Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Nearly fifty years ago, just after the autumnal equinox of 21 September 1963, I entered my first sociology lecture theatre at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario. I was 19. After taking the introductory course in sociology that year, 1963/4, and teaching sociology off-and-on until I retired from FT teaching in 1999 and PT as well as casual/volunteer teaching in 2005, I decided to keep that portion of my sociology notes connected with sociological theory. It was this subject, this sub-discipline within sociology, that interested me the most. This field of sociology had the most relevance to an understanding of many of the social questions bedevilling our society—or so it seemed to me back then in the 1960s and so it seems to me now half a century later. It was also a subject that was useful in my exploration of the Baha'i Faith and its place in society, a religion I had joined in 1959 after first coming in contact with it in 1953 as a child due to my mother's interest and activity.
I have drawn on the structure of the last major sociology theory syllabus I taught in the 1990s in the Human Services section of Thornlie Tafe(Technical and Further Education) College, now a part of the Swan College of Tafe in Perth Western Australia. I have altered that syllabus in these years of my retirement, 1999 to 2011, as I have extended my base of resources to include some 8 arch-lever and 4 two-ring binder files in that interesting field of study. What is found in the notes I now keep in my study, then, represents my interests in sociology after nearly half a century of contact with what I have found to be an illuminating sub-discipline within sociology. Some other aspects of sociology, aspects with a religious, historical and psychological orientation, can be found in other files in my study here in Tasmania under those discipline titles in what has become, inevitably, an interdisciplinary world.
Ron Price
23 January 2011
MY OWN APPROACH TO SOCIOLOGY
My theoretical orientation, or perspective for explaining sociological data, is eclectic and has been most influenced by Roy's Bhaskar's critical realism. Roy Bhaskar(1944- ) is a British philosopher, best known as the initiator of the philosophical movement of Critical Realism. Go to this link for more on Bhaskar, who was born 10 weeks before me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bhaskar I have also been influenced by: (i) George Lakoff's embodied realism as well as (ii) Anthony Giddens' structuration theory. I have also been influenced by many other sociologists and, given my eclectic tastes, this should not be surprising. I recommend that readers interested in the above two influences google them, or go to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia where they will find the basic information they need.
STRUCTURATION THEORY
About structuration theory John Lie, a professor of sociology and Dean of International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote: structuration theory is a constructionist theory. A constructionist theory is one which holds that humans are social constructs and that all their institutions are also constructs upheld by humans acting according to their images of what reality is. The formulator and major exponent of structuration theory is Anthony Giddens. I have drawn on the insights of Dr Mark Foster, a professor of sociology in the state of Kansas and these insights, his orientation can be found at this link:http://www.markfoster.net/old/transmodern.html
MAX WEBER;1963 TO 2011
Max Weber(1864-1920), a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research and the discipline of sociology itself, wrote: “An ethic of ultimate ends and an ethic of responsibility are not absolute contrasts but rather supplements, which only in unison constitute a genuine man—a man who can have the ‘calling for politics.’” The calling for politics that has always interested me, at least since my teens, has been non-partisan, non-party, politics. I will write more of this later. Weber has influenced my thinking in my years as a student of sociology and I will write more here and in the section of this site on 'sociological theories.'
DANCING WITH THE BUTTERFLY
As a poet I write on a number of disparate landscapes and I try to bring these landscapes, through my several poetic idioms, into some relation with each other. I try to convey some developed understanding that penetrates to the realm of my feeling, for without some feeling it is impossible for me to write poetry at all. Writing poetry and, to a lesser extent, all my writing, is a result of some inner force, some compulsion. Part of my motivation is the desire to get away from the surface, the ordinary, the everyday perception and its endless and rugged literalness into a more intense understanding, beyond the world of swimming thought and images, the booming and buzzing confusion of everyday reality, which moves around in my mind endlessly, restlessly, compulsively, randomly. The act of writing poetry establishes a creative milieux where my faculties can transform the meaning of my world and the thought that assails it around a cluster of themes and within a condition of belonging to community.-Ron Price with thanks to Robert Nisbet, Sociology as an Art Form, Heinemann, London, 1976, pp.5-29.
One of the last of my poems,
more than 7000 in 68 booklets
over thirty-two years: 1980 to
2012.......as an inhabitant of a
structure, which presupposes
a centre with its point of origin
and its meaning, its being and
its very presence....with some
established metaphysical.......
imperatives of truth, as well as
consciousness and essence, tells
of life, my life, my experience, with
its many overlapping-intersecting
layers, its truth as relative, fluid,
changing and caught inextricably
in history’s and language’s reality,
like some will-o’-the-wisp & some
butterfly dancing through the air.
And, by God, you’d better dance
with the butterfly in his so very
unpredictable path, holding onto
that great noetic integrator......(1)
or you will simply never learn to
dance in this cognitive world of
never-ending oppositions, of its
psycho-linguistic yin-yang.(2)
(1) A noetic integrator is a symbolic or conceptual construction which serves to interpret large fields of reality, to transform experience into attitude, factual knowledge into belief, and provide a common frame of reference. The world's major disease is the absense of this common frame of reference.(Julian Huxley, 1960, p.88) Huxley borrows this concept from Teilhard de Chardin. A 'noetic system' is the totality of man's thoughts, feelings and activities.
Noetic science emphasizes that the structure of the universe is made in the image of its underlying field. The physical character of atoms, proteins, cells, and people are controlled by immaterial energies that collectively form that field. The cellular community comprising each human responds to a unique spectrum of the universe’s energy field. This unique spectrum, referred to by many as soul or spirit, represents an invisible moving force that is in harmonic resonance with our physical bodies. This is the creative force behind the consciousness that shapes our physical reality. Noetic consciousness reveals that collectively we are the “field” incarnate. Each of us is “information” manifesting and experiencing a physical reality. Integrating and balancing the awareness of our noetic consciousness into our physical consciousness will empower us to become true creators of our life experiences. When such an understanding reigns, we and the Earth will once again have the opportunity to create the Garden of Eden. The concept of a Garden of Eden needs to rest on some conceptual construction. For the Baha'i, this construction is the totality of the Baha'i paradigm, system, model, universe of ideas, Texts, inter alia. For more on this concept go to:
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/anisa/overview/jordan_streets_releasing
(2) See “Post-Structuralism or Nothing,” Internet, 2000.
Ron Price
27 December 2000 to 8 July 2011
Readers might enjoy some of my posts on the internet on the subject of sociology. They can be found at:
Helium.com-memoirs-working-in-sociology
There are three more sections on sociology at this site for interested readers on: physical and cultural anthropology and sociological theory.
For a Professor of Sociology on whose work I often draw, Dr. Mark Foster, readers are advised to go to:
http://heartfulness.bahaifaith.info/
http://markfoster.biz/
http://markfoster.org/
