Today’s Sociology: Partisan Advocacy for ‘Woke’ Causes.
Sociology, a once flourishing field, has evolved into a highly politicized discipline which disdains value-neutral research, and sacrifices research integrity for identity politics 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.
Woke 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 class struggle, unions, redistribution, and improving material conditions. They sought to elevate low income, and ‘marginalized’ people of all backgrounds. Their studies of disparities in wealth and power primarily looked at social and economic predictors 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. Left 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 debate, woke practices remain firmly entrenched in higher education. The precepts of wokism, 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 systemic racism and sexism.
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.
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 also correctly describes 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 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 have 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 ideals. Faculty have the freedom to teach woke theories and to be as intersectional as they’d like. But there is reason for concern when it is taught to the exclusion of all other perspectives. 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
Although the woke insanity dominates much of the social sciences and humanities, sociology is unique for the almost complete absence of ideological diversity. In a systematic review of studies, Professor Yanor 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 starting with a conclusion, and then finding evidence that supports it. The oppressive nature of society is given. Basic ideological parameters e.g. pervasive systemic racism or racially biased policing are assumed from the outset and remain unquestioned. Systemc 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
Sociologists refrain from reporting findings that question their accepted orthodoxies. 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. 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
The topics sociologists study are slanted toward their political perspective. An example is migration research where the topics studied almost always concern the characteristics, rights and well being of the migrants. However, little attention is paid to the impact on the destination or the socially optimal level of migration. A second example is the almost complete absence of work on black on black crime. A third illustration is educational outcomes where the predetermined politically correct conclusion is that racism alone explains why Blacks and Hispanics do worse (and little explanation for why Asians and Jews do so well other than white privilege). Studies that examine culture/values/emphasis are verboten.
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. No problem. “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 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. The peer review process is ideologically biased and 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 argued 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.
Holdouts: Some Sociologists Attempt Rigorous Work Instead of Ideology
Some sociologists have set out to produce work utilizing rigorous and accepted methodologies. Most notable are subgroups of scholars who identify as ‘rigorous’, ‘analytic’ or ‘scientific sociologists. They believe in meritocracy and are not hostile to the theories and methods of economics. In addition to this group, there are 200 sociologist members of ‘The Heterodox Academy’, an association advocating for the adoption of institutional neutrality. These well-intentioned scholars, though making a small impact, are greatly outnumbered by sociologists producing junk science and committed to left-wing advocacy.
Sociology Classroom and Curriculum: Every Course Allows You To Unpack Your Privileges
Many sociology departments promote 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. 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 and ideological cohabitation 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 grotesque excesses of wokeness become more apparent, many sociologists continue doubled 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’.
Conservative Sociology Professors and Students Face Isolation and Ridicule
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 May, 2025 the Ameican Sociological Association advocating “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 is that social problems solely arise from “structural conditions”.
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.
Most graduate students stop working with professors who develop a reputation of being a ‘conservative’. The few who are 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. 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 to these good-faith scholars serves to enforce woke orthodoxy, stifle research and intimidate 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 report anonymously 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. Students are presented complex issues only through the lens of woke activism, oppressor and victim, and dogmatism. Pseudoscientific theories such as microaggressions and ferreting out racism in the subconscious of white people are mainstays.
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 TED Talk: 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 believe 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”.
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 false 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 scan of 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 is 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. 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.
How Sociology Got in The Hole it is In: Conservative Roots
There is little in the discipline of sociology itself that is inconsistent with conservative thought. The founders of sociology (Weber, Durkheim, etc.) were influenced by conservatives and there are conservative strains in their work. Today there are Ph.D sociologists outside academia who 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'".
During its mid-20th Century heyday, 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.
Sociology’s Golden Age
The golden age was 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.
Empirical and Value Neutral Sociology
In the 1960s and 70’s a new generation of empirical sociologists became prominent. They believed in value-neutral sociology, and set aside their personal beliefs and moralities when they sat down to do their academic studies. Mostly apolitical and quantitative, they were serious about using methodology properly, had high evidentiary norms, and employed methods to safeguard their objectivity. For example, pioneer sociologist Peter Rossi had no special agendas and expressed a desire to improve live for everyone. Consequently, at that time, sociology was relevant and could be a source of insight and practical value for policy and social programs.
(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
Around 1970, the gatekeepers in Sociology began to cave to “radical sociology.” Functionalism was repudiated for conservative biases and legitimizing 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. By the 1980s, radical ideologies began to colonize the field, and in the year 2000 the sociology insurgents of 1968 held the highest positions in the discipline.
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.
Established specialties like ‘marriage and the family’ disappeared from course catalogues, replaced by “patriarchy and the manosphere” and “queer kinship”. Criminal justice became ‘Reparative Justice’ and ‘Carceral Studies’. Urban gentrification has become ‘white space making’. Traditional fields like medical sociology and social psychology shrunk dramatically.
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. 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 was blurred.
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 own conception of social justice are politically 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.