Fabio Rojas (orgtheory.net what would happy sociology look like October 10, 2018) https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/what-would-happy-sociology-look-like/ writes …
As I’ve noted before, there are lots of great developments in modern society, but they get much less attention than negative events What would “happy” sociology look like?
- There would be a cultural sociology that asks about the cultural preconditions of the industrial revolution, the single event in human history that lifted the most people out of poverty.
- There would be a similar cultural sociology examining the massive decline in inter-personal violence and war that has occurred over the last two or three hundred years.
- There would be a cultural sociology examining the liberation of minorities, women, and LGBT people in many nations.
- There would be an economic sociology that examines how modern economies support an insane level of cultural diversity.
- There would be a sociology that explains how societies produce things that essentially wipe out many forms of infectious disease and drastically reduce child mortality.
- There would be a cultural sociology that explains why individual freedom remains strong in a world with fascism, national socialism, communism, radical religious groups, and populist nationalism.
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Professor Rojas has, again, addressed the most important question facing sociologists. He challenges us to explain both what is good and what’s bad in society. I want to offer my own thoughts on what sociology’s next steps should be as we make our discipline happiness ready!
First, I have concluded that, as a whole, sociologists don’t believe that anything exists within society that can really be described as creating good. Our concepts and introductory textbooks show nothing but the forces of “inequality and oppression” which always seem to win. Individuals may have good motives and groups try to make life better but sociologists never identify endogenous forces within society that actually make people happier. If this is true, happiness in society will be reduced to a search for scraps of food during a famine. You cannot be ‘balanced’ when the reality of your society is truly horrible.
The evidence however points in the opposite direction. Rojas shows that society is getting better in important ways. If, as I believe, this progress arises from processes within society, it is clear that sociologists have neglected these. Studying society in a more balanced way means revisiting our sociological concepts and explanations and looking for what we have missed. My own view is that personal relationships and their chronology over our lifetimes is a sociological process that creates good. This offers a new approach that potentially links Rojas’ six good features of society. But this radically new analysis is in its infancy. Developing an approach that is capable of balance is a huge task – one that will involve our whole profession.
Anything new takes a lot of work. But isn’t explaining society in a balanced way the most important thing we can do? And isn’t understanding life in society why we all became sociologists in the first place?
