Norms of the Sociological Profession (was Re: Medieval Institutions)

Kelley Walker kelley at interpactinc.com
Fri Mar 23 14:40:31 PST 2001


At 02:15 PM 3/23/01 -0800, Lisa & Ian Murray wrote:


> > Kelley, instead of getting mad, why not consider a possibility that
> > your allegiance to Max Weber & his likes may be (among other things)
> > an integral part of your socialization as a sociologist -- adopting
> > Weberspeak as a part of *moral* norms of your profession, so to
> > speak, rather than just a part of the body of theoretical knowledge
> > whose mastery you must demonstrate as a professional -- since
> > socialization is the topic of your post?
> >
> > It's probably an implicit professional assumption that it is "a
> > combination of moral & theoretical errors" for a properly socialized
> > sociologist not to *think like Weber*.
> >
> > Yoshie
>*********

put a sock in it, yoshie. weber wasn't given any credence at all in my dept! it was a feminist and multiculti dept after they kicked the dead white guys off to the side. the continuous rant was "we don't bow to the altar of the holy trinity: marx, durkheim and weber. i study people and take seriously authors with whom i disagree so that i actually know what i'm talking about rather than knee jerk dismiss them like my colleagues who don't know jack about weber! or durkheim! or SF. they just "know" that they're wrong and off they merrily go.

reflexivity alert! no doubt.

off to banish myself from the ranks of the high and mighty elitoid fucking leninoid marxoids robotoids. voluntarily. happily. with glee. good friggin riddance.

and, duh, wojtek, i made pretty clear that i knew that all social groups do this by referencing THIS godamned social group as an example of how it works. thanks to carrol and yoshie we now see how moralizing claims about what one should and shouldn't do has been made quite transparent. there is no theoretical (technical) claim being made here, but a freakin' normative one--no reasons given, just that we ritually impugn some theorists that one is supposed to in order to be a k-rad member of the robotoid marxoids.


>Reflexivity alert! :->
>
>Ian


:)

kelley



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