See sethabrutyn.com Why Not Affectivism? April 29, 2024
What does Abrutyn see as a key issue in sociology today? Interestingly, he argues that sociological explanations are derived rationally from inspirations of our field’s Founding Fathers, and that these are unrealistically rational and insufficiently affectual. I find this a very interesting statement as it addresses a central aspect of how we undertake sociological analysis.
This has made me think about what the sociological writing I do involves and how the profession rewards some kinds of writing with publication and recognition, while offering no interest in some other field. This makes us think, as Abrutyn already does, about other fields of natural and social science. For obvious, and selfish reasons, I start with my own work which is on people’s personal lives. People’s relationships, successive generations, and the influence of these on society is clearly sociological. Their families and private lives are obviously not politics or economics. As interpersonal relationships and as synchronized generational mobilizations, they are not psychology either. Incidentally, academic psychology departments typically see themselves as medical and biological scientists, and not as social science at all.
So how does the branch of sociology I am working in fit in with Abrutyn’s concerns? First, it is important to remind ourselves that the Founding Fathers of sociology had absolutely nothing to say about the family. Feminists know that Martineau wrote about private lives, and that Marianne Weber wrote about marriage, before organizing Max’s stuff. But there can be no argument that, in my field, an excessive rationality from the founding fathers influenced the current sociology of personal life. Indeed, the reverse is true; interpersonal relationships are not lacking in strong feelings or can be discussed without emotions of attraction and rejection (Moore 1998), desires (Hey 1997), or discussion of personal and group affect in courtship patterns (Grazian 2007, Bogle 2008).
But let’s look at the broad influence and status of this field. Sociology in North America generally seems not to be interested at all in this area. The ASA has no stream in Youth, Generations, and Life Course. It is as though people have nothing interesting sociologically going on as they grow up, or as different generations influence society. A quick look I made at sociologists’ careers in youth studies, particularly in research on girls, show that these, almost universally women, authors are very rarely able to continue an academic career in this. They leave academic sociology, or shift into fields such as education, culture, or ethnicity. Important theoretical studies appear to be forgotten (Patterson 1998).
All this tells me that personal life, growing up, and families is a very low status topic and not at all admired as a field within sociology. It tells me that American sociology doesn’t like feelings, nor the challenge it involves of conceptualizing affect as a source human action. A lot of this supports what Abrutyn is saying, but, in the case of personal life the absence of affect comes not from what the Founding Fathers said, but rather what they omitted.
A bigger challenge may involve why the sociological profession prefers ‘roles’ in formal organizations that use rules and rationality, rather than ‘relationships’ chosen by mutual attraction that rely on the affects of feelings and sustained commitment.