especially American sociology--maybe because of Talcott Parsons?).
As I read your discussion,
I thought of what Albion Small and George
Herbert Mead might say,
specifically their discussions of the dialectic
of interactions where people act based
upon rationales of a conjunction of interests or
a competition of interests.
Small looked at the moral obligations of the society. Mead built
upon Small's observations and also looked at morality at the
individual level. They also both engaged in social movements in the
US, including to help women gain the right to vote, help workers
gain more favorable working conditions, and make more stringent
child labor laws.
Small argued
that the legitimate rationales that drive the distribution of
resources can show how civilized a society actually is. A truly
civilized society shares the rewards of what is produced to all
members of that society. A society could have a highly advanced
culture with much technology but not be civilized (Small talks of
the Egyptian pyramids for the pharoahs at the expense of the lives
of countless slaves). A civilized society allows for all of its
members to be able to enjoy all of the culture that the society
creates.
Mead had a moral
philosophy that built off of his discussion of the development of
the self. The self is a dialectical process between the society and
the individual and not a static thing. The self develops in
relation to the surrounding social environment, like what you
discuss about Bourdieu. Mead argued that as an individual can
identify himself or herself within a larger and more inclusive
community, the more moral he or she becomes. Individuals start by
identifying with only themselves, then out to the family and other
primary socialization forces, and then secondary socialization
forces... The individual who is able to see his interests in
common with everyone else on the planet, and even the animals,
plants, environment of the planet, has an advanced morality. For
Mead, it is morally superior to feel a sense of self through a
conjunction of interests rather than gaining a sense of self as a
feeling of superiority over others through some competition. I
bring up the ideas of Small and Mead because they point out the
direction society should move towards. Small also talked about the
importance of using sociology to tie together all of the other
disciplines in the arts and sciences, which is very similar to your
call for a multidisciplinary approach.
I would like to comment to the point you made here, "Last theoretical reference: Pierre Bourdieu. The reproduction social theory explains that each one of us become similar to our own family and friends by primary socialization and to our neighbourhoods and schools by secondary socialization. We are alike people around us because we incorporate by the body and mind, learning what other people do as living their lives. That is why class distinguishes them selves from each other socially. That is why even outside the working routine people organize their lives as class."
I agree with everything you say about Bourdieu but question this one point about people organizing their lives as class. Workers do not completely organize their lives around class. They do organize themselves around different status groups as Weber discusses. Lots of people from the working class are in competition with one another. Workers may be from the same class yet be from very different status groups, which keeps them from uniting as a class. In fact, members of very similar status groups may be in competition with one another for jobs. That's where I feel the real problem lies in uniting the working class and the poor. They need to see their common interests through the wide array of differences. I argue in my thesis that workers don't unite as a group because class is not a salient concept for them, whereas status is a salient concept that makes them realize their differences.
I don't know if the society is going to change fast,
slow, or not at all in the direction that I envision. I just want
to be involved in the discussion and process of trying to change
societal relations now through peaceful transformations. I think
that the almost hegemonic capitalist ideals need to be challenged
and these challenges need to be disseminated among members of the working
class and poor. I want to teach working class students to question
the current economic system. I think that many working class people
already know more egalitarian ways to distribute resources because
they already have been forced to cope in egalitarian ways among
themselves just to survive.
Once there is a
way for the poor and working class to communicate within the public
realm, the change may be a smooth organic process from corporations to
cooperatives--where workers can appreciate longer term benefits from
their laboring. I
think that the revolution needs to be loving and consensual. If it
takes brutality and violence to change the economic structure it
would probably take brutality and violence to hold together the
resulting social structure as well. I
want to play a part of the organic society that looks for peaceful
ways to move our society towards more justice oriented relations
between people from highly divergent status and ethnic groups.
Bob
Interestingly,
Small's and Mead's, along with Jane Addams', social reform work is
left out of most mainstream sociological discussions, even though it
was of central importance within their sociology.
This discussion has been very useful to me, too. It inspires me to go a head. It is very rewarding to know that my speech makes sense, even in English written by me. I have spent most of my time since last email exchange writing to finish the book where I state my innovative sociological approach. Your delay on our email exchange is welcome. It hallows me to end writing the book. It goes like this: Title: Sociology of instability – a theory of sociological knowledge Abstract: The objective conditions of the existence of sociology The subjective conditions of sociologist’s education The tradition of scientific success of social theories Critisizing Max Weber Stabilization and destabilization – social values and social emotions Social movements Social apathy
Table of contents:
I. A sociological perspective towards XXIth century The question of positivism The question of violence A short history of sociology 1968 and the neo-liberal revolution What is, now-a-day, the society? Sociology contribution for now-a-day society.
II. States of spirit – a sociological program States of spirit Social secrets and social repugnance levels Sociology of prisons
III. Positivist manifesto “Mr. Blair comes back to God” The equality: inspiration value of positivism Open sociology to biological sciences and normative science Central themes and marginal objects in sociology and society Sociology of human rights
IV. Social dimensions and social essences Potentiels and realities Introspection and test of hipothesys
V. Social Natures Different strategies to support social theory development The subject Social Natures
VI. Social dynamics Institutionalization and social transformations Social reproduction and social dispositions Social dynamics
VII. Guilt and state of spirit operators (Acting: religious thought and bellicose thought) Terror networks today Guilt and the western thinking Transversal modus operandi Time and institutionalization The guilt
VIII. Guilt and fidelity Values: civilization (constructivism), modern (metaphysics), modernism and modernizing (authority) Maybe I have the opportunity to translate it to English. Who knows? Making my answer to you short and strait (even so too long): 1) Sociology shows us that, as single people, we do not do any social change. That is the biggest and strongest sociological statement. Nor even you were a king or George Bush, even so you were not able to change society as you wish. Society moves its own mysterious ways. That is why sociologists have to work hard to try to understand how it happens. And they do not understand too much. Because it is too complicated and because sociology is a very young science. Because governments and corporations do not invest enough money to develop sociological knowledge. 2) Why working class with a revolutionary thinking should be able to change society, better than other kind of people? Here we have to make a difference between Marx and Lenine theories. Revolution within Marx conception was nothing to do with politics. Politics (and ideology, bourgeois ideology) should be vanished to open the opportunities for social movements and to equality of social conditions on managing industries and towns. La commune de Paris, remember? Today we have historical reasons to say that this theory lacks accuracy. That do not mean we have to reject Marx´s theories. It means we have to challenge them and find what is wrong with them, in order to save what is good and should be teached as scientific knowledge. Lenine, running the Russian revolution understand fast that it lacks something to Marx theory. That is why he renegade the repulsive Marxist feelings to ideology and politics (and stops to support the idea of the ending of the State, as anarchists continue to do and as him self, Lenine, support when he wrote the book “The State and the Revolution” few years before 1917 October). He becomes the inspiration of all political parties in Europe. Today, they all are social-democrats. I mean centralized decision making and runned by professional managers and bourocrats. No working class inside working politicians’ parties and few working class people inside working class unions. They all are professionals of politics. 3) History shows us that the political leaders were not working class leaders. Today it is the same: look at President Lula of Brazil or Lech Walesa in Poland. To be President, of course, they have to leave working class condition behind their back. Society moves in their won ways and everybody goes with it. Look for your Bush administration and every body submitted by politics and by force to its power. Even if we can hope and work for ending the situation. The problem is how to do it more effectively? 4) By definition poor people, people powerless, people out of institutions and organizations are less powerful than others. People supporting less powerful institutions and organizations has less social power than others supporting powerful people on top. That is why people vote to support powerful people and do not vote for raison and true. They want and need to share some power to fell and to be more powerful them selves. And it works like that in society. That is why I insist on studying states-of-mind. 5) Marx said that working people will take power to run socialism because he believed on the radical success of revolutionary processes all over the world, at that time, 1,5 century ago. It does not confers today´s political and social situation. The revolution today is again bourgeois and capitalist. People are dying by hunger, like then, but capitalism does not need them any more. Every body, including working class and middle class, is asking for a job and leaving unions and accepting “flexibility”. Why they do that? They prefer freedom to equality, as these values are understood in light of recent history (the Cold War). 6) Of course, the state-of-mind of the people world wide are always changing a bit. Some day it can chance a lot. But how? And when? And who will lead? Sociologists? I do not believe it. Sociologist without borders? We are not enough resolute to lead any thing (yet)! 7) To be clearer: yes, I am happy to have a better job than working class people. I intend to use this job as teacher to say something about social solidarity. I found mainstream sociology do not have to say much about it. That is way I did try to find my own way. I thing I did find a way to be better sociologist I use to be. That is all I hope to do. And it can be important, because good ideas (and dreams) can help people to move on. For instance, yesterday a psycho-therapist inspired by William Reich work told me that the success of a book of António Damásio – a luso-american neurologist researcher – in Portugal open medical institutions to mental therapies like he does. Before he was excluded and now he can work in better conditions and help healing people. That is a change with strong effects on may people and in the way some institutions use to work. This kind of break through I do not hope they come for working class people or moves. Even I know that class struggle do change society. But it change society in ways that must be found by ideological debates runned by intellectuals, as Gramsci pointed out. 8) As a human being, I am not better or worse than any other human being. I had the opportunity to live well all my life. I know many (most of the) people do not have that chance. But I do not feel guilty for that. I want to live well my life, the better I can. I am happy to find out a way to be helpful to other people, as a sociologist. I find it few years ago, with the help of inmates in prison who ask me to join them. Now I want to translate what I have learned with inmates fighting for their human dignity into social theories. That´s my job. 9) Doing that I found that Parsons join together inspiration from Weber and Durkheim. Reacting to Parsons hegemony in sociology, anti-structural-functionalism social theory include Marx theory on the main stream sociological references and choose to join Weber and Marx theories together. My propose is to explain and criticize that theoretical and political choice of sociologists and run for other type of choice: Durkheim + Marx. I have written a book (I mention earlier) to explain that. Any way I can tell you that the actual choice of mainstream sociology has been for Freedom (Weber was a liberal) and against Equality (Durkheim was an equalitarian, a socialist), because State political options during the Cold War. I feel we have to regain the Equality discussion on sociological grounds. Looking for Durkheim´s proposals will help us. It would help us especially if we study social theory included in Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Essential forms of behaving as social beings (at every social form, simple or complex) produce human knowledge (simple and complex), which is the product and the revelation of the objective existence of upper reality levels that impose to us all: the knowledge (the feelings and the state of spirit too) included in human languages, incorporated by any human being as socialization processes. APD
Hi
Antonio,
I
wanted to thank you for every word that you wrote to us in this
email (see blue writing at "research team" webpage). You present a
powerful story, and a clear example of why we need to demand the
appreciation of a diversity of progressive sociologies. I see that
even though the details of our stories are quite different, we still
have similar critiques of current political systems and mainstream
sociology, which shows me that we need to promote multiple
ethnographies of people from vastly different social situations in
order to more fully appreciate what we share in common despite our
diversity. Critiques of all kinds are important and need to be
honored, which brings me to my next question.
I keep
wondering about the political power of members of the working class
and poor. Their perspectives are not heard nearly enough in the
public sphere. A lot of the workers I talk with have a good idea of how
power operates. And many times I have heard workers question the
legitimacy of different aspects of power. Most of the time that is
as far as it goes though--questioning with their friends and
coworkers. How do we get people to engage in political
participation? Most want to stay out because of the "struggle" that
is involved. For the typical American worker there does not appear
to be enough rewards to offer grassroots options and possibilities.
And they still see themselves engaged in individual struggles to
make money for themselves and their families instead of being
engaged in a collective struggle to gain control of the means of
production.
Many
times people in management
and the capitalist class work in politics as part of their jobs.
Individuals from the working class and the poor do not have the same
opportunities to participate because they have to do so in their own
personal time. And by working in a capitalist system they are
depoliticizing their own interests. The time they spend working is
spent and gone, never to be regained, and in exchange for what?
Money--which the capitalist class can get right back from the
workers when they sell products to them. How do we break this cycle?
Maybe
you are talking about a possibility in your discussion in this email. Is
there an elementary form of knowledge that can break this cycle?
I'm interested in hearing
more about what you have to say about what you mention in this
paragraph:
"That
is why I turn myself to build a social theory appropriate for
denouncing human rights faults and sociological like. I found
Durkheim to be good inspiration for that propose. It is very funny,
because I has been told since I was young (and I believed it) about
contra revolutionaries concepts of Durkheim, his positivism (as if
positivism was something diabolic). I discover what need to be
forgotten on Durkheim heritage: the idea of elementary form of
knowledge (religious knowledge) as a path to superior levels of
reality available to human beings, and not to other animals."
(see blue writing at "research team"
webpage)
I'm
interested in hearing how you think that an understanding of this
elementary form of knowledge can help to build a theory that
denounces human rights faults and mainstream sociology. What are
some of these superior levels of reality that tie in with human
rights issues? And how do we promote them?
I also
wanted to say that I agree with another point that you made that
many of the important critical and emancipatory ideas from the
classical theorists (the "soul" of the classical theorists as you
expressed it) are conveniently left out of discussions in mainstream
sociology.
Bob
Dear Bob, Continuing our discussion about Durkheim. The problem seems to be: how society changes? And how society does not change? Durkheim thinks society changes very abruptly. It changes just like that. One day the kind of social solidarity is mechanical. The other day social solidarity is organical. Like society (as a moral abstract entity) decides to intend differently. Giving the coercive power society has, everybody should conform, the best one can, to new way of being together. Durkheim said that sociology is a conservative science, because it cannot preview changing events: that will be a political and ideological problem. Science needs to gather data. It is impossible to gather data from the future. So sociologist as professionals cannot think the future. For my proposes, the good thinking are: 1) society intend and decide to change; 2) the general social changing mood spread all over society; 3) each person imitate the others, as it happens with fashion phenomena; 4) people look for opportunities to be happy, and they behave as they think social approval is more likely to be gained; 5) not everybody arrive to an happy living, because not every body accept to imitate: some of us are creative and feel joy being different, rare and more alive than the rest of humans. Marx thinks societal changing as an evolutionary process. That is the raison he thinks, optimistically, that all evolution should take live to a better stage: people prefer more productive societies. If some one finds better techno-social ways to explore natural resources, economy will find the way (by market and political natural functioning) to spread these new ways of producing products to satisfy human needs. Society must pay the price of the new ways of producing ways of life: for instance, if we need someone to guard collective products reservoir, it is fatal that the chosen one will take advantage of the situation of not working and have access to arms. Society, as an all, is constraint to pay better this social function. Till the day the way we produce (automatically, with less human work, by hi-tech factories) shows society it do not need any more to pay to guardians of the reservoir. Then society will change, fighting against the privileges of the guards, being aristocrats or capitalists. The problem is that nerve is needed. Proletarian have a lot of time to learn that they are being exploited by the capitalist system and, as soon as they realize that, they will need to be consequent within the revolutionary spirit to transform the way they work (as nature´s explorers and as workers of a master) into other kind of working organization. Than it will follows the change of all “super-structures” as politics, law, culture, education, and so on. I think that in a long run I may accept the optimism of Marx. The problem is when I feel blue because it lacks revolutionary spirit. Waiting is a difficult situation for me. So I decided to become a sociologist and I feel good doing what I do, by the time being. “Do not worry, be happy”. What can I do else than wait for the revolutionary mood to happen? I can dream about it! Would it be violence and terrible? Or would it be happy and consensual? I was lucky to live for 2 years a without blood revolution in Portugal. Comparing with non revolutionary process of becoming democratic in Spain we can ask our selves if revolution turns society better for the future. The less we can say is that it is not evident what should be the right answer. Last theoretical reference: Pierre Bourdieu. The reproduction social theory explains that each one of us become similar to our own family and friends by primary socialization and to our neighbourhoods and schools by secondary socialization. We are alike people around us because we incorporate by the body and mind, learning what other people do as living their lives. That is why class distinguishes them selves from each other socially. That is why even outside the working routine people organize their lives as class. Bourdieu call social disposition the result of these complex clustering of homogeneous trends to be alike by class distinctions. We receive social dispositions by loving and learning and we spread it to other alike, conserving different behaviours to different kind of people, such as people more prestigious, more rich, stronger, older, form the other sex, or the reverse. My theoretical proposition is to understand Bourdieu´s social dispositions as different sets of enact + learned personal and social trends for action. These dispositions are available (or inable) by personal and social intentions decisions. Whenever we decide to put in action our loving kind of mood we behave in a special way, depending on the social situation and of each one decision making. The some happens with professional mood. We can concentrate or not on this kind of behaviour and behave better or worse according to the social standards that are used to assess the quality of our competence. The some happens with revolutionary mood. Some of us are available to change behaviour for changing society. Each one of us understand differently what it means to be in revolutionary state and act differently too. The revolution to happen and its kind (violence or not, socialist or neo-liberal) depends on the mood of the revolutionaries, the way they organise them selves and the goals they look for, the social opposition and the social support. The revolution is a changing social process as lots of other kind of changing process that are not revolutionary. It needs will and to join wills form other people. When a social movement like this makes social wave, becomes fashion, it will find soon obstacles and will need to organize it self to overcome. Changing is not moral guarantied. Some times is bad. Marx optimism should be discussed: real socialism has not been a good thing for human kind. The neo-liberal revolution neither. During the Portuguese revolution we use to shout out “Neither fascism/capitalism neither social-fascism/communism!” Ok. Than, what we want? Who do we want to support? Social democracy is not an answer: is a conciliation of contradictory political utopias and programs. Some times more solidary (after the II WW, Marshal Plan) some times more narcissistic (after Nixon, if we accept the analysis of Woodiwiss (2005) The gangster capitalism). APD I feel that in countries like South Africa with a multitude of ethnicities and 11 official languages, people would feel Habermas is lacking in a conception of the challenges that cultural diversity and pluralism pose for grassroots democracy. But there is much in Habermas they might like. Judith,
Yes, Habermas does stress the rational, but don't we have to rely on a rationality(ies) to provide a framework to guide dialogues in the first place? Whenever there is an interaction, we must rely on rationales to provide the parameters of the discussion. Habermas also seems to recognize that there is an irrational side of humans. He discusses these issues in _Knowledge and Human Interests_ when he explains the importance of using psychoanalysis techniques at the individual and social levels. Though, as I write this I realize that psychoanalysis should be used to uncover irrational thoughts and desires and make them conscious so that rational thought can be the driving force of action.
As for pluralism, I figure that communicative action would allow for much plurality and diversity. The problem lies in all of the current obstacles (such as capitalism and capitalist rationales, racism, sexism, classism, multiple cultures) that keep marginalized people from having their voices heard. We need sociological research to help in this regard. It seems to me that Habermas himself thinks that there is a lot of research that needs to be done on the many different forms of oppression that occur in the modern world. That's why critical ethnographies are so important for Habermas. Habermas merely provides a template to study such oppressions. Negotiating a multitude of diverse cultures and languages makes the discussion difficult, but it does not make it impossible because languages are dynamic and can be altered to accommodate changing needs.
Do you think Habermas's public sphere is pluralistic? BOB Yes, you are right. Culture change the way social natures express themselves. And it is difficult if we analyse only social facts occurring in contexts of one specific civilization to be sure we are splitting social natures from its culture expressions. That is why it is so vital for the developing and testing of the theory to count on different experiences in different continents and different situations. Let´s do it. Thank you Alieh. APD How you will want to practice with different cultural many prisoner in the other of countries? why ,because of the cultural are different and the beaver every prisoner in every where is dispersed ? And you how want to apply the conclusions of different research and education and theories of sociology in social different conditions, In fact my mean this is: social facts, social phenomena, in the condition of social different is variety and to need to different tools for help to solving social problems. in fact ,social natures is variety in every society of that you traces. We can do the subjects of other as divorce,suicide,poor,inequility of gender,and espiecially the values that encouragement inequility in world in between of one,s ,to test that in two area of objective and subjective in human societies . I'd like to bring up Alberto's original point that started this whole discussion. He said: "Capitalism wants to transform societies into markets, mediated by money, destroying many ways of social interacting based on reciprocity, family and friends ties or even exchanges without money. Capitalist democracy adds a new perfection to this, making electoral processes a competition for money, coupled with systems like the American elections where poor people are almost discouraged to vote. Read Frank book "One market under God"" Speaking of using constructionism to critique society, capitalist rationales deemphasize the importance of nature (both human and the natural world) by emphasizing profit. Capitalist democracy forces people to act from their own self interests, instead of considering human interests overall. As one worker I interviewed recently asked me "who is going to look out for you, if you don't look out for yourself?" I think that he had a valid question, especially since he lives in the very individualistic US society. Poor people don't bother to vote because their interests are much more basic than political. They are just trying to survive and don't see how taking the time to be involved in politics, which benefits those who are already in power anyway, is going to better their lives in any way. How do we help these disenfranchised people want to be involved in the decision making process? What social forces can change the focus away from individualistic self-interests and towards issues of nature and human nature? Bob -------------- For a refreshing take on social construction, read Ian Hacking's The Social Construction of What? The key point is less about the substance of social construction analyses and more about the utilization of social construction as a base for critique and the disruption of normative claims. Ellington T. Graves Associate Director The Center for Africana Studies and Race and Social Policy Research 562 McBryde Hall - 0494 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA 24061
Yes, we can socially reconstruct environmental degredation, as
witnessed by the quote from Peter Huber:
"Cut down the last redwood for chopsticks, harpoon the last blue
whale for sushi... Humanity can survive just fine in a
planet-covering crypt of concrete and computers."
--Peter W. Huber, Hard Green: Saving the Environment from Environmentalists.
And we thought Brave New World was fiction.
Richard Floyd
Department of Sociology, Kwantlen University College Surrey, British Columbia, Canada -------------- RODNEY COATES wrote:
in the process of construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction..of
nature, identity, and reality..
much damage is done. For what is 'natural' often gets subsumed,
made irrelevant, obfuscated, or obscured by the contrived realities..that
have been constructed, reconstructed, and/ or deconstructed. Rarely
are the individuals/entities etc. that are being 'processed' relied
upon to provide the basis for the various constructions. Rather,
such constructions serve the exploitative ends of the
socio-political or socio-economical order or racial state..
>>> judith blau <jrblau@email.unc.edu> 3/29/2007 1:17:24 PM >>>
In a few weeks a team of scientists is scheduled to release the
first
major report about the world's 150 megalopolises that will be inundated as the polar cap melts Already desertification is overtaking vast areas in Africa. Can we socially reconstruct all this? In general I have trouble with social construction. Exploitation? racism? violence against women? RODNEY COATES wrote: > What is "nature"? > > Nature is our perceived realities of what we deem to be 'natural'. > Yet, such designations obscure the social construction of nature and > the redefinition of nature into 'the natural'. More specifically, > what today we deem to be 'the natural' is the product of a long > history of interactions between human systems and 'nature'. Thus > perceived, the conception of nature is by definition a socially > contrived entity. > > > > >>> "alberto moncada" <amoncada1@telefonica.net> 3/29/2007 12:38:52 PM >>> > Capitalism wants to transform societies into markets, mediated by > money, destroying many ways of social interacting based on > reciprocity, family and friends ties or even exchanges without money. > Capitalist democracy adds a new perfection to this, making electoral > processes a competition for money, coupled with systems like the > American elections where poor people are almost discouraged to vote. > Read Frank book "One market under God" Does Habermas stress the rational more than many people would like - disembodied intellect? But there is no question that he celebrated the public sphere and in America, the public sphere is overtaken by private and commercial interests. Then too - how pluralistic is Habermas' public sphere? JB Robert Robinson wrote: > Hi Antonio, > > You asked me if Habermas succeeded in his naturalistic approach. I > would have to answer both no and yes. No, because no such society has > arisen. Yes, because he has provided a template to study the > oppressiveness or freedom that a society offers to its citizens. By > providing the ideal of communicative action, Habermas counters the > relativism that postmodernism allows the discussion of freedom to > devolve into, because he provides an ideal type with which we can > compare societies. I don't think that we should throw out Habermas's > ideas because our society will never reach the ideal type that he > presents. I don't hear similar calls to throw out Weber's ideal type > of bureaucracy. > > You also ask if we should wait until things go very wrong or a crisis > occurs, and I say no. We do need to find the commonalities that can > help humans want to relate in less oppressive ways. That's why I like > the point that you made here, Antonio: > > "What is equal in social nature of human kind? Our bodies (birth, > physical reproduction, growing process of the body, aging, death, our > need of social relations, our collective ability to produce > institutions from values). The languages are very different from > society to society, and they are used to oppress people (look at the > politicians). Emancipation comes from the need of survival of humans > and from the sense of life people need to feel as alive." > > I agree with all of the points you make here, but, as long as this > striving for survival is occurring at a social level, language > (regardless of how imperfect it may be) must be used in the process of > emancipation. We must use language(s) to share our stories with one > another and to learn of the different types of oppressions that exist. > > Bob Yes. Habermas can be trying a naturalistic approach. But did he succeed? His Hegelian ideal type of speech community is it realistic? No. This kind of equality to be is not realistic or do mobilize ordinary people. Most people do not care of politics or participation. Only if things are very wrong the people united shows. Should we wait for things go very wrong? Or should we try to avoid dramatic situations? People do talk if they want to enjoy themselves or to work or to communicate at family or public space. People need to be as politicians (generals or CEO in front of their troops) to use public spheres as … politicians. Most of the time speeches do not have a very important social impact. Even to politicians, it can happen nobody ever cares about what one says. The social importance of the speech is unequal. Very unequal. And, in a sense, the speech is the less natural of the human beings behaviour. It depend a lot of the institutions: if one, like the monkey that represents the US, takes power, his speech turn from stupid to strategic. What is equal in social nature of human kind? Our bodies (birth, physical reproduction, growing process of the body, aging, death, our need of social relations, our collective ability to produce institutions from values). The languages are very different from society to society, and they are used to oppress people (look at the politicians). Emancipation comes from the need of survival of humans and from the sense of life people need to feel as alive. In short: equality is better represented by our human bodies (compared to other animals) than it is represented by human though or speech. These last are very wide, fragmented, imaginative, cosmically spread, ambiguous, manipulative and insincere. By human body I mean emotions, feelings, common thoughts (common sense or ideology in the sense Dumont define it). The concept I want to use is not Cartesian. But we have to admit that some how institutions can change the nature of the pre-institutional social relationships. The bodies (in this broad sense) are no longer so relevant to express sociability, whenever they depend on institutions, on civilization. Symbols become more and more important. As Durkheim said about Religious forms of knowledge, a radical new way of conceiving the world arises to the humans, besides the profane and routine way: he calls it society, social consciousness, morals, and put it in one level up the level of individuals. I think he was right on that. Even we need a more scientific approach: the same way that our single cells that make our bodies are live organisms by them selves, independently of the participation they have into our organisms, society lives in an upper level of reality than common individuals. That means that children, elders, handicap people and most people who are regular adults do not use all theirs social capacities. Most people do not develop them. Because is takes work and effort. Most people do not feel the need to work for it. Society powers benefits (and suffer) from social apathy. This theory explains the solitude of people on power and the need for social solidarity, without what society cannot continue and decline. APD Yes, I agree with you. Read my answer on the research team page APD
perhaps..the starting point is to reclaim sociology for passion, values, ideas.. a question i have been thinking about: What is the 'value' of sociology?
rdc
I agree that American sociology is "detached
to the point of absurdity"
and lacks any semblance of passion. In fact, any passion in
a research study makes it open to attacks and the possibility of
being immediately dismissed as biased.
I am not interested in
conducting "objective" research because of the limitations it
places on possible topics of study.
I don’t mind at all that other sociologists are engaged in
such studies. In fact, I think many of the studies can be quite
useful. I just don't want to be limited within that realm of study. I think that my blue-collar background makes me want to be involved in helping foster change in the social environment more than sharing my writings with liberal social scientists. In fact, the most satisfying part of my academic career thus far occurrs when I help my working class students gain a critical consciousness about the social world. I enjoy teaching people how to critique authority through the multitude of paradigms that sociology offers. I want to continue my search in how to create community and solidarity across a diverse group of people. Seems like challenging and delegitimizing capitalist rationales needs to be one of the first steps because of the competition and acting from one's self interests that capitalist rationales emphasize. Many who adhere to these capitalist rationales try to explain that the current distribution of resources is equitable and "fair" and "just," while they deemphasize the limitations that such an arrangement places on those individuals who have few resources at their disposal. (I find that many of the workers I study adhere to this belief system, and I want to find some way to counter it in my discussions with these workers.) And the ranking of individuals based upon their wealth or social capital is repugnant to me. I think that objective sociology falls short because it's methodologies cannot help us understand (and challenge) the faulty reasoning of the bourgeois ideology that drives these capitalist rationales and encourages human beings to treat each other as commodities. A social natures approach makes us consider first and foremost what we all have in common. Bob From: RODNEY COATES
Each of us, i think, came into the sociological project because of a
deep concern for the problems facing our world(s) and the thought (illusion/mystical)
that a better world was possible. The idea that a critical
perspective, way of looking at these problems might produce some
answers. We stay because we still believe this to be, but wonder if
we have the tools, the will, or the wherewithal to bring about the
answers....
rdc
American sociology (what I call a liberal social science) abstracts human beings as variables and is detached to the point of absurdity. For example, "statistically holding constant gender and race and income, people who do not have jobs are more likely to engage in petty crimes. " No passion, no empathy, no advocacy, and not even a point of view. "Social natures" implies a more humanistic, holistic sociology and a sociology that allows sociologists to take a point of view, to advocate for human beings, and to engage projects that will improve the human condition. Social natures also implies an incorporation of the social and environments in our thinking. JB
I
would like to make a couple of observations and ask a question that were
inspired by what Judith has said on the webpage. .
First, I
would like to say that I most definitely lean towards the
naturalistic approaches that Judith discusses. My question is,
doesn't Habermas propose a naturalistic approach in his theory of
communicative action? He provides an ideal type of speech community
to provide as a template for our society to move towards. This
ideal speech community allows for equal opportunity within the
social discourse, and coercion does not stop anyone from having their
voices heard. This approach is calling for the opposite of control
because it attempts to bring more people into the decision making
process. In some ways, a completely communicative society would be
the epitome of direct democracy. And, it seems like a communicative
society could and would honor diversity.
I'm drawn to Habermas's ideas
because they also show us how to look at power relations themselves.
If a researcher sees the social dialogue that occurs prior to an
action and the resulting social action, she can monitor the process
of power. Those who do not have a say in the social discourse are
also important to study through Habermas's framework, and an
ethnographic understanding is crucial. Habermas also presents a dialectical
theoretical approach that attempts to link larger theories about
capitalist relations with an understanding of how these larger
economic factors influence individual's lives. This critique can
also be carried over to the study of violence, since violence is
antithetical to an ideal speech community as well.
Bob
Judith said:
Liberal epistemologies are different from naturalism in
several respects.
(1) Liberalism seeks to control humanity and is adverse to variation, whereas I think of more naturalistic approaches (say, eco-socialism) as more accommodating to humanity and allowing diversity to flourish. (2) Liberalism emphasizes universal and abstracted sameness whereas naturalistic approaches favor organic relations and the flourishing of particularisms. Liberal epistemologies are compatible with capitalism and indirect democracy, whereas naturalistic approaches are averse to capitalism and favor direct democracy. To the extent my comparisons are valid, what kinds of sociologies is naturalism likely to encourage? Would there be sociology or sociologies, or would new fields be more synthetic? What kinds of societies would we envision were naturalism to overcome liberal states and capitalism? JB I am not an expert on philosophy. I am not at easy when you say "your definition of liberalism". I do not know mush about it. Anyway I know that in the States liberal politics do not mean the something than in Europe. In Europe, if we say liberal and we are talking about cultural way of living or about security matters it does not mean the same if we are talking about economics or politics. In the first sense liberal means tolerance. In the second sense it means the opposite, intolerance, competition and non compassion. Democracy is something very different for different doctrines. Soviet Union use to say it was a democratic regime: a popular democracy. Salazar, Portuguese dictator for more than 40 years and his political heritage till 1974, they claim to be democratic in some way. European regimes are different forms of democracy and they are different from US. All of them are not complete and their behaviour depends on the political time. Hitler has come to power in democracy and he had popular support to do what happened, as fascist regimes in Italy, Spain and Portugal use to have popular support. In every political system the way people want and are able to participate in politics and in decision making is the big problem, never solved, especially in those cases when people has strong opinions against powerful people in charge. For instance: nobody is intituled to organize referendum or public consulting about to go or not to war. War is against human rights. When democracy goes to war, democracy is going against human rights. I propose to distinguish different levels of reality in a way it becomes easier to think about each different part of reality, knowing that all come together and this split of levels can be easily manipulate and wrong, it depends on the theory we want to follow. melhores cumprimentos APD -----Mensagem original----- From: judith blau 25th March 2007 19:00 Assunto: Re: answering Judith Blau post on Social Natures What an interesting direction you are pursuing. A question here is what definition of liberalism we are using. I believe that liberalism insists on universals - law, certainly, but also scientific knowledge, merit, and capitalism, impersonal bureaucratic authority, and rationality. I am wary of liberalism because of its claims to universalism (Western law, Western scientific knowledge, etc.). However, I will defend the principle that human rights are universal, including the rights to self-determination, and therefore the rights to participate in democracy. I am not sure that human rights are liberal rights if they include the rights to culture, food, security, and so forth. But this may not be your definition of liberalism, which is fine. Naturalism or liberalism, as sociology, are plural inside. Each one of us feels better with a single straightforward definition for each one. Any way, as social persons we agree to say we are sociologists, even if we disagree often with each other. Our human cognitive abilities are limited. But it is very influential in society. As teachers we live by talking in public and we can (and must), doing it, support or resist institutional powers. Because institutional power needs to be legitimate by public talks. The world is infinite for us. For our glory, we need to believe that a single ideological choice is able to open the secrets of the world. In facto, it only can open (or close) each institutional door and/or our hearts facing living beings, facing other people, facing nature in general, etc. That is why I find possible to be liberal discussing about law and non liberal discussion politics or economy, and again use another ideology discussing society. If we accept multidisciplinary work, we need to accept very different approaches to different social contexts and positions. That is why democracy is more favourable to knowledge developments than authoritarism. If social nature is a specific level of reality, normative human nature (the explicit rules that organizes and legitimates collective decisions) shall refer to another specific and differentiate level of reality, different from social economic or bio-ethic levels. We can approve liberal ideology in the context of available knowledge and institutional practices at the normative level (what else can we do?) and, at the same time, to denounce neo-liberal thoughts in economics and in politics and authoritarism in social theory. I find my self described like this. I feel I can try to call for discussions on “Égalité”, starting in social theory, taking Durkheim´s views critically against dominant Weberian relativist views. I feel that Tocqueville ideological split on “liberté” against “égalité” have been taken seriously by political movements and justify Cold War on (false) morals. With the fall of Soviet Union, “égalité” becomes a stigmatized word and tough. That is why liberalism become stronger and stronger: people want to be free (as liberal law prescribe) and are told that neo-liberal politics and economics means liberty, without anyone (with credits) saying with passion that liberty is equality or it is not. Can scientific sociology do that? Can sociology take advantage of its scientific training to develop it self in a different worthy kind of scientific strategy? APD
Liberal epistemologies are
different from naturalism in several respects.
(1) Liberalism seeks to control humanity and is adverse to variation, whereas I think of more naturalistic approaches (say, eco-socialism) as more accommodating to humanity and allowing diversity to flourish. (2) Liberalism emphasizes universal and abstracted sameness whereas naturalistic approaches favor organic relations and the flourishing of particularisms. Liberal epistemologies are compatible with capitalism and indirect democracy, whereas naturalistic approaches are averse to capitalism and favor direct democracy. To the extent my comparisons are valid, what kinds of sociologies is naturalism likely to encourage? Would there be sociology or sociologies, or would new fields be more synthetic? What kinds of societies would we envision were naturalism to overcome liberal states and capitalism? JB How to organize emancipatory working class practices in the US? RR How to call attention to emancipatory social movements, namely at World Social Forum, of the moral and political relevance of supporting Human Rights turn in justice institutions and the rule of law? Take the penitentiary and jail inmate problems and torture agenda and look at prohibitionist global policies to control excluded people. See the important revelation of unfair justice and intentionality of State powers to forget the Law (CIA flights all around the world to global secret jail in different countries, beside Guantanamo or torture at our home lands). APD |
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