Sat, 8 Oct 1994 16:56:05 -0700 for <socgrad@ucsd.edu>
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 94 19:56:03 EDT
From: David Gibson <dg41@columbia.edu>
To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU
Subject: Molotch
Steve,

The Molotch article impressed me as well. But I have two comments.
     Looking over the article again, I don't see that Molotch
exactly accuses sociologists of studying the trivial -- only (!) of
being so insulated within their academic cocoons that they
sometimes know a great deal less about a setting than those who
actively participate in it. The result is that they expend their
energies on making up the deficit when the best thing would be to
learn from first-hand experience (more on this momentarily). I find
this a bit troublesome, however, since I think that our research
often *ought* to be targeting conventional wisdom -- as did Molotch
in discovering 25 years ago that neighborhood racial segregation
has nothing to do with white flight, contrary to the "popular view"
(p. 227) -- lest our theories be constructed on foundations which
prove in the end to be empirically erroneous. (Remember that even
now it is commonly believed that one can catch a cold by being
exposed to the elements, despite scientific evidence to the
contrary. What if one were to build a theory on a sociological
analogue?)
     Second, I am unconvinced by Molotch's advocacy of the
acquisition of a "rich biography" as a precondition (or even
facilitating condition) of being a good sociologist. While the
"thickness of one's own biography" (p. 231) may affect how
interesting one is at parties, I think that it has little to do
with one's professional promise. I have a friend in Amsterdam who
without question brags a rich biography; as an exchange student
last spring, I spent hours listening to her stories. But she can't
bring herself to formulate any generalizations, because, as she
says, for any one of these she can think of too many exceptions in
her own experience. (As an aside, note that a given empirical
generalization may be "true" statistically without being evident to
the casual observer, no matter how worldly and well-traveled, since
our senses don't allow us to distinguish the effects of multiple
interrelated independent variables.) A former faculty member here
(just left) recently had an article published in a prestigious
journal (I forget which -- I have a draft copy) arguing that a good
scientist ultimately needs to deny most of his or her experiences
in the end anyhow (the title: "Denying the Data"), so why
overburden oneself with unscientific experiences from the start?
     Oh, but this piece of advice I did like: "moving forward as
*though* we were self-confident would move us closer to the kind of
assertive stance that would make us more effective."



David Gibson