Sociology

The Purpose of Sociology is to make the World a Better Place

In their latest Discover Sociology (n.d.) booklet, the BSA (British Sociological Association) describes sociology as a discipline that seeks to understand all aspects of human social behavior and the entire societies. It also generally describes sociologists as someone, who believe that an understanding of principles of social life will help to improve people’s lives (“Discover Sociology”, n.d.). On a larger scale, that simply means making the world a better place to live. As a discipline that specializes in the study of an ever-changing society and human being, sociology discipline should not be limiting itself to a purely scientific discipline in the first place (Ellwood, C., 1931; McLaughlin, N., Kowalchuk, L. & Turcotte, K., 2005). Sociology is, after all, an all-in-one discipline. It involves the study of all aspects of society and human social behavior, from individuals to the states, from art to science, and from land to space, threading all knowledge together to create a better world to live in. Sadly, just as Turner (2005) pointed out, the powerful left sociologists on the sidelines while they make all the important decisions that shape the society. In a way, that indirectly prevents sociologists from improving people’s life. This is supported by what Burawoy (2005) labeled as “the scissors movement” in his 11 theses, where the society is moving towards the direction that opposes what sociologists intended, and it is probably one of the reasons why Burawoy foresaw the need to re-introduced public sociology. 

Public sociology can be defined in many ways depending on how the sociologist intends to engage with his/her public or how the sociologist envisions the discipline of sociology to be. Herbert J. Gans is the first sociologist who introduced the term, Public Sociology (Fatsis, L., 2014). He describes public sociologist as “public intellectual who applies sociological ideas and findings to social (defined broadly) issues about which sociology (also defined broadly) has something to say” (Gans, H., 2002). As a responsible president of ASA (American Sociological Association), he noticed that the funding for sociological research is declining, so he introduced public sociology as a solution to overcome that situation. However, his call for public sociology did not stir up as much movements as Burawoy’s reintroduction of public sociology in 2004. Gans (2015) later expanded his description of public sociology as the “presenter” of sociological products through multiple channels such as the academy (teacher to student), writing (both printed copies and electronic copies) and media (radio, television, facebook, youtube, etc.). From Gans’s (2015) perspective, as presenters, public sociologists “offer sociologists the only access to the non-student public” and public sociology is the savior of the sociology discipline in terms of providing sociology a way to attract larger support from public to reverse the not only limited, but also decreasing funding for sociological research. Gans’s introduction of public sociology is visibly more directed towards the survival of the discipline rather than for the betterment of the society. In his own words, if sociology discipline values public sociology, “sociology could more often be valued for contributing knowledge to society rather than just to ‘the literature’ ” (Gans, H., 2015, p.11). 

When Burawoy (2004) popularized the term during his 2004 ASA annual meeting, he views sociology as the “mirror and conscience of society”, and further expanded public sociology into two categories, the traditional public sociology, and the organic public sociology. In his presidential address, Burawoy (2005) defines the former as someone that engage their public passively through published articles, instigating debates, which they do not participate, within or between their generally invisible publics, and he defines the latter as someone that engage with the public actively in person, instigating conversation that leads to mutual education. In simple terms, the traditional public sociologists are not interested in directly or actively engage with their non-academic public to create social changes, while the organic public sociologists are. A good example of an organic sociologist, as described by Burawoy, would be Jane Addams. She initially founded the Hull House with a simple intention to provide a safe environment for the kids while their parents are at work, but it eventually grew into a community of education, art center, and social service facilities, influencing social changes (Addams, 1913). To simplify the differences, all other sociologists, who contribute to social changes passively, in the sense that they do not directly engage with the public beyond both the academy and the elitist community, fall into the category of traditional public sociology. If Gans (2002) were only proposing a solution, when he introduced public sociology, Burawoy would be the one who pushed the proposal into the next stage. Unlike Gans, Burawoy believes that the purpose of sociology is to make the world a better place and envisions the discipline of sociology to contribute more than just knowledge to the society. Gans’s “presenter” and Burawoy himself are examples of traditional public sociologists. 

Based on Burawoy’s (2004) definition of public sociology Scrambler (2016) describes public sociologists as democrats whose mode of engagement with the public is via communication. Though it is probably unintended, the description does make public sociologist sounds very similar to a politician, in that politicians are Democrats and they are also engaging with the public via communications, though political communications are inclined towards the form of propaganda instead of mutual education. In his “Six Sociologies” article, he introduced “foresight sociology” and “action sociology” on top of Burawoy’s four quadrants of sociology (professional, critical, policy public). Scrambler’s introduction of “action sociology” makes it evident that Scrambler (2016) has the intention of making the world a better place through his sociological practice. Perhaps he was actually hinting a need to acquire some level of authority power with his choice of word, ‘democrats’. However, based on Turner’s (2005) personal experience as an activist, he pointed out that stepping into the boundary of politic is a very risky path to take, stating that it could further erode the influence of sociology discipline, because the capitalists want to continue with their imperial exploitation (Trentmann, F., 2009). 

Besides the power struggle against the capitalist, sociologist is also in dilemma to choose between the survival of the discipline and the ending of the discipline. As a public sociologist who practices participatory research, Stoecker (n.d.) defines public sociologist as someone who redirects their academic skills to the public to empower them to led social change themselves. Instead of controlling the public through the power of authority, public sociologist empowers the public, allowing them to create the social changes that they desired. From Stoecker’s (n.d.) perspective, the discipline of sociology should strive to ultimately work itself out of the job because it signifies the birth of a real utopia, where social issues no longer exist. However, I would argue that the discipline of sociology will not end even if it has successfully created a true utopia or rid the world from all forms of social issues. Instead of ending the discipline, it would rise above all others as the governor of governors, becoming the true “conscience of society” (Burawoy, M., 2004). Nonetheless, even if the elimination of social issues would result in the ending of the discipline, in my opinion, it is still something that is worth striving for. 

As mentioned earlier, how a sociologist envisions their sociological practice determines their perception of public sociology. There are sociologists like Jane Addams and Patricia Hill Collins, who enjoys doing public sociology, even before it was given a name, and there are also sociologists like Mathieu Deflem and Jonathan H. Turner, who opposes the idea of public sociology. Deflem (2004) and Ogburn (1930) strongly believe that sociology should be purely scientific, and the purpose of sociology is solely to systematically gather and discover new knowledge. According to Deflem (2004), sociology has always been public and he defines public sociology as an activity that “takes place in a community of scholars where they meet one another as fellow learners and teachers”. Based on this definition, it would make everyone, who engages in teaching (a sociological activity) activities, a public sociologist, but that is clearly not the case. Whether it is Gans, Burawoy, Scambler or Stoecker’s definition, public sociology is more than just a sociological exchange of knowledge between learners and teachers. It would be more accurate to call Deflem’s definition a private sociology because it is exclusive to the community of sociology scholars. As for, Turner, who kind of opposed the idea of public sociology, he is actually not totally against it. Instead, he has just given up hope to make it work. Turner (2005) views the professional sociologists as advocate of science, who must separate themselves from biases and beliefs to understand how the world works, while the public sociologists are advocates of moral values, who must prevent science from altering their beliefs and biases on how the world should work. Therefore he is opposing public sociology simply because he finds it impossible to get it to work in a discipline that aims to become purely scientific. 

Adding to the argument that public sociology is not scientific, some sociologists think that it is actually political. A fruit of thought; if “everyone outside a research specialty is a ‘layman’” (Kalleberg, R., 2005), why would any politician choose to politicize a “layman” over a professional? Brint (2005, p.50-51) claimed that Burawoy’s public sociology “would be more accurately described as ‘left-liberal public sociology’”, while Deflem (2004) just bluntly stated “public sociology is politics” in his blog entitled, “Save Sociology”. I personally think that the study of politic is a good thing on its own, but it seems to be widely referred as a bad thing in practice (i.e. politicized sociology is interpreted as corrupted sociology). Just like money, politic is neither good nor bad, it is the people who misuse it. Based on the interpretation that politicized sociology is equivalent to corrupted sociology, public sociology, whose purpose is to make the world a better place, would only be considered as corrupted or politicized if it stopped adhering to its purpose. Instead of worrying about sociology turning “bad” due to politicizing, a more important question to ask is, why do we allow the “bad” to continue to govern the society? This situation is better illustrated by what John Grimley Evans worded as “mechanisms that can kill as well as cure” (2000, p.11). Instead of using natural food or elements that are required by our body to treat diseases, the medical discipline was forced to use patentable alternatives, which are capable of keeping the disease under control, but at the same time damaging to the body. Therefore, contrary to Deflem’s claim, it would be the professional sociology that is political because it is preventing the discipline of sociology from realizing its purpose to create a better world. If politic is viewed as something neutral, politicized sociology is, therefore, not necessarily something bad, provided we are contributing to the betterment of the society rather than blindly following the movement of political parties (Piven, F., 2007). 

As a critique of Burawoy’s 11 theses, Brint (2005) simply pointed out that Burawoy’s political view is biased towards left-liberal. It is indeed worth noting that public sociology should not overstep the boundary and became a politician who views public issues as “a matter of majority opinion” (Brint, S., 2005, p.51). There is a fine line between public sociology and politicians. Based on Gans, Burawoy, Scambler and Stoecker’s definition of public sociology, it could be summarized that public sociologist is an intellectual who utilize their knowledge to engage with the public in a mutually educating conversation to bring about improvements in the society. The mutual education part of the conversation is the key difference between a public sociologist and a politician. Like Tittle (2004), Deflem and Holmwood probably visualized public sociologist as someone who utilizes power to shape the society to what the public sociologist perceived as “socially just”. Public sociologist not only do not possess such authority power nor do they propagate the public about their “socially just” concepts. Public sociologist simply provide guidance and aid to help the public to solve their social issues. Public sociologist may present their ideas or suggestions for social improvements (utilizing knowledge), but instead of forcing the community to adhere to their idea (political or dogmatic act), public sociologist work with the community (mutual educating conversation) to discover what is truly better for them based on their collective perspective (improvement in the society). 

The establishment of sociology as an academic discipline can be viewed as a double-edged sword. Instead of gaining more knowledge to better serve the public, it drove sociologists to an endless pursuit for knowledge, and instead of gaining more power from the authority to help the public, sociologists went astray to protect their elite status within the academy. Soon after its establishment, the discipline of sociology decided to pursue a pure scientific path and Charles A. Ellwood is probably the very first sociologist that fought for a return to sociology’s root, but failed (LoConto, D. 2011). The call for public sociology is, after all, a return to our roots (Nichols, L., 2007; Fatsis, L. 2014). It has been over a century since ASA was founded, yet “sociology as a discipline has never fully developed its promise to apply the tools and knowledge of sociology beyond the academy” (American Sociological Association Task Force, 2005). In my opinion, it is inevitable that sociology seeks to gain influence in the halls of politic and economy, without which, the discipline will always be in some state of crisis. Gans (2002) probably has similar thought when he first introduced public sociology as a way to attract more funding and support for sociological research. So long as the discipline does not lose sight of its purpose to make the world a better place to live in, expanding the discipline’s influence into the realm of politic and economy is the way forward as it would not only secure the discipline’s position but also ensure sufficient funding for research. Most importantly, it could gain more opportunities for sociologists to influence important decisions that will lead to a better society for the public instead of the capitalist. 

During the 2012 ASA annual meeting, Olin Wright (2012) sets the theme as “Real Utopias” to explore a wide range of issues and proposals, including possible future utopian institutional designs. Contrary to what Title (2004) believes, sociology does not lack the knowledge of what the society could be because sociologists have been doing that even before we were established as a discipline (Nichols L., 2007, p.7). If there is anything that sociology as a discipline is lacking, it is the power of authority and a stage to showcase their knowledge. Public sociology is formless, which is why, like the ever-changing human and the society that it studies, it has the potential to take on any form; hence different sociologist has slightly different definition of public sociology, depending on how the sociologist envision his/her sociological practice as well as the type of public that he/she would like to be engaging.

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