The Silver Lining in the Clouds: A Commentary on Stephen Turner’s “Mad Hazard, a Life in Social Theory”

Abstract

AbstractWhile it is true that to do social theory is to become an observer of life and its development from an outside perspective, it is also true that, in Weberian terms, ethical neutrality cannot disregard experience itself and values as necessary tools for making sense of reality. Indeed, according to Weber, there is no research or social theory without being aware of one’s own values and experience. In this sense, Stephen Turner’s autobiographical book Mad Hazard is great evidence that a scholar’s understanding of social theory is inevitably enriched by an understanding of the life events to which it is related, whereby life experience enhances the ability to grasp the attempt at theorizing in intellectual life, offering the perspective of how that theory observes social reality. Intellectual life and everyday life are necessarily connected. One cannot be fully grasped without the other, but in Weberian terms the autobiography of Stephen Turner can represent precisely the big frame, or statement of values, through which all experiences, bad and good, become the little pieces of the grand picture of this interweaving of practical life and intellectual life, always in continuous reference and making sense from one another.