Re: [Marxism] Mark Lause on sociology as "unscientific" and "bourgeois"

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: Rickypagered@xxxxxxx 
  To: andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2004 2:29 PM
  Subject: Re: [Marxism] Mark Lause on sociology as "unscientific" and 
"bourgeois"


  Dear Comrade, 
     Some of us uneducated, working class types agree with comrade Lause. With 
the provision that we should include "bourgeois" economics to that list of 
academic silliness. 
                                   Peace&Socialism, Rick Page  
rickypagered@xxxxxxx 


A case could be made that some sociological research is specifically 
"bourgeois" in its perspective, method, goals or staffing, but this does not 
make all sociology as discipline "bourgeois" in principle, nor does it prove 
that the research is thereby invalid. 

Lause's crude and vulgar antipathy to sociology (hardly scholarly) ignores that 
many sociologists are socialists or left-wing. Sociology is necessary for the 
self-understanding of modern society. As assistant professor, Lause can 
moreover hardly claim to be any less bourgeois than the people he attacks. Marx 
himself was a bourgeois, and adopted many viewpoints by bourgeois authors. For 
his part, Carrol claims that class does not apply to individuals, yet seeks to 
characterise the personality of a "petty-bourgeois". At that rate, class 
conciousness will be slow in coming.

What Marx means with "class" is an empirically verifiable social group whose 
way of life is defined by property relations, income source and type of 
economic activity, thus, class relations refer to the social relations between 
individuals INSOFAR as they are members of social classes, relations between 
social classes, and social relations between an individual and a social class. 
An interpersonal relation is ipso facto no a class relation, but may be viewed 
as such insofar as the related individuals are members of social classes.

To define a viewpoint as e.g. "bourgeois" means that it reflects or expresses 
the interests and concerns of the bourgeoisie as a class. But just because 
scientific findings might express or be conducive to that viewpoint, does not 
itself invalidate those findings. A scientific proposition might be perfectly 
true, even although it serves class purposes. To say that it serves class 
purposes therefore does not disprove its truth or validity. One ought to 
dismiss a viewpoint because it is demonstrably mistaken, and not because it is 
in some sense "bourgeois". 

An important part of sociology concerns itself with the social basis or the 
social roots of ideas, and the social context in which they are formulated. 
Marxists do this all the time, and in that sense they don't get away from 
sociologising at all.

J. 

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism