Sunday, April 5, 2009
Sorokin & Veblen
This post is a bit
later than usual, but the reading for March 31st were some history of Pitrim Alexandrovich Sorokin,
the first head of Harvard's sociology department, and Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class.
The reading about Sorokin was interesting, to me, less because of the
politics involved (I've always contended that academia has more
politics than any other field--other than politics proper, of course)
but rather for the fact that Sorokin, despite having been marginalized
and outcast from the field was still respected by enough of the field
to obtain his impressive victory of over 60% (considering the campaign
was only to give him a 2nd nomination as ASA president in order to
honor him, not necessarily the presidency itself). The campaign was
nice and simple, obtaining a supporter from each major region of the US
who supported honoring Sorokin with the traditional 2nd nomination for
ASA president by mailing out letters asking for support of his
nomination before the actual nomination (originally employing a
snowballing strategy where each individual would personally mail
several other individuals and they kept one master list to prevent
multiple mailings to the same individual). Simple enough, but very
effective.
As for the Veblen piece, once again I have to admire his biting tongue-in-cheek rhetoric as he discusses the leisure class comparing their activities to that of babarians, discussing the wastefulness of consumption, the necessary ugliness of fashion as a status symbol and the rejection of that ugliness leading to the constant cylce of new fashion, and even a critique of higher education as a means of wasting lots of time and resources so that students may learn useless information like the languages of dead Southern European people (e.g. Greek and Latin). Veblen sum up the constant wastefulness iin the consumerism oriented leisure class, looking down on what we would today refer to as 'cheap crap': "So thoroughly has the habit of approving the expensive and disapproving the inexpensive been ingrained into our thinking that we instinctively insist upon at least some measure of wasteful expensiveness in all our consumption, even in the case of goods which are consumed in strict privacy and without the slightest thought display" (112). Truthful in its absurdity and absurd in its truthfulness, it makes me wonder what he would have accomplished had he turned his pen to the novel as opposed to his colorful examination of society. A particularly fun passage, that sums up Veblen's model of the requirements for what is valued by the lesiure class comes near the end: "English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conscious waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort; failure to acquire it is easy of detection" (257). Veblen explains ownership as motivated by emulation which is then, in turn, emulated within society structures all for the sake of 'honor' through a display of weath-based status (35). There are a few other choice quotes throughout, such as 124 with the critique of fashion, but this summary has gotten at the gist of the argument and made Veblen's unique style. While the insights Veblen has brought to the field have been repeated by others in academia and popular media, none quite match his combination of bitter satire with insightful critique that make Veblen a timeless read.
As for the Veblen piece, once again I have to admire his biting tongue-in-cheek rhetoric as he discusses the leisure class comparing their activities to that of babarians, discussing the wastefulness of consumption, the necessary ugliness of fashion as a status symbol and the rejection of that ugliness leading to the constant cylce of new fashion, and even a critique of higher education as a means of wasting lots of time and resources so that students may learn useless information like the languages of dead Southern European people (e.g. Greek and Latin). Veblen sum up the constant wastefulness iin the consumerism oriented leisure class, looking down on what we would today refer to as 'cheap crap': "So thoroughly has the habit of approving the expensive and disapproving the inexpensive been ingrained into our thinking that we instinctively insist upon at least some measure of wasteful expensiveness in all our consumption, even in the case of goods which are consumed in strict privacy and without the slightest thought display" (112). Truthful in its absurdity and absurd in its truthfulness, it makes me wonder what he would have accomplished had he turned his pen to the novel as opposed to his colorful examination of society. A particularly fun passage, that sums up Veblen's model of the requirements for what is valued by the lesiure class comes near the end: "English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conscious waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort; failure to acquire it is easy of detection" (257). Veblen explains ownership as motivated by emulation which is then, in turn, emulated within society structures all for the sake of 'honor' through a display of weath-based status (35). There are a few other choice quotes throughout, such as 124 with the critique of fashion, but this summary has gotten at the gist of the argument and made Veblen's unique style. While the insights Veblen has brought to the field have been repeated by others in academia and popular media, none quite match his combination of bitter satire with insightful critique that make Veblen a timeless read.
posted by Mike Oren # 8:21 PM
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