Thus Ever to Sociology

"My teachers all gave up on me; no matter what they say, I disagree"

~"Fools" by Van Halen

It may seem strange for a teacher to imply agreement with the above quote. As a teacher, I do welcome students' earnest challenges; student challenges are often great opportunities to clarify points, helping everyone in class. But I am also a student, having gone back to get a Master of Liberal Studies degree online at an unnamed midwestern university. Last semester's treat of a class was about the origins and implications of the knowledge society. I'm not sure if the professor ever had a student argue for the abandonment of an entire academic discipline in response to a final exam question, but I did just that. For the class was regrettably a sociology class.

Without rehashing the entire course, I'll hit the highlights. The research paper required me to formulate a measure of the so-called digital divide. For the uninitiated, the digital divide is the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in the age of information technology. This "have" versus "have not" concept permeates every aspect of sociology. Thus we get, rich vs. poor, men vs. women, race vs. race, and so on ad nauseum. All any researcher needs to know about the digital divide is that other researchers have wasted a lot of time trying to measure it. Thus my research paper ended:

"The entire concept of a global digital divide is entirely contrived. As noted, there is no sound rationale for comparing internet use statistics in developing countries with those in industrialized countries. No matter how much wealthier developed countries become relative to poor countries due to the benefits of their superior internet connectivity, the poor countries’ standards of living are unaffected in absolute terms. The whole global digital divide concept seems to be an excuse, updated for the information age, for the parasitic planning class from academia, the U.N., the World Bank, and the I.M.F. to continue to harangue the developed world to fund their hare-brained foreign aid schemes which are empirical and theoretical failures. The internet will spread as it is needed and is able to be supported by the wealth of its users; artificially speeding up the process through externally-imposed programs will in the long run fail, leaving the poor would-be beneficiaries even worse off."

I stand by every word. What did I learn from this class? Sociology is a bankrupt discipline:

"This course reinforced my poor opinion of sociology...The entire “have” versus “have not” concept is wholly misapplied. The fact that the concept comes mostly from long-disproved Marxist exploitation theory is what makes it so unworkable. Sound reasoning simply can’t begin with poor antecedents – garbage in, garbage out sums up the problem with sociology. In the world of sociology’s contrived conflicts between classes, races, genders, generations, and on and on, the one conflict that really matters is almost entirely off the sociology radar screen, i.e. the conflict between looters in government and the citizens they loot through burdensome taxation and regulation. This is a conflict truly worth study and elucidation. The fact that sociologists and the universities they work for are often funded with government loot perhaps explains why this conflict receives so little of their attention. Sociologists seem content to continue to stir up contrived conflicts that poison the intellectual environment everywhere they are seriously discussed. This while governments around the world continue to loot, regulate, and even kill their citizens with ever more reckless audacity, destroying liberty and prosperity...the digital divide is only among latest contrived conflicts conceived to justify looting of the productive class by parasitic bureaucrats. Rarely considered, and then only for the purpose of derisive dismissal, is the idea that truly free markets are the greatest engine for social cooperation ever conceived. Allowed to operate, free markets bring the interests of all people into the greatest possible harmony. The typical solutions of the sociologist, almost always paid for with money looted from taxpayers, only exacerbate the problems they purport to solve...The activities of sociologists are a dead weight loss to society. Not only do they not maintain or advance civilization; they are a threat to civilization. Add to this the methodological chaos that afflicts the discipline and the case for its complete abandonment is made."

I do not think my professor agrees.