The Unexamined Field is Not Worth Working

Abstract

Radical sociology, as Bennett Berger might say, is culturally resonant, at least in certain subcultures graduate departments. Dissatisfaction with the recent decades is obviously widespread, and the concept a sociology evokes the sense intellectual relevance which many find missing in the mainstream the discipline. Thus, the publication an anthology explicitly conceived as a handbook for radical sociologists is, at least, an important event. The question is whether it is more than an eventwhether indeed it succeeds in transforming a mood into a coherent and viable perspective. My primary concern in this review, therefore, is to describe and comment on the image radical advanced by the editors and contributors. Let me first, however, note the structure the book. Following the editors' Introduction, the collection is divided into four parts, each again briefly introduced by Colfax and Roach. These parts are: The State Bourgeois Sociology: A Radical Critique; The Character Radical Sociology: Theoretical and Conceptual Issues; Radical Research and Practice (with three subsections discussing, respectively, The Empire at Home, The Empire Abroad, and Organized); and finally a set four Critiques Radicalism in Sociology. In total, twenty-nine papers are included, most which have been published previously but often in sources not widely read, I imagine, by most sociologists. What then, on the basis this collection, is radical sociology? Three elements appear to be involved, although as I will note, two these seem to be equivocal and the third problematic. First, radical is Marxian sociology. A central goal, as stated by the editors, is a critique of the structure and consequences contemporary monopoly capitalism, a perspective clearly evident throughout much the volume and particularly in the substantive papers included in Part Three. This is not to say that even within the Marxian framework, there is consensus. For example, Willhelm, in writing about Equality: America's Racist Ideology, rejects the relative deprivation explanation black protest, while Dizard and Wellman, in a sophisticated critique enlightened liberalism's response to racism, employ the relative deprivation thesis. Moreover, Metzger's attack on the attitudinal preoccupation race relations research is followed shortly by Ehrlich's defense the study prejudice. Yet underlying this diversity is a stress on the primacy economic class analysis and the oppressiveness capitalist institutions and ideology. There are real exceptions, however. Szymanski's Toward a Radical Sociology is mainly a summary Mills' call for a renewal the sociological imagination, the thrust which is critical but not particularly Marxian. And more importantly, Schroyer's essay on Habermas demonstrates the latter's very substantial revision classical Marxian theory. To contend that the essays are in the spirit Marx is to diminish the significance Marxianism as a unique mode social analysis, a point suggested in fact by Birnbaum in another essay in this collection. In short, then, while radical may be largely also Marxian sociology, this apparently is not mandatory. Second, radical is politically active sociology, or to be more faithful to the tenor the book, radical sociologists are activists in the This point is made repeatedly, both by the editors and by various contributors, especially in the Getting Organized subsection. Scholars whose writing may have radical implications but who themselves are content to stop there, and particular-ly scholars who merely write about radicalism, are thus disqualified. The argument, let me emphasize, is not against intellectual activity; rather, the point is that academic intellectualism is to be distrusted, for its seductive privileges class, for its (purportedly impossible and thus implicitly ideological) notions objectivity, and for its preoccupation with onliy intellectual matters. Thus, while there is disagreement among the contributors as to whether it is even possible to be a university-based radical sociologist, the dominant position is that insofar as radicals do opt for this role, they must spend much their time organizing university, disciplinary, and community constituencies. And Haber and Haber even suggest, in their reflections on a conference radicals in the professions, the occasion may arise when professional ethics must be compromised for the sake the movement. Once again, nevertheless, there is some confuion. The Marxian concept is used frequently in this book, mainly to justify the activist dimension radical sociology. Yet as Birnbaum notes, the term praxis has various dimensions, including critical intellectual analysis, and it may be inefficient for one individual to attempt to embody all them. This caution, moreover, is echoed by Szymanski, indicating that room apparently still exists for debate about the centrality the activist character radical sociology. (One is struck, in this regard, by the fact that the essays dealing with substantive issues, which are among the best in this collection and which are certainly vital in legitimating the whole enterprise, are almost all