Norman Birnbaum
CIRCUS AT VARNA
What could be more attractive than a cDnference - the
eighth pastwar Warld Cangress in Sacialagy - in Varna, a sea resart
set in o.live gro.ves on the Black Sea co.ast. To the attractio.ns o.f nature
was added the prDspect
Df
the first large, public encounter between
"bo.urgeo.is" sacio.Io.gy and its o.rthado.x Marxist caunterpart, against the
backdrop of a "develaping" state so.cialist so.ciety. The who.le thing, ho.w–
ever, was a barely mitigated disaster. But it all can best be understo.ad
in the co.ntext
Df
the co.urse
Df
sacio.Io.gy since 1945.
The dizzy Po.stwar expansio.n o.f So.cio.Io.gy as an academic field (I
hesitate to. use the term "discipline," fo.r good philo.so.phical reasDns)
is reflected in the attendance figures fo.r successive internatio.nal gath–
erings. The first o.ne I attended, at Liege in 1953, had so.me 300 partic–
ipants. At Amsterdam in 1956 there were already abaut 500 socio.Io.gists,
and at Stresa in 1959 there were o.ver a tho.usand. At Washingto.n in
1962 the number was higher still, and by the time the Evian co.nference
was held in 1966 there were aver 2,000 present. Even tho.ugh the Bul–
garians threw in by o.fficial co.unt 501 perso.ns, many o.f them ridicuDusly
unqualified, the thrDng at Varna numbered 4,000.
Over the past twenty-five years So.cio.Io.gy has grown in the U.S.A.
and Western Euro.pe fro.m similar rao.ts. Initially, the catastraphes of
fascism and war and the pro.blems af reco.nstructio.n gave rise
to.
a gen–
eral palitical intraspectian. But the co.nstrictio.n af Po.stwar western
Po.litics and the suspensian o.f disbelief in the capitalist machine turned
intro.spectio.n into. apo.lo.getics. Instead af asking ho.W saciety cauld be
made who.le and ratio.nal, socialagists partrayed its fragmentatio.n and
senselessness as inevitable. Tho.se who. So.ught samething else were dis–
missed as "utopians" by tho.se who. fancied themselves in Po.ssessio.n (or
abaut to. co.me into. it) o.f immutable laws af behavio.r, of higher insight
into. the necessary and beneficial co.nstraints o.f sacial structures. Rapidly
