Recently I have been thinking about what would happen if all the sociology departments in the world would suddenly burn down. Would anyone besides the staff really miss them? Do they really provide any value to society and by extension, to people?
While having these ponderings, I discovered a group of scholars in management studies, including, but not limited to Mats Alvesson, Carl Cederström, Roland Paulsen, and Dennis Tourish, who in recent years have blown the whistle on a social science that has become increasingly bureaucratic, obscure, socially irrelevant and most of all, meaningless. The publication ‘game’ and excessive prioritization of theory ‘development’ has generated pages and pages of awful writing and the purposefully confusing use of concepts and terminology that excludes most readers.
Sadly, not many besides this group of Critical Management Studies academics have paid much heed to this argument. This needs to change. I argue that the criticism and reevaluation that has been raised within management studies is valid and should be reflected upon in the social sciences at large, particularly in my own field of sociology, which I would say is the most problematic of them all.
The abovementioned critiques have mainly come from academics who have been in the ‘business’ for decades and have reached a secure enough position to criticize the established modus operandi. Perhaps additional insight can be gained from the perspective of someone on the opposite end of the totem pole – a mere master’s student. Despite the obvious blind spot of not having experienced the life of a scholar, I claim to have the advantage of not being fully socialized into the norms and eccentricities of the academic world, despite having developed a reasonable ability towards hypothetical participation in it. Rather than the old and tired “Why I quit academia” confessions, I find it worthwhile to examine the forces that can discourage individuals, who want to do meaningful work, from even entering post-graduate studies, to begin with.
Early Acculturation
At the risk of sounding banal, all professional academics were once students. The events and structures of conditioning at this early stage might give some indications about later developments.
The pre-graduate years of studying survey one’s field broadly and one learns about a variety of topics and approaches, which is stimulating and novel for the new student. Elective courses even give insight into other fields and promote interdisciplinary thinking, which leads the student to envision unique and creative ways in interacting between different fields. Sadly, these early years differ vastly from what is expected from a ‘serious’ academic, which I will return to later.
It is at this stage that the student learns to imitate and adapt themselves to the academic vernacular of multi-syllable nominalized nouns such as “instrumentalization” and “commodification”. One of my teaching assistants once claimed that sociology is about memorizing such concepts. At the time I thought this was a sad, idiotic statement, but upon further reevaluation, I find that, regrettably, it might not have been far from the truth. Much of the sociological education centers on learning how to use conceptual nouns. The greater the degree of mastery in playing with these words, the higher one’s grades become, as one demonstrates adequate socialization into the terminology of social science. The proclivity of academics towards big words and pretentiousness might be found in this original insecurity. The young academic is accepted by the seniors who they have reverence for, by being able to partake in a certain language and display knowledge of certain academic communication norms. No one informs students about why the appropriate way to write is through theoretical riddles or by the gratuitous use of big words, students simply learn by imitation and I have never encountered a fellow student who actually questioned this practice. The relationship between student and professor hinges on an appeal to authority, rather than reasoning and dialogue. The meaninglessness of much of academic research is simply not broached by either students or staff and communication with a wider educated audience is not taught or talked about by anyone.
Students are taught what is described by Mark Fisher as ‘neurotic neutrality’. Rather than learning how to produce novel and interesting ideas and present them in an appealing way, there is an excessive emphasis put on mastering how to format footnotes properly and the minutiae of a bibliography. It is inappropriate to assert anything confidently, as the ubiquitous passive tone is preferred, exemplified by sentences such as “It can be suggested” or “There is some evidence that points to” in order to not be caught out in making a mistake. Fisher argues that much of the drabness of academic work is due to this tendency, which he juxtaposes with classic works that are littered with more mistakes than the average journal article, yet people stay up all night reading them.
Behind the Veil
The realities of what research entails are not well understood, as the activities of researchers are firmly walled of from regular students. This distance produces a reverence that is not exactly conducive to innovation and reevaluation. Ambitious students are too busy trying to kiss ass and get close to the inner sanctum to criticize the endeavor at large.
Since I was at one point considering pursuing doctoral studies, I thought it would be insightful to be a research assistant (of course woefully ignorant at this point about the fact that a ‘research assistant’ is basically a data/coding slave). As I looked through the list of research that was conducted in my department, I started thinking “Wow, this is really bullshit.” A veritable laundry list of particularistic, barely comprehensible bla-bla. Do we really need more articles about ‘how green mobilities are gendered’ or ‘how recreational athlete mothers’ identities are constructed within blogging’ (yes, both are real pieces from large research universities)? When one finally has enough theoretical prerequisite knowledge to understand works that are published in academic journals, one is left with the feeling that some Scientologists must have upon being told that our planet is ruled by a galactic overlord called Xenu – namely that the whole thing smells like nonsense.
You know you’re fucked up, when someone who is about to have a master’s degree in your field can’t even understand what the purpose of your work is. Sadly, even many lecturers don’t understand their colleagues, as scholars across subdisciplines tend to speak different conceptual languages. Interdisciplinarity is a pipedream when most scholars can barely understand what other people in their own field are doing.
Nevertheless, for a long time, I was placated by the idea that I “didn’t understand yet” and if their work was meaningless, they surely would have figured it out themselves, right? This “I don’t understand yet” forms the cornerstone of the legitimacy of all academic activity in the social sciences. The thought even looms in the writing of this article, as I wonder whether I ‘have the right’ to make these comments without even having a doctorate. Many academics would argue that I don’t have the necessary credentials and experience to criticize them. The shadows of credentialism are ever-present and our old friend “I don’t understand yet.” is always ready to rear its ugly head.
Conquering by Obscurity
Large parts of academia resemble a racket. The opaque, punishing language that is used within social sciences excludes the everyman from comprehending what is being argued. What they don’t understand, they can’t criticize. Dennis Tourish’s diagnosis is right on the money: “Increasingly, we build barricades to keep readers out rather than open doors to invite them in”. As Michael Billig argues in Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences, big words are not used to identify a discovery, but to cover over a lack of discovery. He suggests that one of the causes of this could be that non-positivistic work needs to justify its existence as ‘scientific’ by complex theoretical jigsaws.
Social scientists are in fact not that different from Wall Street bankers, in their use of labyrinthine terminology and artificially constructed complexity, which serves to exclude the uninitiated from fully comprehending their actions, and thus from having the means to critique and evaluate their efforts. Social scientists are treated with the same type of reverence and hands-off approach. It is assumed that they know what they are doing, when in fact they don’t.
The only people who can understand academic works in the social sciences are people who have skin in the game, such as graduate students and others higher up the ladder who have an interest in maintaining the legitimacy of social science, to not devalue their own position and leverage, which they have poured years of their life into. This allows for a system of exchange where academics establish credibility between each other without accountability from outsiders. This is particularly problematic, as at least in the Scandinavian countries, much of the activity and livelihood of scholars is funded by the taxpayer.
The chief task of the social scientist is not to produce valuable work, provide life-changing lectures to students nor to enlighten the public. It is to convince people that they are smart. So smart in fact, that you could never hope to broach their work. And in this, they have been fantastically successful. Perhaps it’s time to admit that there is a staggering lack of discovery and figure out where to go from there. Pierre Bourdieu, a canonical sociologist, claimed that one of the roles of sociology is to “demystify the social world”, to tear off the veil and show what is really happening in social processes that appear to be self-evident. How can it be that sociology mystified itself and made its own workings indecipherable?
Past Glories
I’m about to receive my master’s in Sociology and yet I can barely name a contemporary sociologist whose work I enjoy and who I would love to learn from. As David Graeber talks about in The Utopia of Rules, social scientists pour over theoretical works from the ’60s and ’70s like medieval scholars, yet none of the people that are read would ever make it through a modern graduate school. As it is widely known, the book-length monographs by highly cited scholars such as Marx, Foucault and Goffman, are simply not ‘rentable’ to pursue as a contemporary academic who must ceaselessly publish articles.
Herein lies the bait and switch of academia as a student. One is allured by reading the works of great and radical minds from the early-to-mid-20th century during the early years as a student, only to find out later that great works are no longer produced, and that radical minds are replaced by a grant-hunting, citation-counting petit-bourgeoise. Many of my professors have carved out fabulous white middle-class existences for themselves on the basis of playing dumb word games and managing themselves within the academic bureaucracy.
Recently, much criticism has come from the side of the conservatives, who have been peddling notions of sociology departments as hubs for ‘cultural Marxism’, disseminating civilization-threatening ideas to students. While it is meant as a critique, these notions are actually deeply flattering. Anyone who has been in any proximity to sociology departments would know that there is nothing going on that would have any effect on the real world. The likes of the Frankfurt School, Gramsci and Foucault who informed countercultural movements are long gone and replaced by a set of academics that are increasingly like the bureaucratic, managerial class that those I mentioned opposed.
Max Weber, who is considered one of the ‘fathers’ of sociology, gave a famously scathing diagnosis of bureaucrats as “specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart”. How ironic that the same description applies to the contemporary sociologist, whose work he purportedly laid the foundations of. The contemporary homo academicus is busier counting their bibliometrics and figuring out how to avoid teaching, than doing meaningful work. Nonetheless, there are some scholars who truly have their heart in the right place, striving to do good, socially relevant work, while taking their teaching duties seriously. However, they seem to be a rarity compared to the majority that is busy playing careerist games.
The Intellectual’s New Clothes
One of the first figures in the public imaginary of what an intellectual person looks like is the professor. In my experience, this image is not quite aligned with reality. The imperative of specialization into a small topic and publication creates a condition where scholars don’t really have the time nor the motivation to read and explore. Most faculty teach and research a single perspective, or maybe even a single book, year in and year out. I have often been surprised by how full professors have shown complete ignorance about contemporary social tendencies and vocabulary because they have spent the last 20 years researching their own little thing.
As counterintuitive as it may be, the individual who loves to read, think, write, and has a thirst for knowledge that spans across disciplines might actually be better served not staying too long on campus.
André Spicer’s and Mats Alvesson’s concept of ‘functional stupidity’ is a handy way of understanding the situation. They define ‘functional stupidity’ within organizations as the dismissal of reflexivity, critical thinking, and doubt, often with the purpose of upholding institutional myths. Individuals restrict themselves within a bureaucratic mentality without reflecting on the wider meaning and purpose of their work by exiling questions such as “What is the point of this?”.
The main institutional myth of the social sciences is that important work, which is worth being funded is still taking place in academia. As a student, one is rarely invited to reflect upon whether sociological work is meaningful or worth pursuing – it is always assumed that the answer to this question is a yes. One always gets the vibe from faculty that they, somewhat arrogantly, imagine themselves to be doing very important work, hence why they don’t have enough time to properly teach students. In sociology, most things in society can be criticized and has been criticized, except the necessity of the existence of the field itself; sociology’s importance is neither challenged nor defended. These old orthodoxies make academia the ultimate boomer enterprise.
All of this creates a perverse reality, where the environment that one would think would produce the most critical and reflective knowledge is actually a hotbed of conformity and ‘functional stupidity.’ As Billig aptly questions: “Did anyone really imagine that traveling to conferences, staying in hotels with expenses paid, attending drinks receptions, and attracting the attention of established figures was a good means to develop original, critical thinking?”
Future Implications
The social sciences will continue to suffer if novel approaches and meaningful activity is not given fertile ground to grow. One must question whether a domain that is pervaded by meaninglessness, precarity and outdated perspectives will be able to attract the best talents that can drive the field towards new ideas and innovative works, or whether it would disenfranchise them. The people who flourish in academia must necessarily be the ones who most readily adapt to the stifling conditions that I have described. In a world where young people increasingly view their lives in terms of what ‘impact’ they have, a career as an academic social scientist would surely be on the bottom of the list to fulfill that imperative. If it can’t pivot, such individuals will take their abilities elsewhere, such as entrepreneurship or entering the professional fields.
For now, the public image of a ‘professor’ and the romantic idea of scholarship still has some cache in the collective consciousness, however, this prestige is slowly but surely being eroded by academia who only have their own indifference and laissez-faire attitude to blame for this decline.
I experience that academics’ aversion to openness, transparency, and reflection is not out of a lack of ability, but desire. Academics must be dragged out of their ivory towers and face scrutiny, rather than hiding behind big words and prestige. We must cultivate a culture that invites people in, one that truly communicates. Public visibility should not be limited to hacky bestseller non-fiction or the promotion of hollow buzzwords, but rather towards genuinely educating and reaching out to the public impactfully. Passion, wonder, and curiosity must be recovered as the foundations of pursuing knowledge. A scholarship that has been drained of color and exuberance must be reinvigorated with imagination, playfulness, and curiosity.