From: "Nate Holdren" <nateholdren-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Academia....
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 15:29:30 -0400


Hi Cliff-
First off, let me just say "sociology, bah humbug!" so you don't think the 
list is a complete love-fest. ;)

Second, you mentioned Rorty - one of my favorite philosophers though 
politically rather a fuckhead.
Is Rorty read much among sociology professors? A lot of my philosophy 
friends go into fits at the mere mention of his name, let alone the 
suggestion that he may be worth taking seriously. I'm curious if you or 
anyone else you know of has done work on Rorty and the 
postmodern/althusserian marxism you're interested in.

I ask because I don't really know how to reconcile my interest in (and the 
stuff I've learned from) Rorty with autonomist marxism and other radical 
stuff that I'm into (other than that Rorty has helped me to stop being hung 
up on problems that now seem a little silly).
There's a really good book by Simon Wheeler called _Deconstruction as 
Analytic Philosophy_ that's worth reading if you haven't already, translates 
postmodernish or derridean stuff into an analytic vernacular that is much 
clearer, at least to me. (though 'translates' is a rather suspect term ...) 
It also points up a number of interesting parallels between figures on both 
sides of the atlantic.

best wishes,
Nate


>From: Cliff Staples <Clifford_staples-AT-und.nodak.edu>
>Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: AUT: Academia....
>Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 12:43:48 -0500
>
>Okay, I can't resist jumping in here.  I have undergraduate degrees in 
>Sociology and Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Sociology (Washington State 
>University, 1985).  I have been on the faculty here at the University of 
>North Dakota for 15 years.
>
>Back in the Dark Ages there once was something called "Political Economy" 
>which, either in its Marxist or non-Marxist variation, made some sense.  
>Now (at least in U.S. universities) "political economy" is long gone 
>(certainly at the undergraduate level), and we now have "Political Science" 
>on the one hand, and "Economics" on the other.  The former act like they 
>can talk about power without talking about money while the latter want to 
>talk about money without talking about power.  They're both nearly useless 
>(a few radical freaks aside) for any critical understanding of society.
>
>That task has largely been left to sociologists and philosophers, though 
>even some literary types have gotten into the act.  But, as was mentioned, 
>sociology has plenty of mainstream, bourgeois practioners.   The American 
>Sociological Association is mostly liberal number-crunchers (almost all 
>wonderfully nice people, careerism aside), and if amongst these there are 
>those who have serious doubts about capitalism they tend to keep it to 
>themselves.  There ARE plenty of radicals, however, and you can find a few 
>hundred of them in the Marxist Section, and elsewhere.
>
>The extent to which a discipline is bourgeois seems to reflect-- as does 
>much else--  its usefulness to capital, no?   Hence Economics is right up 
>there, as are the political science policy wonks.  In this regard 
>sociologists are not to be trusted-- at least since the rollback of the 
>welfare state in the early 1970s.
>
>One more thing.  Most of the time I'll take the postmodernists and 
>post-structuralists over the liberal number crunchers.  The former come 
>bearing radical epistemology, if not always radical left politics, and the 
>empirical work that at least some of them do can be useful to disrupting 
>convention.  Indeed, I consider myself a "postmodern Marxist" after the 
>fashion of the neo-Althusserians associated with the journal Rethinking 
>Marxism.  Michael might be interested to have a look at Resnick and Wolff's 
>Knowledge and Class (Chicago, 1987) as well as their Economics: Marxian 
>Versus Neoclassical (Johns Hopkins, 1987).  I happen to think that 
>"deconstruction," is a useful way to approach ideology critique (see Brian 
>Fay's Critical Social Science: Liberation and Its Limits), and that we can 
>get along just fine without essentialism (a la Rorty).
>
>It occurs to me that maybe my primary motivation for responding to this was 
>that it was so nice to hear my discipline mentioned, for a change, in a 
>relatively positive light!
>
>best,
>
>Cliff
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>At 07:25 AM 10/13/02 -0700, you wrote:
>>I would certainly think that the social viewpoint has
>>something to do with the relative lefty-ness of
>>sociologists. However, we shouldn't overestimate the
>>effectiveness of their resistance, as I have known
>>many sociologists, particularly of the postmodern
>>mold, who fall into a sort of ivory tower mentality
>>that seems to declaw any left-wing tendencies that
>>they might have.
>>
>>geo
>>
>>--- Michael Handelman <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > This may be overly idealist of me, but do you think
>> > one of the reason for sociology seems to be to the
>> > left of Poli Sci and Economics, has something to do
>> > with the fact that because sociology deals with the
>> > study of groups and society, it tends to be
>> > *somewhat*
>> > innoculated to Bourgeois ideology regarding the
>> > individual (Thatcher's "There is no such thing as
>> > society" seems to be about as pure Bourgeois
>> > ideology
>> > as one can get, and this ideology seems extremely
>> > antithetical to sociology).
>> >
>>
>>====>>"Look for me in the whirlwind - dare to struggle, dare to win"
>>========================>>George J. Ciccariello Maher IV
>>St. John's College
>>Cambridge
>>CB2 1TP
>>United Kingdom
>>
>>__________________________________________________
>>Do you Yahoo!?
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>>
>>
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