Received: from acs4.bu.edu (ACS4.BU.EDU [128.197.154.40]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id JAA16950 for ; Sat, 10 May 1997 09:32:31 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from conroyt@localhost) by acs4.bu.edu (8.8.4/) id LAA133356; Sat, 10 May 1997 11:30:52 -0400 Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 11:30:52 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Sender: thomas conroy Reply-To: thomas conroy Subject: a comment about Jonathan Turner and ideology To: list Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Some of the previous posts (mine included) mentioned Jonathan Turner as an example of a style of sociological theory which dispenses with broad bodies of work which don't fit with a more narrow, neo-positivistic agenda. While I don't necessarily fault Turner for taking the stance that he does, and even find him to be something of a curious throwback in this post-modernistic day and age (imagine, a conservative neo-positivist looking for evolutionary linkages between human and primate sociaties and feeling the need for hypathetico-deductive social "laws"; it's as though Herbert Spencer were with us still), my take on his work - and its prominence - in the context of the discussion of ideology suggests the following: 1. That both ideology and the relative prestige of different disciplines (and/or different methodologies) are both essential to understanding the recipiency of social science work, particularly its theoretical claims; intellectual work (be it art, science or philosphy) which fucks with the status quo is more likely to be misunderstood and/or badly recieved by that status quo than work which does not; sociological work which appears more socially SCIENTIFIC and cumulative has, from the Keynsian 1930s through the Parsonian 1950s and 1960s, been more likely to be seen as worthy of institutional support and as representative of the discipline. The ASA has long been complicit in this; to read the bulk of ASA publications you'd figure we're all doing the same sort of number crunching policy analysis. 2. Turner's positivism holds to an image of social science as the interdiscipinary study of law governed structures, rather than the study of meaningful, rule governed activity; while this is likely more an epistemological than an ideological choice, some of the roots of this focus on "structure," as well as the dichotomizing of "structure" and "agency" come out of the ideological wars between 19th century liberalism (individualism) and the more collectivist ideology of socialism. 3. For Turner, even the micro level of activity is "structured" as a series of patterned "exchanges." Classical economics' "homo economicus" and Turner's "homo sociologicus" are rather similar beasts. Again, though more conceptual than ideological, to reduce the multiplicity of human actions to one or even a few "patterns" can have, perhaps unintended, consequences, including ideological ones. 4. Finally, that fact that such diverse thinkers as Turner, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Donna Haroway, and Cornel West can all be considered social theorists suggests that theory is no one thing, with no one purpose and, perhaps, no foundation in anything other than discourse. It is easy to see how conservatives might be dispensed to dismiss theory as simply idle talk aimed at undermining established conventions. However, of course, conservatives have their theories, too, no matter how crude they may be. In other words, at times the politically driven are doing politics while employing theories to serve this purpose. But this then distinguishes a theory in itself and the use of the theory. Though meaning is use, in the Wittgensteinian sense, the uses of theory can be multifold. Well, just a little food for thought. Tom Conroy Boston University