[lbo-talk] Signs of the Times

[mart]

The sociological textbooks i have looked at, if i recall, are pretty much like what is on wikipedia----pretty generic.   I'm not all that sure of what there is to 'get wrong' in durkheim or max weber;  and even debates about marx (value, rate of profit) to me often look like they are either fake or based on ideology (like debates between protestants and catholics, or shiites and sunnis).       IN sciences, especially philosophy of science, you get similar debates (eg about memes, or group selection, or selfish genes);  in physics, you have the 2nd law of thermodynamics; and more examples exist ---  some of these are real, but some people involved are just blabbing for a living (philosophy of mind seems to be a big one here).  
 
while i tend to side with alan sokal (who seems a bit humorless with his belgian sidekick) and think if you step out your window in your highrise pomo department at NYU to get down with the fellow oppressed, you will break your skull, the pomos i think actually had a point----they just didnt know how to say it, so they made a joke poem.   (Foucault actually seems fairly trivial, a mild update on 1800's siociology, whuile people like lacan and derrida seem more like poets; the situationists seem more on target, while hardt and negri, TCI, look like studies in the aquisition of tenure.)     
 
it might be interesting to give a specific example of a sociology textbook which is wrong.  or, how about wikipedia.  
 
textbooks are an industry; the economics ones do seem to be out of touch with or to misrepresent the literature (ie not mentioning imperfections much, or alternatives to markets).   i think the probability theory/ stochastic processes and to an extent calculus books are real similar---they basically claim to teach rigor when in fact they do a detailed analyses of a dumbed down version of the subject, so nobody will really know anything interesting unless they go on to get a PhD.   Most of those who do typically are part of the guild (parents in academia) so they know there is light at the end of the tunnel, or at least a paycheck.   The division of labor then is maintained.  Textbook writers often do seem to be ones who are like teachers who just do it for the paycheck----any interest they had is long gone.  (Exceptions do exist but those textbooks often are not used much----eg Feynman's lectures or G Strang's linear algebra book).  mostly its

 junk food, or occassionally something a bit more adequate.  (some textbooks, eg on general equilibrium theory---the bete noire---actually do a good job and are interesting as labors of love.   the writers are just exhibiting a fine skill---one with intrinsic interest, but not neccesarily of any use.  its like seeing someone prove a theorem. )
 
i would like to see some examples.  (perhaps these debates continue in some 'philosophy of sociology' journal, where the various camps deconstruct and tear each other apart.) 
 
 
 
 Fri, 9/18/09, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Signs of the Times
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Date: Friday, September 18, 2009, 12:11 PM

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> Dennis Claxton wrote:
> > I was responding to the assumption that there are zero intellectuals
> > among Baptists.  I saw that Astra Taylor movie Examined Life earlier
> > this year and it was kind of a jolt when Baptist Cornel West talked
> > about his Christianity, but there it is.
> >
> > So is Gingrich an intellectual?  He is an idea man isn't he? Stupid
> > and abhorrent ideas but ideas none the less.
>
> I agree.
>
> Some of the posts on this question are trying to make "intellectual" a
> 'value' term - which is absurd. An intellectual is merely, as you say,
> someone who works with ideas, and the quality or the perspective of
> those ideas is irrelevant. Therre are probably in execess of a million
> or more intellectuals in the U.S.
>
> Lord help me, working with ideas does NOT make you an intellectual, working
with ideas coherently and carefully makes you an intellectual... searching
around for some part of some crappy ideas or partial/BS metaphorical
comparisons to support what you believe based on your basic incoherent
intolerance does NOT make you an intellectual... keerist, its important to
have some standards!

Significantly more than half the professional sociologists I know couldn't
coherently think their way out of a theoretical box without getting 95% of
the crap they think "theory" is or that people they consider "theorists"
have said wrong.   Credentialization and careerism supercede intellectualism
way more often than the other way around... let's keep the terms distinct,
or they all become meaningless.

Look how staggeringly wrong textbooks and professors get Marx and Weber and
even Durkheim's Division of Labor in Society!  How surprising is it that
they then can't even begin to get the Gramsci, Frankfurt School, Foucault,
feminism and post-structuralism.
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