Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
The AAC&U definition of critical thinking doesn't exclude flacks. "Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion." But on Barry's main point, do contemporary sociological theorists require all sociologists to cut their research and teaching from the Marxist cloth? Or is it adequate to recognize and respect the collective effort of Marxist scholars and ideologues to appropriate common words, such as "critical," as the exclusive preserve of economic system revolutionaries because they understand and can cite its first use as an adjective to social theory in works that many critical thinkers outside the discipline have not read? PJ is right -- and critical theory thereby collapses on its own totalizing rhetoric. The ugliest face of capitalism is perhaps the one that forces recognition of the raw material of rational actors or actresses in all of their veiled levels of consciousness and displays. This requires strategic imaging for serious players, capable of recognizing the rational interests and values of others at the table, as well as those whose needs exceed the possibility of any masking.
Barbara Walters, Ph.D.
CUNY School of Professional Studies
101 31st Street, Suite 733
Phone/Voicemail: 646-344-7327
E-mail: Barbara.Walters@mail.cuny.edu
-----citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org wrote: -----> To: Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca>
From: PJ Rey
Sent by: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org
Date: 09/18/2011 01:04PM
Cc: communication and information technology section asa <citasa@list.citasa.org>
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we allI'll bite. If we are using the phrase "critical theory" in the sense
that Horkheimer originally meant it in his essay "Traditional and
Critical Theory," then there is probably very little critical theory
going on in sociology today (at least not on this continent).
Critical theory's goal of undermining present, unjust social relations
(most notably capitalism) and the totalizing ideologies that sustain
them is probably structurally incompatible with our discipline's norms
of evaluation, which elevate government grants above all else. In
short, critical theory asks sociologist to bite the hand that feeds
them. Few oblige.~PJ
PJ Rey
Department of Sociology
University of Maryland@pjrey
www.pjrey.net2112 Art-Sociology Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Barry Wellman
<wellman@chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
> Not meant personally, but the use of the word "critical" by a subset of
> scholars always bothers me as leading to unconscious smugness? If I'm
> "critical", your lot isn't? Who, except flacks and twerps, isn't critical?
> Can we criticize the criticalists?
>
> Barry Wellman
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director
> Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
> University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman
> http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963
> Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CITASA mailing list
> CITASA@list.citasa.org
> http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
>_______________________________________________
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This electronic message transmission contains information that may be proprietary, confidential and/or privileged. The information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying or distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please delete it and any copies, and notify the sender immediately by replying to the address listed in the "From:" field. If you do not want to receive email from this source please contact postmaster@kbcc.cuny.edu AND include the original message to be removed from. Thank you.
Thanks Prof Walters, for elaborating.
But, what is the AAC&U?
I'm not in with the in-crowd.
As to PJ Rey, do you have systematic evidence to corroborate your
assertion that scholars tailor their research to grant getting? My
experience is the opposite: people come up with an issue, and then, if
they need it, they search for support.
Barry Wellman
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director
Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
On Sun, 18 Sep 2011, Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu wrote:
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:20:36 -0400
From: Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu
To: pjrey.socy@gmail.com
Cc: citasa@list.citasa.org, wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
The AAC&U definition of critical thinking doesn't exclude flacks.
Barry (et al),
I'm a lowly grad student and have not yet been invited behind the
velvet curtain of hiring committee meetings. However, in preparing
for my own job application process, I've been told again and again
that committees (at major research institutions) are most interested
in those candidates who have secured their own NSF/NIH funding. My
point is that the incentive structure we have built as a discipline
implicitly favors projects that support goals intrinsic to our
political and economic system (and thus are likely to receive govt
funding), as opposed to those projects which might undermine the
present social order and promote alternatives.
Moreover, it is no coincidence that we call sociology a discipline (as
in "disciplinary power"). People are eminently capable of
"spontaneously" coming up with exactly the project that is most useful
to and compatible with the needs of the institution governing them.
And, of course, on the road to graduation, such model students meet
with much less resistance. Others quietly disappear.
Part of the deep appreciation that many scholars have for the
Frankfurt school is the fact that they were openly antagonistic to
their own government (Nazi Germany) and were expelled for ideas (and
Jewishness). Of course, this was only possible because they had an
independent source funding and because Horkheimer had the foresight to
keep these funds in foreign accounts. While the stakes are, no doubt,
lower today, there is still a valid link between our material
interests and the ideologies we (re-)produce.
I also think Christian was right to bring our attention to Michael
Burawoy, especially his (not-so-obscure) 2004 presidential address to
the American Sociological Association, who argues that critical
sociology is a distinct subset of sociology that challenges dominant
paradigms with the discipline of sociology (in same way critical
theory seeks to unsettle the dominant economic and political
paradigm), saying "It is the role of critical sociology [...] to
examine the foundations—both the explicit and the implicit, both
normative and descriptive—of the research programs of professional
sociology."
Sematically speaking, the adjective "critical" is meant to be
provocative (and that may also make it a bit smug!). It does, in
fact, imply that many works are uncritical, and in doing so, it
encourages the reader to adopt a critical framework. But, difference
is more than mere semantics; it is also practical. Traditional theory
/ professional sociology aims to refine and reform a system, while
critical theory/sociology seeks a revolutionary disposition of that
system. The former is about taking the set of tools you are given and
trying to make them work better, the latter asks: Who benefits from
these tools, can we use different tools, or can we put them to use in
different ways? Most people probably do a bit of both in their
careers, but it is worth being clear about which activity we are
engaged in at any moment. Such clarity is obscured when conflate
critical theorizing with mere thoroughness or thoughtfulness.
~PJ
PJ Rey
Department of Sociology
University of Maryland
@pjrey
www.pjrey.net
2112 Art-Sociology Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Barry Wellman
wellman@chass.utoronto.ca wrote:
Thanks Prof Walters, for elaborating.
But, what is the AAC&U?
I'm not in with the in-crowd.
As to PJ Rey, do you have systematic evidence to corroborate your assertion
that scholars tailor their research to grant getting? My experience is the
opposite: people come up with an issue, and then, if they need it, they
search for support.
Barry Wellman
_______________________________________________________________________
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director
Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
_______________________________________________________________________
On Sun, 18 Sep 2011, Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu wrote:
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:20:36 -0400
From: Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu
To: pjrey.socy@gmail.com
Cc: citasa@list.citasa.org, wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
The AAC&U definition of critical thinking doesn't exclude flacks.
I'm definitely not with the in-crowd, but AAC&U is the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
I don't have any evidence, systematic or anecdotal, to support PJ's assertion. My comment was therefore careless. My experiential knowledge is in the middle; academic researchers come up with an issue that interests them and then, if they need funds, they search for grants that might support their project. There is some iterative fitting between proposal and funding institutions. But this is only for research done by autonomous university professors. Nielsen and the Crimson Hexagon, as private companies, for example, do enormous amounts of research on digital and media communications. So does the NYPD and other law enforcement groups via CompStat. If I had to guess, I would say that more research is framed by institutional rather than individual research objectives, but this is nothing more than a guess. Since my commitment is to educating (generally inner city minority) students in a way that helps them gain the knowledge and skills they need to become autonomous and responsible adults -- employed -- I have no problem with them doing research that is not of their own choosing in the private or public sector. Any research job for our students would be a coup as is any job in education. So, the value question -- the problem -- for me is how to teach students critical thinking skills in the Marxist sense of the term without making them totally alienated and unemployable. I've had many students from the former Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe, Cuba, and China; and we all know about Communism. Most of our students, if they want to change the system, will need to do it through some form of productive labor for which they receive a living wage -- perhaps by moving into management or perhaps by obtaining a professional degree or admission to graduate school. If they want to lead a revolution, wordsmith, digital communication, and quantitative logic skills are just as -- if not more -- important than for a straight job in a corporation. This suggests a certain level of dependence among even the revolutionaries on reading and writing skills as well as the infrastructure of multi-national communication corporations.
-- Barbara
Barbara Walters, Ph.D.
CUNY School of Professional Studies
101 31st Street, Suite 733
Phone/Voicemail: 646-344-7327
E-mail: bwalters@kbcc.cuny.edu
-----citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org wrote: -----> To: Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu
From: Barry Wellman
Sent by: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org
Date: 09/18/2011 03:06PM
Cc: communication and information technology section asa <citasa@list.citasa.org>
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we allThanks Prof Walters, for elaborating.
But, what is the AAC&U?
I'm not in with the in-crowd.
As to PJ Rey, do you have systematic evidence to corroborate your
assertion that scholars tailor their research to grant getting? My
experience is the opposite: people come up with an issue, and then, if
they need it, they search for support.Barry Wellman
_______________________________________________________________________S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director
Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
_______________________________________________________________________On Sun, 18 Sep 2011, Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu wrote:
> Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:20:36 -0400
> From: Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu
> To: pjrey.socy@gmail.com
> Cc: citasa@list.citasa.org, wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
> Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
>
>
> The AAC&U definition of critical thinking doesn't exclude flacks. _______________________________________________
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This electronic message transmission contains information that may be proprietary, confidential and/or privileged. The information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying or distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please delete it and any copies, and notify the sender immediately by replying to the address listed in the "From:" field. If you do not want to receive email from this source please contact postmaster@kbcc.cuny.edu AND include the original message to be removed from. Thank you.
In all fairness, I was making an argument (not an assertion),
which took the the form: to the degree that x is true, y is also true.
I'm totally willing to concede that my argument is not sound if,
for example, we were to find evidence the those with govt grants are
no less competitive on the job market than those without grants.
Dis-confirmatory evidence would not, however, make my argument any
less logically valid, hence it is not an assertion.
~PJ
PJ Rey
Department of Sociology
University of Maryland
@pjrey
www.pjrey.net
2112 Art-Sociology Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu wrote:
I'm definitely not with the in-crowd, but AAC&U is the Association of
American Colleges and Universities.
I don't have any evidence, systematic or anecdotal, to support PJ's
assertion. My comment was therefore careless. My experiential knowledge is
in the middle; academic researchers come up with an issue that interests
them and then, if they need funds, they search for grants that might support
their project. There is some iterative fitting between proposal and funding
institutions. But this is only for research done by autonomous university
professors. Nielsen and the Crimson Hexagon, as private companies, for
example, do enormous amounts of research on digital and media
communications. So does the NYPD and other law enforcement groups via
CompStat. If I had to guess, I would say that more research is framed by
institutional rather than individual research objectives, but this is
nothing more than a guess. Since my commitment is to educating (generally
inner city minority) students in a way that helps them gain the knowledge
and skills they need to become autonomous and responsible adults -- employed
-- I have no problem with them doing research that is not of their own
choosing in the private or public sector. Any research job for our students
would be a coup as is any job in education. So, the value question -- the
problem -- for me is how to teach students critical thinking skills in the
Marxist sense of the term without making them totally alienated and
unemployable. I've had many students from the former Soviet Union, Eastern
and Central Europe, Cuba, and China; and we all know about Communism. Most
of our students, if they want to change the system, will need to do it
through some form of productive labor for which they receive a living wage
-- perhaps by moving into management or perhaps by obtaining a professional
degree or admission to graduate school. If they want to lead a revolution,
wordsmith, digital communication, and quantitative logic skills are just as
-- if not more -- important than for a straight job in a corporation. This
suggests a certain level of dependence among even the revolutionaries on
reading and writing skills as well as the infrastructure of multi-national
communication corporations.
-- Barbara
Barbara Walters, Ph.D.
CUNY School of Professional Studies
101 31st Street, Suite 733
Phone/Voicemail: 646-344-7327
E-mail: bwalters@kbcc.cuny.edu
-----citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org wrote: -----
To: Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu
From: Barry Wellman
Sent by: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org
Date: 09/18/2011 03:06PM
Cc: communication and information technology section asa
citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
Thanks Prof Walters, for elaborating.
But, what is the AAC&U?
I'm not in with the in-crowd.
As to PJ Rey, do you have systematic evidence to corroborate your
assertion that scholars tailor their research to grant getting? My
experience is the opposite: people come up with an issue, and then, if
they need it, they search for support.
Barry Wellman
_______________________________________________________________________
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director
Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
_______________________________________________________________________
On Sun, 18 Sep 2011, Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu wrote:
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:20:36 -0400
From: Barbara.Walters@kbcc.cuny.edu
To: pjrey.socy@gmail.com
Cc: citasa@list.citasa.org, wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
The AAC&U definition of critical thinking doesn't exclude
flacks. _______________________________________________
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
This electronic message transmission contains information that may be
proprietary, confidential and/or privileged. The information is intended
only for the use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not
the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying or
distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If
you have received this electronic transmission in error, please delete it
and any copies, and notify the sender immediately by replying to the address
listed in the "From:" field. If you do not want to receive email from this
source please contact postmaster@kbcc.cuny.edu AND include the original
message to be removed from. Thank you.
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
My BA in legal studies was not legal sociology or the sociology of law. The
idea was to teach us to think critically. I do believe as a cofounder of a
certain local provincial green party that there are critical perspectives
other than Marxist and feminist comes to mind when Petra Kelly writes that
Marx and other scholars in the Marxist school were men.
Peter Timusk B.Math statistics. BA legal studies
Legal studies of the Information Age
Vice President Computers for Communites
School work blog http://notebook.webpagex.org
Some papers www.webpagex.org
I did have to study Tocqueville in public law studies.
Peter Timusk
at571@ncf.ca
ptimusk@sympatico.ca
web: www.crystalcomputing.net
blogs www.cyborgcitizen.org
-----Original Message-----
From: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org]
On Behalf Of Peter Timusk
Sent: September-18-11 5:41 PM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: Re: [CITASA] "critical" - arent we all
My BA in legal studies was not legal sociology or the sociology of law. The
idea was to teach us to think critically. I do believe as a cofounder of a
certain local provincial green party that there are critical perspectives
other than Marxist and feminist comes to mind when Petra Kelly writes that
Marx and other scholars in the Marxist school were men.
Peter Timusk B.Math statistics. BA legal studies Legal studies of the
Information Age Vice President Computers for Communites School work blog
http://notebook.webpagex.org Some papers www.webpagex.org
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
Good afternoon!
I am surprised by the turn of the conversation...
According to those generous souls who populate Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory), critical theory is an "umbrella term" that covers two different domains: literary studies and sociology.
"critical theory in literary studies is ultimately a form of hermeneutics, i.e. knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions—including the interpretation of texts which are themselves implicitly or explicitly the interpretation of other texts. Critical social theory is, in contrast, a form of self-reflective knowledge involving both understanding and theoretical explanation to reduce entrapment in systems of domination or dependence, obeying the emancipatory interest in expanding the scope of autonomy and reducing the scope of domination."
So: I think that critical theorists are not trying to make a positional claim (that they are more critical than the rest of us), but rather use the term to signify an approach to the social world. Thus the "critical" in the "Marx is Back" CfP is not referring to the lay meaning of the term, but to a specific subfield of communication studies. The same way one would use "neo-institutionalist theory" or "queer theory."
Sincerely,
Elise
Elise Paradis
Ph.D., M.A. Sociology (Stanford University)
http://www.stanford.edu/~eparadis
eparadis@stanford.edu | elise.paradis@utoronto.ca
647-866-1511
Currie Postdoctoral Fellow
Wilson Centre for Health Professions Education
University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine
Investigator | Stanford LGBT Medical Education Research Group
http://med.stanford.edu/lgbt