A life career in the polarities of dissent

Abstract

This autobiographical sketch is divided into five major sections. A first indicates how participation in certain sectors of institutional life in a small industrial community (in central PA between World Wars I and II) might be conducive to non-conformity. A third shows how early personal experiences could commit one to religious dissent, involving a CO. position, entering civilian public (rather than military) service, and volunteering as a subject in a semi-starvation experiment in a laboratory at a major Midwestern university, which simultaneously permitted work on an M.A. in sociology. A fourth (after discharge from service) brought a return to normal civilian life, marriage, and completion of sociology doctorates (by both spouses). The fifth summarizes the pursuit of a career specializing in sociological theory (especially history of American theory) and development of a classificatory-periodizing scheme considerably at variance with the conventional approach in the history of theory.