The Unexamined Field is Not Worth Working

Radical sociology, as Bennett Berger might say, is culturally resonant, at least in certain subcultures of graduate sociology departments. Dissatisfaction with the sociology of recent decades is obviously widespread, and the concept of a "radical sociology" evokes the sense of intellectual relevance which many find missing in the mainstream of the discipline. Thus, the publication of an anthology explicitly conceived as a "handbook" for radical sociologists is, at least, an important event. The question is whether it is more than an eventwhether indeed it succeeds in transforming a mood into a coherent and viable perspective. My primary concern in this review, therefore, is to describe and comment on the image of radical sociology advanced by the editors and contributors. Let me first, however, note the structure of the book. Following the editors' Introduction, the collection is divided into four parts, each again briefly introduced by Colfax and Roach. These parts are: The State of Bourgeois Sociology: A Radical Critique; The Character of Radical Sociology: Theoretical and Conceptual Issues; Radical Research and Practice (with three subsections discussing, respectively, The Empire at Home, The Empire Abroad, and Getting Organized); and finally a set of four Critiques of Radicalism in Sociology. In total, twenty-nine papers are included, most of which have been published previously but often in sources not widely read, I imagine, by most sociologists. What then, on the basis of this collection, is radical sociology? Three elements appear to be involved, although as I will note, two of these seem to be equivocal and the third problematic. First, radical sociology is Marxian sociology. A central goal, as stated by the editors, is a critique "of the structure and consequences of contemporary monopoly capitalism," a perspective clearly evident throughout much of the volume and particularly in the substantive papers included in Part Three. This is not to say that even within the Marxian framework, there is consensus. For example, Willhelm, in writing about "Equality: America's Racist Ideology," rejects the relative deprivation explanation of black protest, while Dizard and Wellman, in a sophisticated critique of enlightened liberalism's response to racism, employ the relative deprivation thesis. Moreover, Metzger's attack on the attitudinal preoccupation of race relations research is followed shortly by Ehrlich's defense of the study of prejudice. Yet underlying this diversity is a stress on the primacy of economic class analysis and the oppressiveness of capitalist institutions and ideology. There are real exceptions, however. Szymanski's "Toward a Radical Sociology" is mainly a summary of Mills' call for a renewal of the sociological imagination, the thrust of which is critical but not particularly Marxian. And more importantly, Schroyer's essay on Habermas demonstrates the latter's very substantial revision of classical Marxian theory. To contend that the essays are in the "spirit of Marx" is to diminish the significance of Marxianism as a unique mode of social analysis, a point suggested in fact by Birnbaum in another essay in this collection. In short, then, while radical sociology may be largely also Marxian sociology, this apparently is not mandatory. Second, radical sociology is politically active sociology, or to be more faithful to the tenor of the book, radical sociologists are activists in the "movement." This point is made repeatedly, both by the editors and by various contributors, especially in the "Getting Organized" subsection. Scholars whose writing may have radical implications but who themselves are content to stop there, and particular-ly scholars who merely write about radicalism, are thus disqualified. The argument, let me emphasize, is not against intellectual activity; rather, the point is that academic intellectualism is to be distrusted, for its seductive privileges of class, for its (purportedly impossible and thus implicitly ideological) notions of objectivity, and for its preoccupation with onliy intellectual matters. Thus, while there is disagreement among the contributors as to whether it is even possible to be a university-based radical sociologist, the dominant position is that insofar as radicals do opt for this role, they must spend much of their time organizing university, disciplinary, and community constituencies. And Haber and Haber even suggest, in their reflections on a conference of radicals in the professions, the occasion may arise when professional ethics must be compromised for the sake of the movement. Once again, nevertheless, there is some confuion. The Marxian concept of "praxis" is used frequently in this book, mainly to justify the activist dimension of radical sociology. Yet as Birnbaum notes, the term praxis has various dimensions, including critical intellectual analysis, and it may be inefficient for one individual to attempt to embody all of them. This caution, moreover, is echoed by Szymanski, indicating that room apparently still exists for debate about the centrality of the activist character of radical sociology. (One is struck, in this regard, by the fact that the essays dealing with substantive issues, which are among the best in this collection and which are certainly vital in legitimating the whole enterprise, are almost all