Today’s Sociology: Ideology and Partisan Advocacy
Sociology, a once flourishing field, has become a highly politicized discipline which disdains value-neutral research, and sacrifices research integrity for partisan advocacy and social change activism. Today’s sociologists speak of commitment to standards of scientific rigor, but their practice is mainly ideology and sloppy empirical studies. Sociology is a “damaged brand”, unloved and distrusted by broad sections of American society, including those best positioned to influence social policy.
Undoubtedly, many questions in the domain of sociology are important and worthy of scientific study. However, the discipline has become so rotten - with really ideological, incompetent or unethical people deeply embedded within it - that any correction from its current trajectory seems unlikely.
Mendacity Embraced and Everything is Furiously Spun From the Start in the Direction Desired
After decades of teaching and research, the prominent sociologist Alexander Riley reached this mordant conclusion about the state of his discipline:
“Today, sociology treats complex and contested questions with the most simplified framework imaginable. All questions about human life are now equations of victims and victimizers and the mechanisms by which the powerful oppress the powerless. No alternative explanatory models for the empirical outcomes we see in the world are entertained or even acknowledged as legitimate. All evidence that cannot be adequately twisted to fit the storyline is ignored. Outright mendacity about empirical matters is embraced, details of cases are occluded, and everything is furiously spun from the start in the direction desired.”
Sociology’s faculty, professional associations, graduate programs and to a large degree journals are all complicit. Dissident sociologists keep their heads down. The question has come up in various circles whether sociology can be saved or reformed. Many believe that the solution is to have other disciplines address the scientific questions that used to be in the wheelhouse for sociology and criminology. This is already happening. Some sociology is getting done by people not trained in sociology. They are loyal to the content, not to its professional manifestation.
Sociology is Fake Social Justice. Social Justice Without Economic Class.
Sociology has long attracted people interested in making the social world better, and more fair to those who have suffered from discrimination. They regarded themselves as natural experts on questions of the general good and social justice. Historically sociology aligned with the ‘Old Left’ which focused on economic class, unions and improving social conditions for low income and ‘marginalized’ people of all backgrounds. Their studies of disparities in wealth and power primarily looked at social and economic correlates such as money, class, heredity and nepotism.
In contrast, the dominant concern of today’s ‘woke’ sociology is achieving outcome equality for groups defined by their race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, immigration status, indigeneity and physical ability. When sociology departments, advocate “dismantling structures and ideologies that uphold, normalize, naturalize, and legitimate/justify all forms of inequality”, this is in the context of promoting DEI not advocating wealth redistribution. Egalitarian economics and liberal progressive universalism has been replaced by tribalism and competitive victimhood.
Critical Theory and Intersectionality Underlie Woke Sociology
The definition and core tenets of wokism are contested and what it denotes is not always clear. Political scientist Eric Kaufman provides a general definition of woke as ‘the sacralization of historically disadvantaged race, gender and sexual identity groups’. While the term ‘wokeness’ may be receding in popular discourse, woke practices remain firmly entrenched in higher education. The culture and bureacracy inside universities are deeply engrained. These things persist.
The central belief of wokeism is the necessity of group outcome equality. Its precepts, as manifested in academic sociology are:
Everything (including science and academia) is racist, sexist, hetero, colonial and about power struggle between the oppressors and oppressed.
Existing social inequalities and unequal representation are due to currently existing structural racism and sexism. (Structural racism is distinct from overt racist behavior and interpersonal discrimination because it is systemic and does not require individual actors with awareness or intent)
Everything (including science and education) needs to be dismantled and rebuilt to ensure Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
The oppressor is defined according to their position in the intersectionality power spectrum. The dominant group is racist, but anyone who is not part of the dominant group cannot be racist.
An oppressor is inherently unable to appreciate information presented by an oppressed victim person.
Those who are not with us are against us and must be punished
Underlying woke sociology are the philosophies of critical theory, intersectionality and ultimately Marxism. In the Buckingham statement Kaufmann defines wokeism as 'a contingent historical episode’ that needs to be studied just as scholars have sought to explain the rise of nationalism and communism.
Intersectionality is a core ideological component of wokeism. It sees forms of oppression as linked, reinforcing and multiplying into a forest of trauma. Complicated issues are reduced to articles of faith. Although not all sociologists are in the critical social justice camp, the majority actively support or have passively acquiesced to their discipline as an activist field with a grievance-based social justice mission.
Universities Should be Neutral and Pluralistic
Higher education should aim to foster the development of students’ independent and critical thinking skills. Universities should be institutionally neutral and pluralistic, providing students with the conceptual tools for understanding the world.
There are always good arguments on both sides of any complex issue, and no single perspective has a monopoly on truth. What is ‘socially just’ or the best path to social betterment are not clear and easily agreed upon.
Ideas and beliefs should be freely and openly discussed, and conflicting viewpoints should be presented in a fair and dispassionate manner. This is how progress is made. Moreover, as the oft-cited John Stuart Mill points out, it is important to hear competing opinions in their most plausible and persuasive forms from people who believe them.
Current sociology falls far short of these standards. Presenting only one point of view breeds confirmation bias, groupthink and pressure to conform. It also weakens one’s own arguments because they are not challenged.
Sociology: The Academy’s Progressive Vanguard
While progressive dogmas have increasingly constricted the social sciences its grip is strongest in sociology which exhibits an almost complete absence of ideological diversity. There are almost three times more far-left faculty in sociology than in psychology or political science. In a systematic review of studies, Professor Yenor shows that liberal sociologists outnumber conservatives by forty-seven to one. Almost no one is openly right of center. One study found zero Republicans. Another found 12 conservative sociologists out of 6,000 in the US. Right of center sociologists are vastly outnumbered by self-identified “Marxists”. Thousands of sociology books and articles have been written from a variety of perspectives, including Marxist, liberal, progressive, feminist, intersectionalist, radical, and post-modernist. To date, however, very few have been written from a conservative perspective.
Universities Search for Conservative Sociologists
Both the new ‘heterodox’ universities focused on viewpoint diversity (e.g. University of Austin) and the new conservative-leaning centers set up within established universities struggle to find sociologists. A new center at a major public university created by the state’s Republican legislature is full of conservatives and moderates from law, history, political science, and even anthropology. Still, they have been unable to find a sociologist in the field who would be mission-aligned.
Weak Science: Sociologists Start with a Conclusion and Find Evidence That Supports It
Sociological studies are rightly criticized for beginning with the conclusion and working backwards, mistaking their own arguments as strong evidence. The oppressive nature of society is given. Basic ideological parameters e.g. pervasive structural racism are assumed from the outset and remain unquestioned. Systemic bias and oppression are the only acceptable explanations - all analyses proceed from there. Methods are rigged to arrive at these ideologically preferred conclusions. Statistical malfeasance, evidence cherry-picking and intellectual dishonesty are common.
A majority of sociologists believe that sociology “should analyze and transcend oppression”. In pursuit of this, they employ a progressive epistemology which judges the veracity of scientific findings as to how well they fit the prevailing narratives. This is in contrast to the norms of science (disinterestedness, skepticism, universalism) put forward by Weber and Merton, and practiced by many sociologists in the past.
Findings That Run Counter to Wokeness are Either not Reported or Rejected by Reviewers
Professor Eppard documents that sociologists make big claims that have a weak to nonexistent evidentiary claims. These include claims about systemic racism, implicit bias, police shootings, microagressions, sexism, sex differences, transgender issues, single parenthood and more. Sociologists refrain from reporting findings that question these claims. As eminent sociologist Mark Mizruchi points out:
“Seemingly smart people seem to lose all critical perspective when findings accord with their worldview and/or political perspective. When a sociologist has the guts to report findings that question the accepted wisdom, however, he or she is typically excoriated, regardless of the quality of the work. In these cases, many of the same people who uncritically accepted more "palatable" findings on the same topic suddenly become fierce and incisive critics.”
It is especially difficult to publish results that are considered harmful to marginalized groups (e.g. studies that do not find evidence of bias/unfair treatment but instead find differences in risks/behaviors).
An oft-cited example is Robert Putnam’s finding that social trust is lower in ethnically diverse communities. He held off publishing his results until he could think up ways to make them politically palatable. This highlights the clear and strong moral stigma associated with questioning accepted findings and the causal connections being posited. It is not uncommon for there to be hundreds of published studies which support an ideologically favored conclusion, but few that question or refute it. For example, skepticism of claims that minorities get treated more severely for the same behavior is not allowed.
The Topics Sociologists Study are Slanted Toward Their Political Perspective
It is widely accepted that the topics that social scientists choose to study are determined by their conception of the most important social values. This is especially impactful in sociology where conservatives are nearly absent. A noteable example is migration research where studies overwhelmingly address the rights, well-being and changes occuring to the immigrants and their descendants. There are numerous studies on topics such as ‘rethinking queer migration’, ‘rebordering’ and ‘the transnational far right’, but little discussion of the cultural side of immigration, their impact on the receiving societies, or the socially optimal level of migration.
Rather than focusing on the biases of everyone toward everyone, sociologists manifest a totalizing cultural socialist focus on white men versus the rest. Examples are: (1) the almost complete absence of work on black on black crime; (2) educational outcome studies where the predetermined conclusion is that racism alone explains why blacks and Hispanics do worse; (There is little explanation for why Asians and Jews do so well other than white privilege. Studies that emphasize culture and values are dismissed); and (3) Discrimination studies where the singular focus is on Islamophobia in the USA with no discussion of forms of discrimination in Islamic and other societies.
Sociology does not Take Personal Agency Seriously
A major problem with his field, distinguished sociologist Orlando Patterson points out,
“is that it does not take personal agency seriously. It remains highly suspicious of all notions of personal initiative and responsibility. Indeed, it is routine to castigate anyone foolish enough to take agency seriously as a reactionary bent on blaming the victim.”
For example, simplistic explanatory frameworks based on structural and systemic racism (and now ‘metaracism’) are the only permitted way to frame most problems in race relations and criminology. Systemic/structural racism, if and where it exists, is undoubtably hard to pin down. Why is this? “A great deal of energy”, sociologist Tricia Rose, explains, “has gone into making systemic racism invisible”. The possibility of individuals taking personal actions to avoid negative outcomes is not taken into consideration.
The hypocrisy of sociologists who push structural racism is hard to miss. On one hand they celebrate the social movements in which people have been involved to show how people have agency and can change the system. On the other hand, they simultaneously deny that members of these groups have any agency in what sometimes happens to them.
Top Sociology Journals Publishing ‘Absolute Crap’
When sociologists - distorted by ideology - get the causal connections wrong, their policy recommendations, if implemented, prove ineffective or counterproductive - harming the people they were intended to help. As the eminent economist, Glenn Loury points out “only a sociologist would believe that 70 percent of kids being born out of wedlock in a community is not a bad thing in terms of development”. This corruption envelopes most the discipline. It is rotten to the core. Further, the peer review process is ideologically biased; extremely weak papers, due to their woke-aligned claims, become current sociological "classics”. Unconvincing studies are are feted without critique.
Even the respected statistician Andrew Gelman, usually friendly to sociology, had enough when a top sociology journal, Demography, published an article which he called ‘a hack job’ and ‘absolute crap’. The article claimed that Trump’s 2016 election led to increased birth defects for non-white mothers. Gelman pondered “how this sort of paper with weak science and a crude political agenda can get published in legitimate journals”. A mystery for the ages.
Sociological Theory of Racialization
Sociologists define ‘racialization’ as the process of embedding race (a socially constructed identity) into all kinds of social groups, structures, and engagements. It is said to operate in ways that are invisible to those designated as white. Originally gaining traction in the study of organizations, policing and healthcare, racialization theory is now used to examine vast areas including emotions, pedagogy, discourse, and risk. Men, modernity, normative congruence, and ‘agentic self-expression’ are all racialized - as, of course, is ‘attraction among white spouses’.
Racialization also explains disparate outcomes. One scholar claims that Latinos have lower incomes because ‘the logic of social mobility is racialized’. Others examine racialized ‘expectations management’, time burdens, higher education resource hoarding and cultural capital - all of which purportedly keep subordinated racialized groups oppressed. (But ignores why Asian-Americans and other ‘racialized’ groups have higher incomes). This bizarre cultural Marxism is enough to make a cat laugh. Many sociologists realize this, but few have the guts to speak out.
The term ‘racialize/d’, when used as a verb and adjective, is particularly insulting and condescending in that it implies that being racialized (non-white) is something which has been inflicted upon people. Academics who adopt this ridiculous term, whether they realize it or not, have agreed to the (encoded) half-baked wokeist and critical theory truth claims about race relations. (There's a term that's even more obnoxious than - and equally amorphous as - racialized: "minoritized.")
Several sociologists have told me that this nonsense is not pervasive in the field. However, the terms ‘racialized’ and ‘racialization’ appear 67 times in the titles of presentations at the 2025 ASA meetings, frequently by faculty and graduate students at the highest status departments.
Sociology Course Offerings: A Sea Change in What Counts as Scholarship
In time, ideas that had been percolating for many years on the periphery of the field, moved to center stage. Courses in established specialties like ‘Marriage and the Family’ disappeared from catalogues, replaced by ‘Patriarchy and the Manosphere’, ‘Decolonizing Queer Kinship’ and ‘Sexuality as a System of Whiteness’. Criminal justice became ‘Reparative Justice’ and ‘Carceral Studies’. Urban gentrification has become ‘White Space Making’. Recent woke-aligned course offerings include “How to Steal”. Students “examine theft through the lens of capitalism, colonialism, and morality”, and “visit grocery stores, banks, libraries, and museums, which the course identifies as places where “‘capital is hoarded and value is contested’.”
Traditional fields like medical sociology and social psychology shrunk dramatically. The once productive field of ethnography was overrun by deconstructionists and woke activists who held that only researchers of an oppressed group can authentically write about their experiences. A rich tradition of insightful participant-observation studies became disfavored.
Post-modernism and other intellectual movements resulted in a sea change in what counted as scholarship. The very possibility of value-neutrality and objective knowledge was called into question, thereby providing legitimization for sociologists to become advocates. Research standards declined and researchers misinterpreted their findings to fit what they wanted. The line between scholarship and indoctrination and activism became blurred.
Holdouts: Some Sociologists Attempt Rigorous Work Instead of Ideology
Some sociologists have made it their purpose to produce work utilizing rigorous and accepted methodologies. Most notable are subgroups of scholars who call themselves ‘rigorous’, ‘analytic’ or ‘scientific sociologists. They approve of meritocracy and are not hostile to economics.
In additon, there are 200 sociologist members of ‘The Heterodox Academy’, an association advocating for the adoption of institutional neutrality. Sociology signatories to the Buckingham Manifesto are challenging that dogma that bias and oppression are the only acceptable explanations and calling for a new social science “to free up inquiry, fill in blind spots, and render a richer and more accurate account of our social world”. These well-intentioned scholars, though making a small impact, are greatly outnumbered by sociologists producing junk science and committed to left-wing advocacy.
Conservative Sociology Professors and Students Face Censorship, Mobbing and Moral Denunciation
Professor Jussim compiled 13 privileges which progressive professors enjoy. High among these is the ability to conduct research without colleagues publishing “scientific articles” claiming that they are are deficient in intelligence and morality because of their political beliefs.
The discrimination against conservatives is most pronounced in sociology where conservatives, particularly cultural conservatives, are thought to be morally deficient. They face a hostile climate including isolation and ridicule. Right of center perspectives on contentious issues are denounced, belittled, and kept out of prestigious journals and course curricula. As sociology professor Mark Horowitz’ survey of sociologists shows, sociologists hoping for tenure should keep any conservative views to themselves, especially since an increasing number of departments are expanding criteria for promotion and tenure to include “supporting engaged social justice”. As late as September, 2025 the Ameican Sociological Association advocated “incorporating community-engaged scholarship into tenure and promotion processes.”
Sociologists Forbid Any Conclusion That Strikes Them as a ‘Social Injustice’.
Sociologists take an inquisitorial stance against anyone who investigates a taboo subject, reaches a politically incorrect conclusion or supports a practice or outcome that strikes them as a ‘social injustice’. Entire disciplines like economics are frequently disregarded because they don’t properly address power imbalances and violate sociology’s enforced consensus that social problems solely arise from “structural conditions”. Sociology’s aversion to biological or, as they are often branded, "reductionist" explanations commonly operates as an informal ethos limiting what can be said in seminars, asked at lectures or incorporated into social theory.
Moderate and liberal faculty also water down their views, shy away from controversial topics and avoid situations where they would have to reveal their true beliefs. They are careful to approach 'permitted’ topics in ideologically acceptable ways. Transgressing the field’s moral sensibilities, defying the language police or veering from the prevailing orthodoxy has resulted in shaming, ridicule, cancelled courses, retracted articles, and even the denial of tenure and loss of one’s job and reputation.
The Classroom is a Minefield
The classroom is a minefield. All is takes is one student from an oppressed group saying you are making their life bad by your presence there or by putting forward objectionable ideas to land you in the penalty box.
There are many cases where graduate students stop working with professors who develop a reputation of being a ‘conservative’. The few students who remain interested are often shunned. Students are impacted in other ways. A self-described ‘apolitical’ graduate student specializing in the sociology of sports reported unwanted faculty pressure to engage in politics.
Inquisition: Penalties Serve to Punish Offenders and Intimidate Potential Transgressors.
Paul Allison, a well-regarded sociologist who held deep Christian convictions took a position on a ‘value issue’ that cost him his candidacy for a promotion. Another conservative Christian sociologist, Mike Adams, made controversial tweets and comments which were no less offensive than the tweets of hundreds of woke sociologists (to which no one batted an eye). In response, nearly 270 sociology professors and graduate students from across the country issued a statement calling for his firing. Subject to harassment and persistent baseless accusations, he later killed himself.
Among sociology’s holy trinity of race, gender and ethnicity, race is the most sacred and inviolable. Jon Rieder, a white sociology prof at Barnard, used the N-word when quoting a rapper in one of his classes. Despite Columbia luminary and New York Times columnist, John McWhorter’s strenuous objections to “theatrically contrived claims of racial harm”, he ended-up having his course cancelled after some black students complained.
Andreas Wimmer, the Lieber Professor of Sociology at Columbia, published an article arguing that sociologists sometimes overuse race to analyze things, pointing out that race is not the best framework for understanding a lot of social problems. His goal was to make sociology more effective at understanding genuinely racialized problems. Someone published a rejoinder calling him a racist. No one came to his aid.
Radical Sociologist is Furious a Christian Professor Besmirched Her University
When University of Texas sociologist, Mark Regnerus, reached a ‘wrong conclusion’ in an LGBT related study, his research was immediately discredited. He was called a “propagandist for heterosexual marriage who disguises his ideological biases behind a smoke screen of social science”. Over 200 sociologists signed a letter questioning his motives and integrity, and vilifying his character. A UT colleague commented:
“I am disturbed by his irresponsible and reckless representation of social science research, and furious that he is besmirching my university to lend credibility to his ‘findings’…Pseudo-science that demonizes gay and lesbian families contributes to stress, and is not good for children.”
It is possible that Professor Regnerus's gay parenting study had problems and was influenced by his personal beliefs. What is not in doubt is that the ASA as an organization, not to mention hordes of sociologists, viciously attacked him in a hyperbolic, nasty and ridiculous way. They couldn't accept the possibility that kids raised by gay couples, other things being equal, might experience more difficulties than kids raised by straight couples. Convinced they are on the right side of history, they have no compunction bullying, demonizing and threatening those who step out of line.
Professor Violated the Woke Tenet of ‘Positionality’ by not Checking Her Privilege.
A notable bullying episode occurred when the (politically liberal) white sociologist Alice Goffman conducted a field study in a black community. An anonymous accuser sent an email to hundreds of sociologists alerting them at this white woman had violated the woke tenet of ‘positionality’ by not checking her privilege. Only victims have true insight into other victims. They alone are equipped to do meaningful research in those areas.
The severe rebukes styfle researchers and serve as a warning to potential transgressors.
Punished for Having the Wrong Facial Expression
While exhibiting the narcissistic or ‘white mans’ gaze are established transgressions on woke campuses, having the wrong facial expression is now a punishable offence. In her Boston University sociology class, the path-breaking social theorist Liah Greenfeld was reported to university authorities by students who thought that her facial expression indicated that she did not approve of LGBT. The BU administration encouraged students to anonymously report on their classmates and professors. For a semester, the Dean and chairman of the sociology department sat in on every class and watched her face. One would think they’d have something better to do.
The Classroom as a Forum for Indoctrinating Students
Sociology pedagogy is all too often political advocacy under the guise of objective science. Pious professors present complex issues only through the lens of oppressor and victim - proselytizing students and forcing them to buy their ideology. Pseudoscientific theories such as microaggressions and ferreting out racism in the subconscious of white people are mainstays.
Sociology Classroom: Every Course Allows You To Unpack Your Privileges
Many sociology departments exult in promoting their activist and social justice mission, e.g. Rollins College, which boasts that their goal is to make the world more fair. Every course in their department, they advertise, “incorporates sociological training that will allow you to unpack your privileges, understand oppression, and find a way to keep doing the work without paralyzing yourself in guilt”. The University of the Redlands regards sociology as “a liberatory enterprise”.
Within departments, sociologists create novel ideologically aligned minors (“solidarity and social justice”), and politically partisan programs and institutes. A survey of sociologists concluded that it is an “ideal discipline for teaching and embodying DEI tenets”. The physical space of the classroom is “a sacred, inclusive place of belonging”. The course topics, readings, and assignments “should all be infused with a DEI sensibility”.
Convinced of their moral mandate, they are not open to learning from conservatives whom they construe as hostile partisans, not worth a moment’s attention. Intellectual engagement, ideological cohabitation and agreeing well are not acceptable. Professor Riley describes how whenever a sociology major shows up in one of his classes he has to:
“spend significant time just convincing them that a good deal of what they have been led to believe is taken-for-granted truth about the world by the orthodox malpractitioners of social science must in fact be defended, and indeed that much of it is indefensible, at least if one wants to remain in the realm of the real.”
After 2025, as the excesses of wokeness become more apparent and court decisions constrained wokeism, many sociologists continued to double down on their status as ‘social justice experts’ and embattled victims. Shortly before his death, legendary Professor Burawoy, stressed the need to defend sociology as a ‘moral science’.
The Classroom as a Space of Counter-Hegemony
The sociology classroom serves as a safe space, “a space of counter-hegemony” and a site where “knowledge can be reclaimed as a tool for liberation rather than exclusion”. No one should feel uncomfortable. To illustrate, a white male professor nervous about teaching a class on race and ethnicity sought advice on Reddit as to how to approach the ‘challenges of positionality’ and be “mindful of the dynamics of power and privilege while ensuring the class remains a rigorous, critically engaged space”. The Reddit responders emphasized the need for a safe space and to avoid speaking from a white person’s point of view: “Don’t come across as too personally ashamed or apologetic when discussing these things”. This woke nonsense is not knowledge. It is more like therapy and doomed to fail as an educational venture.
Conservative Views are Largely Ignored in the Classroom
In the classroom, conservative views are largely ignored. When they are given a hearing they are presented weakly or misrepresented to ensure their immediate dismissal. Students who challenge orthodox claims have been shouted down or shamed merely for expressing opinions that do not align with the dominant views. A pernicious groupthink (encompassing belief in their moral superiority and being on the right side of history, stereotyping of out-groups, etc.) closes off the possibility of rich debates on the interplay of social, economic and cultural forces.
The Cult of Sociology: A Tribal Moral Community
Sociology embodies what Professor Haidt calls an academic ‘tribal moral community’. It also bears all the earmarks of a cult. According to Professor Smith, one of sociology’s ‘mystical beliefs’ is that gender and sexuality are fluid and socially constructed, but people are also born gay or trans. Sociology’s taboos include:
Anything that challenges blank slatism or the idea that human beings and societies are and should be infinitely malleable.
Any comparison of social groups that reflects disfavorably on the preferred group or seems to favor the dominant group.
Anything that could blame minority populations for things we think of as bad or that could provide useful ammunition to ‘bad’ political actors.
A Warm and Welcoming Community
One sociology department calls itself a “community for social change, social justice, and equality” with “supportive peers”. A sociologist observes that his colleagues “comprise an emotive left progressive community with shared norms and a tribal loyalty to sacralized victims.” Another describes a “warm and welcoming community”. Sociologists view themselves as compassionate and committed to social amelioration and the ‘defense of humanity’. Professor McCaffrey notes that students select sociology as a major because they want to change the world and usher in a utopian society where no racism, sexism, ableism, classism or discrimination of any kind exists.
A University of Michigan sociology 2023 “Major of the Month” explains that “sociology makes it feel possible to dismantle even the most legitimate-seeming structures of power in our society, and reimagine their purpose and function to create a better future”.
Redditor user Bourgeoisetrashlord explains how she distanced herself from her old friends when she started studying sociology:
“I tried to find community with people who felt similar to me. I hung out with sociology majors and joined organizations working on issues that I was most passionate about, and that's how I made my friends”.
Sociology as Religious Experience: “Learned Nada, Had a Good Belly Laugh Though!”
In a TED talk with 743K views, sociologist Sam Richards described his conversion to sociology as a religious experience. Before studying sociology, he believed that “happiness could only come from his own destiny free from the influences of others”. Then he began studying sociology and reached the profound conclusion that “everything is shaped by factors and forces outside of your control that you will never see, nor will you ever understand. Your freedom is an illusion…. This is life changing”. Enraptured viewers bore witness:
“Sociology empowers people to survive in life. It's like someone pats your shoulder whenenver you feel like you're giving up”.
“Sociology literally saved my life”.
“I felt COMPLETE for the first time”.
“Sociology is like a best friend”.
Not everyone was converted. “Yikes”, a viewer exclaimed, “looks like he is holding prayer beads”. Another left dispirited: “learned nada, had a good belly laugh though”.
The ‘Sociological Lens: Expose Hidden Truths
Sociologists teach that society operates on the basis of invisible power structures that those trained in the field are best qualified to detect. Departmental mission statements exult how the ‘sociological lens’ is “where we make the strange familiar’ and critical for ‘opening your eyes’ so you can see problems clearly and eliminate inequality.
Sociologists created an esoteric vocabulary for ‘exposing hidden truths’ and showing students “the inner-workings of things they experience every day”. They augment the existing woke lexicon with novel terms such as agnotology, manosphere and racialization (e.g. ‘racialized organizations’). A sociology student explains: “I felt like I was primed to understand what I was learning, and someone just needed to peel back the curtain and show it to me.”
One sociology professor introduced his class to the “sociological eye”, which “can never really be turned off”. The sociological eye is really special: “Not everyone can unlock it because not everyone has the capacity for it - if more people did, I believe that society would be a very different place. Use your sociological eye to try to improve the world around you, because we see structural issues, not a culmination of individual problems”. That’s pretty good.
Sociology’s Revered Canon
Most revered among sociology’s sacred texts is “The Sociological Imagination” by C. Wright Mills. A graduate student recalls how his professor “used to take out his dog-eared copy of the book and read passages out loud to me like a catechist”. Like the sociological ‘eye’ and ‘lens’, the vaporous ‘imagination’ is used to justify a field unable to stake out a turf of its own.
According to the current sociology guru, Pierre Bourdieu, sociology, allows you to “think in a completely astonished and disconcerted way about things you think you had always understood”. “It reveals that which is hidden”. Students lap this up.
Sociology, like other cults, rejects or ignores fact-based arguments opposed to their existing beliefs. Since it frowns on open discussions with adversaries, their bs arguments are allowed to circulate without being challenged. Their values come to seem valid to themselves because they never associate with anyone who disagrees with them. “Shut Up Oppressor”. I'm not going to engage. “He's evil”
Dominated by the White Man's Gaze?
In an impassioned 2020 article, the ASA president made the ludicrous claim that sociology departments are very old, very white and “dominated by the white man's gaze”. For a field obsessed with diversity and inclusion, the dearth of straight white men among sociology faculty (under 40) and graduate students is striking. Today’s sociology is principally a women’s discipline at all levels, from undergraduate and doctoral students to faculty.
Even a casual glance at sociology department websites reveals that white men are a shrinking minority in the field. This is obvious, self-documenting and most evident among junior faculty and graduate students. White men typically comprise between 3 and 15 percent of sociology graduate students. At Johns Hopkins 1 of 36 students is a white man. In 2024 of Columbia’s 7 assistant professors and 17 incoming graduate students, one was a white man. (University of North Carolina: 6 of 57; Georgia: 1 of 33; Yale: 4 of 44. Pick your department). Of the few white men teaching sociology, a good percentage are Marxists or lay claim to another oppressed identity, such as LBGTQ.
White Men Reject Sociology’s Discrimination and Woke Ideology
Undoubtedly, white men have fled sociology due to the centrality of ideologies (‘white hetero patriarchal violence’, ‘white supremacy culture’ etc.) which designate this presumably most privileged segment of society as the permanent bad guys who “structure the surface of everyday life distorting the nature of truth and reality”. It is hard to miss the proliferation of assigned texts such as: “White Male Mediocrity”, “White Supremacy, Patriarchy and Capitalism”, “White Man Falling”, “Angry White Men”, and “The White Man Victimhood of the Rabid Puppies”.
Ultimately, those white heterosexual men who complete the Ph.D program - without the benefit of race and gender-based scholarships - will be disfavored in the job market. If they get a job, promotions and competitive research grants will be harder to obtain. Despirte court rulings limiting race and ethnicity-based preferences, universities continue to game, skirt and flout the rules.
This reverse racism starts at the top of the profession. In the name of ‘resisting oppression’ and intervening in ‘socio-political struggles’, the American Sociological Association eliminated white men from leadership positions 15 years ago. It will take generations, they argue “to overcome sociology’s roots in Eurocentric white male supremacy”. The US regional sociology organizations followed suit. As of April, 2025, not one of the eight major smaller associations had a white man in leadership.
Sociology’s Conservative Roots
There are conservative strains in the thought of sociology’s (Weber, Durkheim, Spencer etc.) and its early ‘schools’. Today some Ph.D sociologists outside universities hold conservative views that would never be tolerated inside the academy. For example, the UK journalist and political advisor, Munira Mirza, has argued that multiculturalism accentuates differences between groups, and described the anti-racism movement as a "bogus moral crusade imported from the US with its demented campus dramas and neuroses about 'safe spaces', 'micro-aggressions' and 'cultural appropriation'".
History of Sociology: Once Dominant Theory of Functionalism Embodied a Conservative View of Social Order
In the mid-20th Century, sociology’s dominant theory was functionalism which views society as a system of interrelated parts that work together toward the goal of societal harmony and stability. Although most sociologists were politically liberal, functionalism embodied a conservative view of social order. For example, the prominent sociologist Kingsley Davis argued that inequality is a necessary and functional aspect of society, and a natural consequence of society's need to incentivize certain positions. This widely shared belief is somehow highly controversial in today’s version of reality.
Sociology’s Golden Age
During its golden age (roughly 1945-1975), sociology was a lively place, characterized by viewpoint diversity and the flourishing of creative thinkers (Kai Erickson, Erving Goffman, etc.) who offered original analyses of social problems addressing the “big questions”. These book-writing sociologists and ethnographers viewed their professional role as to understand the actions of others by putting themselves in their shoes (verstehen), not to advocate.
The Rise of Empirical and Value Neutral Sociology
In the 1960s and 70’s a new generation of sociologists became prominent. They believed in value-neutral sociology, and set aside their personal beliefs when conducting their studies. Mostly apolitical and quantitative, they were serious about using methodology properly and had high evidentiary norms. An outstanding example was pioneer sociologist Peter Rossi who had no special agendas and expressed a desire to improve life for everyone. Their research rovide an empirical basis for assessing the kinds of institutional arrangements. Policy-makers paid attention to sociology. The Moynihan Report (1965) and Coleman Report (1966) had large impacts.
(Nonetheless, even in it's golden age, there were both radical sociologists who attacked dominant sociology as a handmaiden to oppressive state power, as well as a current of opposition who regarded sociology as an unsound and disreputable pseudoscience.)
The Ascendancy of the Radical Sociologists
How then did sociology become so left and later woke? Sociology was sympathetic to the social activism of the era, and hospitable to students active in the various left-wing causes of the time. The sociology of the 1940s to 1960s was attacked as being conservative and reactionary, if not worse. The gatekeepers in Sociology began to cave to these radical sociologists who repudiated functionalism for having biases which legitimize the status quo. Stability and harmony were hardly desirable when the activist element is front and center and the goal is the total overturning of society. Sociology began its course to self-destruction.
By the 1980s, radical ideologues began to colonize the field. They were relentless and good at it. By the year 2000 the sociology insurgents of 1960s held the highest positions in the discipline. A significant turn occurred in 2001 when the ASA president Michael Burawoy mainstreamed the idea of public sociology, which sounds neutral but has a radical left wing activism agenda. Sociology moved from the empirical and theoretically-informed study of society to a field oriented toward exposing injustices. Once the activists took over, as Jonathan Turner observes, "scholars" were no longer accepting of intellectual diversity, and became willing to lie and cheat to realize their narrow goals.
American Sociological Association: Sociology’s Radical Governing Body
For decades sociology’s governing organization, the American Sociological Association (ASA) has ignored professional standards of scholarship and exhibited contemptuous disregard for members who do not share their radical views. Their numerous ‘resolutions’ and political statements (passed with little discussion or debate) promoting their particular conception of social justice are extremely partisan, and outside the purview of any scholarly or professional association. (Other organizations such as the Society for the Study of Social Problems split off from the ASA because it was too conservative).
The ASA, which sees itself as scholar-activists and proudly claims the mantle of politically engaged activism, was outraged when the right-leaning state of Florida removed sociology from their required core course list. The ASA responded by claiming that sociologists are merely advancing the objective scientific study of social life. Sociologists claim to be activists until the moment you criticize them. Then they use science as a shield to legitimize their research in the language of the science they just got done telling you they reject.