The Sociological Imagination

I'm wondering if you think those authors who do mention such things without tying them to the social structure that creates them know what they are doing?  Do they intentionally leave that out since the focus is on the behavior? I had a conversation earlier today about how social researchers don't care about motives behind why someone did something but instead their justification was that you can't "enter someone's head" I argued that motive is essential to know as well if we really are looking for progress. I guess what I'm asking is do you think those folks purposely avoid that being that they don't care what structure created it, but only the behavior?

I do not think that many sociologists are able to think at that level of abstraction.  They claim that they are including the social structure.  They assume that peer influences, socialization by others, and social constructions are all social level influences.  They are not.  They are intermediaries between the social structure and the individual.  But, they are not able to see the broader social forces that drive these intermediate influences.

For example, if we look at gendered behaviors such as in an article on body image and body mass index (BMI), we can see the problem.  The article argues that Black women tend to have a higher tolerance for higher BMI and are not as concerned with body image as White women.  Aside from the fact that it normalizes unhealthy, thin body image in White women, the article points to a "cultural legacy" as one of the reasons for the difference.  As Mills complains, this notion of "cultural legacy" is poorly developed and not integrated into the research itself.  It is an ad hoc explanation, hastily pasted to a poorly conceived abstract empiricist project.  But, to the researchers, it is the social factor that helps explain the difference in self perception.  A cultural legacy that included socialization and peer influences, like Black males' standards in body size, only looks at the individual level of analysis (also making it a perfect example of color-blind cultural racism).  But, as the article demonstrates, cultural racism is not really a concern for sociologists.  Researchers, reviewers and editors are perfectly willing and eager to print research with culturally racist findings.  They cannot see it as such because their level of analysis is so horrifically limited that they could not possibly publish any research on issues of gender or race because the level of analysis dictates a blame the victim conclusion.

The beliefs and attitudes of a group of people originate in the social constructions within that group of people.  Since the level of analysis is the interviewees own attitudes and understandings, the “problem” can only be understood as part of the interviewees’ own construction.  The “problem” is firmly rooted in the interviewee, and not the social structure acting on the subjects of the study.  The worst of this type of research turns labeling theory into an "identity" that needs to be reconstructed.  It is the felons that need to re-envision themselves, not the justice system that needs to change.  There is no way not to blame the victim with this kind of perspective, but this is where abstracted empiricism comes in.  Ad hoc theories and rationalizations are added at the end of the study to rationalize away their racist, sexist, classist conclusions.  They are not connected to the broader study and are simply philosophical statements unconnected to the study or rooted in empirical evidence.

These types of researchers fool themselves into thinking that because the behavior is held and transmitted through groups, it is a social structural influence.  It is not.  It is only the effect of a broader social structural influence.  Why do Black women and men possess this different cultural legacy?  Why specifically would larger body mass index be associated with Black women.  The authors’ excuse is "Perhaps the conception of a strong African American woman suggests a physically large body."  Ok, aside from being pure speculation, what social structural factors would lead Black women to this conception rather than others?  What historical factors can we find that would help us understand this issue?  Contemporary sociologists, for the large part, are not interested in these broader explanatory forces.  These factors are too removed from the individual's own experience to be conveniently documented through one-on-one interviews.  The problem with grounded method and the reliance on in-depth interviews is that the interviewees, Mills argues, many times do not know the social forces that are acting upon them.  Thus, if your head is always in an individual level of analysis, you cannot see the forest for the trees.

Now, that is not to argue that in-depth interviews and grounded method are inherently wrong, but they have become a problem much like grand theory and abstracted empiricism.  When a researcher does not properly situate their study in the broader social structure, it is loosed from its moorings and tells us little about the social world.  Patricia Hill Collins is a great example of how to tie the individual lived experience to the broader social structure.  Many others who use "intersectionalities" or the matrix of domination have so rinsed the concepts of their historical and structural footings that they become meaningless anecdotes.

Sociology, at its best, allows us to understand the trajectories in our society.  Like chemists who cannot know the behavior of individual atoms, sociologists are not necessarily concerned with the individual motivations or behaviors of individual people.  When speaking of motivations, we have to acknowledge that many times the individuals do not know what drives them.  Do working-class Tea Partiers knowingly accept their manipulation at the hands of the wealthy?  How do we understand gay Republicans?

I think your question about the motivation that someone holds is part of the duality of the sociological understanding.  There are broader social forces that give rise to certain behaviors and ideas.  These social forces may be interpreted or felt differently by different groups of people.  So, the economic insecurity and decline in living standards for the middle classes in the US has caused at least two very different reactions to the same social structural forces.  On the one hand, we have a number of folks who have identified capitalism, greed, corporations, etc. as the source of the problem.  Some are driven by an understanding of capitalism, while others have a sort of visceral antagonism to the unfairness of the global economy.  On the other hand, we have groups of people who have identified scapegoats for the declining standard of living.  These folks identify dead-beat dads, immigrants, pork-barrel spending, entitlements, terrorists, the UN, government, etc.  A sociological understanding of the situation allows us to see that the current social and economic conditions are giving rise to these views.  We may even be able to identify general social factors that would allow us to distinguish why certain people fall into one group rather than the other.

Your question gets at the second part of the issue.  Now that we know where these ideas came from, how do we understand the interpretations of those who hold these ideas so that we may move toward a constructive solution?  This, is, I think, the most significant failure of the left whether it be environmentalists or pro-worker activists, etc.  Some folks may understand the social structure, but they cannot understand why people would see the world differently than themselves.  Why are so many working-class individuals so pro-corporation and rich guy?  They do not necessarily verbalize it that way, but the policies they support end up being exactly that.  Well, that is the question of motivation.  We can still understand this motivation in the broader context, but in order to have a dialogue with folks who think differently than you do, you have to understand where they come from and try to find the common ground.

The current gun control confrontation is a perfect example.  We can understand why it is that guns have become so firmly entrenched in the US.  At the moment, it is largely driven by gun manufacturers and sellers.  They are able to construct a mythology of threat to their very freedoms not simply because people fear losing the joy of shooting their weapon, but because of the very fact that the economy is tenuous and people feel economically threatened.  There is already a mythology of "big government" as a significant part of the problem for declining opportunity.  Thus, the weakened economy and corporate attacks on workers are all explained as the result of government's intervention into daily life.  Because the government is the problem, of course, they are going to want to take away your guns so you have no say.  The gun lobby has successfully turned their own rational self interest into a revolutionary cause against a tyrannical government.  The irrationality of the people who speak out (not necessarily even the heart of the gun lobby itself, like the actual manufacturers and sellers) is characteristic of this fear of government takeover and penetration into your very life.  Now, contradictions abound including all the legislation proposing the mingling of church and state, abortion, gay rights, etc. to limit individual rights.  So, you cannot talk to folks about a general notion of getting government out of your business, but focus more on their fears and explanation for their problems.  We can talk to them all we want about why there is economic insecurity and the role of government, but until the economy improves and government is wrested away from lobbyists and corporate interests, we will find it very difficult to combat the onslaught of propaganda and misinformation by corporate interests.

We like to think that people are logical.  In large part they are, but the fact that the flow of information is controlled by those who are serving their own interests means that people do not have access to accurate information on which they can make a logical decision.  People appear irrational only because the information they receive is so distorted.  I think this is the value of the sociological imagination.  In order to understand individual motivation, you have to understand the social structure of which people are a part.  We can understand their motivations much better if we understand the structure that gives rise to those motivations.  Unless we change the structure, it will be very difficult to change the motivations.  People who are against gun control will continue to be against gun control until they feel that their guns are merely recreational and not also revolutionary.  They may still want their guns, but I imagine, the debate will not be as politically charged so that some progress can be made.

The proper level of analysis has been a long-standing debate in sociology.  Most sociologists have marginalized the macro approach, but there is some good stuff still around.  It is much easier to interview 20 people and write down what they say than to have to create a cogent, historically and sociologically informed argument.  Since the emphasis is on publication, the quality of much of sociology is determined by the limits imposed by the journal article format.  Situating your argument consumes too many pages to fit within the confines of a typical journal article.  This is another issue that can be understood in the broader context!

Can Qualitative Methods Produce the Sociological Imagination? The Dialectic of Macro and Micro Sociology

The biggest question I have for you though is what is a good way to use qualitative methods?  We know that we can get much more detail and explanation that we can't necessarily get through surveys and questionnaires.  We also know that there are problems with generalizability in qualitative methods such as interviewing.  Does qualitative methods inherently mean it is not macro sociology?  How can we, for example, use a grounded approach, get in-depth data (and not numbers or yes or no answers) and focus on a particular group without getting away from the macro?

There are a number of people that do historical comparative work that includes qualitative analysis.  A friend of mine has studied slave journals as well as census reports to better understand slavery in the mountain South (Wilma Dunaway - Slavery in the American Mountain South).  Her work tied the qualitative journal data to the quantitative (and qualitative) census data and then situated it in the broader world-system perspective.  Some people are doing really good qualitative work that lives up to the sociological imagination.  I have another friend who did participant observation on community supported agriculture farms and tied it to the broader political economy.  The problem of journal articles that I mentioned have made it difficult for her research to find a home.  The more macro-oriented journals do not know what to do with her interviews, and the more micro-oriented journals do not know how to deal with the theoretical and historical framework that explains the actions of the individuals in her study.  Thus, it is difficult, but not impossible, to do good research based on the demands of the journal articles.  The best sociology combines a micro-understanding alongside the macro context.  Patricia Hill Collins is another good example.  People have twisted her work into something hollow and useless, but her "Black Feminist Thought" is still a great example of how to tie voices from below to the broader context in which they occur.

The best sociology situates the in-depth interviews in a broader context.  It fills in the details a bit more.  You can think about it in terms of resolution.  We can take a picture of the social world, but the macro picture tends to be from a distant vantage point, leaving a low resolution, so when you zoom in, everything is blurry or pixelated.  Micro level analysis allows us to increase the resolution in certain areas of that photo.  We can more clearly understand the relationships that are occurring in a certain portion of that photo.  If we only use a macro perspective, we only really have a general understanding of what is going on.  This may be very useful.  For example, the economic meltdown we recently experienced is pretty easily predictable based on a Marxist analysis of the general trends in the economy.  We may not know the exact date or firm that will trigger the event, but we can see it coming.  Micro level analysis may show us more detail of what is happening in certain areas of the photo, but it cannot tell us if these events are characteristic of the broader photo or give us a sense of the broader landscape.  Micro level analysis may be helpful to psychologists to help individuals deal with the issues they face, but it does not help sociologists understand broader level phenomena without the help of a macro understanding to help us make sense of what we are seeing.  So, we can discern a general understanding of even the most blurry of photos if we look at it from a distance.  However, if you take a small tube to zoom in on a portion of that same photo, it may be completely non-nonsensical.  That is because it is abstracted away from the larger picture.  The micro only makes sense in the context of the macro.  The micro may help us understand things more clearly, but it cannot be intellectually useful outside of the context of our broader understanding of society.

Now, herein lies the rub, as they say.  This perspective is not the dominant perspective in sociology.  Because of journal articles and careerist oriented sociologists, the field is dominated by easily accomplished micro-studies of interesting phenomenon that titillate the senses and sociologists' liberal sensibilities.  I am not sure about the field of political science.  They tend to do a lot of opinion polling, but I also think there are a lot of historical-comparative people out there - people who look at historical documents (or data sets) to compare different states or regions of the world to discern patterns.

I have to say, I have not found an easy way to get my stuff published because of my orientation.  It takes persistence, which takes time, which I do not have.  I may be more successful with my publications if I had more time to focus on them.  Because others tailor their research toward the journal format and the expectations of the reviewers, they are able to publish more easily.  I read articles all the time that have erroneous assumptions or inaccurate theorizations, but they get published because they fit the methodological approach the reviewers expect (micro or macro).  It does not matter that the definition they use to orient their study is fundamentally flawed as long as their methodology is sound.  I read a recent article where someone implied that entropy was a bad thing.  Entropy occurs all the time and is a natural environmental process.  Despite the fact that her notion of entropy contradicted the science of entropy, the article was still published.  It is a very bizarre academic world right now.

The Role of Micro Oriented Sociology

One last question about this:  It is certain that micro sociology inevitably needs to be understood through the broader context for usefulness, so does the macro level of analysis need the micro at all???

If the object of study is to meet the requirements of the sociological imagination, then yes.  You can certainly do micro-level analysis, but for it to fulfill the expectations of Mills' sociological imagination, you must situate it in the broader social context.  There is a plethora of research out there that is called sociology that does not live up to the sociological imagination.  Similarly, the macro must be able to speak to issues that affect the individual biographies of people in society.  When macro theory does not relate to the lived experiences of people, it is most likely grand theory.  Theory needs to be applied to specific historical circumstances and the experiences of real human beings.  If not, it is merely philosophy.  So, the issue lies in the definition.  I feel that the sociology that Mills outlined and Marx practiced is what sociology is.  However, other sociologists derive their genealogy from Comte, Blumer, Weber, Merton, etc. and not from Marx through Mills.  Therefore, their sociology does not necessarily fulfill the requirements of the sociological imagination, but is viewed in their eyes as every bit sociological.

Every research project and scientific endeavor begins with assumptions and a set of definitions, either literal or implied.  I tend to root my set of assumptions and definitions in the Marxist perspective.  Others eschew Marxism and its purported polemical perspective.  If you argue what I have outlined here, you may get some very puzzled looks because they do not see sociology in this way.  They may see that a detached micro or macro perspective is perfectly fine.  They may assume that they are connecting the macro to the micro.

Also, one last note.  As Collins discusses, it is not to say that micro level data is not useful.  Because many voices from below have been silenced, sometimes the only place we can get perspectives outside of the dominant view is through journals, poetry, interviews, etc.  It is the researcher's job to weave these contributions into a larger tapestry.

Sociologists Don't Know Shit

To be perfectly honest, what I ask for, very few sociologists or scholars actually do.  In all of the articles I have read, presentations I have witnessed and faculty files I have seen, only a select few actually live up to the sociological imagination.  I am stunned by what people argue are "social factors."  People situate individual attitudes in broader social norms.  There is no sense that they need to demonstrate where these norms come from.  I see this with a lot of attitudinal research for example.  Interviewees express certain gender attitudes.  These attitudes are traced back to social conventions like peer influences.  They assume that they have reached the level of the social because they trace it back to "group" influences rather than individual psychological motivations.  This is an illusory social influence because these social conventions do not arise out of thin air, but originate in broader social structures and institutions.

Many sociologists eschew the dialectic and, specifically, structural influences.  They operate entirely in the world of social construction so that nothing is truly real. Attitudes and ideas germinate out of the interaction in the social milieu.  There is no such thing as institutions because they are all social constructions that are enforced only by the shared meanings held by the people in society.  We obey the rules and laws of the government only because we socially construct its legitimacy and willingly accept its authority over us.  There is no real institution of government because people could easily socially construct a reality where government has no influence over them.  The power of government would disappear.  Given this perspective, it is impossible to comprehend an institutional level of analysis, let alone understand the true causal influences motivating people in society.

The vast majority of sociology is social-psychology, emphasis on the psychology.  People point to breaching experiments where students take food from someone's plate, use an umbrella indoors, etc.  This is really just the mechanics of socialization.  It is not motivation.  It does not point to demystifying the social world.  Yes, we have accepted social conventions in society that we rarely break, but the ones we chose to expose to students are benign and meaningless.  At one point in our history, Blacks must cross to the other side of the street if Whites were walking toward them.  In today's society, it is perfectly fine for students to challenge female, minority, and/or international faculty, but not White males.  Why does this occur?  This question does not cross the mind of most sociologists because they also hold White privilege and do not recognize this inequitable treatment.

Sometimes the people who receive this treatment do not even recognize that it is inequitable treatment.  I have discussed this with some faculty who definitely recognize that they experienced this, but others have explained it away as just the way students are.  When women and faculty of color do not recognize it, it is because they have been socialized over time that this is how things are.  I experienced similar issues in my department.  I did not recognize just how inappropriately the other faculty were treating me in meetings.  I was just used to it.  In a college meeting with people from other departments, one of our faculty called me a "bad teacher" and proceed to tell me to shut up.  A history professor came to my defense, but I did not think, at the time, that this behavior was out of line because that is how other faculty treat me.  A department head brought it to our chair's attention, but she did nothing other than to warn the faculty that they should watch there P's and Q's when others were around.  The faculty who were inappropriate did not apologize.  The chair did not approach me to apologize for the behavior of other faculty.  The dean was even at the meeting and did nothing at the time or afterwards.  No one was held accountable for their behavior.  It wasn't until others were telling me how the faculty at the meeting from other departments thought it was highly inappropriate behavior that I realized that, yes, I was singled out for disparate treatment.  When something happens with such frequency that it becomes routine, we fail to recognize it as disparate.

Sociologists are consumed with their own careers and are not really interested in the broader social questions.  It is rare to find a sociologist, or other social scientist, that is willing to concern themselves with broader issues.  It is much easier to publish if your research does not challenge convention.  It can be "liberal," but it certainly cannot be interpreted as polemical.  Sociologists, even the grad students in our department, are socialized to do research and take classes that are not challenging.  Without prompting, grad students discussed their courses at a recent meeting.  For their Soc/Psych class, one of the grad students held up the readings and pointed to how many there were, but said, "at least they won't be dry."  In other words, soc/psych literature is entertaining, not educational.  They also suggested the sociology of film class because there was no homework.  You just watch films and talk about them.  Okay, what is the point then?  What do you learn?  Why take the class?  The students are socialized to take the easy route, not to think about things sociologically, to work on entertaining projects with little theoretical or historical understanding.  They then go on to become the editors of journals, they review other people's articles, and they judge the value of certain research over others.

We socialize sociologists and other social scientists to produce useless crap.  There are the structural constraints of the journal and publishing market.  There are the race, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship issues of who dominates academia and academic publications to this point in history.  There are the careerist orientations of sociologists who wish only to find the path of least resistance to a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in a career with rapidly increasing workloads and time demands.  Crappy sociologists who have successfully navigated the thinning process of socialization of mediocrity socialize more crappy sociologists. 

Oh, and do not think that there was a golden era of sociology that is now being lost to recent social change.  Sociology has always been a relatively conservative project with outliers who challenge the mediocrity.  Sure, most sociologists are liberals, but that is what makes them so dangerous when it comes to trying to challenge their own colorblind bigotry and upper-middle class mentality.  They could not possibly be racist or classist when dealing with students or other faculty.  They are open-minded liberals who champion the cause of the unfortunate.  They could not possibly have ignored the fact that the cold-calculating standards that they set in their classes discriminates against those whose backgrounds do not live up to their upper-middle class expectations.  It could not possibly be that the faculty of color and working class are the ones who teach the double course loads and produce the greatest student credit hours.  Nah, that’s just playing the race card in a liberal department.  It couldn’t possibly be true!  Their lower research productivity has to be due to the fact that they are not as industrious as their middle-class betters.  Nothing racist or classist in that logic!

As my friend’s father said, “Sociologists don’t know shit.”  When he said it, I chuckled, but my friend’s mother said, “but that’s what he does for a living.”  My friend’s father retorted, “I don’t care.  Sociologists, don’t know shit.”  I laughed and agreed with him.  This was years ago, but even then I had developed a sense that sociologists tended to be clueless when it came to the actual operation of the real world.  Now there are some good ones out there, but they tend to be people whose primary identity is something other than a “sociologist,” but they happen to have received a degree in sociology so that they can pursue their interests in social justice.  Given the pathetic state of the fields, I like to say, paraphrasing Marx, “I am not a sociologist.”