The title of this blog is one I’ve always wanted to deploy. All being well, I may possibly revisit it in a future publication. The crux of the issue for now is that not only do the theoretical standpoints and analyses of different thinkers and writers often overlap, but that sorting out and coming to terms with these overlaps is: (i) a worthwhile endeavour, and ii) much more often a diversion from the ‘true sociological project’. And what is the true sociological project? It surely to understand and explain social order and social change in all their evolving complexities. To take a personal case, I have drawn extensively on the works of Haberman and Bhaskar in my own treatises on health and sport. While – (i) above – it is perfectly acceptable to tease out and address the contradictions in and between the perspectives of these two thinkers, doing so is largely tangential to furthering the sociological project – (ii) above.
Nor, to labour the point, does one have to plump for one or the other thinker in toto. I accept, for example, Bhaskar’s point that Habermas sidesteps ontolological in favour of epistemological issues; and I continue to dissent from Habermas’ premature abandonment (theoretically) of Marx and (politically) his Frankfurt students in 1968 and the Palestinians in the recent dire letter on Israel and Gaza to which he appended his signature. But notwithstanding many departures and reservations I continue to find central aspects of Habermas’ works compelling and serviceable for the ‘true sociological project’. Chief among these are his philosophical disassembling of cultural relativity in the guise of postmodernism and his theses on the historic de-coupling of system and lifeworld and the progressive colonisation of the latter by the former. It is a framework that I have mined and adapted for many years, recently in two more or less companion volumes ‘Sociology, Health and the Fractured Society’ and ‘A Critical Realist Theory of Sport’.
From Bhasker, I take his exposure of the epistemic fallacy; his re-grounding of Marxism; and, most notably, his argument for ‘really existing’ causal forces as necessary components of the sociological understanding and explanation of the impact of social structures, cultures and agents on the patterning of events via retroductive and abductive inference. I feel able to ‘use’ both Habermas and Bhaskar in my own analyses because I draw on non-contradictory, indeed often complementary, aspects of their works. For instance, Bhaskar’s philosophically-situated concepts of ‘power 1’ and ‘power 2’ relations in his dialectical critical realism marry with, and can be adapted to underpin, Habermas’ notions of lifeworld colonisation and rationalisation.
I could go on, but I have said more than enough in multiple other blogs on these two philosophers/social theorists. My primary focus here is on according overriding priority on the part of sociologists to ‘doing sociology’, to furthering the ‘true sociological project’. This rightly entails, I am contending, drawing on many (overlapping) theories and theorists, providing that any mistakes and/or contradictions within or between their contributions do not undermine or compromise the sociologist’s current research endeavour. I am not advocating the approach of the jackdaw, namely, nicking brightly coloured objects from an array of theoretical nests. But I am commending the utilisation of a wide range of tenets, concepts, insights and analyses from an extensive range of philosophical and social theoretical works. I have done this is my own published works.
I have argued that this orientation might be extended with regard to well-established middle-range theories in sociology. For example, middle-range theories formulated in one substantive area of sociological research might be of considerable use if applied in another. In my ‘Sociology, Health and the Fractured Society’ I advanced general theories, or models, that promise a broader sociological application than just in the field of health and health care (see my blog on ‘human malleability’). The first I called ego adjustment:
‘people’s definitions of self, situation and orientation to social change mirror the Mertonian status- and role-sets they occupy. This applies not only to their natal placement but to the dynamics of any social mobility. In other words, people ‘rationalise’ their definitions to fit their circumstances. The empirically-ratified ‘logic’ here is that those born to advantage, ‘plus’ the minority who are upwardly mobile, ‘adjust’ their conceptions of the good society to coincide with, ‘fit’ and justify their pecuniary and other interests.’
The second I termed activity reinforcement:
‘what becomes familiar matters more, more insistently structures agency and is more causally efficacious that is often appreciated … the activity reinforcement model here points to a tendency for the repetition-cum-familiarity associated with status- and role-set occupancy to translate into a behavioural predictability beyond the conscious reach of ego adjustment.’
In a nutshell, while I fully accept the validity and usefulness of – in truth, often abstruse and siloed – discussions of theorist/theory compatibility, I am suggesting that for sociologists engaged in what I have rather grandiosely called the ‘true sociological project’ what matters above all else is whether they fuel our grasp of what is happening in the world and why. Creativity around middle-range theorising can promote additional fuel efficiency.