The Arrogance of Public Sociology

Abstract

My job is to introduce a little tension into an otherwise harmonious system. Public along with its cousin policy are currently very popular. My guess is that the vast majority of the audience is in agreement with Burawoy's call for an enlargement of sociology. And I suspect that most people in the U.S. today who call themselves sociologists somehow want to be molders of society. It is important, therefore, to challenge some issues implied by the call for more sociology. Yet, criticizing Burawoy's argument in a cogent way is difficult because his position is not entirely clear. Because what he means by is somewhat problematic, almost anything I say can be countered by a disclaimer that the object of my comment is not, in fact, part of his position or that it is not what he meant. Nevertheless, I will react to what I understand his points to be and to what I interpret his statements about sociology to imply. As I understand it, Burawoy argues that (1) sociology bears an interactive and mutually stimulating relationship with other forms of particularly what he calls sociology, (2) sociology is a desirable activity to be encouraged; indeed, that it is vital to the health of the entire sociological enterprise, (3) sociology depends on a base of strong professional sociology and that the two are not fundamentally incompatible. Further, from his remarks here and from his writings, I gather that sociology encompasses many things, including: (1) engagement in political activities to promote somebody's conception (I guess his) of social justice, (2) actively revealing to nonprofessional audiences the knowledge that sociologists think they have or the truths they think they know, (3) orienting our research and writing around moral issues, (4) engaging the in debate about moral questions based on sociological insights, and (5) helping various publics solve problems or gather information relevant to their concerns, or helping to create such publics. If my interpretation of the meaning of is correct, then a program encouraging sociologists to become more public would appear to be a mistake. In my opinion, (1) involves some false assumptions, (2) endangers what little legitimacy sociology has, thereby helping