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/lp/springer-journals/american-sociology-in-a-de-civilizing-moment-the-end-of-normalcy-2OrwmQABYI
- Publisher
- Springer Journals
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
- ISSN
- 0003-1232
- eISSN
- 1936-4784
- DOI
- 10.1007/s12108-023-09566-3
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
This book examines changes in the “content and status of sociology” in the United States in the present and recent past. The author understands the present as an era in which relatively organized capitalism has “given way to the disorganization, “de-civilizing,” and “wilding” of post-modern post-normalcy. Sociology in the previous period was oriented toward reinforcing the sense of normalcy both epistemologically and substantively. A “normal science” of repetition, teleological modernization, and value-free science resonated with the experience of “social normalcy.” In the more recent period, crises have proliferated throughout social space, with implications for sociology, undoing its metaphysical foundations and throwing into question all the disciplinary divisions upon which normal science had been organized. In response, sociology has seen the emergence of two new variants: a hyper-normalized sociology that doubles down on “statistical prowess” and “the application of quantitative techniques to novel domains”; and a post-normal sociology that rejects positivism and value-freedom and that is aligned with particular social movements and identities. This post-normal sociology, Thorpe argues, complements rather than contradicts corporate neoliberalism and works together with hyper-normal sociology in marginalizing critical sociology. In response, I argue that Thorpe mischaracterizes academic freedom and understates its importance, underestimates the heterogeneity within US sociology today, and overstates the historical unprecedentedness of the present condition of “postnormal” polycrisis.
Journal
The American Sociologist – Springer Journals
Published: Mar 4, 2023