1. I understand (if correctly) Durkheim/Weber/Marx are often quoted as father of sociology, or founder of modern sociology, etc. I think this is in the era of 1800-1900/1950. An era where many changes happened in Europe from political governance to capitalism, and the first two world wars. It's an era of the so-called industrial age as well from agricultural age. An era of rapid change.
2. I am not sure whether there is any prominent sociology today that can explain what's happening to the world encompassing information era, electronics advancement, FB Generation, international relations, globalisation, capitalism, etc., in a comprehensive manner? Changes become more rapid. Say, tentatively and arbitrarily, we say this era starts from 1980? It's nearly four decades now.
3. In looking forward and looking backwards, and further backwards, I think there are scholars, intellectuals, some smart and wise men, even before the industrial revolution, just that maybe the printing technology could not capture their thoughts then. They too need to live in a community or a society. Say, we arbitrarily put it as in 500-1500. What are their thoughts then on sociology? If we borrow some dates from the literature, founder of Islam was born about year 500, Jesus about year 0, and Buddha about 500BC, spanning about one thousand years.
4. For discussion sake, if we go further back, think some anthropologists estimated some Africans migration about 75,000 years ago, and some recent findings estimated to be more than 100,000 years ago.
Just wondering what their sociology like for them to live together. I base this on the assumption basic human emotions may remain similar - they feel joy, anger, fear, sadness, and probably some may feel depressed too.
Bob, I think you are getting this right. One problem in the history of sociology in the West is that during the first half of the 20th century, sociologists were struggling to establish sociology as an independent academic discipline. This was in part to create sociology departments at the universities and thereby income opportunities for sociology professors. One effect of this was that the study of human societies had to be separated from the study of human nature and psychology, with which it had been linked in earlier times. Suddenly, sociology and human biology were not only different disciplines, each with its own set of methods and theoretical frameworks, but they were hostile.
In the second half of the 20th century there were big controversies about sociobiology, which used concepts from evolutionary biology to explain sociological phenomena. Sociologists considered sociobiology an illegal encroachment of biology on their turf. There was equally strong hostility of many sociologists to behavioral genetics. Somehow, sociologists had forgotten to include individual differences into their theories, or had adopted theories that did not quite match reality. Today there are efforts under way to remedy this, again not without hostility from those who pursue old-fashioned 20th-century sociology. The most dramatic recent development are massive genome-wide association studies that relate genetic variation to educational attainment. In a recent paper by Okbay et al. in Nature, variations in 74 different genes have been described for this outcome. Together they explain up to 9% of the variance in educational attainment (correlation of up to 0.3 between educational attainment and polygenic score). What sociologists call "family advantage" can be explained in large part by familial transmission of these genes. This means, the traditional division between sociology and human biology is collapsing. It is a paradigm shift that is unfolding right under our noses. This scientific revolution is still in its early stages. You may still have to wait a few years before a genome-wide association study finds "suicide genes", but it's going to come.
In that case, what is the next step? Engineer genes for school failure and suicide out of the human genome? If we try to eliminate environmental disadvantages with social welfare, public health care and education, why not eliminate genetic disadvantages with embryo selection and genome editing? Some people may prefer a "meritocratic" society in which we maintain genetic disadvantages but not environmental disadvantages, so that those with good genes can rule over those with crappy genes. But this is not for sociologists to decide. People have to make up their minds in what kind of society they want to live.
Good point Bob. Personally, I would say that instead of looking for thoughts on Sociology before the industrial era, we can better take a critical stance towards the discipline itself. Sociology emerged as an academic response to contextual changes in western societies. Contexts that differed from other regions and periods you are referring to. Maybe there was no such thing as 'Sociology' in the respective parts of the world. This is maybe another discussion than you aimed at.
But to come back to your points, yes there are contributions to Sociology from non western scholars. One such person is Ibn Khaldun (732–808 AH/1332–1406 AD). See attached an article on his works. He has been marginalized by modern social sciences.
I hope this helps.
Kirtie
Have you looked at Aristotle and Plato I know they are used from an ethical perspective but I am sure they also must have had a sociological influence also Anthony Geddes he wrote a sociological book another book I looked at or used was written by Macianos and Plummer. One of them looks at technology and religion Health and Islamaphobia. They were excellent text books but only skimmed through.look at jurgen habermas also Donna haraway the cyborg society,also look at films of sociological interest there are many genres covering a broad range of topics. Harles Wright mills the sociological imagination the book looks at thinkers of ancient world Confucius kung futzu Plato and Aristotle as mentioned st thoas Aquinas and14 th c Muslim ibn khaldun and French philosopher montesqireu. Hope my spelling correct look at August compte, Ferdinand toennies also ervibg Goffman as I said look at sociology a global introduction. It covers .a y of the questions you ask John j Macionis and Ken Ply.met my copy is a fourth edition
If you have a look for or at this book you will find more modern sociological that nkers in every chapter a different area of sociology is covered and books and films recommended that cover topical sociological areas. Your question to me searching and revisiting ng this text book and looking at it should prove enlightening and fruitful for you I hope.
Dear Kirtie and Georgina, I have copied your messages into my email system for easy referencing and record keeping when I am ready to read all those articles and books. Many thanks for your kind help. I will definitely read them. China just called all their sociology scholars to further research and contribute and define a new era of Chinese-Marxism (well, I don't know what that mean). I think there are quite a lot of collateral damage from the practice of capitalism as envisaged by their founders like Adam Smith, then.
Interesting discussion. Ibn Khaldun was one of the first discussing long term social/cultural changes, followed by many other such as Vico, Spengler, Toynbee, Sorokin, Quigley. Their search cannot be called "sociology" in the strict sense of the word, rather a kind of cultural typology. I have also read a thick book in Hungarian from Weber, a compilation form various books of him on the Indian, Chinese and Jew economic thought.
Ibn Khaldoun is an interesting example because he was a lone genius living at a time when Muslim civilization was in full decline. In consequence, he had no successors in the Muslim world and his work remained obscure until it was rediscovered by Western orientalists. Modern mainstream sociology is a failure. It has never produced any explanatory theory which would explain why science (including sociology) arises in the first place, and why civilizations like the Medieval Muslim civilization and modern Western civilization rise and fall. Studying the historical roots of sociology as a science is not an especially important endeavor. It will predictably get bogged down in fruitless debates about the definition of sociology and the definition of science. More important is to go beyond modern sociology and develop the conceptual framework and the toolbox that would explain the evolution of human societies, including the evolution of sociology.
Peter Turchin at the University of Connecticut has revived Ibn Khaldun's work and converted it into a testable theory. You can get a feel for his approach here: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamics/.
Dear Gyorgy, Gerhard & Peter, Many thanks for sharing all your kind thoughts. I will procure all the materials. Regards. [email protected].
Indeed. I was thinking of sociology from the perspective of humans living among each other, and the various different factors affecting the society. Sociologists in the 19th century normally have to think about many aspects affecting human lives and their interaction among each other - thus, they learned a bit about politics, philosophy, religion, and some economics, and some even legal system governing the society. Think maybe their focus is general well-being of the people. As knowledge becomes more segmentised and specialised, and economy develops further and becomes more complicated, many go to universities just to pursue that few subjects relevant to his or her profession in order to get a job. I think sociology is not a popular subject or discipline in my country simply because of lack of employment opportunities especially in the private sector. Sociology supposed to assist in driving other aspects of human interactions, or evolution of society, for example stuff like politics and economics. For the past few decades, it even appears economics (or business interests) are driving the other branches. I think Chomsky is very critical about this. I am actually studying suicide - but as I read more and more and try to understand more and more, it appears some of the top reasons for suicide for various age groups now are majority linked (directly or indirectly) to economics issues. As businesses compete, students study subjects that they or their parents think that are so-called having some commercial value or something that can get them a comfortable job; and from the family relationship and structure perspective, many are affected due to cost of living, urbanisation, lack of space, modernisation, etc., and a lot of arguments are monetary-related, and relationships are built based on economic reasons, or some call "beneficial relationship", "positive outcomes", etc. Due to competition, one of the major reasons youth commit suicide nowadays especially in urban cities are school and exam pressures. With the huge financial markets developed through the last few decades, it seems it also influence a lot of things how society behaves or need to behave to make a living, and simply, just have a comfortable life. Value system, ethics, morality, etc., become secondary. Will one day, sociology becomes a sub-set of economic studies and some financial theories? I am not sure whether anyone is compiling the evolution of sociology thoughts and factors affecting society and how people behave from previous time to today's modern time, especially for the past few centuries or since the industrial age. Things seem to be quite compartmentalised.
Bob, I think you are getting this right. One problem in the history of sociology in the West is that during the first half of the 20th century, sociologists were struggling to establish sociology as an independent academic discipline. This was in part to create sociology departments at the universities and thereby income opportunities for sociology professors. One effect of this was that the study of human societies had to be separated from the study of human nature and psychology, with which it had been linked in earlier times. Suddenly, sociology and human biology were not only different disciplines, each with its own set of methods and theoretical frameworks, but they were hostile.
In the second half of the 20th century there were big controversies about sociobiology, which used concepts from evolutionary biology to explain sociological phenomena. Sociologists considered sociobiology an illegal encroachment of biology on their turf. There was equally strong hostility of many sociologists to behavioral genetics. Somehow, sociologists had forgotten to include individual differences into their theories, or had adopted theories that did not quite match reality. Today there are efforts under way to remedy this, again not without hostility from those who pursue old-fashioned 20th-century sociology. The most dramatic recent development are massive genome-wide association studies that relate genetic variation to educational attainment. In a recent paper by Okbay et al. in Nature, variations in 74 different genes have been described for this outcome. Together they explain up to 9% of the variance in educational attainment (correlation of up to 0.3 between educational attainment and polygenic score). What sociologists call "family advantage" can be explained in large part by familial transmission of these genes. This means, the traditional division between sociology and human biology is collapsing. It is a paradigm shift that is unfolding right under our noses. This scientific revolution is still in its early stages. You may still have to wait a few years before a genome-wide association study finds "suicide genes", but it's going to come.
In that case, what is the next step? Engineer genes for school failure and suicide out of the human genome? If we try to eliminate environmental disadvantages with social welfare, public health care and education, why not eliminate genetic disadvantages with embryo selection and genome editing? Some people may prefer a "meritocratic" society in which we maintain genetic disadvantages but not environmental disadvantages, so that those with good genes can rule over those with crappy genes. But this is not for sociologists to decide. People have to make up their minds in what kind of society they want to live.
9% of the variation leaves 91% left possibly to be explained by social class and other non-genetic effects. This is a general problem. Searches for the actual genes associated with a character find only a smallish fraction of the variation estimated from classic familial correlation approaches. This is true not just in humans. As far as I'm aware there is no accepted explanation for the missing heritability. Perhaps many more genes are involved, each with such small effects that they can't be detected. Perhaps transgenerational epigenes are more important than we think.
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