In her work Holy Men and Big Guns: The Can[n]on in Social Theory, Joey Sprague describes the idea of the sociological canon and how it is rather biased. All of the people who are within the canon share the same viewpoint; in sociology’s case it’s the perspective of the white male (capitalist). Women and people of a race other than Caucasian are not taken into account when it comes to the sociological canon. The canon is basically a group of individuals who, over time, became very important and highly studied. Sprague’s critique of the canon is, as stated above, that it is very much so biased. There have been very many people within the world of sociology whose ideas and findings have not only contributed a great deal to the social science, but are also more contemporary and well-rounded. However, the sociological canon consists of people like Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim, all of whom were indeed white male capitalists. Sprague’s critiques of the sociological canon include the hierarchy of the social, dominant analytical categories and the social role of social theory.
The hierarchy of the social is, according to Sprague, the fact that “theorists tend to employ a pattern of selective attention that creates a systematic stratification of social life” (Sprague 91). This means that over the course of its existence, people within the sociological world have determined what is important and worth studying further. An example Sprague gives is that of having “theories that address nearly all of the major aspects of our biological existence…the stark omission, O’Brien notes, is serious consideration of the social and philosophical issues around human reproduction” (Sprague 91). The sociological canon has caused a selective attention; people focus on certain aspects of life as being more important than others.
The second critique Sprague makes of the sociological canon is that of dominant analytical categories. Within this critique are two aspects: logical dichotomies and abstract individuation. The logical dichotomy is “the tendency to make sense of phenomena by opposing them to others in a construction that is represented as mutually exclusive and exhaustive (Jay 1981)” (Sprague 91). To put it more simply, this is the idea that the world should be looked at knowing there are many grey areas as opposed to thinking of everything as being either one extreme or the other. Life does not work that way; there are many cases in which situations cannot be described as either one thing or another, but rather as something somewhere in the middle. The other aspect of dominant analytical categories is that of abstract individuation, which is that “individuals are seen in isolation from and unconnected with their interpersonal, historical, or physical context” (Sprague 92), meaning that we talk about people, objects and places separately as opposed to as a whole. The third and final critique of the sociological canon as made by Sprague is the social role of social theory. In this, the role is thought of as being an unbroken chain; a chain of ideas from one person to the next.
All of these critiques could be applied to any one of the aforementioned canonized sociologists. They are all men who had rather similar views and didn’t think of sociology in different, more profound ways. They all had the same basic notion with perhaps a few differences amongst themselves, but none as drastic as if they were female or of a different race. Sprague does a great job at getting people to realize that the ideas of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, while they may be most popularly taught, are not necessarily the best ways to view sociology and life.
The hierarchy of the social is, according to Sprague, the fact that “theorists tend to employ a pattern of selective attention that creates a systematic stratification of social life” (Sprague 91). This means that over the course of its existence, people within the sociological world have determined what is important and worth studying further. An example Sprague gives is that of having “theories that address nearly all of the major aspects of our biological existence…the stark omission, O’Brien notes, is serious consideration of the social and philosophical issues around human reproduction” (Sprague 91). The sociological canon has caused a selective attention; people focus on certain aspects of life as being more important than others.
The second critique Sprague makes of the sociological canon is that of dominant analytical categories. Within this critique are two aspects: logical dichotomies and abstract individuation. The logical dichotomy is “the tendency to make sense of phenomena by opposing them to others in a construction that is represented as mutually exclusive and exhaustive (Jay 1981)” (Sprague 91). To put it more simply, this is the idea that the world should be looked at knowing there are many grey areas as opposed to thinking of everything as being either one extreme or the other. Life does not work that way; there are many cases in which situations cannot be described as either one thing or another, but rather as something somewhere in the middle. The other aspect of dominant analytical categories is that of abstract individuation, which is that “individuals are seen in isolation from and unconnected with their interpersonal, historical, or physical context” (Sprague 92), meaning that we talk about people, objects and places separately as opposed to as a whole. The third and final critique of the sociological canon as made by Sprague is the social role of social theory. In this, the role is thought of as being an unbroken chain; a chain of ideas from one person to the next.
All of these critiques could be applied to any one of the aforementioned canonized sociologists. They are all men who had rather similar views and didn’t think of sociology in different, more profound ways. They all had the same basic notion with perhaps a few differences amongst themselves, but none as drastic as if they were female or of a different race. Sprague does a great job at getting people to realize that the ideas of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, while they may be most popularly taught, are not necessarily the best ways to view sociology and life.