Tuesday, April 15, 2008

“Sociologist in Chief?” Where Do I Vote?

The President-Elect of the American Sociological Association is Patricia Hill Collins, social theorist extraordinaire and author of the now-classic Black Feminist Thought. Attaining presidency of the ASA places one atop of the sociology hierarchy, but “Sociologist in Chief” sounds much more important, much weightier.

On “Meet the Press,” political consultant Bob Shrum gave voice to the idea of a “Sociologist in Chief,” but suggested that presidential hopefuls should avoid running for that particular post. In a discussion about Barack Obama’s controversial comment about “bitter” working-class Pennsylvanians who embrace religion and guns, James Carville opined: “I have eight guns myself. I’m hardly bitter about things.” Bob Shrum responded, “Well, he’s not running for sociologist in chief, he’s running for president. So I think he wishes he hadn’t said it quite this way.” Later Shrum said “People go with sociology, and he shouldn’t be a sociologist. . . . sociology says that when people are in distress, when they’re economically deprived, they, they hold onto the things in their lives that give them some sense of security and identity. That’s faith, that can be hunting, that can be all of those things.”

(“Meet the Press,” NBC News Transcripts, April 13, 2008, via Lexis/Nexis)

Obviously, there are better places in the blogosphere to debate and discuss the presidential race. Here, I only want to point to Shrum’s perception of sociology and its social role. On a show like this, it’s impossible to explore ideas with any serious depth, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by a phrase like “sociology says that . . .” but it was still a little bit jarring to hear on a Sunday morning. But Shrum’s overbroad statement might be correct to the extent that sociologists universally believe (based on research from multiple angles) that economic deprivation does something. More importantly, I would expect most sociologists think that poverty and income inequality are important things to study and understand. We can all agree on that simple proposition, even if the line “sociology says that” generally suggests a false uniformity of thought amongst sociologists.

Personally, I’d love for more politicians to don their sociology cap and address the major fault lines of inequality in the US and (where appropriate) around the globe. Maybe we don’t need a Sociologist in Chief; maybe we need more “chiefs” who are sociologists. But I’ll be the first one at the voting booth if we do, indeed, decide to elect a Sociologist in Chief.

-- Brian

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