Piven and Beck

[Roll Right]

I'm not surprised to see this, and frankly I'm wondering why he didn't start attacking sociology earlier.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101250016

That is an article discussing Beck's attacks on a world class sociologist - Francis Piven- who is somewhere in her 70's right now. She's done a lot of work on poverty and how to alleviate poverty....Beck thinks she's party of a conspiracy to tear down America. He's been harassing her for a year on the air, and now she's receiving death threats.

[maximus82]

He's not attacking sociology. He's attacking a sociologists. those are two different things.

[hoobers]

Yeah, there's a big difference between attacking a single scholar and attacking the whole discipline. Though I don't imagine there are any sociologists who agree with Beck's insane diatribes against Piven, a sizable minority of the discipline is very uncomfortable with work that is as highly political as hers. I don't want to be putting any blame on Piven in this case because Beck is really pretty irrational, but the reason to avoid doing politics and calling it sociology is specifically because it can attract political attacks on the discipline. Thankfully, that hasn't happened in this case (yet?)...

[ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ]

Yeah, there's a big difference between attacking a single scholar and attacking the whole discipline. Though I don't imagine there are any sociologists who agree with Beck's insane diatribes against Piven, a sizable minority of the discipline is very uncomfortable with work that is as highly political as hers. I don't want to be putting any blame on Piven in this case because Beck is really pretty irrational, but the reason to avoid doing politics and calling it sociology is specifically because it can attract political attacks on the discipline. Thankfully, that hasn't happened in this case (yet?)...

The social sciences seek to investigate phenomena that, by their very nature, are ideologically contested. One can, of course, refrain from activism - though I don't see why sociologists should refrain any more from it than butchers, bakers, or candlestick makers - but can't imagine any sociology worthy of the name that wouldn't inspire attacks on itself. Any conclusion to certain questions is going to be liable to denouncement from somebody.

[Roll Right]

I'd argue that by attacking a well known sociologist (who was once president of the ASA), you're also attacking the discipline by proxy. It would be one thing to disagree with her work, but to put her in the middle of a conspiracy to destroy the fabric of America through sociological inquiry is not only damaging to her image, but damaging to sociology in general.

I suppose I just dislike this guy more than the average person, so that pushed me to post this story on the board. I thought it might piss off some other sociology students that Beck is stepping into sociology and throwing his weight around, as if he had a solid idea of what he was talking about.

Sociology is already looked upon with a skeptical eye by the public (mainly because no one actually knows what it is). Now we have a highly popular "entertainer/enlightenment thinker" blasting one of the best sociologists in the past several decades with wild accusations that at least a portion of the public obviously believes.

So, how is this not attacking sociology?

[hoobers]

@Roll Right,

Yeah, I agree that it could be damaging to sociology in general--which is definitely the important point here. But, at the cost of being too much of a stickler for words, it still does not follow that Beck is *attacking* sociology. I understand your argument to have this logical form:

(1) "If an event X targets a single person Y of profession Z, and if X targets Y in part because Y practices Z, and if moreover X can have implications for all of the discipline Z, then event X should be considered to target all of Z."

Note that this argument crucially rests on the contention that other reasons for X targeting Y (let's call them W) do not matter: it is sufficient that Z is an important part of the reason X targets Y, and that X can have implications for all of Y. Now consider this claim, which has the same logical form:

* "A policeman roughly tackled a bicyclist, causing him to fall of his bike. This is an attack on all of bicyclists, whether or not the bicyclist was W."

This claim may be argued to be reasonable (if a bit rhetorically baroque), but whether or not this is the case crucially depends on W. If the clause containing "W" is something like "whether or not the bicyclist was wearing a helmet", "was speeding", etc, then this is a reasonable claim (or, at least, not one that obviously has problems). In other words, if W is something that any bicyclist could do, then this phrasing is an acceptable rhetorical flourish. But if "W" is something like "whether or not the bicyclist was attempting to flee the scene of a murder", "whether or not the bicyclist had just knocked down an old lady", "whether or not the bicyclist was highly intoxicated", etc., then this rhetorical claim is excessive. I do not have time to phrase this in perfect detail, but I hope this evidence is enough to accept the following characterization of what's happening: whether or not the rhetorical claim is reasonable crucially depends on whether or not most other bikers accept W as a normal (or acceptable) part of biking. Thus, we need to add the following condition to (1):

(2): "... as long as there are no such circumstances W that set Y apart from many Z, and that played a deciding role in X targetting Y." (If there is such a W, we can claim that X targets all those Z who also W, but we cannot claim that X targets all of Z.)

In the empirical case at hand, there clearly were such circumstances: Beck (X') targetted Piven (Y') not just because she was a sociologist (Z'), but because she produced work that is highly contentious and explicitly political (W'). However, there are many sociologists who do not produce highly contentious/explicitly political work (just open any AJS/ASR/SF/ARS), and moreover many sociologists do not think that sociologists should be producing such work. Thus, this situation violates condition (2): there is such a property W' that sets Y' crucially apart from some Z', which means that we cannot assert that X' is targetting all of Z'.

Edited January 27, 2011 by hoobers

[Roll Right]

Alright, did you really just break down this thread into sentential logic statements? LOL man, I hope you're a Beck supporter or a philosophy minor or major.

But of course, you're logic is correct.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Roll Right

[maximus82]

The logic is not correct... Beck is targeting Piven for something she said, not for being a sociologist (which is the same as attacking her "not only for being a sociologist").

The point is, Beck is a douche and we know it... but this is not an attack on sociology, this is just an attack on reason.

[hoobers]

Alright, did you really just break down this thread into sentential logic statements? LOL man, I hope you're a Beck supporter or a philosophy minor or major.

But of course, you're logic is correct.

Hawhaw, well, modal logic would have let me formalize this more, but it didn't seem necessary to go above sentential And well, sort of--I'm just a sociologist with a crush on analytic philosophy.

[Roll Right]

Guys, lets stick to sociology.

[hoobers]

Guys, lets stick to sociology.

Fair enough. But what part of this thread is that?

Edited January 27, 2011 by hoobers

[Roll Right]

uh....sociology of media?

[ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ]

And well, sort of--I'm just a sociologist with a crush on analytic philosophy.

Have you read Gerry Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense? I don't agree with all of his conclusions or interpretations, but it's a great stimulus for thought and shows that analytics can be as socially engaged as continentals.