I never thought I’d speak in defence of Sociology. The way ideology infested it repulsed me developing Utopian, self-justifying tendencies while seeming to deny startlingly obvious evidence that, with scant effort, can be seen to point to the massive importance and potential of the study of society. Fixation on Victorian materialistic determinism, at the heart of the closed system of Marxism, excludes all else reducing it to an object of contempt.
(The Paradoxes of Reason* appear in the transcript below. When academia grasps the blindly obvious but culturally obscure, Sociology will transform).
Sociology is infected with the idea that it’s a science (physics envy). Study of society demands appreciation that incoherent, contradictory and indefinite entities exist in intersubjective reality. Intersubjective laws of existence differ from those of the physical world, where such permission is impossible. The distinction is elementally important. This podcast rambles a bit with some repetition necessary to ram the point home, because it addresses a major cultural and mental block causing serious damage in the UK, US and across large parts of the World. It can be a hell of a struggle to neutralise cultural barriers. (The next podcast will be entitled: ‘Knowledge is not power. Anyone who disagrees is a blockhead’).
The core of the problem is a lack of understanding about the three domains of existence/reality: the physical, subjective and intersubjective realms. Simple observation reveals that rules of existence differ in each. Non-contradiction is absolute in the physical, varies in the subjective, applying in pure consciousness yet inapplicable in unconscious memory. Meanwhile in the intersubjective, contradictory, incoherent and indefinite entities exist
Non-logic dominates the intersubjective which includes society. Non-logic can be wise, coherent, sensible and kind but equally, stupid, chaotic, nonsensical and malevolent. Because something is non-logical does not preclude that it could be logical- it’s only that it’s not been subjected to tests of logic. Society is immensely complex. Lacking physical existence and consciousness it doesn’t have agency, unable to think for its non-existent self. But despite complete impotence, it’s massively influential. Conflating power with influence is a great mistake typical of the poor nonsense that reduces modern academic sociology to a shadow of what it should be.
Let me explain. The belief is that information/knowledge ‘is power’ as if the two were indistinguishable, both words being interchangeable. So strong and widespread, it’s a cultural hang-up. Yet without the means to act on information, however significant, you are as impotent and the most ignorant person on Earth. Likewise, in a position of authority including the capacity to personally act, uninformed decision making reduces someone to the impotence of unintended consequences- regardless of how great their authority.
It is true that passing on information to someone can trigger action but they are not powerful, the power is with the recipient in authority who can act on information needed to make an informed decision. Sloppy unrigorous thinking can lead to wrong conclusions rooted in statements such as ‘Society caused someone to do this or that’, because that abstraction, by some kind of miracle, was conscious and had agency. Society is massively influential but it’s utterly impotent. Humans engaged with it appear to accord society agency through the collective result of how each individual chooses to act on its influence. This is the most important sentence in this podcast.
Information is not power, authority is not power. The expression applies:
Information combined with authority metamorphoses into social or political power.
Sociology is working blind because it doesn’t understand the nature of existence in the three domains- it can’t see or grasp non-logical entities of the subjective and intersubjective. Consequently efforts to study society are bound to be divorced from humanity, the humans that create it. The subject, it’s in such a mess I can’t call it a discipline, has a massive potential- it could be the most important after Philosophy which, too, has shot itself in the foot.
If sociology were to identify non-logical entities in the intersubjective, how they interrelate and how society resides in and influences the non-logic of human memory, it could be develop a rigour similar, perhaps not so absolute, to that of sciences associated with physical reality. Among other things, sociologists empowered (enlightened?) should they give due respect to the nature of existence in the intersubjective, could see off today’s contempt and ridicule to which their attempts are fashionably subject. They will never be able to do this until they bother to make astonishingly simple observations about the three domains:
We all know human thought can be, and usually is, an utter mess. Our memories include all sorts of nonsense, half baked ideas, as well as good stuff. The existence of non-logic in everyone is blindingly obvious. Even so called philosophers, who might be a scratch more mentally aware and organised, are messy- me included. Subjective memory is stuffed full of non-logic. (Second Paradox of Reason)*.
Then, anyone can know the intersubjective reflects unconscious subjective memory, a similar but vastly larger domain of non-logic including all sorts of crazy political, religious and social beliefs, prejudices, religious leanings etc: alongside sensible, constructive, well intentioned, altruistic leanings. This isn’t rocket science- it’s blindingly obvious.
Finally, in the physical realm, barring little children, it’s obvious stepping into the path of a lorry is liable to be lethal. Stones are hard, water is wet and so on. Incoherent and contradictory things don’t exist in the physical World.
Rather than try to subject the three domains to logic and seemingly deny equal importance to observation and demonstration, academics boxed themselves into a corner by fixation on the belief that all three must conform to laws of existence of the physical realm. A strange obsession with Victorian materialist determinism reduced what could and should be the- rigorous study of Society, Sociology, to fullon exposure to public ridicule. Simple observation reveals we are more than simple logical creatures and that the intersubjective, which includes society, is the cumulative product of subjectivity, but today’s ‘Sociologists’ persist on ridiculous attempts to make sense of Society by trying to turn it into a science- when it is much more.
Things are massively more sophisticated and interesting. Sadly, quasi-Marxist C19 determinism appears to dominate but Sociology is much more than scientific and it is debased by subjecting it to laws of physical reality, without accommodation of its different laws of existence. Meanwhile, it is equally inappropriate to subject physical existence to intersubjective entities and rules of existence that belong to them. Dismal and primitive academic fashion has done and still doe appalling damage to Sociology and society. And so a great and important subject is reduced to a laughing stock.
Link to a post by The Spectator on Facebook:
Although Academic Sociologists may be unaware, so inculcated with materialist determinism, they try to force what they think is scientific method onto Society. Doing so is in contempt for society- its raison d’etre. No wonder people call Sociology a Mickey Mouse subject- an unreal cartoon discipline. But for all his amusing silliness, at least M Mouse was never so deluded.
*THE PARADOXES OF REASON
Reason can’t exist without emotion. There must be a reason to reason. Yet reasoning must deny participation of what it needs to exist
Most information and sensation going to memory is not tested by logic. Trying would freeze thought. (Unconscious memory, likewise the intersubjective, is home to non-logic). To be reasonable you must be unreasonable
Logic can’t accept ‘contradiction’ has any meaning, because it’s intrinsically false. Suspension of the law of non-contradiction allows access to logic. To be logical and reasonable, you must (at least temporarily) be illogical. Contradiction needs to be rescued from itself.
