SOCIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC LIES IN
A RACIST SOCIETY
Introduction
The writers realize that the title of this paper is shocking and needs some
immediate clarification so that the reader does not dismiss the paper as
frivolous or politically motivated from a conservative viewpoint. First of
all, the writers are not conservative but rather of the left in the tradition
of Martin Luther King, Jr. (sans the naivete of King as regards the intransigence
of racism in America). The writers are to the left of multicultural liberal
sociology because they take racism as integral to American politics, society,
values, and thought, rather than just as a serious social problem. This political
statement has to be made up front because most sociologists being liberal
always have their radar on looking either for conservatives masquerading
as sociologists or for politically incorrect sociologists.
Also worth mentioning is that the main author has training in the sciences
(and is now the chairperson for the field committee for the Torrey Botanical
Society, the oldest botanical society in the western hemisphere) and in history
(author of a book on historical tours of the mid-Atlantic states and of a
theory of American political cycles). Unlike the vast majority of sociologists,
he has extensive training in disciplines other than sociology.
Sources of the Lies: American Liberalism and New Leftism
The history of sociology is the history of American liberal political thought.
Sociology serves liberal political goals and believes this is a good thing.
Sociology tries to provide the social "scientific" back-up for whatever is
considered the liberal position(s) of the time. Sociologists are certainly
not unique in this tendency to distort the truth. In fact, most people lie
to themselves and each other.
There are two main sources of sociological lies. The first is that sociologists
are liberals. Now, ordinarily there would be nothing wrong with being a liberal.
The only trouble is that we are talking about American liberalism. And American
liberalism works within the confines of a racist society. Because of this
the United States is a very divided country with a great deal of inequality.
This leads to some very nasty political events, such as the time America
destroyed over 620,000 of its men in a civil war. It also leads to some nasty
politics and political positions. The conservatives in America are indeed
very conservative -- the last puritanical country. The trouble with this
type of conservatism is that American liberalism takes so many of its own
positions as mere counter positions to the conservatives. Locked in fierce
political battle, ground cannot be given to the enemy. Using a boxing analogy,
liberals are counter-punchers. The problem with counter-punching, however,
is that it does not allow for much freedom of movement to develop one's own
positive strategy. One is always being defensive. Similarly, American liberals
have taken some pretty terrible positions just to block the conservatives.
The one that has hurt the liberals the most is their position on crime, in
which to block the conservatives, they have made it too easy for criminals.
Good liberals will deny this, but the vast majority of Americans seem to
feel that liberalism have become so intransigent that the very name of liberal
is a negative one.
Sociology has many reasons to lie and this mostly stems from their lie about
the nature of race in America. Sociology, being unable to admit the full
importance of racism as not just a social problem or a dilemma, has to distort
the knowledge acquired by other disciplines, so there are no blatant examples
of contradiction between micro and macro theories -- the little lies must
fit with the big lies. In fact, American liberals in general, and sociologists
in particular, lie about so many areas that one has to ask not what they
are lying about, but what they are not lying about.
Most of the recruits for sociology are from liberal backgrounds and many
of them get into sociology because they "want to help people" or to "change
and improve the society." When a group of politically motivated people come
together they then reinforce each other. They agree on the liberal approach
and support each other in their attempts to use sociology for politically
liberal causes.
Liberal sociologists construct lies of commission where sociologists selectively
pick liberal topics and take liberal positions on these topics. And there
are lies of omissions, where sociologists refuse to discuss many topics,
not suited to the promotion of liberal views.
Indeed, sociology started out as a branch of "moral" philosophy. According
to Hinkle and Hinkle (1954:3-4) the early sociologists came from rural and
religious backgrounds and were primarily concerned with ethical issues. Sociology
was also a descendant of the general intellectual movement committed to
betterment of urban social conditions. Indeed, in all of its phases, the
authors note that the Social Science Movement that brought about the founding
of the American Sociological Society in 1905 was concerned with science and
social reform. Despite all the talk about making sociology a science, this
was not seen as a contradiction to, but rather as a means to social reform.
The earliest sociologists were men of the cloth, ministers, reverends, and
priests. This emphasis on the "moral" has never really left sociology, and
indeed sociologists can truly best be understood as preachers. Like the preacher,
the sociologist considers that he or she is speaking the truth, not of religion
but of the revealed word of liberal sociology. Sociology had then, as it
has still today, a faith in progressive social change and a belief in social
reformism. They always see themselves as liberal spokespersons. In this sense,
sociologists have never really pretended to be objective politically, bur
rather see themselves primarily as good liberals. When the definition of
liberalism changes, the definition of the content of sociology also changes
correspondingly. Like the minister, the sociologist gets paid for imparting
the truth to others. This leads to the occupational hazard of intellectual
arrogance -- that, indeed, one has the truth. Sociologists are very comfortable
with their world and feel that only the conservative motives of their opponents
prevent others from accepting the truth of sociology.
As Gouldner (1973:144) remarks about Lipset's proof that sociologists have
always been liberal, "As ever, he is a master at driving home the uncontroversial
point." Our statement above is meant to contrast liberalism to conservatism,
but rather American liberalism to a non-racist liberalism. As a person of
the left, we do not mind people having political opinions. Value free sociology
is a myth. In fact, it is good that sociologists have values and a good sense
of ethics. The problem is that their ethics are steeped in American liberalism,
which is a racist liberalism.
American liberalism is the liberalism of a country that is more racist than
sociologists ever imagined. American liberalism has always worked within
the system to bring about gradual change. However, after nearly 400 years
of American history, liberals are still faced with a racist country. The
most virulent forms of racism have been overcome, but the United States remains
a racist country.
The second source of lies within sociology is that the traditional economic
liberalism of America has been replaced by a New Left version of racial
liberalism accompanied by politically correct censorship and accepting
multiculturalism separatism as an ideal for the entire society. (By the way,
as much as the New Left separatists want to establish the formula, multicultural
separatism does not equal tolerance and a live-and-let-live attitude.)
New Leftism has brought a substantial politicization to sociology. Speaking
of the new left radicals, Gouldner (1973:chapter 2) talks about the sociologist
as partisan. Gouldner (1973:28) writes that "there has been a substantial
change in the occupational culture of sociologists in the last decade or
so." He says that sociologists have become so politicized that many sociologists
now insist that the sociologist has to identify with all outsiders. More
specifically, this idea rose in the study of deviance where sociologists
like Howard Becker said that the sociologists have to identify with the deviant
as opposed to the dominant society. This is New Leftism taken to the extreme.
Sociologists should identify with the truth regardless of what is politically
popular at the time. Sticking to the truth as an ideal never fails one because
you neither identify with the underdog nor the top dog, but with the truth
itself. And frankly, the truth is almost always controversial, and will make
one an outsider in the current social context.
Perhaps the biggest
sociological lie current today in American sociology is that the multicultural
sociologists are persons of the political left. The current politically correct
sociologists have abandoned the old economic issue continuum for one based
on race and ethnicity. Anyone who disagrees with the "left" positions of
multiculturalism is considered racist. The problem with this is that
multiculturalism is actually a version of separatist thought in the tradition
of Martin Delany, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X. The
proponents of multiculturalism maintain that anyone not agreeing with
multicultural separatism is a racist pushes even people like Martin Luther
King, Jr. and Vernon Johns into the racist camp. This is obviously ludicrous,
but politically acceptable to the majority of sociologists, which brings
us back to the importance of understanding sociology as acceptable political
lies. After all, any sociologist challenging the current political orthodoxy
is threatened not only with the label of racist but more importantly with
the loss of promotion or even an academic position.
We are going to identify the lies of sociology beginning with those dealing
with the natural sciences and extending to the social sciences and the
humanities. We will end with a focus on sociology itself.
Sociologists: Anti-Scientific and Anti-Evolutionary Thinkers
Sociologists know very little natural science. Most of them can not truly
explain even how evolution works. We have read many a sociological passage
describing evolution that reveals the sociologists' complete lack of scientific
sophistication.
Sociologists are also anti-scientific in that they don't care what these
scientists have established using the scientific method. If it is not useful
for American liberalism as currently practiced in sociology, it should be
denounced or ignored. Indeed, one can even say that sociologists have a
know-nothing attitude toward science. Instead, sociologists use strawmen
arguments to polish off quickly the relevance of biology. Consequently, most
introductory text books to sociology devote only one page to the nature versus
nurture controversy. These text books also continue to refute the 1908 argument
of English psychologist William McDougall concerning the importance of instincts.
Are sociologists even aware that science has made considerable progress since
1908?
A lie in regard to biology is the description of the history of Darwinian
thought in America itself. Darwinian thought, wherein humans were regarded
as animals just like any of the other animals, was always, and still is,
too radical for American society and therefore was dismissed out of hand.
Americans were never Social or Liberal Darwinists, but rather Social or Liberal
Lamarckians, after the unscientific theories of Lamarck. Lamarck maintained
the wrong theory that organisms could adapt to their environments and pass
these adaptations down directly to their offspring. For instance, if a giraffe
strained to reach higher into the trees to eat the leaves, this stretching
would then be passed on to its progeny. Lamarckism may be a wrong theory,
but American thinkers accepted it because the conservatives hated Darwinism
and the liberals knew Lamarckianism was more attuned to liberal values (
because it seemed to back the liberal assumption that improvements in environment
would produce improvements in humans).
The idea of evolution as applied to humans was especially disturbing to liberal
social scientists. Indeed, many social thinkers refused to accept the full
implications of the evolutionary idea. In other words, they argued that man
was fundamentally different from other life forms, refusing to accept the
full implications of man as animal. Indeed, a group of American liberals
mounted a "social philosophic" attack on evolution. These men, known as the
Cambridge metaphysicians, included John Fiske, Chauncey Wright, C. S. Pierce,
and William James. These philosophers refused to accept the deterministic
implications of evolution. Instead, they argued for the compatibility between
religious faith and science, and for the inherent value of intuitive and
value-oriented thought. This, they said, is what made humans different from
the animals.
In sociology, there was a matching attack on evolution with the thought of
men who became known as symbolic interactionists. The psychic sociology of
Lester Frank Ward (the leading sociological opponent of Social Lamarckianism)
helped foster the discipline's focus on social interaction as the key to
the development of the human adult. The symbolic interactionists became supreme
in this area with the work of such leading sociologists as Charles Horton
Cooley and George Herbert Mead. The symbolic interactionists, like the
behaviorists and others, made inferences about the human mind almost exclusively
from the actions and thoughts of humans. But symbolic interactionists have
not kept pace with the new findings about the brain and human development.
This branch of sociology needs to adapt its theories to take into account
the new science of the mind.
Sociologists often make fun of the anti-evolutionist conservatives and
creationists who want to bring religion back into the schools via their attacks
on evolution. And yet, sociologists are themselves anti-evolutionary thinkers.
Because in the history of American social thought conservatives used biology
to back their claims of the superiority of the white race, sociology and
other social scientists have declared biology to be a racist discipline,
not to be taken seriously by any proper liberal thinker. Sociologists
conveniently forget that although there was a conservative Social Lamarckianism,
there was also a liberal and radical Social Lamarckianism. So how this makes
biology an inherently conservative discipline should be beyond any rational
thinker. (Using the same logic, since most current racist thought today is
couched in terms of sociology in the form of sociological racism, sociology
should be identified as a racist discipline not to be taken seriously by
any decent liberal thinker. Obviously this is a ridiculous line of thinking,
but apparently not to sociologists.)
Sociologists are always trying to destroy any bridge between the natural
and social sciences. In doing this, they also deny man's animal origins.
Cutting ourselves off from biology cuts us off from our shared origins with
other animals. The more zoologists and anthropologists study animal societies
the more they discover the commonality of humans and other animals. Indeed,
societies and social structure existed prior to the very existence of human
beings. The history of American social thought, however, has been to try
to explain why we are separate and apart and different from the other animals,
rather than noting our commonality. Sociologists should be showing the
interconnections of humans with animals, instead of highlighting the differences.
Rather than seeking to differentiate their discipline from the natural sciences,
sociologists should emphasize how social man is connected to natural, biological
man.
What sociologists and other social scientists have done is create a second
myth of Genesis. Sociologists knew that they could not refute evolution,
so they decided to end-run it instead. It was not that evolution was necessarily
wrong, but that for humans it was irrelevant. Thereby, sociologists constructed
a theory of the second genesis. They argued that, since man developed socially,
humans are qualitatively different from animals. Therefore, man and woman
are still Adam and Eve. However, the creator is no longer God, but society
and culture. The discipline resurrected Adam and Eve by declaring that evolution
did not apply to humans. According to these theorists, humans came into the
world pristine and are corrupted only by poor child care or by the larger
society. This is, of course, an example of sociological determinism as well
as a very unscientific idea contradicting the whole thrust of chemical evolution
in animals and plants.
The second genesis theory of human beings has been devastating in several
major areas. The first is that it reinforces an anti-scientific attitude
towards the natural sciences. The second is that social theory supports a
narrow-minded moralism. Many problems that were once viewed as "social problems"
are best seen primarily or secondarily as having a biological basis (including
drug and alcohol dependence, homosexuality, mental illnesses, suicide, etc.).
Ignoring the fact that many human behaviors are the result of chemical imbalances
only supports intolerance of humans toward each other, as we moralize about
"bad" behavior of the "deviants."
Sociologists may see biology as threatening sociology's space, but the tragedy
of the social sciences cutting themselves off from biology is that they have
cut themselves off from all the natural sciences. They are currently fighting
a rearguard against the avalanche of scientific studies that show that humans
are not tabula rasa, but rather that genetics accounts for perhaps as much
as 50% percent of the variation in human personality. For sociologists to
continue to ignore the ongoing avalanche of scientific findings simply serves
to make the discipline with their anti-scientific approach appear ridiculous
and out-of-date.
The end result is that sociology has little understanding of human nature
itself. The sociologists are studying only part of the picture when they
insist that biology is not relevant to the social sciences. For instance,
social scientists are largely unaware of the new findings that man's brain
contains the evolutionary developments of other animals.
Anti-Ecology
The science of ecology involves the sciences of astronomy, geology, biology
(botany and zoology), and physical anthropology (studying the movement of
humans out of Africa and the creation of different races, ethnic, and linguistic
groups as adaptations to the environment). Ecology secondarily also includes
sociology, history and political science. Whether one society or "civilization"
is more advanced than another is primarily a reflection of ecological accidents.
Human societies are best understood as a reflection of the makeup
of the various social divisions and conflicts within that society: the more
social divisions, the greater the conflict. Those geographical areas terribly
split into different ecological units or open to constant invasion by other
groups, influenced the creation of nations with great social divisions. These
social divisions then were perpetuated in the society, but they did not arise
from the society or societies first.
A big fallacy of the social sciences resulting from their ignoring ecological
science is seeing history as one of "Western Civilization" and emphasizing
a cultural rather than an ecological approach. This bias is seen in most
discussion of the origins of Western civilization, including sociological
ones. The current linking of African-Americans to the cultures of ancient
Egypt is just as misleading as this same type of linking for Western civilization
(see Lefkowitz 1996).
Anti-Psychiatry
After the triumph of Progressivism in America, American social scientists
rejected all biological theories of evolution as applied to humans. Instead
they accepted the free will philosophies of William James, and then the
scientifically-wrong theories of Sigmund Freud. Since America as a racist
country cannot take whole truths, they have to ingest half-truths. Such is
the case with Sigmund Freud. In Europe, the scholars and thinkers made the
right choice and went with Emil Kraeplin who always considered psychiatry
a part of medicine and, therefore, the natural sciences.
Cutting social science off from biology has made sociology and the other
social sciences hostile to psychiatry and chemistry. Sociology often likes
to talk about "the myth of mental illness" (see Scacz 1961, 1987, 1994).
There has been a recent revolution in psychiatry wherein the brain as complicated
chemistry is finally being explained (Andreas 1991). This has opened up a
whole new field of psychopharmacology wherein many psychiatric disorders
are now seen as chemical imbalances and are being treated with medication.
But sociologists are still fighting a rearguard action against these advances
in science, hoping to maintain the supposed near-exclusive role of social
forces in explaining human behavior. Unfortunately, this prejudice simply
reinforces the prejudice against mentally ill people and plays a role in
preventing people with mental problems from openly seeking help.
Anti-Unity of Knowledge
An often repeated myth is that in this age of specialization no one can truly
be a Renaissance man. The truth is that the natural sciences have made so
much progress and we understand so much more today that we did just twenty
or thirty years ago that it is now clear how all the knowledge disciplines
are linked. The progress of knowledge has not divided us further, but rather
has linked us together. This, however, is unacceptable to the social sciences.
Cutting off the social sciences from biology has made sociology and the other
social sciences hostile to the natural sciences. The tragedy is that this
makes education a splintered endeavor rather than a united one, wherein we
see the world through various selfish disciplines and subdisciplines rather
than seeing a unified whole.
We mentioned that part of the rejection of biology by sociology stems from
boundary definition. Sociology feels it has to fend off other sciences and
social sciences from trying to horn-in on their territory. In fact, they
often cultivate an ignorance of other disciplines. And, frankly, with this
approach to knowledge, most academicians are hopelessly uneducated. They
are only educated in their own subdisciplines.
Little Knowledge Of and Just Plain Bad History
Sociologists know very little history and this makes for bad sociology.
Furthermore, sociologists are usually engaged in such micro studies that
their studies have no historical context or perspective. This creates some
very strange, and often misleading, sociological approaches.
Sociology not only distorts its findings for political purposes but also
distorts its own history. In American politics, as one politically liberal
paradigm replaces an older liberal paradigm, the new liberals accuse the
old liberals of actually being covert conservatives. This same process goes
on in sociology. For instance, during the cold war period, sociologists,
such as the functionalists, were proper political liberals with good liberal
credentials. With the coming of the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam
War movement, liberalism changed and the new liberal sociologists complained
that their predecessors were actually conservatives in hiding. It would be
far closer to the truth to say the older sociologists were now just old liberals
who have been surpassed by the new liberals, but that is not enough to win
the war for the new liberal paradigm. The older liberals have to be tarred
with the conservative label in order to insure that their paradigm is
discredited. History has to be rewritten and distorted to help support the
newer emergent liberal paradigm.
Similarly, as sociologists began to move toward racial/ethnic separatism
under the guise of multiculturalism, they began to denigrate the liberals
of the early civil rights movement, followers of Vernon Johns and Martin
Luther King, Jr. But this does not change the fact that sociologists are
always the liberals of their times.
Anti-Spirituality
Using the same logic involved in the sociological condemnation of biology,
sociology has developed an extreme prejudice against the consideration of
spirituality and religion in American life and thought (see Carter 1993).
This is another example of counter-punch logic. This in turn widens the gap
between the social sciences and the humanities rather than seeing all the
endeavors of humans as united and coherent. (Here we are not speaking of
the sociology of religion area.) Just because the conservatives have been
fond of using religion to justify their actions does not mean that sociologists
should dismiss this realm of knowledge out of hand. Even if one tries to
talk to sociologists about this realm by substituting the word spirituality
for religion, the average sociologist's eyes still glaze over at any attempt
at rational discussion of the matter. The refusal to consider the spiritual
realm is just one more example of sociology cutting itself off from whole
areas of thought and considering them off limits to serious sociological
inquiry.
Poor Sociology: Too Much Narrow Specialization
Sociologists actually know very little since they are so specialized. And
this specialization curse has gotten worse because of the growth of many
subspecialties. But this does not stop sociologists from using their
subdiscipline expertise to generalize about the larger world. For instance,
Portes (1984, 1987 ) uses data about labor markets and Hispanics in Miami
to assert the wonderfulness of separate ethnic cultures. But his knowledge
base is so limited as to be provide virtually no basis for talking about
macro politics.
And don't forget the narrowness of academia itself and the accompanying problem
of all academicians: arrogance. After all, aren't they being paid by the
university because they have the truth and can dole it out to the students?
Too many minds are closed among sociologists because they think they have
the truth already. No where is this more evident than in the field of race
relations, where everyone has an opinion and virtually no one is willing
to listen to unorthodox views.
Living with Contradictions: Materialism and Idealization
Sociologists are not marxist enough. Here we mean marxism in the larger sense
as an emphasis on materialism and economics, not his specific theory of
capitalism. We might also include biology -- the study of the nature of man
as more of a materialist being than an ideational one. Befitting American
liberalism, liberal sociology has always been somewhat anti-Marxist. This
is reflected in American sociology's unmarxian overemphasis of the importance
of values and ideas relative to social structure.
The white liberal interpretation of race relations has always been a modified
and weakened Marxism. Liberals love their dilemmas which allow them to have
their cake and eat it too. Liberal thought is sympathetic to the plight of
blacks in this country. But like the Marxists they also want to be empathetic
to working class whites who do suffer exploitation under the system of
capitalism. Also like the Marxists, they have never been able to really criticize
the racism of working class whites. They always follow the Marxist line that
working class racism is due to false consciousness and manipulation by the
capitalist dominated media. But, of course, since they are not real Marxists
they can avoid the suspicion of any substantial radicalism, which is surely
the safest position for liberals. This dual empathy allows them to be sympathetic
with both blacks and racist white workers at the same time, thereby failing
to examine the full impact of racism in American society.
Sociologists can be both materialistic and idealistic. Since so many sociologists
are convinced of the primary importance of ideas and values, they often sponsor
appeals for multicultural understanding. What they fail to realize is that
the money spent on appeals for tolerance only does a minimum amount of good.
The United States government could spend billions of dollars annually preaching
to its citizens to "understand one another," but it would be to little avail
against prejudice. Prejudice is mostly created by the structure of racism
itself, by the inequalities and the consequent destructive behaviors associated
with poverty and discrimination. In fact, it is conceivable at least
theoretically that the United States could produce a racist society without
prejudice.
It is going to take billions if not trillions of dollars to change the racist
structure of the United States and this means some dramatic shifts in the
distribution of scarce economic resources. Even though whites can take small
steps toward accepting blacks as neighbors, friends, and family members,
they still would vote for conservative policies designed to sustain the racist
structures of the United States. Of course, a non-traditionally prejudiced
racist structure will always produce some rationalizations to maintain its
racists structures, but these rationalizations would be of a relatively benign
nature compared to the old rationalizations involving biology.
There should be a rule in the social sciences that prohibits postulating
culture, ideas or values as being the primary cause of anything. Ideas should
be permanently banished to the role of secondary causes only. This rule would
probably do more than any other rule to rid the disciplines of its lies.
Poor Sociology: An Unwritten Multicultural Macro Sociology
There is a secret, unwritten macro sociology today known under the rubric
of multiculturalism. This is not a well-defined concept. Indeed, it is so
appealing because it is undefined. The disturbing part of multiculturalism
is the belief that the various multi cultures in America are equal to (and
indeed morally superior to) American culture itself. This is such a disturbing
concept, that the sociologists are careful not to state fully its nature
or its possible consequences. Frankly, they are afraid (and with good reason)
of the possible political repercussions if they fully stated their multicultural
separatist position. (Liberalism has a bad enough reputation without pushing
the electorate over the edge with a full-blown liberal support of
separatism.)
It does not seem to bother sociologists that, since most of their studies
are so narrowly defined with such narrow data bases, they do not have any
scholarly basis on which to build their secret sociology. Nor do they know
enough about the other social sciences to be qualified to build such a macro
multicultural model of American society and politics.
Sociologists as Censors
Talking about liberalism becoming the new establishment, Gouldner (1973:55)
notes "As the ideology of an establishment, such official liberalism has
things to protect. It has reasons to lie. It has all the social mechanisms
available to any establishment by which it can reward those who tell the
right lies, and punish and suppress those who tell the wrong truths. In its
meaner moments, it is an intellectual Mafia."
Most sociologists would say that the conservatives are lying to themselves
and distorting social science to suit their ends. This is true. But what
this paper points out is that the sociologists do the same thing. Now how
is this distortion done? Recently, it was pointed out that if the F.B.I.
crime laboratory personnel believe a suspect is guilty of a crime they will
often set up their testing in such a way that the results confirm the guilt
of that suspect. And many actually believe it is proper to do this because
this is in the best interests of the larger society. They have a political
conscience that tells them it is permissible and good to help the truth along,
so to speak. Sociologists are very similar to all other people in this regard.
They believe that articles by conservatives or articles that help conservatives
and conservative causes should be suppressed. During the recent extreme
polarization of American politics this tendency to censorship has dramatically
worsened and has been dubbed "politically correct" censorship. Most sociologists
dismiss this argument as politically motivated by conservatives and therefore
not to be taken seriously. Many liberals actually tell their audience that
it is good to be "politically correct" for this is fighting racism and other
ills in our society. But, arguing from a position actually to the left of
most current-day sociologists, this paper maintains that "politically correct"
reasoning is a distortion of social science.
Given their basic liberal approach, censorship is easy for sociologists --
they are often not even aware that they are censoring ideas. When a sociologist
reads an unorthodox paper that dissents from the basic theme of liberal
sociology, in some form or other they simply say to themselves: "Well, this
isn't right. We all know who are the real villains in American society. This
article doesn't acknowledge this fact. It's just wrong. The article's no
good. And, since it's wrong, but not Marxist either, it will have to go in
the rejection box." It's as simple as that. The sociologist does not say
"Well, I don't agree with this paper, but it is interesting and carefully
researched, so it should be published." They simply reject the paper with
a politically safe form letter.
What sociological decision-makers don't expect is that their judgment will
be challenged and that they will be accused of bias. Such a challenger would
risk being ostracized from all the important opportunities in sociology,
and therefore such actions are not expected. If the decision-makers are accused
of bias, they immediately start acting like employers in an anti-racial
discrimination suit. They deny they had any but the purest of motives, that
they are absolutely fair and unbiased to everyone, and that it is just the
economic or other limitations of the situation that caused them to make their
employment choices.
Sociologists fudge the truth in service to what they regard as the larger
liberal purposes of the social sciences. In the days of the black panthers,
Collier & Horowitz (1989:37) noted that the political myth of panther
George Jackson that a radical lawyer helped to construct "exemplified the
radical willingness to tinker with the facts to serve a greater truth."
Obviously, sociologists share this willingness to bend the truth. Partisan
sociology believes in censorship. They believe that "wrong" opinions or
politically "misleading" research should be suppressed. They believe they
have the moral high ground and are defending and protecting the underdog
by making sure that opposing views to their truth are stopped. For instance,
Becker (cited in Gouldner 1973:55) says that "officials must lie because
things are seldom as they ought to be." And Becker should also say that
sociologists must lie for the same reasons.
Academicians are non-Marxists when it comes to ideas. They believe that you
cannot permit any dissenting ideas to be published because this would undermine
the commitment to their particular approach at any given time. Sociologists
do not fully believe that ideas are secondary to the self-interests of people.
Rather they insist that they fight over every scientific finding and that
it be consistent with their political approach. Academicians do not see
themselves as just another self-interested group. They see themselves as
"objective." Of course, they are not. It would be much better for them to
abandon their current approach to reality and allow science to really be
science. But they cannot do this. They insist on pretending that they are
objective. The end result is the corruption of science in the name of politics.
They are constantly politicizing science in the name of sociological (or
currently, multicultural goals), all the while pretending that they are not
doing this.
Solution/Conclusion: How to Be Political Without Lying
Present day multi-cultural academics are like fundamentalist religious preachers.
They insist that the facts of the Bible have to be dogmatically followed
otherwise this would upset the belief in the overall importance of religion,
undermining the very belief in God. Politically correct academicians insist
on the same thing. Much like their radical chic predecessors, they insist
that all studies have to be in compliance with the overall goal of what they
see as the correct interpretation of liberalism currently expressed as
multi-culturalism. They will ban or censor all studies they believe fail
to agree with multi-culturalism.
It does not occur to them that there are approaches to life where
facts can be independent of overall commitments to the higher goals of life.
There are religions, like that of the Dalai Lama, who know that the overall
beliefs of religion cannot be harmed by discoveries in the natural and social
sciences. Multi-culturalists insist that all facts be in congruence with
their philosophy, rather than the desired goals being independent of the
truth or falsity of scientific discoveries.
James Coleman (1988) spoke about censorship in sociology when he accepted
a Sociology of Education award in 1988. His research truthfully found a rise
in white flight because of busing. Instead of sociologists accepting this,
they chose to start a public hate campaign against the renegade. Coleman
(1988:8) asked: "How can the discipline . . . so structure itself that it
does not erect norms against research that challenges the conventional wisdom?"
We doubt that sociology has done anything positive to accept Coleman's challenge,
but instead has sunk even further into politically correct multicultural
politics.
Why can't there be a different sociology? Why can't there be a sociology
that can support the goals of a non-racist liberalism, but not insist that
every finding provide further evidence to debate the arguments of conservatives
and be in agreement with past counter arguments used against conservatives?
The liberal goals don't have to change, but sociology has to adapt to new
scientific findings. With such an approach, as sciences discovers more about
the nature of human beings and their societies, sociology would be free to
adjust their own theories without a feeling of betraying liberal principles.
Bibliography
Andreasen, Nancy C.
1984 The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry. New York:
Harper & Row.
Carter, Stephen
1993 The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious
Devotion. New York: Basic Books.
Coleman, James
1988 "Response to sociology of education award 8/5/88." Paper read at the
acceptance. Sociology of Education (Autumn):6-9.
Donini, Antonio O. And Joseph A. Novack (eds.)
1982 Origins and Growth of Sociological Theory: Readings on the History of
Sociology. Chicago: Nelson- Hall.
Gouldner, Alvin W.
1973 For Sociology: Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today. New York: Basic
Books.
Hinkle, Roscoe C., Jr. and Gisela J. Hinkle
1954 The Development of Modern Sociology. Its Nature and Growth in the United
States. New York: Random House.
Lefkowitz,Mary
1996 Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as
History. New York: Basic
Books.
Lyman, Stanford M.
1992 Militarism, Imperialism, and Racial Accommodation: An Analysis and
Interpretation of the Early Writing of Robert E. Park. Fayetteville, Arkansas:
University of Arkansas Press.
Meier, August
1966 Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of
Booker T. Washington. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Portes, Alejandro
1984 "The rise of ethnicity: determinants of ethnic perceptions among Cuban
exiles in Miami." 49 (June):383-397.
1987 "What's an ethnic enclave? The case for conceptual clarity." American
Sociological Review 52 (December): 768-771.
Robbins, Richard
1996 Sidelines Activist: Charles S. Johnson and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.
Russett, Cynthia Eagle
1976 Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response, 1865-1912. San Francisco:
W. H. Freeman.
Szasz, Thomas Stephen
1961 The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundation of a Theory of Personal Conduct.
New York: Hoeber-
Harper.
1987 Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences. New York: Wiley.
1994 Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted. New York:
Wiley.
Timasheff, Nicholas S.
1967 Sociological Theory: Its Nature and Growth. New York: Random
House.