People in Families

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Excerpt from People in Families: Sociology, Psychoanalysis, and the American Family Popularly sociology appears in diverse guises. It labels a college class which often deals with problems about life and living, about sex and getting ahead. These problems were formerly discussed frankly only in student "bull sessions" behind closed doors. Sociology is criticized for being only a bourgeois answer to proletarian radicalism and agitation. Some condemn it as merely a textbook science, developed by authors remote from the grime, tension, and struggle of everyday life, others hold it is only too infused with society's unattractive aspects. Sociology got its name in France more than a century ago. Europeans contributed substantially to it before American sociological literature became extensive or important. We owe a great deal of what we know about human society to keen European social observers and theorists even though Europeans now often call the discipline an "American science." One of the greatest contributions of Americans to the subject is something we are now in danger of losing. This is the autonomous attitude many of our sociologists have taken toward their work. This attitude arises from the nature of the "clients" for whom our most influential sociological knowledge was developed. The clients are suggested by my references to "bull sessions" and to "textbook science." Our early sociologists tried to help college students understand their rapidly changing social world, and they did so with the optimistic concern for reform and social justice common in our new and expanding country. As a consequence, these sociologists conceived of themselves as autonomous professionals who should serve only the interests of their students and thus of society. They did not wish to emulate the desire apparent among some European social scientists to put together ideologies serviceable either to those currently in power or, more rarely, to those seeking power. Such American pioneers as Lester F.Ward and William Graham Sumner studied society and social welfare as they saw fit and let their conclusions fall on whosever toes they might. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.