Paul Prew Advocacy and the Sociological Imagination

Teaching and Advocacy

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”

Over my years of teaching and learning at multiple universities, I have come to see my role as less of a teacher and more of an advocate. While advocate may sound hopelessly partial, what I really mean is that I advocate on behalf of voices that find it difficult to be heard. In my courses, I provide authors from varying backgrounds, perspectives, and regions of the world to introduce students to ideas and worldviews different from their own. As an example, my Indigeneity and Environment course uses indigenous authors to bring life to the diverse experiences of indigenous peoples around the world. Lectures and discussions attempt to echo the authors’ views and indigenous perspectives I have encountered in my travels. While an echo is not a perfect replication of the original, I attempt to carry the resonance to ears beyond the reach of the initial voice.

A portion of advocacy is also a passive activity. A significant component of advocacy is simply being present. By attending events, listening thoughtfully to people’s concerns, and being with people, advocacy is the acknowledgment of people’s unique experience. By being present, you make yourself available for advocacy of the more active sort, such as participating in discussion panels, lecturing to the campus community, and serving as a node to network groups with similar goals. My students learn, not only from me, but also from those people and organizations with whom I have developed relationships. Advocacy involves learning from others in the process of teaching. While I may echo voices, I always feel my students learn best when they are exposed directly to these diverse voices. By being present, I develop the relationships necessary to connect my students to people directly engaged in the struggles for equality.

To be sure, I also never shy away from direct advocacy. Hidden deep in a google search, you can find a picture of me “rallying the troops” during a particularly difficult contract negotiations at the University of Oregon. In addition to involvement in broader movements such as labor unions and smelling the tear gas in Seattle during the 1999 WTO protests, I engage in direct personal advocacy. I left a graduate program in solidarity with my mentor who encountered appalling racism both in our department and in the broader university community. While a graduate student, I led a Quixotic defense of a fellow graduate student who was not allowed to finish her degree because of a change in graduate student rules. I also currently serve on the board of two local organizations.

The world we face is one of great uncertainty. Global climate change portends great upheaval in the next century if not addressed immediately. Racism has transitioned from explicit laws of segregation and Jim Crow to covert microaggressions, dog whistles, and entrenched stereotypes. Although it is the 21st century, women still earn approximately 75% of males. Reactionary discrimination both inside and outside of legal codes prevents equality of sexuality. Formal colonialism has given way to semi-colonialism while retaining the international division of labor ensuring the economic and cultural dominance of the former colonial powers. All of this inequality generates antagonism and instability that will plague future generations.

For me, teaching is advocacy for understanding the causes of these societal challenges, as well as others. Sidestepping these critical issues both in the classroom and in personal life is the abdication of the role of a teacher and the mission of education. Shrinking from the responsibility of advocacy is only marginally better than open hostility to equality, because inaction is tacit support for the structures of inequality and the social problems they cause.

As Howard Zinn stated in his book You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train,
“This mixing of activism and teaching, this insistence that education cannot be neutral on the crucial issues of our time, this movement back and forth from the classroom to the struggles outside by teachers who hope their students will do the same, has always frightened the guardians of traditional education. They prefer that education simply prepare the new generation to take its proper place in that order, not to question that order.”

But, question that order, we must. As Marx stated,
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”

So why this focus on advocacy? My commitment to social justice originated before I was born. I walk this earth today only because of the actions of a callous business owner. My brother and sister were both killed in a house fire when a business owner refused to repair a defective heater my parents recently purchased. My father was at work, and my mother was hanging laundry outside when the heater exploded. My mother desperately tried to reach my sister and brother, but was dragged by the pantleg out of the house by her German Shepard as the flames consumed the house. After their deaths, my mother decided to have another child.

Over the course of my lifetime, I would directly experience the darker side of the profit motive and inequality. I grew up in a working class household living in trailers, one of which nearly burned down over the holidays when cheaply installed wiring overheated and began a fire inside the wall. In the depth of winter, sometimes my blankets would freeze to the wall. The experiences in a working class household and all the struggles that it entails shaped my worldview.

The struggles faced by my immediate family are directly related to inequality and a focus on profit maximization. My brother was nearly killed in an industrial accident recently. My grandfather died of cancer, most likely caused by the fertilizer plant where he worked. My mother was denied cancer treatments when the hospital learned she could not pay for her treatment. By the time she was able to get health insurance, she was getting phone calls from debt collectors threatening her with the loss of her home.

This corporate callousness was not limited to the medical field. Once, my mother’s bank did not transfer funds into her account when she made a deposit. She brought the deposit slip to the bank, and the bank official asked to make a copy of the receipt. The bank official left to make the copy, returned, and asked what she could do for my mother. When my mother asked her to deposit the money that was due her on the deposit slip, the bank official replied, “what deposit slip?” Very clearly and very deliberately, the bank stole that money from my mother who lived check to check. She was robbed just as blatantly as someone reaching into her purse and walking off with it. Had we walked into the bank and demanded $200, we would face criminal charges, but corporations can fleece working people with impunity.

Advocacy is paramount to my approach because growing up working class means that you have to advocate for yourself and those around you. My mother taught me the value of intervention on behalf of others. She rushed to aid neighbors who had been badly burned by an explosion in their conversion van, despite her own tragic history of loss through fire. She rushed to help a woman who had fallen on an escalator while onlookers stood slack-jawed and immobile. I intervene on behalf of others because my life is truly not my own. I am only alive because my sister and brother died, and I have an obligation to honor their legacy. My commitment to advocacy is an attempt to intervene, like my mother, in the aid of others in their own struggles. If I stand at the margins, slack-jawed and impotent, I would be letting down my sister and brother, my mother, and the rest of my family and friends who fight so hard on a daily basis just for basic dignity and human rights.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked in his “Mountaintop” speech, “That's the question before you tonight. Not, ‘If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job.’ Not, ‘If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?’ The question is not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ The question is, ‘If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That's the question.”

Graduate school was one place where working class biography clashed with the relatively privileged opportunity of a graduate education. While some working class graduate students described an "imposter syndrome" where they felt like they did not belong, I never did. My own history of personal struggle meant that I did not care what others thought. In fact, I felt quite the opposite. I resented the privileged who tried to demean those of us were not handed a first-rate education on a silver platter. I took it upon myself to participate in changing the circumstances for those who struggled to obtain a graduate degree. My union activity revolved around ensuring access for the broadest community of graduate students through family health care, better wages, and working conditions. The challenges I faced in graduate school were summed up in the acknowledgements section of my dissertation which I am including here, both the longer version and the version edited for length to meet the graduate school dissertation requirements.

The Following is the Acknowledgements Section of My Dissertation:
To future generations of graduate students: While taking a break from editing this dissertation, I walked into the Szymanski library to sift through the Insurgent Sociologist journals I saw scattered about. Initially, I thought they were leftover from the Critical Sociologist office, but blood spatters on the cover of one of the journals dramatically indicated that these had once been in Al Szymanski's own office. This revelation drives home the toll that academic life can take on idealistic individuals.

I liken the process of graduate school to a story I recall regarding a psychology experiment. In this tale, the experimenters were testing the stamina of rats to survive in a pool of water with no escape. In one group of rats, researchers would toss them in the pool and test how long they survived before drowning. In the other group, the rats were held tightly until they stopped struggling in the researcher's grip. Then, the second group suffered the same fate as the first, but what the researchers found was not unexpected. The group of rats that were restrained first did not last as long in the pool and drowned more quickly than the rats not subjected to the same treatment. Whether this tale is true or not, like any myth, it has a certain moral and applicability.

Graduate school in particular, and academia in general, have the decided effect of gripping their participants until they stop struggling. Behavior and academic pursuits that do not fit neatly within the boundaries of the academy are met with strong constraints, both structural and personal. The spaces between words in an abstract become more important than the content of the work (even this essay necessitated editing for length due to Graduate School style requirements!). Rules trample the personal biographies of the individuals participating in the system. Intellectual creations atrophy under the weight of bureaucratic demands, while trivial, uninspired output floods the libraries.

As C. Wright Mills contends, we must situate our own biography in the structure of social life. Academia impresses upon us the culture of civility and deference to authority. Violating these values in an effort to assert your rights and protect your sanity results in a tighter grip over your options. Struggling, in many cases, only makes it worse. For many, the cessation of struggle is the most appealing option, but it is not the only route. While academia attempts to socialize the student to fit the mold of capitalist society, it really, in the case of the most aware, sharpens the students' ability to chose battles carefully and identify the inner workings of the system they are confronting. As we move through the system, we have two options. One is to become the square peg that is fashioned to fit in the round hole. The second is to keep our edge and widen the hole for others who must pass through.

All of this takes effort, effort that could be expended on more meaningful endeavors: making music, spending time with family and friends, creating something unique with our hands and minds, helping make others' lives easier and more fulfilling, slowing the headlong rush to collective misery, or simply taking time to think. Instead, we jump hurdles that have little to do with the world outside these walls, believing ourselves to be somehow more informed or adept at understanding the world around us, when obligations do not really allow us to truly confront the world around us. During all of this, the people that really matter disappear, and the time you could have spent with them is wasted like a cool breeze blowing outside when you are too weary to muster the energy to leave a stagnant room. The pursuit of knowledge should not be such a dark art. If we are to make it better, we must stick together and share the burden of living! Best wishes to those that follow.

This is the Version Before the Graduate School Demanded Cuts:

To future generations of graduate students:

While taking a break from editing this dissertation, I walked into the Szymanski library to sift through the Insurgent Sociologists I saw scattered about. Initially, I thought they were leftover from the Critical Sociologist office, but blood spatters on the cover of one of the journals dramatically indicated that these had once been in Al Szymanski's own office. This revelation drives home the toll that academic life can take on idealistic individuals.

I liken the process of graduate school to a story I recall regarding a psychology experiment. In this tale, the experimenters were testing the stamina of rats to survive in a pool of water with no escape. In one group of rats, researchers would toss them in the pool and test how long they survived before drowning. In the other group, the rats were held tightly until they stopped struggling in the researcher's grip. Then, the second group suffered the same fate as the first, but what the researchers found was not unexpected. The group of rats that were restrained first did not last as long in the pool and drowned more quickly than the rats not subjected to the same treatment. Whether this tale is true or not, like any myth, it has a certain moral and applicability.

Graduate school in particular and academia in general have the decided effect of gripping its participants until they stop struggling. Behavior and academic pursuits that do not fit neatly within the boundaries of the academy are met with strong constraints, both structural and personal.

While I have attempted to stick to my ideals, it is inevitable that I have softened over the years, and the same occupation that brings me the greatest joy is also the source of my greatest disillusionment over the course of the past decade. As C. Wright Mills contends, we must situate our own biography in the structure of social life.

Personally, I have lost a great deal in the pursuit of graduate studies. Aside from the years that have washed by, all of my living grandparents past away. My idealism has faded only to be replaced with a jaded disposition. The struggle to complete academic requirements, has torn me from what is truly important in life. Friends and family have suffered terrible hardships, and I have been cloistered in my office, chained to a computer by banal academic requirements.

The ridiculous nature of some aspects of academia has to be witnessed to be believed. Education is not now, nor may have it ever been, the actual pursuit of enlightenment. Educational institutions are glorified job training centers that rarely ask the students to question the external forces pressing upon their lives, let alone people half a world away. Education is solidly grounded in the economic realities of the capitalist world-economy. Profit and the ruthless pursuit of efficiency, economic or otherwise, takes precedence over a deeper understanding of the world around us. The spaces between words in an abstract become more important than the content of the work. Rules trample the personal biographies of the individuals participating in the system. Intellectual creations atrophy under the weight of bureaucratic demands, while trivial, uninspired academic output floods the libraries. Struggling, in many cases, only makes it worse.

Academia impresses upon us the culture of civility and deference to authority. Violating these values in an effort to assert your rights and protect your sanity results in a tighter grip over your options. For many, the cessation of struggle is the most appealing option, but it is not the only route. While academia attempts to socialize the student to fit the mold of capitalist society, it really, in the case of the most aware, sharpens the students' ability to chose battles carefully and identify the inner workings of the system they are confronting. As we move through the system, we have two options. One is to become the square peg that is fashioned to fit in the round hole. The second is to keep our edge and widen the hole for others who must pass through. In reality, even the most steadfast are shaped and shape the process they are involved in.

All of this takes effort, effort that could be expended on more meaningful endeavors: making music, spending time with family and friends, creating something unique with our hands and minds, helping make others' lives easier and more fulfilling, slowing the headlong rush to collective misery, or simply taking time to think. Instead, we jump hurdles that have little to do with the world outside these walls, believing ourselves to be somehow more informed or adept at understanding the world around us, when obligations do not really allow us to truly confront the world around us. During all of this, the people that really matter disappear, and the time you could have spent with them is wasted like a cool breeze blowing outside when you are too weary to muster the energy to leave a stagnant room.

The pursuit of knowledge should not be such a dark art. If you are to make it better, you must stick together and share the burden of living!

The Sociological Imagination Must Tie Individual Experience to Broader Historical Circumstances

This is an earlier draft of a portion of the now published chapter, Paul Prew. 2017. “Understanding Society: Sociology and the Sociological Imagination” in Introduction to Sociology: A Paul Prew Collaborative Custom eBook. Boise: Ashbury Publishing

Mills reserved the use of the sociological imagination for those social scientists that go beyond individual and psychological explanations and include historical context in their analysis. If a sociologist is to claim that they adopt a “sociological imagination,” they cannot attempt to use theories that focus on individuals or small groups of people in their studies. They must tie the individual experience to the broader historical circumstances (milieux) in which they occur. Otherwise, according to Mills, the analysis is not rooted in the sociological imagination. Mills (1959) states,

The idea of social structure cannot be built up only from ideas or facts about a specific series of individuals and their reactions to their milieux. Attempts to explain social and historical events on the basis of psychological theories about ‘the individual’ often rest upon the assumption that society is nothing but a great scatter of individuals and that, accordingly, if we know all about these ‘atoms’ we can in some way add up the information and thus know about society. It is not a fruitful assumption. In fact, we cannot even know what is the most elemental about ‘the individual’ by any psychological study of him as a socially isolated creature. (163)

Role of Sociologist Is to Explain Personal Troubles as Social Issues
While the sociological imagination is used by social science researchers, Mills also argued that it should inform public issues and attempt to improve human existence through the understanding of the world around us. Mills felt the social scientist should ensure that the public is able to identify the origins of personal troubles in the broader social issues. “It is the political task of the social scientist ... continually to translate personal troubles into public issues and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals” (Mills 1959:187). In this way, the sociological imagination is very important for understanding contemporary events.

Typically, discussion of social issues in the media rarely goes beyond an explanation rooted in personal troubles. If we look a some recent events in the media, we can see this pattern. For example, what do politicians and the media tend to use to explain mass shootings? You may hear discussion of the mental state of the killer. You may also hear about people who observed the killer’s behavior prior to the events. “Shooter’s odd behavior did not go unnoticed,” “but his manner was strange,” and “Page’s behavior became odder still” are examples from an article (Romell 2012) in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel regarding the shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Focusing on the psychological motivations of the killer is exactly the problem that Mills identified. While Mills was emphatic about not relying on psychology to explain social events, he was not the only social theorist to understand the importance of a social analysis and the problem of relying on psychology to understand social events. Emile Durkheim (1938:104) commented, “Consequently, every time that a social phenomenon is directly explained by a psychological phenomenon, we may be sure that the explanation is false.” As sociologists, we must look for causes in the broader social and historical context because psychology is limited in providing explanations to the social problems we face. Thus, if we use a sociological imagination, we cannot rely on the killer’s personal psychology to explain his choice of targets. Unlike the media, we have to look deeper for the underlying social context of the shooting. We have to situate the event in the broader historical circumstances.

Explanation of Hate Crime
In the Oak Creek shooting, the killer may have had some underlying psychological issue, but why would the killer target people practicing the Sikh religion? If we focus on his obvious psychological problems, we miss why these specific people were chosen as targets. You have to ask yourself, why would the killer target this group out of all of the possible causes for the social ills he feared? The sociological imagination demands that we have to find something in the broader social context that would lead him to target these specific individuals. To truly understand the shooting, we have to place it in the actions taken to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the attacks of September 11 in the United States. The rush to promote war inflamed prejudice not only against Muslims, but people who are thought to be from the Middle East.

According to information provided by Goal Auzeen Saedi (2012), attacks on people “perceived to be Arab” increased over 1,600 percent after 9/11. The data for the claim was gathered here: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2000/00sec2.pdf (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2001) http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2001/01sec2.pdf (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2002) http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-publications#Crime (Federal Bureau of Investigation n.d.).
Sikhs do not practice Islam, and are not predominantly from the Middle East, but ignorance of religious difference and the germination of anti-Middle Eastern sentiment in the United States has led to statistically identifiable patterns of attacks on Sikhs and others perceived to be Arab. The killer’s choice of victims could not be understood by an examination of his psychology alone, but must be understood in the broader historical context of war in the Middle East and a lack of education regarding religious difference in the United States. If the United States was not at war with Iraq and Afghanistan, the killer may have targeted a different group, but let us take this a bit further. What if the U.S.’ society was different in terms of how it views guns and gun violence?

To examine this question, we can look at another racially motivated crime. What about our society would make a relatively large man fear a black teenager, Trayvon Martin, with a bag of candy in his pocket? Why would the killer feel emboldened to stalk, confront, and kill this youth instead of retreating, as instructed by the police, and leaving any potential issue to the proper authorities (CNN Library 2014; Weinstein and Mother Jones News Team 2012)? To understand the Trayvon Martin case, you have to understand the intersection of the killer’s personal history, gun violence as a solution to problems, and racial disparity in the United States.

To understand the Trayvon Martin case and those similar, we need to use our sociological imagination to make the links between the killer’s personal biography and the broader social circumstances that led to the shooting. If we look at the background of the killer and his personal history, we can see that he was a “victim of a minor criminal assault” (Roig-Franzia, Jackman and Fears 2012) when he was a teenager. He later took it upon himself to be the guardian of his neighborhood by calling the police frequently for a variety of reasons, including open garages and suspicious people. At this point in his life, the killer’s personal history makes him a nosey neighbor, but what prompted him to elevate his behavior to become the neighborhood vigilante?

Understanding the Small-Scale and the Large-Scale
To answer this question, we have to understand that the sociological imagination is also the capacity to move from the small-scale (individual level experiences) to the large-scale (society and its institutions) and understand the connections between them. The sociological imagination also allows us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes by understanding the broader social context in which they are situated. People’s personal biographies are part of a larger picture. The sociological imagination demands that we understand people may have “agency” to make choices in their life, but their ability to determine their circumstances is largely constrained by the broader social context in which they are a part (Mills 1959:7).

So, what broader social context provided the background for the killer’s actions? While there are a number of issues to consider, let’s begin with government doctrines and legal codes. In the United States, after the attacks of September 11, the George W. Bush administration developed what has come to be termed the “Bush Doctrine.” According to the Bush Doctrine, “the United States must be ready to wage preventive wars” (Jervis 2003:369) to prevent threats from other nations from harming U.S. citizens. In other words, if the United States perceives that another nation poses a threat to the safety of the United States, it must act because the consequences of not acting would be more undesirable (Jervis 2003:374). Although preventive war violates the U.N. Charter according to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Bush Doctrine was used to justify the war in Iraq (UN News Centre 2004). In effect, the idea behind the Bush doctrine is that an emerging threat must be confronted with force immediately before the threat grows more dangerous (Jervis 2003:373).

In the United States, foreign policy is not the only aspect of society where this attitude is expressed. The Bush doctrine of preventive war is mirrored by “stand your ground” legislation in many states that allow citizens to shoot people who are perceived to pose a threat. Stand your ground legislation explicitly argues that people do not have a “duty to retreat” when they face a danger from other person(s) (Florida Legislature 2013).

"A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

Thus, instead of leaving the situation, people have a right to “stand their ground” to protect themselves from a perceived threat. Stand your ground legislation is an extension of people’s right to self-defense. Instead of using comparable force to defend yourself as in self-defense, you are able to proactively put an end to a perceived, impending confrontation through lethal force. Like the Bush doctrine, “stand your ground” allows violence to be used prior to being the victim of an attack by another party. Both of these legal positions reinforce an attitude among the public that they will have a right to use violence to put an end to a suspected confrontation, whether the threat is real or imagined. Although the legislation is relatively new, there appears to be real consequences for “stand your ground” legislation. Research suggests that homicides (murders) increase in states that enact “stand your ground” laws (Cheng and Hoekstra 2013:849).

Returning to our original question, why would the killer stalk, confront, and kill Trayvon Martin? Although the killer did not claim “stand your ground” in court, he disregarded police instructions to stop following Trayvon. He was acting, not under expectations associated with self-defense laws where you must leave if given the opportunity, but more consistently with the stand your ground legislation that does not require a person to retreat. If we use our sociological imagination and look at the broader context, we can see how the situation may have unfolded differently in a completely separate society. If we consider a society where there were no “stand your ground” laws and people frowned upon the use of violence to resolve perceived threats, the killer would likely have not pursued his victim and initiated a confrontation. Given “stand your ground” and the Bush doctrine, the killer grew up in a social context in the United States that is sympathetic to the use of deadly force instead of other methods of resolving perceived conflict.

Although the social context of “stand your ground” helps explain why the killer initiated the deadly confrontation, it does not explain why he perceived a teenage boy with candy and tea in his pockets as a lethal threat. This is where the issue of the Trayvon’s race comes into play. Had Trayvon Martin been a white male wearing a suit jacket and a tie, carrying a bag of Skittles and a bottle of tea, there is little chance that the killer would have noticed him, let alone followed him. The killer’s suspicions were raised, not by any objective threat that Trayvon posed, but by racial stereotyping of a black youth wearing a “hoodie” in a predominantly white neighborhood (Thakore 2014:3-4). Thus, the legacy of racial discrimination and prejudicial stereotyping led the killer to identify, incorrectly, Trayvon as a threat. Otherwise, the killer would not have followed Trayvon.

The killer’s personal biography (small-scale) of being attacked early in his life and then becoming a self-appointed neighborhood watchman put him in the area looking for suspicious behavior. Racial stereotyping provided the impetus to define Trayvon as a threat worthy of stalking. Stand your ground legislation (large-scale) provided the legal context that emboldened the killer to follow Trayvon, against police instructions, confront Trayvon, and ultimately kill him. A clearer understanding of the killing develops when we see intersection of the biography of the killer (small-scale) and the social context (large-scale) of racial disparity and legal legitimation for lethal force when someone perceives a potential threat.

So, we have, in the United States, social attitudes within society that have become solidified in state law and federal foreign policy that sanction the use of deadly force when someone perceives a threat. Because these attitudes are not only shared by members of the U.S. society but also codified into law, some people within the United States act based on these attitudes. It is important to note that the “Bush Doctrine,” “stand your ground” laws, racial attitudes, and other social factors do not influence everyone equally, or in the same way. This is why it is so very important to follow the sociological imagination’s prerequisite to understand the relationship between individual biography and the social circumstances. Tragedies like the Sikh temple shooting and the slaying of Trayvon Martin are the result of the mixture of personal biography and the broader social context.

While there are unique aspects to every tragedy, these incidents are part of broader patterns. For example, a man targeted a Jewish community center and retirement home during shooting rampage in 2014 (Ahmed, Fantz and Shoichet 2014). In 2013, a young black woman was shot and killed attempting to get help after a car accident (Isom 2013). Mills’ admonition to use the sociological imagination demands that we confront the fiction that these are “isolated incidents” and inexplicable tragedies. To understand the Sikh temple shooting, Trayvon Martin’s murder and others like it, we have to understand that the personal biographies of the killers may have made them susceptible to violent action, but the social circumstances of “stand your ground” attitudes and racial stereotyping played a role in the manner of attack and the selection of targets. If we “blame society” by singling out racism or violence as the sole cause of the shootings, we miss the role of personal biography. If we only blame the individual’s mental state, then we miss the role of social influences in the tragedy. As Mills (1959:6) states, “No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey.” To truly understand the issues of our day, we have to understand how history intersects with biography. If you are able to develop a sociological imagination, you will be better able to understand both your own personal troubles and the broader social issues facing contemporary society.

References Ahmed, Saeed, Ashley Fantz, and Catherine E. Shoichet. 2014. Jewish Center Shooter 'Knocked Family To Its Knees,' Relative Says. Atlanta, GA: Cable News Network. http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/us/kansas-jewish-center-shooting/

Cheng, Cheng, and Mark Hoekstra. 2013. "Does Strengthening Self-Defense Law Deter Crime or Escalate Violence?: Evidence from Expansions to Castle Doctrine." Journal of Human Resources 48(3):821-53.

CNN Library. 2014. "Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts." Atlanta, GA: Cable News Network. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts/

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—. 2002. "Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2001." Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2001/01sec2.pdf

—. n.d. "Uniform Crime Reports." Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-publications#Crime

Florida Legislature, The. 2013. "Justifiable Use of Force: Home Protection; Use of Deadly Force; Presumption of Fear of Death or Great Bodily Harm." in Title XLVI 776.013 (3), edited by State of Florida. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/0776.html

Isom, Andrea. 2013. "Community Rallies, Demanding Justice for 19-year-old Renisha McBride." Southfield, MI: WJBK-TV | Fox 2 , Fox Television Stations, Inc. http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/23912134/community-rallies-demanding-justice-for-19-year-old-renisha-mcbride

Jervis, Robert. 2003. "Understanding the Bush Doctrine." Political Science Quarterly 118(3):365-88.

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Roig-Franzia, Manuel, Tom Jackman, and Darryl Fears. 2012. "Who is George Zimmerman?" in The Washington Post. Washington DC: The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/who-is-george-zimmerman/2012/03/22/gIQAkXdbUS_story.html?hpid=z1

Romell, Rick. 2012. "Shooter's Odd Behavior Did Not Go Unnoticed." in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Milwaukee, WI: Journal Sentinel Inc. http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/shooter-wade-page-was-army-vet-white-supremacist-856cn28-165123946.html

Saedi, Goal Auzeen. 2012. "Sikh Temple Shooting and the Trouble With Looking Muslim: Post-9/11 Islamophobic sentiment touched many groups, including Sikhs " in Psychology Today. New York: Sussex Publishers, LLC.

Thakore, Bhoomi K. 2014. "Maintaining the Mechanisms of Colorblind Racism in the Twenty-First Century." Humanity & Society 38(1):3-6.

UN News Centre. 2004. "Lessons of Iraq War Underscore Importance of UN Charter - Annan." United Nations. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=11953&

Weinstein, Adam, and Mother Jones News Team. 2012. "The Trayvon Martin Killing, Explained." San Francisco, CA: Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/what-happened-trayvon-martin-explained

Why Do I Have a Social Justice Orientation?

The following is an excerpt from Paul Prew. 2017.“ Environmental Sociology with Paul Prew” in Collective Sociology: An Introduction to Sociology eBook. Boise: Ashbury Publishing

My interest in the environment was conditioned from a very young age. I spent much of my childhood in the “driftless” area of Wisconsin, a hilly area in the Midwest that was not scoured flat in the last glacial period. Summers would be spent wandering the hills, grazing on wild strawberries, raspberries and the occasional wild grape. Much of my extended family was involved in farming, and my grandfather supported the region’s agriculture by working at the local fertilizer plant.

I recall touring the facility as a child. It had a very distinctive odor that permeated not only the factory floor, but also the maintenance building a short distance away. My grandfather’s work area in the maintenance building was covered in fertilizer. The break room where the workers dined, as well as my grandfather’s truck interior, was also bathed in a thin film of fertilizer. His tools are still scarred with the rust produced by extended contact with these chemicals.

I also remember touring the manager’s building, but it was immaculate. Instead of open windows, it was climate controlled, air conditioned and free from the dusty residue that coated the other workers. It was a clear lesson in social class, where the privileged, highly paid workers could avoid the adverse health effects of the product they produced. The low-paid manual laborers were not afforded the same courtesy.

Eventually, my grandfather developed bladder cancer, a cancer possibly associated with exposure to fertilizer (Marsh, Gula, Youk & Cassidy, 2002; Weyer, Cerhan, Kross, Hallberg, Kantamneni, Breuer, ]ones, Zheng & Lynch, 2001). At one point, a blood clot obstructed his urethra, and the small hospital in my hometown did not have the ability to catheterize him, so they needed to transport him more than an hour to the nearest medical facility that could perform the procedure. While we were waiting for the ambulance to arrive, the curtain surrounding his bed was flung open, and I saw my grandfather dancing as if his feet were on fire, blood dripping from his penis to the floor below. He looked up at me, and through his gritted teeth implored me, “Never get old.” I replied, “I never planned on it.”

My response was a feeling of anger at the inequality of a working class existence and the knowledge that working class people do not have the luxury of enjoying their retirement, even if they live that long. Their bodies are too broken, or they die of diseases related to their employment, or they are simply killed on the job. My anger was heightened by the obvious pain my grandfather suffered, and this is not a man who was unable to bear pain. Years before, while working at the fertilizer plant, he found an open train-car door on his rounds as foreman. When he attempted to close it, the door fell off, gouged the cement belowand landed on my grandfather, shattering his safety helmet and crushing his vertebrae. Luckily, there was a slight downward grade in the roadway leading to the rail line that allowed my grandfather to scratch his way out from below the heavy train door.

My interest in the social sciences is rooted in the reality of my working class upbringing. I have little time, or respect, for social scientists who study frivolous phenomena such as quirky subcultures, isolated deviant behavior, or popular culture. I call them “whoopee cushion sociologists.” There are too many grave concerns that need attention in our global societies to focus on such meaningless tripe. My own personal history of trauma leads me to this flagrant bias of perspective, but there is a larger story to be told beyond my own.

Our focus, as a society, but also as social scientists, is currently one of ignoring the environment in which we are an inseparable part. Those who are too preoccupied with the frivolous aspects of our society reveal themselves through their unthinking behavior. We concern ourselves with our own pleasure, which is predominantly at the expense of the environment and others in our contemporary society. We do not know the ecological effects of our choices, nor do we know how others around the world suffer to bring us the conveniences we come to see as natural.

Not all societies are so unthinkingly oblivious. Folklorist Barre Toelken (1976: 14) mentioned a story about the Hopi of the Southwest United States. He said, “I once asked a Hopi whom I met in that country, ‘Do you mean to say, then, that if I kick the ground with my foot, it will botch everything up, so nothing will grow?’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t know whether that would happen or not, but it would just really show what kind of person you are.’” By kicking the ground, a person exposes a lack of respect for and knowledge of nature’s importance. Not only does this story relate to our relationship to the Earth, it also speaks to how people spend their lives. Gouging the earth with your shoe is akin to spending your life’s work expressly avoiding the struggles of fellow human beings; it shows what kind of person you are.
The Earth will persist long after the human species ceases to walk through its environment. The question before us at this point in time is whether we will take a moment of our lives to address those crucial environmental issues that not only threaten the most vulnerable of us, but will eventually threaten the very integrity of our societies. Working people have long fought and died to improve our society. The eight-hour workday, food safety regulation, social security, civil rights legislation, women’s suffrage, etc., are all the result of these efforts. Without the blood and sweat struggles of working folks, we would suffer a much bleaker existence. Without action, we face a grim future, but my optimism is in the capacity of working people to right the wrongs and to create, with their minds and hands, a brighter future together. My writing, teaching and everyday activism is an effort to help us move toward that brighter future.

Marsh, G. M., Gula, M. J., Youk, A. O., & Cassidy, L. D. (2002). "Bladder Cancer Among Chemical Workers Exposed to Nitrogen Products and Other Substances." American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 42, 286–95.

Toelken, B. (1976). "Seeing with a Native Eye: How Many Sheep Will It Hold." Pp. 9-24 in Seeing With a Native Eye: Essays on Native American Religion, edited by Walter Holden Capps. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Weyer, P. J., Cerhan, J. R., Kross, B. C., Hallberg, G. R., Kantamneni, J., Breuer, G., ]ones, M. P., Zheng, W., & Lynch, C. F. (2001). "Municipal Drinking Water Nitrate Level and Cancer Risk in Older Women: The Iowa Women’s Health Study." Epidemiology, 11, (3), 327-38.

Types of Sociology

"I also found that there was a predominance of what I refer to as “whoopie cushion sociology” - so-called “deviant” subcultures meticulously studied and explained through extended quotes to document their uniqueness with absolutely no connection to broader social forces or theory."

Over my career, I have given much thought to sociology as a field of study. Courses in theory and methods exposes sociology students, like myself, to a wide range of paradigms. Very early on, the sociological imagination of Mills (1959) and the conflict perspective resonated with me, largely because of my own personal biography. In this way, the determinative social forces came to life in my own experiences.

As I delved more deeply into theory and sociological paradigms, my own understanding of the potential of sociological perspectives began to crystalize. Attending professional conferences also solidified my perspective. While some researchers in the Marxist discipline focus nearly exclusively on the global level to the exclusion of people’s lived experience, Marxists tend engage in research to change society for the better. Presentations at professional conferences reflected this orientation. I also would stumble into other panels, and to my amazement, I may find an example from the functionalist perspective - the coelacanth of the sociology world, long thought extinct, but still surviving in isolated environs. I also found that there was a predominance of what I refer to as “whoopie cushion sociology” (Sethuraju, Prew, Abdi, and Pipkins 2013:9) - so-called “deviant” subcultures meticulously studied and explained through extended quotes to document their uniqueness with absolutely no connection to broader social forces or theory.

For some time, I thought my pigeonholing of sociology paradigms was my own solitary assessment until I recently came upon a sociology text by Albert Szymanski and Ted Goertzel (1979). In it, they outline three types of sociology: Conservative, Liberal, and Radical. The conservative paradigm is the Parsonian functionalism that assumes all is well with the world except those that are not sufficiently socialized into the dominant social values. The liberal paradigm is characterized by its absence of broader social forces and its “colorful anecdotal material that makes for interesting reading” (Szymanski and Goertzel, 1979:24), i.e. whoopie cushion sociology. The radical perspective is focused on historical comparative studies aimed at the transformation of society and liberation of the oppressed. Below are extended quotes from their text (Szymanski and Goertzel, 1979) highlighting the differences in sociology I have come to know over the years.

Conservative Sociology

"Perhaps the most basic assumption in conservative sociology is that society is an essentially orderly and harmonious entity, a single organism. While the conservative sociologists recognize that there are many diverse individuals and groups in society, their main concern is how these can be made to fit together in a smoothly operating social system. While some conservatives assume that people are basically evil for biological reasons, [Talcott] Parsons and most sociological conservatives tend to view people as receptive to whatever influences society places upon them. Parsons’ most central assumption is that the system of values or beliefs holds societies together. The nature of a society, and any problems that occur within it, are to be explained in terms of values held by the people in the society. Growth in a society means the development of values that better enable the society to adapt to its environment" (15).

"The conservative paradigm is more concerned with legitimation than it is with actual scientific research.... It is a paradigm that is highly conservative in its value implications. The highly abstract terminology used by Parsons generally makes the paradigm seem more objective and scientific than it really is. Use of this terminology makes it difficult to deal with issues such as basic conflicts of interests between groups in society, since the very terminology would lead one to think of these conflicts in terms of mere differences in values" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:18).

Liberal Sociology
"Liberal sociology differs from conservative sociology in its political implications, but this difference is not obvious or straightforward. Liberal sociologists do not generally offer a liberal model of how societies function that could be compared with the models offered by conservative or radical sociology. Rather, they tend to avoid the question of the larger structure of society, focusing instead on limited problems within one particular part of society. Or, frequently, they focus on social-psychological problems that can be dealt with on the level of individual interactions without examining how these personal problems fit into the larger societal context."

"Liberal sociologists generally take the larger structure of the society for granted, and work on resolving specific problems or answering specific questions within it. This approach fits into liberalism as a political ideology. Liberals generally do not question the basic organization of the American society but the do work to reform specific aspects of it.... When problems such as crime in the streets or worker dissatisfaction with their jobs or working conditions occur, liberals generally assume they can be resolved without major changes in the society or without compromising the interests of either group in the dispute" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:19).

"While liberal sociology is weak in social theory, it is much stronger in its emphasis on research methodology. Indeed, liberal sociologists are often accused of stressing methods at the expense of theory or even of empirical description" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:22).

"There are three main methodological traditions within the liberal paradigm. The first is the experimental method. By experimentation is meant a method in which the research actively manipulates people in order to control the variables [the researcher] is studying.... The laboratory situation is inherently artificial, and there is considerable controversy about how much behavior in the laboratory is actually the same as behavior in the real world" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:23).

"The second method, which has been developed into a fine art by liberal sociologists is the sample survey.... There are significant advantages to the survey method. It is fairly objective, in the sense that any two researchers who ask the same questions to samples selected in the same way should get approximately the same results. It makes it possible to study large segments of the population fairly economically.... It is limited, however, to studying phenomena that are formed in the conscious minds of the respondents and that they are willing and able to tell the interviewer about. It is difficult to use surveys to study historical change since one cannot go back into history and ask survey questions (although one can sometimes find relevant surveys done by someone else in the past)" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:23-24).

"The third method often used by liberal sociologists to simply observe group life. Sometimes the sociologist participates as a member of a group and writes about his or her observations and experiences (this is known as “participant observation”)....

Observational methods have certain advantages. They enable the sociologist to get close to social life and perhaps to observe things that he or she did not anticipate and thus could not have put into a survey or questionnaire. They often generate colorful anecdotal material that makes for interesting reading.... The disadvantage is that observational methods are very restricted in scope. Only relatively small groups can be observed directly, and there is no guarantee that what one observes in a given group is the same as what happens in other groups. Furthermore, not all groups are accessible to observation, and observational sociologists tend to emphasize groups that are deviant or interesting in some way. They rarely if ever study powerful groups, although these groups actually have a much greater ability to shape social reality than the more ordinary groups that are available for study....

Through limitations in assumptions about what is important, liberal sociologists generally avoid serious or fundamental analysis of larger societal issues, focusing instead on smaller questions that can be dealt with within the confines of the existing social system" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:24).

Radical Sociology
"Rather than seeing societies as stable and integrated, Marxism sees societies as divided into social classes that have conflicting economic interests. It assumes that the dominant classes use both persuasion and coercion to dominate the lower classes and that the conflict growing out of the exploitative relations eventually leads to revolutionary change in the social system" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:25).

"Marxist concepts are less accessible than those of liberal sociology, since liberal sociology deals largely with phenomena on the level of individual behavior that are familiar to most people. Marxist concepts are useful only when one recognizes the necessity of understanding the dynamics of social systems as a whole" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:26).

"The Marxist paradigm encompasses all societies at all times, but most of Marx’s work deals with capitalist societies. Much more than the other two paradigms, the Marxist paradigm is comparative and historical.... Different theories within the Marxist paradigm are not of merely academic interest. One of the central tenets of Marxism is that theories are important insofar as they provide a guide to action. Political parties and groups that accept a general Marxist approach differ on questions of tactics strategy, and policy. They each advance theories and attempt to [support] them both by research and by practical action" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:27).

"Marxists use a fairly wide range of methods to answer questions raised by their theories. Since Marxism stresses historical changes on the societal level, historical methods of research are often used. Marx himself relied upon government documents for much of his data, particularly for statistical information on economic trends. Marxists can also learn from participation in social activities and movements, and from interviews with informed participants in political struggles. Survey methods are also amenable to answering some of the questions raised by Marxists, especially questions about consciousness or political ideologies. However, survey methods are limited in their ability to tap highly controversial opinions and attitudes that interest Marxists, and they play a much less central role than in liberal sociology" (Szymanski and Goertzel 1979:28).

While these paradigms are a “simplified version” (Szymanski and Goertzel, 1979:15), I cannot help but feel that little has changed since Szymanski and Goertzel wrote these words. In fact, little changed in the time since Mills wrote his “autopsy” (Dandaneau 2009:13) twenty years earlier. Mills railed against psychologism: “‘Psychologism’ refers to the attempt to explain social phenomena in terms of facts and theories about the make-up of individuals. Historically, as a doctrine, it rests upon an explicit metaphysical denial of the reality of social structure.” (Mills 1959:67) and abstracted empiricism: “The policy for progress of abstracted empiricists is very specific and quite hopeful: Let us accumulate many microscopic studies; slowly and minutely, like ants dragging many small crumbs into a great pile, we shall ‘build up a science’” (Mills 1959:127).

There is an interesting contradiction at the center of sociology. The majority of its members cling to the term “sociological imagination” and some consider themselves radicals (Szymanski and Goertzel, 1979:24), but the mountains of research is embarrassingly lacking in the fundamental premises that Mills (1959) puts forward in the sociological imagination: the tie of biography to social structure, the emphasis on the historical-comparative, the antagonism to psychologism, and the pursuit of social science as an expressly political project. While there is some research, specifically the radical paradigm, that does integrate the sociological imagination, the liberal paradigm has absconded with the term, sociological imagination, to cloak their naked emperor.

As a political economist, it is quite clear to me why the discipline of sociology looks the way it does. If sociology truly lived up to the sociological imagination, we would be living in quite a different world. The demands of tenure and the dictates of journal publication constrict research, in large part with notable exceptions, to easily studied phenomenon that can be summarized in 10,000 words or less. While not ultimately excluding other research, the path is clear if one wants the easy road to tenure and promotion. As Mills (1959) even comments himself, “Very little except [the researcher’s] own individual limitations stood between the individual craftsman of social science and work of the highest order” (102-3). But, Mills also is very clear that the discipline is consumed with research of the small-scale milieu.

Sociology is largely a discipline that lacks the sociological imagination and tends to cater to the liberal paradigm. While the conservative paradigm of the functionalists tends to be marginalized, so do the radical paradigms of Marxism, critical race theory, and radical feminist approaches. Liberal approaches tend to think of themselves as critical, but they are really conducting safe research that does not seriously challenge anyone or anything, such as racists or racist social structure, fundamental economic exploitation, environmental degradation, the profit motive, etc. “Scientific with a capital S–which often only means made ‘safe’ by being made trivial–for they do not want to be made the subjects of political attention” (Mills 1959:104).

Obviously, Mills, as well as Szymanski and Goertzel, have taken a clear political stance on the field of sociology. Given my own personal experience in the field, I am given to siding with their analysis. Having said so, it still begs the question, “why does it matter?” Why should we be concerned that most sociology does not live up to the sociological imagination? If it did, would sociology be even less well funded and secure than it already is? Is radical sociology even sociology, or is it really political economy that finds its way into the discipline of the sociology because there are scarcely any departments of political economy? In that way, are political economists really interlopers in the conservative field of sociology pressing our politicized criticism on the discipline unfairly?

While I cannot hope to answer all of these questions, I do think a liberal paradigm that has so eagerly coopted the sociological imagination deserves harsh rebuke for its selective appropriation of the most palatable aspects of Mills’ critique. The liberal paradigm has no defense for the reams of journal articles so painfully self-referential and obtuse as to render Mills’ call for the political task in social science mute. We can rarely find any evidence of Mills' declaration to make the connection between the issues of social structure and the troubles of personal biography clear to the public. On this count alone, sociology, as a discipline, is guilty of gross negligence.

The predominance of liberal sociology matters precisely because of the challenges facing contemporary society. By choosing to focus on the theories of the middle range (at best) and the inane (at worst), liberal sociologists have made a conscious decision that the lives of those at risk from ecological crisis, inequality, civil conflict, etc. are of less import than understanding identity construction, sub-group behavior, organizational efficiency, etc. By excluding historical social structure from their analysis, liberal sociologists have conceded that resolving social problems is beyond their scope of concern. To be frank, Mills was very clear that the social scientist “is to combat all those forces which are destroying genuine publics and creating a mass society–or put as a positive goal, [the] aim is to help build and strengthen self-cultivating publics. Only then might society be reasonable and free” (Mills 1959:186).

>References
Dandaneau, Steven. 2009. “Sisyphus Had It Easy: Reflections of Two Decades of Teaching the Sociological Imagination.” Teaching Sociology 37(1):8-19.

Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sethuraju, Nadarajan (Raj), Paul Prew, Abdihakin Abdi, and Martel Pipkins. 2013. “The Consequences of Teaching Critical Sociology on Course Evaluations.” Sage Open July-September:1-15.

Szymanski, Albert J., and Ted George Goertzel. 1979. Sociology: Class, Consciousness, and Contradictions. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company.

Paul Prew
Teaching, Advocacy, and the Sociological Imagination

Our Role in Social Movements

Teaching and Advocacy

The Sociological Imagination Must Tie Individual Experience to Broader Historical Circumstances

Why Do I Have a Social Justice Orientation?

Types of Sociology