Criticism of Sociological Orthodoxy Needs to be Substantive
Sociology is under intense pressure these days, with many stakeholders strongly criticizing the discipline for its lack of rigor, an almost single-minded preoccupation with inequality (yes, that’s me), and a chronic lack of “viewpoint diversity.” These criticisms have institutional repercussions: legislatures in several U.S. states now treat the field as politically “captured,” most notably in Florida, where the field is cast as an incubator of left-wing activism.
Jukka Savolainen’s recent essay in Unsafe Science sharpens this criticism. Savolainen, who is the moderator of the Heterodox Academy’s sociology community, argues that the discipline of sociology has abandoned impartial scholarship and become an activist echo chamber. His solution—citing the case of University of Copenhagen—is to empower ideologically diverse review boards, provide targeted grants for heterodox work and, when necessary, encourage “independent advisory boards” to ensure that sociology can, check notes, “adhere strictly to the scientific ethos.”
Admittedly, I share several of Savolainen’s frustrations. I usually find the discipline quite boring and uninteresting. Sociology is filled with bad empirics because they are good narratives, etc.1
1 And I have a romantic attachment to The Vocation Lectures, you know…
That being said, recognizing these flaws only raises the bar for critique: proper reform demands proper critique, and proper critique requires that we should have an effect on how people engage, in their day to day academic lives, in sociological scholarship. Savolainen’s piece exemplifies this deeper problem with much contemporary criticism of sociology. However heated, these criticisms seldom turn on substantive engagement with the field’s actual theories, methods, or evidence. Put bluntly, the supposed “heterodox” criticism of sociology is never substantive, with no practical implication for sociological scholarship and practice. It is a heterodox critique in search of its orthodoxy.
The Unbearable Lightness of Meta-Criticism
Critiques like this, mostly coming from the Heterodox Academy quarters of academia, share a familiar structure. They contend that sociology is “politically captured,” yet when it is time to say what scholars should actually do differently, the prescriptions are procedural (new review boards, special grants, and viewpoint-diversity pledges), rather than intellectual.
The problem with this approach is simple: there is no clear definition as to what would count as “orthodox” versus “heterodox” knowledge in sociology. Thus, the criticism is simply not at the level of theoretical or methodological conflict. A good reform movement should have a clear and actionable conflict: open-science movement places the conflict in open science practices, providing a specific set of reforms aiming at the conventional know-hows. The advocates of credibility revolution place the conflict in discussions about research designs. Scholars associated with Rational Choice Theory not only criticize sociology’s macro focus; they actually produce good research serving as a “template” for the mode, style, and genre of scholarship they advocate for.2
2 A curious parallel here is Lizardo’s (2012) criticism of the Analytical Sociology movement: an intellectual movement cannot claim to revolutionize the field unless it proposes contentious and substantive practices.
The genre of meta-criticism we encounter, however, is necessarily thin. They point to bias, but propose no substantive theory of action, no new mechanism of social change, or no basic alternative model worth resisting. Suppose the viewpoint is restored, sociology is now largely apolitical, and we are close to this mysterious “scientific ethos.” What happens to the median ASR article, then? What is the precise DAG that channels my-kind-of-people-in-committees to good sociology?
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Why does bad sociology happen, then? Two boring reasons: theoretical fragmentation and weak empirical standards. A core theoretical framework—something like the utility model from economics—would regulate what people would say and not say. It would constrain “nuance” (Healy 2017). It would also lead to proper “policing” of sociological work. Same goes for rigorous empirical standards. Both would give sociology its disciplinary focus and autonomy that would regulate the scholarship on its own terms. No wiggle room. All this is to say that viewpoint diversity is a normative good3, but it is not a substantive fix. Shared theory, rigorous designs, and disciplined empirical practices are.4
3 One that would have clear epistemic advantages.
4 Let me be even more blunt. The median sociology paper usually fails because it is boring (“I regressed an outcome on a group variable”). The problem is that a heterodox read on that regression doesn’t change the fact that it is a boring regression from the very start.
The bottom line is that what our field needs is not a new balance of opinions per se, but a higher bar for explanation and properly competing theories.
Raise that bar, and “the politics” will take care of themselves.