[LINK] "I commit sociology, and I don't intend to stop"
Last night I linked to American sociologist Jonathan Wynn's reaction to Prime Minister Harper's accusation that Justin Trudeau was "committing sociology". Canadian sociologist Michael Adams' essay in The Globe and Mail is classic. From corruption early in childhood, Adams' path in the social sciences was set.
{M]y own sociological tendencies went unchecked because of Canada’s permissive atmosphere at that time. In those days, Canadians mused with impunity about social trends and even the workings of power. Indeed, state-sanctioned sociology was widely accepted as a practice of good government. Governments funded shadowy networks of sociologists.
The perps were not limited to universities and institutes; they infiltrated the public service. The federal government even conscripted ordinary Canadians into this nefarious activity. It perpetrated coercive, large-scale sociology against its own people in the form of a robust census. Sociology also informed the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, arguably the most influential such inquiry in our history, whose conclusions seemed to many to undermine the colonial values that had made this country great.
The tendrils of this scourge - which feeds rapaciously on curiosity, data collection, analysis and debate - reached into every corner of society. Ringleaders in fields from public health and urban planning to marketing and social services used its tools and ideas, supposing it would enable them to better understand the behavioural patterns and even key attitudes of the people they sought to reach through their work.
All this activity was underpinned by the assumption that society influences the lives and behaviour of individuals. This notion, of course, is anathema to those who would attribute all success and failure to individuals alone. One of the most forceful proponents of this position, Margaret Thatcher, not only rejected the idea that society influences people but that society exists at all. The lady’s not for polling.
My own tendency to commit sociology eventually became the source of my livelihood. I founded Environics, a polling and market research firm, rather like a sociological hit man: committing the offence on behalf of clients who prefer to leave the dirty work to others.
{M]y own sociological tendencies went unchecked because of Canada’s permissive atmosphere at that time. In those days, Canadians mused with impunity about social trends and even the workings of power. Indeed, state-sanctioned sociology was widely accepted as a practice of good government. Governments funded shadowy networks of sociologists.
The perps were not limited to universities and institutes; they infiltrated the public service. The federal government even conscripted ordinary Canadians into this nefarious activity. It perpetrated coercive, large-scale sociology against its own people in the form of a robust census. Sociology also informed the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, arguably the most influential such inquiry in our history, whose conclusions seemed to many to undermine the colonial values that had made this country great.
The tendrils of this scourge - which feeds rapaciously on curiosity, data collection, analysis and debate - reached into every corner of society. Ringleaders in fields from public health and urban planning to marketing and social services used its tools and ideas, supposing it would enable them to better understand the behavioural patterns and even key attitudes of the people they sought to reach through their work.
All this activity was underpinned by the assumption that society influences the lives and behaviour of individuals. This notion, of course, is anathema to those who would attribute all success and failure to individuals alone. One of the most forceful proponents of this position, Margaret Thatcher, not only rejected the idea that society influences people but that society exists at all. The lady’s not for polling.
My own tendency to commit sociology eventually became the source of my livelihood. I founded Environics, a polling and market research firm, rather like a sociological hit man: committing the offence on behalf of clients who prefer to leave the dirty work to others.