I don't know why you constantly bring the old and tiring quant-versus-qual debate into this. We are well-aware that there is a lot of quality qualitative work. But I for one do not accept the "other ways of knowing" -kind of "methodology. There is a real correlation between the nonsense revealed in this hoax and the true psuedo-science (creationism, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, flat-earth theories, anti-vaccination, etc.).
Grievance Studies Hoaxed
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It is not about the possibility of crap research slipping through, or quantitative vs. qualitative studies. The is ideological bias. If crap slipped through randomly, it would be unfortunate but less of a scandal. The problem is that it is systematic. Strong studies are often rejected because they offend our progressive political beliefs, and weak studies are commoly published becauy of their desirable implications.
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You’re missing the point still, I think. To keep going with the “other ways of knowing” example. The sociology of knowledge was a growing field throughout the 1950s into the1970s. It’s still around of course. This group was very interested in “other ways of knowing,” as they should be. Do you experience everyday life in one dimension? Be honest with yourself. You dream, you work, you fantasize, different emotions color your views, you feel sympathy for others, etc. And perhaps these “other ways of knowing” are experienced differently by different people.
Now, a hardcore quant (I’m using this as a sort of synonym for positivist, but everyone hates that word) may declare that these “other ways of knowing” are sociologically irrelevant and sound soft. I don’t think so at all. All of these “multiple realities,” as the phenomenolgists used to call them (in absolutely incredible works without a single table of data), are socially created. So, we can choose to ignore them or we can choose to examine them. It may seem “soft” to “hard” Super Social Scientists, but to others these are an important dimension of society.
Your dreams are sociologically relevant, for example. This sounds “soft” and may come across as akin to Chinese medicine to a positivist. But check out Domhoff’s awesome work on dreams. It’s great! (Yes, the same Domhoff who wrote Who Rules America?) Just one example why we shouldn’t just shun all work that examines “other ways of knowing” as laughable.
There is bad and good work in these areas and our job as colleagues is to make this distinction rationally.
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“Strong studies are often rejected because they offend our progressive political beliefs, and weak studies are commoly published becauy of their desirable implications.”
100% agree. I’ve witnessed this as a reviewer. Insane. But still no reason to laugh off entire fields.
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All of these “multiple realities,” as the phenomenolgists used to call them (in absolutely incredible works without a single table of data), are socially created. So, we can choose to ignore them or we can choose to examine them. It may seem “soft” to “hard” Super Social Scientists, but to others these are an important dimension of society.
Here lies the problem: the risk is way too high to end up with the kind of "radical constructivism" beautifully documented in the hoax. And once we have that, there is only a small step to "standpoint epistemology" and generally the politicization of epistemology.
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“Simmel had really hard time getting a job is sociology.”
Simmel was beloved by students, extremely influential, and supported by Weber. But he couldn’t get a position for one reason and one reason only. That reason starts with a “J” and rhymes with “Sue.”
The others mentioned are not famous because of their empirical work - though perhaps Weber should be more famous for the world religions studies. Those listed are famous because of their theories. And they built their career on theory during their lifetimes.
Don’t project your limited conception of what you think sociology is supposed to be onto the field’s history.
Look at the top 100 most influential books in sociology. They’re almost all “theory” books. They used to call “theory” “sociology.” Now “sociology” is a regression table or an interview and “theory” is what you tack on the front end.
Sure, Habermas isn’t a sociologist according to an anonymous American grad student confident that he’s a Scientist after finishing his methods course. Habermas is not only a sociologist, he’s one of the most influential sociologists of all time - according to citations. Oh wow, empirics!But they developed their theories from empirical evidence. That Simmel was popular with students and backed by Weber is irrelevant, he didn't get a position partly because of antisemitism but perhaps mostly because his work was (fairly tbh) not considered scholarship. Do not project your ignorance of the of the history of sociology onto others.
Habermas isn’t a very influential sociologist by any measure. What actual empirical sociological work has Habermas directly influenced?
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Yeah remember that dumbass Darwin who made the theory of evolution. He made a career on being a theorist. What a hack.
Darwin developed his theory from data collected on year long voyage.
Nearly five years, actually, and a stunning amount of observation and data collection.
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