Sociology as the History of the Present

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C. Wright Mills (1956):

Sociology as ‘the history of the present’:
Humans are a unique species: undergo historical as well as biological development
What it is to be human changes, societies change

Karl Marx (1857):

All other animals are limited by the instincts of their species
We can produce our lives in the manner of any species, we can remake ourselves

This is ultimately what makes Sociology a hopeful discipline:

The knowledge that there are alternatives, and that we can improve upon the human condition

Eric Olin Wright (2012):

Critical social science: Identification of social institutions and structures that limit human suffering
Emancipatory social science: Working to change these limiting structures to minimise suffering and
maximise human flourishing
Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible
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‘[T]here has never been a major social transformation in the

history of mankind that had not been looked upon as unrealistic,
idiotic, or utopian by the large majority of experts even a few
years before the unthinkable became reality.’
Sebastian Scheerer (1986), ‘Towards Abolitionism’,
Contemporary Crises, 10: p. 7.

‘If we want to change the world, we need to be unrealistic,

unreasonable, and impossible. Remember: those who called for
the abolition of slavery, for suffrage for women, and for same-
sex marriage were also once branded lunatics. Until history
proved them right.’
Rutger Bregman (2018) Utopia for Realists and How We Can
get There, Bloomsbury: London, pp. 263-4.
Ha-Joon Chang, RSA ANIMATE: Economics is for Everyone!
COVID-19 and the “Impossible”
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented changes,
unsettling multiple facets of our existence. The seemingly ‘impossible’
has already happened. We agreed to socially distance to protect our
fellow citizens. People were placed before profits. Other impossibilities
have been quickly realised:

• Homelessness was been ended (New Zealand)

• Free childcare has been provided (Australia)
• Hospitals have been nationalised (Spain)
• Basic income has been granted (Canada)
• Migrants and asylum seekers have been given full citizenship (Portugal)
• Experiments with a 4-day working week have taken place (Belgium)
1. The archaeological mode – extracting ideas of the
good society from political doctrines, social and
economic policies.
2. The ontological mode – looking at what types of
people societies promote and enable. In other words,
what types of human flourishing are (and are not)
permitted within the prevailing social structures.
3. The architectural mode – imagining future worlds,
and what they may be like for those who would live in
them.
The Tasks of the Sociologist
1. Scholarly
2. Moral
3. Political

Immanuel Wallerstein (2003) The Decline of American Power, p. 9.

Perception versus Reality -UK:
Immigrants/Benefits/Fraud
‘The differences between what people think about the welfare
state and its reality are very striking. They believe that 41 per
cent of the welfare budget is spent on the unemployed: the
figure is actually 3 per cent. They believe that 27 per cent of
the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently: the government
estimates it is 0.7 per cent. Immigrants are actually big net
contributors to the country’s finances and are less likely to
claim housing or unemployment benefit’.

Ross McKibbin (2013) ‘Anything but Benevolent’, London Review of Books, 25 April.
The Economist (2017) ‘Explaining Britain’s Immigration Paradox’, 15 April, available:
https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21720576-migration-good-economy-so-why-are-places-biggest-influxes-doing-so
Sociology and the Challenge to
Common Sense Thinking
Sociologists tell us that crime is normal (Durkheim, 1966, p.
67), that doing nothing is actually doing something (Levitas,
2013, p. 198), that weak social ties might be as useful as strong
ones (Granovetter, 1973), that the highest paid jobs may in fact
be the least socially useful (Lawlor, Kersley and Steed, 2009),
that it is cheaper to give the homeless houses than to leave them
on the streets (Witte, 2017), that we may be at greatest risk from
those we are most intimate with (Brownmiller, 1976), and that
the most ordinary people can do the most unspeakable things –
torture, murder, even genocide (Arendt, 1963).
Zygmunt Bauman (1991) Thinking Sociologically
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1. Responsible speech
2. The size of the field
3. Making sense of
human reality
4. “Defamiliarity”