Faculty Research Magazine – Edition 2
THE DEMISE OF SOCIAL THEORY AND THE ‘PROMISE’ OF SOCIOLOGY Dr Albert Bell Senior Lecturer Department of Youth and Community Studies THE “PROMISE” OF SOCIOLOGY For Wright Mills (2000 [1959]), the fundamental task of the sociologist is to identify how scopic socio-historical forces and individual biographies and agency intersect. A sociology that privileges either of these essential ingredients at the expense of the other, short-changes the discipline’s raison-d’être and vision. Such compartmentalisation incapacitates engaging theoretical inflection. It proscribes what Wright Mills (1959, passim) calls “the promise” of “the sociological imagination”. What is the state of theory generation in sociology and the social sciences today? Are we realising and reaping the potential that theory-driven social research possesses for enriching, intriguing and enduring sociological analysis? It is these pivotal questions that this piece aims to address. In the process, emphasis is made on identifying and explaining some of the currents that are stemming the development of social theory generation and thus curtailing sociology’s promise. The Scourge of Utilitarianism and Neo-liberal, Bureaucratic Expediency From Durkheim’s anomie and Tonnies’ community, to Weber’s rationalisation and Marx’s alienation; from Parsons’ functional pre-requisites to Merton’s social strain; from Tannenbaum, Lemert and Becker’s labelling theory, Goffman’s stigma, to the manifold shades and hues of subculture; from Ritzer’s McDonaldisation, Giddens’ structuration, to Beck’s risk society and Baudrillard, Lyotard and Derrida’s ’s post-modernity - can we even imagine a sociology without these exciting and intriguing concepts? Would we as sociology students have been as attracted and committed to the discipline without the engaging debates on Comte, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Veblin, Weber, the Chicago and Frankfurt Schools, all the above concepts and more. There is some telling and trailblazing theoretical work in sociology and the social sciences today. The rise of a transnational and trans-regional collaborative sociology developing a “world society” theory (Wittman, 2018) is one strong case in point. Such works are however the exception and not the rule. As Outwaithe (2016, p.1) poignantly puts it: “[i]n much of sociology, it often seems that the wave of theory has passed over, often leaving nothing but ritualistic footnotes attached to highly empiricist exercises in “normal science.” In a social world craving for big data, soundbites and buzzwords that everyone is racing to embrace and laud without the slightest glimpse of critical engagement and forethought, at best social theory is perceived as a tool for the fool meandering and lost in the playground of the inane. At worst, it is not even engaged with, considered or debated at all. The “watering down” of social theory courses on campuses across the UK and the US (ibid.) and beyond, epitomises all this, while underscoring a pull toward abstract empiricism and theory void research. The penchant for atheoretical work and a general resistance to theory is evident across the area’s myriad subdisciplines. Consider this plea from the editors of the European Journal of Sport and Society (Thiel et al., 2018, p. 4): Lately, the number of papers submitted to our journal, which do not underpin their empirical studies with a precise, informative, and coherent social theory has continuously risen. In some cases, the lack of a theoretical framework even led to the impression that the explanations of the empirical findings in the discussion part were a ‘poking around in the dark’ rather than a justified deduction of assumptions, which could lead to subsequent research. We therefore strongly encourage all authors to unfold the theoretical framework of their studies and to discuss their empirical findings by systematically linking them with social theory. 43
