What do you think of the field of sociology? Are they worth getting into?
I took a class in sociology and I didn't learn much. For one it felt like Marxist indoctrination and the topics that were not politically charged didn't seem to be based on any solid theoretical grounding. My sociology teacher believes that people became sexually repressed so that they will become more productive to support the capitalist society. WTF!!! The theories that did make sense don't have practical applications. I studied neo-marxists like Horkheimer, Giddens, Herbert Marcuse, and others included in the Frankfurt school. It seems to obscure rather than enlighten. Sociological discourse is so abstract, kinda like that conceptual jungle Stefan Molyneux talks about. But I could be wrong. What do you think?
Max Weber (a famous sociologist) might have been of the German Historical school, but he was pretty free market (or at least strongly anti-socialist). He came up with an argument against socialism which was similar to Mises's. So I wouldn't say that sociology is completely worthless. Furthermore, I'd say there could be some interesting fields of study that a praxeologist could engage in when it comes to sociology.
Political Atheists Blog
krazy kaju: Max Weber (a famous sociologist) might have been of the German Historical school, but he was pretty free market (or at least strongly anti-socialist). He came up with an argument against socialism which was similar to Mises's. So I wouldn't say that sociology is completely worthless. Furthermore, I'd say there could be some interesting fields of study that a praxeologist could engage in when it comes to sociology.
Was he? He was an antipositivist and a fan of Mises' Theory of Money and Credit as well, seems unlikely that he'd be part of the German Historical School. I could be wrong though.
Sociology is largely, for whatever reason, a very statist-dominated field of study. I've always said, somewhat jokingly, that the only Marxists left these days are children, sociologists, and English teachers. However, I think sociology and praxeology could have a very interesting future together and there are certainly sociologists worth reading: Foucault, Nisbet, Sumner, Spencer, and Helmut Schoeck, among others.
My personal Anarcho-Capitalist flag. The symbol in the center stands for "harmony" and "protection"-- I'm hoping to illustrate the bond between order/justice and anarchy.
According to this, Weber was a member of the German Historical school. Since I'm not familiar with Weber's works, I can't really say whether he is or is not on my own.
I think the sociology of people like Max Weber are very different from the brand of sociology today. Today, sociology is based on the belief of some abstract 'society'. It does not consider that society is just a group of individuals in the same way as a forest is a group of trees. Their starting point is 'society' or 'structures', not the individual, and they use collective reasoning to reach conclusions. Superficial starting point makes their conclusions rather dubious from a praxeological standpoint. In my opinion, sociology cannot be reconciled with praxeology. Which is what makes me wonder if modern sociology has any merit at all.
I consider that sociology and economics should be exceedingly close areas of study and quite frankly I can't understand what the difference between Rothbard's general method of study and sociology really were.
I consider that sociology would, in its current state, naturally be dominated by heavy statist because modern "ivory tower" intellectuals almost always see the world and society as something that they can design perfectly from the top down.... In other words they hold an entirely statist attitude. I think it might be worth while looking into some of the stuff but only as a sideline, I consider economics to be a far clearer examination of society than sociology.
I think I found something that could help us.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg36.html
In that article, Hayek along with Leon Bramson and others are claimed to have shown that the purpose of sociology is to push classical liberalism out of the intellectual debate.
Do you know how Hayek did this? In what book does he explain this?
Kenneth:What do you think of the field of sociology? Are they worth getting into? I took a class in sociology and I didn't learn much. For one it felt like Marxist indoctrination and the topics that were not politically charged didn't seem to be based on any solid theoretical grounding. My sociology teacher believes that people became sexually repressed so that they will become more productive to support the capitalist society. WTF!!! The theories that did make sense don't have practical applications. I studied neo-marxists like Horkheimer, Giddens, Herbert Marcuse, and others included in the Frankfurt school. It seems to obscure rather than enlighten. Sociological discourse is so abstract, kinda like that conceptual jungle Stefan Molyneux talks about. But I could be wrong. What do you think?
I took sociological courses all the way to the most advanced courses in that field offered at the university. It is a field full of mush. Sitting through the the intro course was haphazard at best. It was fact given about this instance written on the chalkboard by the professor and then he would draw a line on the board and then move on to another fact disconnected from the previous factual topic. Another line on the board and another distinct topic. There was no theory that coherently put it all together. Then by the last course called Social Theory where all the sociological theories or as many as the professor would gloss over, were discussed. The reason why was discovered. The professor reminded us nearly every day that there isn't one social theory that works. Some partially work and some work but actually conflict with each other - yet - somehow they both worked and thereby only offered different perspectives on the same data. He made it sound like if you go onto graduate school you could be the one that makes the big theoretical breakthrough that puts all the various data in the field together into a coherent understanding. That was about 4-5 years ago and I'm sure not much has changed.
Also I took many anthropology courses and anthropologists of the 'participation observation' school which is similar to praxeology to a degree always made a fuss about how sociologists, to put it simply, have no idea what they are doing. The participation observation school recognized that the only way to truly understand a society was to participate in that particular society and do what they do while observing ones own experience in doing what they do, taking notes, cultivating confidence and trust with them to learn more about their life ways. They say this had it's limits as well because to know a society, for one, one would have to be born in that society and actually live it lifelong. That would have it's limits too though because then how does one go around learning about different cultures if one had to stay in one culture ones whole life. Staying in one culture without contrasting it with others whether through trade or visiting possibly develops bias perspectives on ones own cultures, meaning, outsiders to any culture sometimes contrast any local society by their different cultural perspective. This contrasting between different cultures makes it easier at times to realize cultural distinctions in the first place that a local wouldn't readily know because to them it was somewhat natural since it had always been that way and they never knew there were other cultural ways, etc...., which goes back to how does one truly know another culture unless such a person lived there their whole life, going through the various biological aging and experiencing all that goes along with living in such a culture each day, night, season, age development, political means, etc....
I only took an intro course in sociology so far. So my knowledge about sociology is limited. I really don't see any inherent reason why sociology would eliminate collectivism, or, why it would eliminate market economics. All it intends to do is to try to show the cultural factors that influence the individual.
I mean... people all have individual choice with their actions, but you need to take into account the other factors of action as well. So... I know that leftists and population reductionists dominate the sociological field... but like is there any reason why it inherently has to be this way? You guys shouldn't just hate on a field just because a lot of people with opposite ideological tendencies as we do tend to dominate it.
SilentXtarian:I mean... people all have individual choice with their actions, but you need to take into account the other factors of action as well.
Good thing you have access to praxeology cause they didn't teach it at the university I went to.
SilentXtarian:So... I know that leftists and population reductionists dominate the sociological field... but like is there any reason why it inherently has to be this way? You guys shouldn't just hate on a field just because a lot of people with opposite ideological tendencies as we do tend to dominate it.
I didn't say anything remotely related to what you wrote here. Maybe you only replied to my post but really didn't intend it to be a response to me? Which is fine.
wilderness: SilentXtarian:I mean... people all have individual choice with their actions, but you need to take into account the other factors of action as well. Good thing you have access to praxeology cause they didn't teach it at the university I went to.
Well I have been studying communication in college. The closest thing to praxeology in the field of communication is the idea of free-will within communication theory and that people generally have control over what they do.
I was replying to people in this topic in general. That's why I didn't specifically hit the quote button on any one post- I was trying not to give the impression that I was responding to anyone. I was merely asking a question to the whole group.
SilentXtarian:I was replying to people in this topic in general. That's why I didn't specifically hit the quote button on any one post- I was trying not to give the impression that I was responding to anyone. I was merely asking a question to the whole group.
Roger Wilco
wilderness: SilentXtarian:I was replying to people in this topic in general. That's why I didn't specifically hit the quote button on any one post- I was trying not to give the impression that I was responding to anyone. I was merely asking a question to the whole group. Roger Wilco
I see. Also, on the notion on free-will. At least with communication theorists...
I'm taking a communication theory class and I've learned about the whole free-will vs not free-will approach. I know Mises doesn't care about free-will. He thinks that people make their decisions with a purpose. And it doesn't matter if people have control of their decision or not. But most people don't frame it like that. At least within intellectual discussions within the field of communication with regards to free-will, people either take a rules approach to research, or a systems approach to research.
The rules approach indicates that people have general control of their decisions but they're restrained by rules, about what they can do and what they cannot do (there are theories that take the rule approach), and the other approach is the systems approach. The systems approach is that things are interconnected and people have free-will for the most part but are restrained by the system itself. Both branches believe in individual choices.
There's also the covering law approach that people take where people don't believe in free-will take. This is the approach used by people who believe in more of a scientific view that behavior is predictable and that people are governed based on communication laws that can be uncovered.
The field of communication is not dominated by any one view. So that's kind of why I was saying that I don't see why the field of sociology would exactly negate praxeology. The field of communication allows for multiple views... I mean I understand that sociology is dominated by leftists who believe people are always being oppressed by capitalists. I've taken a sociology course and my textbook explained capitalism as a system where owners exploit the workers (I mean how obvious of a bias can you have than that?)... but I don't see why the teachings of sociology would negate individualism. As I've already expressed- the field of communication doesn't do that. So why should sociology?
SilentXtarian:So why should sociology?
Praxeologic studies social phenomena, ie. sociology, premised by the axiom human action. That is the starting point that differs from the other theories. Humans are social animals, so no, sociology as a field doesn't negate praxeology as praxeology would only better the study of social phenomena.
wilderness: SilentXtarian:So why should sociology? Praxeologic studies social phenomena, ie. sociology, premised by the axiom human action. That is the starting point that differs from the other theories. Humans are social animals, so no, sociology as a field doesn't negate praxeology as praxeology would only better the study of social phenomena.
Okay. I understand that. But why can't sociology be more like the field of communication? As I've already mentioned, the field of communication allows for the traditional sociological view, that people are governed by society, and, laws and what-not. The field of communication also allows more of a praxeological approach to studying human phenomenon. Even with critical theorists in communication- they're not limited only to a dogmatic sociological approach. They can take an interpretive approach studying human behavior within the realm of human choices and free-will. And you can take a praxeological approach to the rules-theory approach, and, with the systems approach.
I guess a better question would be... why couldn't take more of a praxeological approach to it? I wasn't asking why should sociology do it- if I did- I made a mistake. But... I don't see why sociology should just leave all of its field to the collectivist approach. Even the field of communication doesn't do that.
I guess what I'm wondering is why sociology has let itself become dominated by a bunch of marxists and communists. The field of communication hasn't been dominated by any one particular ideology. If you dislike sociology as a social science- you should check out communication theory. I think it would be much more up your ally. That's what I'm studying right now and I don't see nearly the same problems that plague sociology that are in the field of communication.
I was taught that Max Weber opposed capitalism (the iron cage). Either way, here's my impression of sociology: it asks every question but answers none. It's all over the place (history, economics, psychology, public choice ect).
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
SilentXtarian:I guess what I'm wondering is why sociology has let itself become dominated by a bunch of marxists and communists.
Because that's the field marxist deal with, ie. society. Social workers are one of, if not, the largest population that come out of sociology. They are people once they have a degree can amazingly invade other people's homes for sometimes the most nonsensical things. Social workers (case workers) are one of the most controversial applications of the gov't allowed in today's society. It's not as if the gov't, ie. case workers, are always involved in situations that are in accord with the rights of individuals. Other fields within sociology being that they are trained in social engineering for that's what they learned all that stuff for, to some day to get a job that uses what they learn. Those fields they are trained in get jobs that socially engineer society and what is supposedly best for society is in and of itself self-evident as to what the downside of all of that would entail. In other words, they somehow know what is best for society and try to mold it according to their whims. Unfortunately, it puts some people into power positions to fiddle around with other people's lives. What Marxist wouldn't like most fields in sociology?
from wikipedia:
Sociology: "Practical applications
Social research informs politicians and policy makers, educators, planners, lawmakers, administrators, developers, business magnates, managers, social workers, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and people interested in resolving social issues in general. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields."
krazy kaju:According to this, Weber was a member of the German Historical school. Since I'm not familiar with Weber's works, I can't really say whether he is or is not on my own.
Here's more to add to what krazy kaju had noted as follows:
Ludwig Lachmann:But they were at odds in the way they conceived of the new science.Mises, following Menger, drew a sharp distinction betweentheory and history and attributed great importance to it. To Weberon the other hand, as to the whole German Historical School, thisdifference was entirely a matter of degree, and not of kind. Misesrecognizes and deplores that for Weber....
From the Foreword to Mises Epistemological Problems of Economics
--
Weber is discussed quite often in that book of Mises. Mises didn't throw everything out Weber offered. The ideals that Weber discusses, in an Aristotelian framework that Mises had access to with Menger, gain an appearance to what species are (anybody familiar with the Linneus system in biology will instantly understand that term which find it's roots in Aristotle's works and other Greeks), and the types that Carl Menger worked with. I can't fully express what Mises denounced and what he supported but that book of Mises does.
Weber did attempt theories which in general the German Historical School is not known for, but that school is a general notion for a hodgepodge of various authors. Some of Weber's approaches are of use especially when combined with praxeology and that is the intellectual privilege that praxeology offers to various disciplines. Praxeology possibly heals intellectual works that were ill, revive it, and turn it into something it never could have been without. Mises points out Weber didn't go far enough into latching his theories with aprior methodology which is a fundamental flaw of the German Historical School and so steps in Praxeology to salvage what could be salvaged, and that's basically what happens during a paradigm change.
wilderness: SilentXtarian:I guess what I'm wondering is why sociology has let itself become dominated by a bunch of marxists and communists. Because that's the field marxist deal with, ie. society. Social workers are one of, if not, the largest population that come out of sociology. They are people once they have a degree can amazingly invade other people's homes for sometimes the most nonsensical things. Social workers (case workers) are one of the most controversial applications of the gov't allowed in today's society. It's not as if the gov't, ie. case workers, are always involved in situations that are in accord with the rights of individuals. Other fields within sociology being that they are trained in social engineering for that's what they learned all that stuff for, to some day to get a job that uses what they learn. Those fields they are trained in get jobs that socially engineer society and what is supposedly best for society is in and of itself self-evident as to what the downside of all of that would entail. In other words, they somehow know what is best for society and try to mold it according to their whims. Unfortunately, it puts some people into power positions to fiddle around with other people's lives. What Marxist wouldn't like most fields in sociology? from wikipedia: Sociology: "Practical applications Social research informs politicians and policy makers, educators, planners, lawmakers, administrators, developers, business magnates, managers, social workers, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and people interested in resolving social issues in general. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields."
Society is what we deal with all the time. I guess what I'm saying is that the field of communication deals with people and how they see the world and interact with each other. Communication borrows largely from sociology and other fields, that, people here tend to dislike. Sociology is supposed to probe the greater problems of society. It's supposed to ask questions about why people are impoverished and what-not. Why social inequality exists. I guess that such a field would naturally lend itself to being dominated by leftists... but I'm just saying it doesn't have to be. Take a look at what communication theory has to offer...
From wikipedia:
The Academic Study of Communication
Communication has existed since the beginning of human beings, but it was not until the 20th century that people began to study the process. As communication technologies developed, so did the serious study of communication. When World War I ended, the interest in studying communication intensified. The social-science study was fully recognized as a legitimate discipline after World War II.
Before becoming simply communication, or communication studies, the discipline was formed from three other major studies: psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Psychology is the study of human behavior, Sociology is the study of society and social process, and anthropology is the study of communication as a factor which develops, maintains, and changes culture. Communication studies focus on communication as central to the human experience, which involves understanding how people behave in creating, exchanging, and interpreting messages.[citation needed]
Communication Theory has one universal law posited by S. F. Scudder (1980). The Universal Communication Law states that, "All living entities, beings and creatures communicate." All of the living communicates through movements, sounds, reactions, physical changes, gestures, languages, breath, etc. Communication is a means of survival. Examples - the cry of a child (communication that it is hungry, hurt, cold, etc.); the browning of a leaf (communication that it is dehydrated, thirsty per se, dying); the cry of an animal (communicating that it is injured, hungry, angry, etc.). Everything living communicates in its quest for survival."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_theory
SilentXtarian:I mean... I'm just saying... you don't have to ignore the problems of the individual to study the larger aspect of society and how individuals interact with it.
very true
Ok, so would I be wrong in saying that the field of sociology - is kind of like international law?
In that - it only exists due to false assumptions / errors? (e.g states)
*Haven't made the analogy particularly clear but I hope someone gets what I mean.
Say, in a libertarian world - there would be no nation states, no lines drawn in the sand - and as such there is no reason for international law at all... much like the gold standard would probably come to dominate, there goes all the fiat money.... (with no guns to back it up).
So essentially, the field of sociology, is a by product of statism / collectivism etc, and is unnecessary, as much as international law, or fiat currency would be in a stateless society.
?
Mises discusses Weber several times throughout Memoirs (and Notes and Recollections). Also check out the entirety of Chapter 1 for his analysis of Historicism and the German Historical School.
Conza,
For the most part that appears to be true. Most of sociology is about exploitation and how to fix it. It defines gender and the workplace inequalities, etc.... One thing sociology implements are survey's that sometimes end up in polls and some of the social research institutions are national polls like Gallup, etc.... Institutions like Acorn, etc... are sociological in nature. Remember Obama was a supposed community worker in Chicago, again, that's also known as a social worker or case worker but they have different labels depending on what exactly he was doing.
Sociology tries to deal with large societies and works with samples to get it's data. In anthropology there is a field called applied anthropology which has some of the same hang-ups that sociology does which is it starts with the assumption that there is something wrong with the society so how can it be fixed? That's their starting point. In applied anthropology this tends to mean the culture is not as advanced as other cultures so the researchers ask themselves how they can get the culture to use advanced technologies without messing up the underlying already pre-existing behavior. The researches don't want to have the technology intervened straight into the society and cause exploitation, etc.... That's the mind-set. The culture has habits so the new technologies can only enhance the so-called 'bad habits' that pre-exist and only make things worse. So the applied anthropologists has to know the behaviors of the people first and then figure out how to give them the new technology. It's a type of command and control economy still in which the outsiders come in and think they can best implement the new technologies and change their ways. I wouldn't doubt the U.S. uses them when they are nation-building in other countries.
Another field in anthropology is where future CIA agents and others of that type go to learn. I can't remember the field name at the moment. One would take it in graduate school. I've looked over it's courses before and it is mainly courses that teaches the student how to intellectually digest massive amounts of information and interweaves this with differing cultural understandings.
One of the few upsides to anthropology is when it takes a descriptive approach, which it is very difficult to do in sociology because sociology deals with large populations and tries to use samples to identify what the whole population 'thinks' which has it's obvious flaws. But the anthropology that is descriptive (outside all of the efforts anthropology with the fields that it has such as archaeology or physical anthropology, ie. forensics, or dealing with ancient humankind fossils, etc...) it does go to extant cultures and live with them and write about them. This is how tourist agencies at times (I don't know how they fully get all their information but this is one way) get their information on the various cultures around the world. There are anthropologists that focus just on this and I don't see a problem with this approach. So aside from working with tourist mechanism, archaeology, forensics, ancient fossils, primatology, and other natural science approaches like these latter three within anthropology, I don't know much else that would potentially stick around as fields unto themselves. But as for sociology I don't see how any of it would stick around. Cause I've only described anthropological fields that potentially would. Anything sociology potentially could do, anthropology already does. Sociology has taken a more pro-active approach, an interventionalist approach whereas some of anthropology is scientific, ie. descriptive, except that one field I mentioned in called applied anthropology which appears to be a spill over from sociology in trying to engineer a culture to what outsiders think would be best for them.
That's my somewhat short opinion.
Edit: I found the name of the field in which if you have an undergraduate degree in anthropology then some students having this degree having the interest to be future CIA, National Security, and other intelligent analysts and practitioners take this program in graduate school. Here's a universities web page to explain it. It's called Applied Intelligence.
I think comparing sociology to fiat money is accurate. Fiat money exists because of compulsory monopoly of the mint, Sociology(or most of it anyway) exists because of state monopoly over intellectuals.
The biggest problem with sociology is that it is essentially trying to be psychology, but from a collectivist point of view. I think for any one of these people to be remotely successful in finding truth, they need to understand psychology first, and probably economics afterward. Then they can try to make sense of studying cultural/social relations. Not before.
The other problem of sociology is that it seems like a field in which the participants try to find justification to support conclusions, rather than create conclusions to support studies. This becomes more and more evident judging by the kind of ideologues who enter it (often Marxists). Because of this, it is not a proper science. It will be at best half-ass until it reverses course.
The Frankfurt School is very interesting case in my opinion, and its influence in the post World War II culture has been noticed by many of its critics such as paleolibertarian Paul Gottfried ("Strange death of Marxism"), paleoconservatives Ralph de Toledano ("Cry Havoc") and Pat Buchanan ("Death of the West") and finally the infamous psychologist Kevin MacDonald ("Culture of Critique").
It seems that members of Frankfurt school were disillusioned because the communists were unable to take power in Germany in the 1920s or 1930s and began to find alternative theories about false consciousness that proletarians could adopt. In this theorizing they synthesised Freudian psychoanalysis with Marxism to find more explanatory theory about this phenomenom.
The synthesis of psychonalysis and marxism (so called neofreudianism) really has had many devastating effects into our modern culture because the managerial class can characterise every deviation from the "politically correct" line as a some form of psychopathology and take more and more re-educational tasks into its own hands. Sometimes it feels like the whole field of sociology is only a job to find faults in our society that we need government to interfere and fix.
This article by Rothbard about psychohistory and the misuse of Freudian theory is worth of looking at.http://mises.org/daily/2330
To be honest, there is much divergence within the Frankfurt School itself. Althought it was affiliated with known comintern agents, such as Franz Neumann, it seems that most of its members were honestly critical about the Soviet Union, althought strangely left-wing authoritarianism wasn't analysed in the magnum opus Authoritarian Personality(1950), coordinated by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Habermas has recently been against comparing the crimes of Stalin and Hitler. And while everyone remembers the quotation by Horkheimer that "'whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism", but even some of the schools members claimed that private property was essentially dead in Nazi Germany and that bureaucratic ruling class had taken control in that country.
One of course shouldn't dismiss a science or school of thought outrightly, just because one doesn't like the outcomes many of their proponents or students propose. What you point to is however perfectly right. Many fathers of sociology were not really in line with todays Neomarxist professors, there. And even among them you may here and there find something that has truth value.
Left-wing Hegemony in sociology is a serious problem tough. Consider that they do train tomorrows teachers and journalists. This hegemony may also have an impact on method and/or theory produced there (I'd say it most certainly has). This of course keeps that hegemony alive as well. I'd say their method is holistically inclined. That's not completely false, but will lead to fallacies, if done one-sided. A praxeological approach to sociology may be very helpful and I think Mises and von Wieser did do some work in this field already. Shall we pick up the ball again?