Thread by @AcadFreedom

Finally taking the time to read 'Sociology’s Sacred Victims and the Politics of Knowledge: Moral Foundations Theory and Disciplinary Controversies' by Mark Horowitz, Anthony Haynor, Kenneth Kickham

link.springer.com/article/10.100…

"The field of sociology has long been subject to critique for alleged ideological bias and left-wing groupthink linked to its social justice mission. Critics contend that the construction of sacred victims by progressive intellectuals...

... hinders their ability to objectively appraise the circumstances of such vulnerable groups. To address this criticism, we survey 479 sociologists in national universities and colleges in the U.S. regarding three sensitive controversies: ...

... urban poverty in the black community; gendered differences in occupational choices; and immigration. We find significant patterns in the data...

... Commitment to the field’s moral mission, preferred research paradigm, gender, and especially political orientation are all significant predictors of sociologists’ views."

"t is hardly news that sociologists lean left politically. Surveys of the field long suggest a haven for progressive-minded scholars, while many if not most proudly affirm their commitment to social justice and economic equality."

"In his 2004 Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy extols the Brarely vanquished sociological spirit – a moral impetus and passion for a better world that endures despite the disciplinary pressures associated with the tenure process."

"If such progressive sensibilities fail to raise alarm among sociologists, critics highlight the dangers of ideological bias and academic groupthink."

"Especially relevant is what Haidt refers to as the sacralization of vulnerable groups, such as racial and gender minorities. Rendering such groups sacred – i.e., setting them apart as beyond reproach – allegedly undermines objective appraisals of their circumstances."

"Knowledge claims that might be construed as injurious to vulnerable groups, or limiting the prospects of social equality, are deemed taboo regardless of their empirical defensibility...

... Among such taboo ideas in social science, Martin writes, are that ` ‘victims’ are sometimes blameworthy or that stereotypes sometimes match average group differences.' "

"To be sure, dismissal of unwanted ideas is not solely or even principally the province of the political left. Outright science denial is widespread on the right, regarding evolutionary theory, climate change, and more."

"Our aim here is to gauge the issue empirically: How deep are sociology’s (purportedly) ideological blind spots? Is it the case, as Smith argues, that sociology comprises a 'sacred project' (in the Durkheimian sense)?...

... Are ideas that tap the moral nerve of the field’s most sacred values 'purged' from sociological discourse? And if so, are sociologists so 'blinded' by their moral mission that a certain class of facts is indiscernible to them?"

"To address these questions we examine sociologists’ views of three enduring controversies bearing on vulnerable groups: urban poverty in the black community; gendered occupational choices; and immigration."

"While our survey affords an opportunity to explore how sociologists construct knowledge, we stress that we are less interested in criticizing our colleagues’ biases than in understanding them...

... In that spirit, we interpret the findings tentatively through the lens of social intuitionism – elaborated in moral foundations theory – by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt and colleagues."

"Before unpacking our survey methodology, let us sketch the context of the controversies that inform our chosen questions."

"We compiled a list of all sociology programs in the U.S. News & World Report’s 'National Universities' and 'National Liberal Arts Colleges' rankings. Accessing publically available emails, we sent the survey to 3461 full-time sociology faculty in the summer of 2017...

.... After an initial email and follow up, we received 479 usable surveys, for a 14% response rate."

Table I.

[Notice: roughly 1 in 50 sociologists who responded to the survey described themselves as 'conservative', also roughly 1 in 50 as 'libertarian', and a *whopping* 🙃 1 in 8 as 'moderate']

">e see that majorities of respondents affirm the 'moral mission' of the field. Just over two-thirds agree that sociology should be both a scientific and moral enterprise, while 62% agree with Karl Marx’s famous dictum...

... and 59% affirm that a 'central aim' of the field should be to 'analyze and transcend all forms of social oppression'."

"However, a strong majority (69%) does not believe that someone opposed to marriage equality has 'no business being a sociologist,' while under half (44%) affirms as a 'central aim' the communitarian effort to foster consensus around conflicting societal interests...

.... Finally, sociologists are sharply and evenly divided over whether increasing the number of political conservatives would benefit the field."

Table II.

"Thirty-five percent agrees that an Bexcessively activist orientation^ is undermining the field, while just over half (51%) disagrees."

"There is strong uniformity regarding the role of biology in gendered occupational choices. Only one third of respondents acknowledges that a biological role in occupational choice is 'plausible,' with 27% open to the possibility that prenatal hormones play a role...

... Indeed, sociologists overwhelmingly agree (79%) that gender socialization and discrimination 'profoundly outweigh' any possible biological factors; and only a fraction (11%) affirms that political efforts to address the STEM gender disparity...

... may 'fall short of parity due in part to average biological differences.' Finally, a sizable minority (41%) agrees that those who search for a biological component are 'likely motivated to legitimize the gender stratified status quo' (with one third disagreeing)."

Table III.

[comments below]

Notice first the clear majorities that agree with the moral mission of sociology: roughly 3 in 5 agree for instance with the idea that academics should change the world, while less than 1 in 6 disagree

Notice also the very sizeable minorities that reject the notion that advocacy should be separated from research: just about as many responding sociologists rejected that notion as agreed with it

Notice also the negligible role attributed to biology in explaining sex ratios in professions: four fifths of sociologists think that its role is "profoundly outweighed" by socialisation and discrimination

[Back to the article's text]

"Sociologists differ systematically in their responses based on their commitment to the field’s moral mission, preferred research paradigm, gender, and – most notably – political orientation. Indeed, each of these factors predicts respondents’ views across the survey."

"We see a sharp contrast in views between sociologists who are 'strong adherents' of the moral mission and the rest of the field. (We designate as strong adherents those respondents who marked 'agree' or 'strongly agree' to each of the first three 'moral mission' questions...

... of our survey (MM1, MM2, MM3). Strong adherents make up 43% of the sample.) Strong adherents differ significantly from their colleagues on every survey item except SC18. Strong adherents are significantly less likely to reveal concern about excessive activism in the field...

... or that social justice or advocacy may undermine scientific objectivity (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4). As for the controversies, strong adherents reveal a pattern of positions that for purpose of discussion we will term 'vulnerable-group-partial'."

"On virtually every item, respondents with a research focus on intersectionality evince more vulnerable-group- partial responses. Their views are antithetical to those of their rational choice col- leagues, with symbolic interactionists typically in between...

... Notice that 81% of inter- sectional sociologists believes a central aim of the field is to analyze and transcend all forms of oppression, compared to 33% of rational choice theorists (MM2). Only 11% affirms that the field is undermined by excessive activism...

..., versus 60% of rational choice theorists (AO1). A comparable contrast is visible across the moral mission and advocacy and objectivity items."

Table V. (partial)

To keep in mind when someone tries to bamboozle people by claiming that "intersectionality is just a research paradigm in the social sciences"

Well, no, it's not only that, but inasmuch as it is that, it is a profoundly activist research paradigm

Almost three times as many sociologists who embrace the intersectional research paradigm disagree that "advocacy and research should be separate for objectivity" as agree

Twice as many of them disagree that "dispassionate attitude in research important for accuracy" as agree

"Note that intersectional sociologists differ significantly from the rest of the field on 20 of the 31 survey items. They do so in generally the opposite direction as rational choice theorists, who differ significantly from their colleagues on 13 items...

... Symbolic interactionists often, though not always, stake a middle ground."

"83% of our sample identifies as liberal/left (62% liberal, 21% radical), compared to 13% that identifies as moderate and 4 % as conservative or libertarian. These percentages are consistent with prior reports of liberal predominance in the field."

"Radical, liberal and moderate respondents differ in a 'stairway' fashion on every survey item. As would be expected, radicals tend to mirror their intersectional colleagues with consistent vulnerable-group-partial responses. While moderates differ significantly...

... from their outlying conservative colleagues on 13 items, liberals and radicals differ significantly on every question except SC18. Moreover, the large coefficients bear out the impact of politics on the variation in sociologists’ views."

"If we attend to sociologists’ explicit views on politics and epistemology, we see much more ambivalence than ideological uniformity."

"Although a large majority (73%) sees no inherent incompatibility between pursuing social justice and accurately explaining even controversial social phenomena (AO4), almost half of the field (47%) believes a dispassionate attitude is important in research (AO3)."

" In the end, as we review the range of respondents’ comments, we see a reflective field wrestling with the tenacious question of whether normative commitments necessarily skew research...

... Indeed, the predominant position in the comments strikes us as both reasonable and banal – that bias is inevitable in social research, so the challenge is to deliberately minimize its distorting impact."

"With those caveats in mind, we do see substantial evidence of disciplinary 'blind spots', especially regarding gendered occupational choices, though the field appears less homogenous than critics imagine...

... Indeed, the bulk of criticism applies more narrowly to radical and intersectional sociologists most inclined to vulnerable-group-partial responses. To wit: 20% of radicals deny the plausibility of cultural factors playing any role in perpetuating black urban poverty...

...; 63% deny a biological component in women’s greater representation in people-oriented professions; and 57% do not believe that calls to limit immigration may sometimes reflect 'legitimate moral concerns' for cultural unity and identity."

"In his popular book, The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt unpacks what he views as a foundational principle of moral psychology: morality binds and blinds. Drawing on 'multilevel' Darwinian selection and Durkheimian theory...

..., Haidt argues that people have evolved to form 'tribal' moral communities, replete with sacred symbols and rituals that bind them together into cohesive groups."

"Haidt maintains that part of humans’ evolutionary inheritance is a moral template made up of six intuitions or foundations: harm/care; fairness/cheating; liberty/oppression; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion; and sanctity/degrada- tion...

... Such foundations are seen as inherited yet modular features of the brain that served adaptive purposes in human prehistory"

"The political morality of people on the liberal-left end of the spectrum is saturated by the twin sensibilities of care and fairness. Actions or policies that are perceived to harm, oppress, or cheat the vulnerable are especially likely to trigger liberals’ moral emotions...

... Although conservatives and libertarians share liberals’ concern for care and fairness, they tend to do so either more provincially or less intensely. That is, conservatives tend to target their compassion to members of their own 'tribe'...

..., while libertarians appear to experience less empathetic concern on the whole than other political groupings. Conservatives’ moral template is wider than liberals’, however, and activates more acutely all six moral foundations."

"Central to moral foundations theory is that these contrasting moral intuitions on the left and right unconsciously trigger political judgments: people make judgments intuitively based on unconscious 'flashes of approval or disapproval' toward morally-charged affairs."

"Given sociology’s overwhelmingly left/liberal complexion, MFT would expect the discipline to reproduce a discourse that 'vibrates' with care and fairness sensibilities...

... From this standpoint, sociologists’ sustained attention to the harmful consequences of social stratification expresses precisely their shared moral senti- ments to protect vulnerable groups. Yet critics contend that in 'sacralizing' vulnerable groups, the field undercuts...

... its scientific credibility. Certain factual claims or lines of inquiry – such as those addressed in this survey – are dismissed as morally repugnant whatever their empirical promise...

... Although our survey hardly serves as a 'test' of MFT, the fact that political orientation is the strongest predictor of sociologists’ views is consistent with its expectations."

"Budding sociologists are no doubt 'primed' by their sensibilities as they navigate the paradigms of their field and choose empirical questions of interest. Hence certain theories or theorists, ideas or interpretations, may be viewed as inviting or not...

... based less on their scientific merits than on their emotive resonance. In this sense we propose that when applying moral intuitionism to academic knowledge production, it is useful to extend Haidt’s principle above to 'morality binds, blinds, and primes'...

... Many sociologists, as we will see, express unfamiliarity with the literature surrounding one or more of the controversies...

... We wonder, however, the extent to which this lack of knowledge may not be incidental, but reflect their own moral intuitions and the group boundaries of 'appropriate' disciplinary inquiry."

"In the concluding section we draw heavily from respondents’ comments to reveal how sociology’s moral boundaries are (re)produced and policed. We reveal a discourse that is particularly sensitive and often fervent when it comes to depictions of vulnerable groups...

... Indeed, the prevalence in the comments of victimization narratives, trigger-ready outrage, and the impugning of other scholars’ motives lend support to an intuitionist model of moral reasoning."

"We should again stress that our analysis here is necessarily speculative. Although we received thousands of comments, they were optional throughout the survey, and we cannot make a claim to generalizability. We can say that the sentiments cited are consistent...

... with how the controversies have played out in public debate. At the very least, there is an appreciable subset of sociologists who view knowledge production in their field in markedly ardent and tribal terms"

"Including values, beliefs and practices into the explanatory schema implies that the black underclass may have a hint of agency in perpetuating their circumstances. For some, that empirical possibility is verboten...

... Sociologists’ aversion to cultural explanations in this context is evidenced by many highly emotive reactions to the suggestion that the inner city black community has any 'responsibility' for their circumstances (SC3)."

"[One respondent wrote:]

'If I dared to say any of the things I’m saying in this survey in any non-anonymous situation it would probably be the end of my career. I just bite my lip and say all of the politically correct things I’m supposed to say...

..., or (more often) just try to avoid saying anything, since even some whites who say the politically correct thing can still be accused of racism, so I try to just keep my mouth shut'."

"We are unable to gauge how prevalent such self-censorship may be in the discipline. Yet the impugning of motives and trigger-ready outrage expressed by some sociologists give cause for concern:

...

...

- 'Talking about the 'black community' as opposed to the rest of us seems racist to me.'
- 'Preaching to people whose behavior is tied to constraining structural circumstances is paternalistic and usually self-defeating.'

...

...

- 'I really *really* hope you’re not seriously considering white supremacist ideas as valid ideas to explore.'

...

...

- 'Excuse me taking this personally and the expletive to follow – but this viewpoint is so *f*cking* irritating. The assumption that the 'black' community is culturally different than the rest of the Americans is one those perpetual racist ideas that continues to circulate.'

... Without the tools of an intuitionist social psychology, we find it difficult to under- stand how considering possible cultural dimensions of poverty could prompt such accusations of paternalism, racism and white supremacy."

"It appears that asking these forbidden questions expels the questioner from the group’s moral community. Recall that over a quarter of female, radical, and intersectional sociologists agrees...

... that investigating such factors is 'likely motivated by a desire to legitimize the racial-ethnic status quo'. In one extreme case, a respondent exclaims: 'You are a white supremacist and I hate everything about this survey'...

... Most do not express such hostility, yet discomfort with the line of inquiry is common. In fact, a frequent strategy to avoid such questions is to deflect to matters compatible with the victimization narrative."

"We can see in their discursive practices how sociologists deflect, denounce, or dismiss undesirable questions. We see comparable moves across the controversies, especially with regard to gender. Many sociologists express disbelief at raising the possibility...

... of biology playing even a component role in occupational choice (SC8, SC9). 'Jesus, really?' asks one; 'Are you freaking kidding me?' responds another; 'How. Are. You. Even. Asking. This. Question.' [sic] writes a third."

"A few sociologists explicitly link their dismissal of biology to a 'blank slate' view of human behavior: 'Women’s vaginas and breasts are probably the only thing about them that has a biological component.'...

... Another reveals: 'I am a strict tabula rasa sociologist. Any differences in behavior by sex is actually gender and is the result of socialization'."

"Even among those who 'agree', that 'the role of biological factors in influencing gendered occupational choices merits attention in sociology', many do so only nominally:

...

...

- 'I’m not opposed to someone studying this, if only to debunk it.'
- 'Yes, so that they can be discredited. Biological determinism around race and gender is so ingrained in the U.S. that it must be addressed and debunked.'

...

...

- 'I would never state that someone should refrain from exploring a research question even if I think it’s a waste of time or money.'

...

...

- 'It only merits attention insofar as we have data that show that gender does not
universally have the same effects on occupational choices or the division of labor.'

...

...

- 'Who am I to say don’t study that? I mean, maybe we should study if fish retire? Do salads feel pain when we eat them?'

It is hard to distinguish the views above from intellectual prejudice. For many sociologists, the science is settled and the battle lines are clear. They see it as their mission to discredit or deride any hint of what they view as biological 'determinism'...

... The only 'facts' that count are those that discount the role of biology in social outcomes."

"One wonders how many sociologists are 'in the closet' about their receptivity to biology. As with the culture of poverty, it appears forbidden to concede that a vulnerable group may make 'choices' that even partially account for their social location...

... Such 'choices' must be imposed strictly by domination from without. To suggest otherwise apparently 'outs' oneself as a defender of social hierarchy."

"While an upbeat hunch about migratory flows is suitable as a hypothesis, some sociologists bend the stick so far as to put their politics ahead of the research. Others deflect to more 'appropriate' questions. By this point the discursive maneuvers should be familiar:

...

...

- 'Investigate the 'disruptive effects on the social cohesion' of immigrant families, separated by economic necessity and by political hysteria.'

...

...

- 'It seems like we should look, first, to how immigration has disrupted indigenous or involuntary contingencies. Would be more helpful to look at how our foreign policy affects immigration if we do not want newcomers.'

...

...

- 'I agree as long as policy is also informed by research that shows that more diverse communities thrive.'

...

...

- 'No, if the research leads to segregation and other racist policies. Yes, if the research finds ways to successfully help immigrant community join with existing communities and develop successful avenues for cultural exchange and appreciation (and avoid appropriation).'

"One wonders upon reading these lines when a hypothesis becomes a prejudice, or when one’s moral intuitions invite confirmation bias. Immigration policy should be informed with research – but only if it shows that more diverse communities thrive?...

... What if more diverse communities thrive less, as Putnam’s provocative findings suggest? Must research be subject first to a litmus test of political congeniality?"

"Our aim in dissecting the controversies is to gain greater consciousness of ourselves as an emotive community of scholars. We have, to be sure, injected our own critical voice, and we have been especially attentive to that subgroup of radical and intersectional sociologists...

... most inclined to sacralize the victim. Yet as progressive intellectuals we share those same moral intuitions. Our hope, in intuitionist terms, is that if we bind ourselves less tribally to sacred beliefs, we will become less blind to countervailing claims or evidence...

... This is not to suggest that progressive sensibilities necessarily lead us astray. Egalitarian instincts to protect the vulnerable are both a resource and constraint in knowledge production...

... After all, some of the most important work in critical social science has been animated by such instincts."

"The challenge is to resist receiving contrary ideas through a tribal lens; to be aware of how our intergroup academic identities are emotively anchored; and to be less trigger-ready to dismiss even unsettling propositions from intellectual or political challengers."

End thread