IRVING LOUIS HOROWITZ
One Day in the Life of
Contemporary Sociology
Most journals dedicated to reviewing professional books reflect the
broad range of opinion within that profession. Eclecticism is the norm:
it illustrates the relative stage of development of a profession and serves
to
protect the profession from parochialism or outright bias. Sociology,
which prides itself on being "reflexive" and "self-critical," is a special case
because it reflects a collective mind-set. There is such heavy ideological
baggage in the field that we can predict the nature of discussion about a
subject - be it urban affairs, demography, or the sociology of knowledge
- from the
a priori
nature of the reviewer's orientation. In consequence,
there is little relation of quality to anaylsis; junk books receive excellent
reviews, while excellent books receive junk reviews. All share the mantra
of race, class, and gender. Any book that fails to adhere to the catechism
of the high priests is castigated. Any reviewer who provides an enthusias–
tic response to the correct books is assured a warm and comfortable re–
ception, not to mention more such assignments in the future.
An examination of a single issue of
Contemporary Sociology,
the jour–
nal sponsored by the American Sociological Association, reveals more
than the displacement of sociology by ideology. It demonstrates sociolo–
gy's transformation. In the past, whether the framework employed was
functional, dialectical, or interactional, there was a common thread of
awareness that mere fervor is a poor substitute for intellectual sophistica–
tion. But with the rise of demonology, sophistication itself becomes sus–
pect. Instead, there is a blatant assumption that a consensus exists in
which good and evil are the perfect equivalents of right and wrong. As a
result, the field now operates within a set of unexamined premises about
the supremacy of class, race, and gender over other factors such as nation,
ethnicity, and religion. This set of presumptions is the fast track to the
decomposition of the field.
One might claim that any analysis of a single issue alone of any jour–
nal might lead to biased conclusions, but having gone through all
twenty-two volumes of
COl1temporary Sociology,
I will wager that the
comparative outcome would be worse. To select from a full year of
