And the roomful of sociologists there thought it was pretty good. Perhaps the problem is that you disagree with its arguments?
:-)
-Chip ----------
Well,
I realize it sounded like a backhanded compliment, but I didn't say it wasn't good. It helped background a huge amount of history. And I don't disagree with the discussions in the essay. I down loaded it, and will re-read and use it for its reading references later--the biblio was awesome. My guess is that demonstrates more interest than the academics who listened to its presentation, and then moved on.
But, I am looking for slightly different kinds of themes, looking for different aspects to the history that probably can't be addressed directly through a enumeration of movements and events. It's not entirely a sociological point of view. I read for different reasons.
For example, after reading about (and recalling) the theory that the French Revolution was the work of underground freemasons, I asked myself, what? Where did that come from? In other words why would you have to invent a non-obvious cause to what must have appeared plain enough on empirical grounds? The complexity of social collisions, the variety of groups pushing for power, the kind of arbitrary sea changes that swung through the events were stunning. Who needs a conspiracy of the damned freemasons in that kind of circus? I mean, the one thing the French Revolution was not, was bereft of plausible causes.
The only answer I can come up with is that when historical or current events turn ugly or ecstatic for that matter, become a sequence that makes no sense, you can either invent a crazy conspiracy theory, or go through an almost Ptolemaic elaboration of rational causes to explain them, or conclude there is no rational explanation. Stick to what is. It seems, that a significant number of people will not accept that life has absolutely no plan and that anything can happen and on occasion does.
So obviously I agree with the:
Philosopher Herman Sinaiko [who] observes that ``The most decent and modest communities have people in their midst who are prone to scapegoating and who see the world as run by conspiracies. A healthy community is organized in a way that controls them and suppresses their tendencies. When a community is in crisis, the standards and control mechanisms are weakened, and these people step forward and find their voice and an audience.''
There is a really fine short story (or reminiscence), by Ivan Turgenev, called `The Man in the Gray Spectacles'. It captures a related moment. Anyone familiar with it? The story concludes with:
``There are certain sea birds which appear only during a storm. The English call them stormy petrels. They fly low as the dark descends, just above the crests of the raging waves, and---vanish as soon as the weather clears again.''
A corollary to a perceived irrationality of history is that the good is perforce the true has to be postulated out of nothing and in the face of a null absolute. This is after all the core of the christian leap of faith. More important for my interest is the thought that somewhere in that dilemma is found not just the core of christian faith but also its seminal birth. Why would one need to leap if it were all true? As an alternative, there is the medieval fascination with chance and fortune, which is part of the trace that Turgenev indirectly follows in the short story, by pushing the believability of co-incidence. And, there are the endless elaborations of an empirical rationalism which is often a kind of crazy quilt of causation. But what if there are none of the above?
See, I am not really looking for a social, economic or political cause or explanation. Although I sure wouldn't turn down any good ones. My reading taste is definitely weighted toward what might be called a marxist sociology. But my interest is more along other lines, say the turn in a history of ideas, and their cultural expression in the arts. To say these kinds of turns express a change in the historical dynamics of a dominant class, or that cults run amok in periods of crisis seems circular to me. At least it seems incomplete for my particular intellectual interest.
But this thread has gone off in a cascade of other directions, which is great. I mean that sort of illustrates the point.
Chuck Grimes
PS. Sorry about the delayed response. I work on Saturdays and I tried to read a lot of this thread before answering.