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Neither your mood nor those particular papers were at fault - sociology is a rancid cesspool, filled to the brim with Humanities-Style-Thinking at its worst, ma

Neither your mood nor those particular papers were at fault - sociology is a rancid cesspool, filled to the brim with Humanities-Style-Thinking at its worst, masquerading as a science because the questions it deals with are more concrete. I suppose it's to be expected: the problems that sociology addresses are very complex ones, beyond the reach of science currently (though we're getting closer), and soft "methods" are academic Gods-of-the-Gaps that let people think they're doing useful work while they ramble on and on about topics that we don't actually have the tools to understand yet. Physics was in a similar state at one time, and it took several breakthroughs to get it to the point where we could learn anything useful from it.

hack_edu 18y ago
In keeping with the theme of this article, please define 'Humanities-Style-Thinking' and the intersection of this idea with Sociology.
ChristianPerry 18y ago
I disagree with your assessment of sociology as a discipline "filled to the brim with Humanities-Style-Thinking." Sociology uses rigorous, analytical, and quantitative methods to shine insight on the modern condition. It allows one to better understand the condition of the world, and by extension, one's place within it. And it has contributed significantly to my intellectual growth. When I've felt a lack of community in my life, for instance, Robert Putnam showed me that civic and social participation in America have systematically declined for the last six decades. When I've aspired to get into a good school or ahem a prestigious startup incubator, Robert Frank explains how concerns of status and position have a salient effect on my decision making. When I express a preference for a particular kind of music or type of food, Bordieu shows that preferences that I take for granted are in fact strongly correlated with my culture, socioeconomic background, gender, and profession. When I pay money to send a virtual gift to a friend, Baudrillard shows that I'm motivated by "sign value" rather than "use value" -- that what an object represents matters more than what it actually does. And that's just the beginning. Sociology gets a lot of criticism, perhaps because it's such a broad field. However, it has done more to shape my understanding of the world than any single other discipline, and I'm far from speaking alone.
- ellyagg 18y ago
  Well, you listed several prominent sociologists and stuff they claimed. That doesn't in any way, shape, or form prove that their claims are true or even based on falsifiable hypotheses and experimentation like the sciences we trust, i.e., physics and medicine. This is probably because sociology is one of those disciplines, and I use the term loosely, that really isn't yet close to being able to have its referents captured, chopped up, classified, quantified, analyzed and put into little boxes. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say the observations you point to could have been made by your run-of-the-mill keen observer of humanity, like a Tom Wolfe or Shakespeare.

hack_edu 18y ago

In keeping with the theme of this article, please define 'Humanities-Style-Thinking' and the intersection of this idea with Sociology.

ChristianPerry 18y ago

I disagree with your assessment of sociology as a discipline "filled to the brim with Humanities-Style-Thinking." Sociology uses rigorous, analytical, and quantitative methods to shine insight on the modern condition. It allows one to better understand the condition of the world, and by extension, one's place within it. And it has contributed significantly to my intellectual growth. When I've felt a lack of community in my life, for instance, Robert Putnam showed me that civic and social participation in America have systematically declined for the last six decades. When I've aspired to get into a good school or ahem a prestigious startup incubator, Robert Frank explains how concerns of status and position have a salient effect on my decision making. When I express a preference for a particular kind of music or type of food, Bordieu shows that preferences that I take for granted are in fact strongly correlated with my culture, socioeconomic background, gender, and profession. When I pay money to send a virtual gift to a friend, Baudrillard shows that I'm motivated by "sign value" rather than "use value" -- that what an object represents matters more than what it actually does. And that's just the beginning. Sociology gets a lot of criticism, perhaps because it's such a broad field. However, it has done more to shape my understanding of the world than any single other discipline, and I'm far from speaking alone.

ellyagg 18y ago
Well, you listed several prominent sociologists and stuff they claimed. That doesn't in any way, shape, or form prove that their claims are true or even based on falsifiable hypotheses and experimentation like the sciences we trust, i.e., physics and medicine. This is probably because sociology is one of those disciplines, and I use the term loosely, that really isn't yet close to being able to have its referents captured, chopped up, classified, quantified, analyzed and put into little boxes. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say the observations you point to could have been made by your run-of-the-mill keen observer of humanity, like a Tom Wolfe or Shakespeare.