Seventy Percent

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Kelley quoted:
> "sociologists keep two sets of books, one for the study of 
> 'laymen' and another when he thinks about himself....the 
> sociologist believes himself capable of making hundreds of 
> purely rational decisions....he thinks of these as free 
> technical decisions and of himself as acting in autonomous 
> conformity with technical standards, rather than as a 
> creature molded by social structure and culture. if he finds 
> he has gone wrong, he thinks of himself as having made a 
> mistake. a mistake is an outcome produced not by any social 
> necessity, but by a corrigible ignorance, a lack of careful 
> thought....

I don't know about other sociologists, but I do not think it applies to
me.  I do not think about my cognitive processes as being fundamentally
different from anyone else's. In fact, I often use introspection to
grasp these processes.  What sets some sociologist (including myslef)
apart from the non-sociological crowd is their ability to reflect on
their own processes and behavior and perhaps critically examine them,
but certainly not to exampt themselves from them.  It is like the
protagonist of the "Beautiful maind" - he could not stop hearing voices,
but he could use the power of his mind to reflect on what they were
saying and put it in a perspective.  

Wojtek