I Hit the Idea Wall…Not Dead Just Bruised

I have been hoping to create an original blog entry for a self-imposed weekly deadline which happens to be tomorrow morning.  The problem this week is that I just started a new semester last Thursday.  The courses that I have chosen will provide me with endless blog fodder but as of this moment I am at the halfway mark for all of my required readings for brand new classes and therefore have a head full of incomplete ideas which not only make for terrible blogging but have also proven to be superordinate to all other competitors.

A posed question might have to suffice for this week.

I am currently taking a lot of Sociology course work to prepare for an upcoming masters program and a question that has come up several times already is whether or not contemporary social scientists have a positive or negative impact on social movements.  In mainstream sociology do you think that the majority of professional scientists are taking a neutral stance in their studies and are therefore complicit in perpetuating unbalanced hierarchical power structures (government, health care system, policing, etc.)?  This would include a more removed analysis of society and social movements, with resultant theory mostly residing in the academe or at best buried in the deep pages of socially useless  policies which serve the minority power holders.  Things to consider are that if you raise accurate criticisms against the power holders in favour of subordinate populations you are inviting harsh professional criticisms from entrenched academic and media institutions and that the REAL money for grants and studies will inevitably lead to more conservative parameters established by whoever is picking up the tab.

Image from, http://beforethebuff.com/18/question-everything/

The opposite view-point which would truly embrace the intended spirit of contemporary Sociology would be better represented by individuals who recognize that  theory arises from conflict.  Marx didn’t have a template, The feminists of the 60’s didn’t have a template, nor did the student movements of the same time period.  Theory did emerge from various minds and movements and minds throughout history but could never have occurred without ACTION. Ideally, theory would be applied to action and the result would be new ways of knowing and a continual evolution of applicable ideas which would optimally serve future theoreticians and agents of change. This application of knowledge to action is known as Praxis.

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it.” -Marx

Something to think about anyways.  I did manage to make it out to the Anarchist book fair which I featured in my last entry and it was great.  I got to chat with some interesting folk and managed to pick up a few things which  I will be reviewing at later dates.

Comments and Sharing are always welcome

Static_Animal