Comments on: Speaking Sociology in Clear

By: Crooked Timber » » Stuff and nonsense

Crooked Timber » » Stuff and nonsense — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:14:45 +0000

[...] Just back from going to hear Tony Blair give a speech on the criminal justice system. It was the usual stuff about “rebalancing” the system in favour of the victim, with a lot of noise about the need for “fundamental debate” on principles but no actual discussion of said fundamentals. An important rheorical subtext in the speech was Blair-as-outsider, pitted against the “legal and political establishment”, which is a bit much coming from a legal professional from Derry Irvine’s chambers who has been Prime Minister for the past nine years! There was also a heap of cod sociology, reminiscent of Henry’s post the other day , about how we once lived in nice cosy communities but that this stable order has been swept away by globalisation to be replaced by anomie etc. Blair spoke as if he intends to go on and on, which will be bad news for Gordon Brown if true (but maybe PMs always talk like this). [...]

By: Benjamin Nelson

Benjamin Nelson — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:51:25 +0000

“To the extent that the threats against which a given government protects its citizens are … consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket.”

…No.

I.E.: Nation-state creates a waste disposal system. This system involves the generation of greater waste than would be usual: the supplier (government) stimulates increased demand from citizens for the service, because it eliminates an inconvienience for them (thus people eat more, throw more crap out). Waste becomes unmanageable; the government is lobbied to protect its citizens from the rising tide of garbage. They send the garbage to the bottom of your local ocean. The increased production is a consequence of the government’s activities—yet this is obviously not a protection racket.

Perhaps what Tilly meant to say is that so-and-so is a protection racket to the extent that the threats are avoidable.

This is not to suggest that Tilly is off the mark with his comments in their entirety, just to point out the limited explanatory power that you have at your disposal when you only care to choose one kind of social cause. No doubt this makes me one of those brainy timberites that thompsaj warns us about. Beewwwaaaarreee

By: Thompsaj

Thompsaj — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 07:01:51 +0000

Henry, i apologize for killing your post. Perhaps now i’ll think twice before responding with maladroit cultural references.

Or perhaps brainy timberites don’t like the suggestion that social phenomena can be explained simply, the types who are unimpressed when Noam Chomsky claims not to know what “dialectical” means. I think Terry Eagleton said that simplification deconstructs itself: if the complex concept can be explained simply, then it wasn’t so complex in the first place; if the explanation simplifies something complex, then it couldn’t possible be so simple… again, i’m sorry

By: Thompsaj

Thompsaj — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 02:36:33 +0000

My undergraduate political geography prof assigned the “war-making and state-making” piece and the concept seemed so simple yet so apt that I wondered why you don’t hear the connection being made more often between what are considered legitimate and illegitimate organizations of violence. But then again, I suppose that’s Henry’s point: the people that do make the connection dress it up all fancy when all you need is to understand why the undertaker went to Don Corleone in the first scene of the Godfather.

By: ft32

ft32 — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 02:35:37 +0000

Calling Jim Henley, calling Jim Henley…