Date: 21st January 2022 Name: Suhani Sood

Word count: 2273 Roll number: 644

Year: 1 st Year

PAPER 1
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

Question: Examine the practise of Sociology. How does a practising sociologist make the
distinction between sociology and common sense?

Answer:

 When we practise sociology, we find its way into almost every aspect of life- from
headlines in the morning paper, to the experience of growing older, to the ceremonies in
family occasions, ravages of war, injustice and oppression. Its about things small and
large, things beautiful and terrifying, things simple and complex far beyond what we can
imagine.
 Therefore, defining sociology is a difficult task and that’s why vague definitions of
sociology as “about” groups and societies “about” social life aren’t of much use. We also
won’t find a clear sense of sociology by looking at scholarly journals too. Its not that the
authors are not practising Sociology, its that they’re so far removed from caring to explain
the essence of what they’re doing that it gets buried beneath layers of data and theory,
implicit rather than explicit. Its undeniable that sociology encompasses a dazzling
collection of ideas and methods and points of interest, and its undoubtedly true that no
theory can explain everything. There should be a core view of reality on which sociological
practise of all kinds is based, consciously or not, and provides a touchstone for what it
means to do sociology.
 Reasons for practising sociology:
 There is so much unnecessary suffering in the world, and in order to address it and
do something about it, we need to understand where it comes from. Therefore, there is a
moral dimension to the practise of sociology. By moral, it doesn’t mean being good or
bad, but moral in a deeper and broader sense that touches on the essence of what we’re
as human beings and what our life together consists of. Secondly, By practising sociology,
one gets to know about the interrelations, how one thing is connected to another. We
can’t change the world all by ourselves, but we can make informed decisions about how
to participate in it and thereby help turn the world toward something better, even its just
in our neighbourhoods or families or where we work or go to school.
 Besides, the choices we make as individuals matter beyond our lives matter
beyond our lives more than we can imagine, that things don’t have to be the way they are
but they won’t get better all by themselves. We need to do something, and what needs to
be based on more than hunches and personal opinion and prejudice.
- In practising sociology, we encounter the issues of of privilege and oppression
organized around various differences that occur among human beings, often referred to as
“diversity”. In the simplest sense, diversity is about the variety of people in the world, the
varied mix of gender, race, age, social class, disability status, ethnicity, religion and other
social characteristics. But, if the changing mix were all that diversity amounted to, there
wouldn’t be a problem since in so many ways, differences are what make life interesting
and enhance creativity. Compared with homogenous groups, for example, diverse groups
are usually better with problems that require creative solutions. To be sure, diversity
brings with it difficulties such as language barriers and different ways of doing things that
can confuse or irritate people. But since human beings are highly intelligent beings, its
also not a problem. As most people know however, difference amounts more than just
variety. Difference is also used as a basis for including some and excluding others, for
treating some with respect and dignity and some as if they were less than fully human or
not even there. There are places where the importance of feeling accepted and valued for
who you are and what you can do is taken very seriously. The resulting patterns of
inequality and oppression not only ruin people’s lives, but also create division and
resentment fed by injustice and suffering that eat away at the core of life in communities,
workplaces, schools and other social situations. For example: In 2005, when Hurricane
Katrina occurred, in the aftermath thousands of people were left stranded in the city
without adequate water, food, or shelter, and no one who watched the news could fail to
notice that those left behind were overwhelmingly people of colour, therefore suggesting
the idea of racial patterns.
A major reason is that people tend to think of things only in terms of individuals, as if a
society or a university is nothing more than a collection of people living in a particular
time and place. But if we think everything begins and ends with individuals- their
personalities, life stories, feelings and behaviour- then its easy to think that social
problems must come down to flaws in individual character. An example to contradict the
individualistic model is the classic work by French sociologist Emile Durkheim “Suicide”

 Suicide is a solitary act done by an individual, typically alone. But when we club the
number of these suicides altogether, is there some relation to the society as well? The
suicide rate for the entire US population in 2003 was 11 suicides per 100,000 people. But,
if we look inside that number, we find that the rate for males was 18 per 100,000 but for
females it was only 4 per 100,000. And while the rate in US was 11 per 100,000 , it was 33
per 100,000 in Hungary and only 8 per 100,000 in Italy.
 The fact that this rate i.e suicide rate differed drastically, explains that individual
model doesn’t work. Further, we do find patterns of suicide in social systems. In this way,
we have to look at how people feel and behave in relation to systems and how these
systems work. We need to ask how societies are organised in ways that encourage people
who participate in them to experience various psychological conditions or to respond to
them in suicidal or non-suicidal ways.

If we start from the idea that we’re always participating in something larger than
ourselves and that social life flows from this relationship, then we have to consider
that we’re all involved, even if only indirectly- in the social consequences that
result, both the good and the bad. By definition- if a white man participates in a
racist society- no matter what his race, then he is involved in white privilege and
the oppression of people of colour.
 Here comes in play “The path of least resistance” which typically means choosing
the easiest way rather than the best. So, in this case, whether the person likes racism or
absolutely hates it, if he silently agrees to the racist ways around him and becomes a part
of it, he is indeed following the path of least resistance.
 Sociological practise uses more complex models of change that focus on several
different levels of social life at once. But taking the problem to the level of systems
doesn’t mean we have to ignore individuals. This is because sociological practise looks at
social life in relation both to systems and how people participate in it. At the same time
people aren’t systems and systems aren’t people, which means that social life can
produce horrible or wonderful consequences without necessarily meaning that people
who participate in them are horrible or wonderful. Nevertheless, systems don’t change
without people changing at one point or another, and no system can change through
individual change alone.

 Sociology is a disciplined and specialized activity in which the role of originality

should not be exaggerated. It is a craft that needs patience and care, and a long
apprenticeship to acquire. Its concepts and methods are not things that any intelligent
person can construct on its own in order to satisfy a passing intellectual urge. There are
two fundamental preoccupations of sociology, its rigorous search for interconnections
among the different domains of society and its systematic use of comparison.
Sociology is not about economic, political, or domestic life, its not about class,
caste or community. Its about the interconnections among all these and other
aspects of social life. This constitutes the
‘functionalist bias’ of sociology. The detailed and systematic examination has
shown that there isn’t one single factor or set of factors, whether economic or
religious that holds the key to all the interconnections in society.
For example, M.N Srinivas’s exposure of the misconception of caste among
educated Indians. He attacked the conception of caste as a rigid and inflexible
system based on the division of Hindu society into four varnas. He maintained ‘The
Varna model has produced a wrong and distorted image of caste. He was able to
show that far from being absolutely rigid and inflexible, the caste system
accommodated distinct forms of social mobility. Further, by drawing attention
away from varna and jati, he was able to see more clearly than the political
 commentators of the day that the role of caste was increasing rather than
declining in Indian politics.
 The use of comparative method of sociology is very important in this context. It
useful to begin with Durkheim’s statement on the subject: ‘Comparative sociology is not a
special branch of sociology, its sociology itself.’ The sociologist acquires a habit of
comparison so that no matter which process or institution he is examining, he brings to it
insights from the study of similar processes and institutions in other societies and
cultures. It is a great help in acquiring and maintaining a sense of proportion. It is essential
to draw attention to the peculiar preoccupation of sociology with the similarities as well
as differences among societies, with comparison as well as contrast.
SOCIOLOGY AND COMMON SENSE

 Sociology is very distinct from common sense. It has a body of concepts, methods
and data, no matter how loosely co-ordinated, for which common sense of even the most
acute and well-informed kind cannot be a substitute. For one thing, sociological
knowledge aims to be general, if not universal, whereas common sense is particular and
localised. Common sense in fact, is highly variable, subject to the constraints of time and
place as well as other, more specifically social constraints.
 Sociology has to steer an uneasy course between two unfruitful alternatives:
submergence in the common sense of the scholar’s own environment, and absorption in a
narrow and self-satisfied technical virtuosity unconnected with the substance of social
enquiry. The problem with sociology however is that, it doesn’t confine itself to a body of
facts delimited by space and time, it deals with both arguments and facts, but the
connections among them often appear loose, open and ambiguous. In the absence of a
clear and established framework, discussion and argument tend to wander in every
direction.

The sociologist who did most to lay bare the illusion of understanding created by
common sense was Emile Durkheim. He argued tirelessly that the systematic
investigation of a subject was not possible unless the investigator freed himself
from his preoccupations of it. These preconceptions, shaped generally by a limited
experience, were not only often wrong but also impediments to the examination
of the available and relevant facts. One of Durkheims’s remarkable was that
suicide rates go up significantly not only after an economic crash but also after an
economic boom.
The point is that, when he had an important idea that appeared to go against
common sense, he decided as a sociologist, to test that idea by systematically
assembling a large body of data, and applying to the data, concepts and methods
that may also be applied to other domains of life in other parts of the world.

 Common sense is not only localised but also unreflective since it doesn’t question
its own origins and presuppositions, or at least not deliberately and methodically.
Common sense is also based on a limited range of experience of particular people in
particular places and time. Therefore, people are inclined to believe that their way of
doing things is the right way because they only observe or experience other ways of acting
and thinking in bits and pieces, and not in their entire context.
 While common sense easily constructs imaginary social arrangements in which
there is no inequality, oppression etc, whereas sociology is anti-utopian in its central
preoccupation with the disjunction between ideal and reality, between what human
beings consider right, proper and desirable and their actual conditions of existence, not in
this or that particular society but in human societies as such. Sociology is also anti-
fatalistic as it does not accept particular constraints taken for granted by common sense
as eternal or immutable.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is not true that the sociologist does not or should not express moral
preferences. But moral preferences are or ought to be formed on somewhat different
basis from what is given to each person by his common sense. It is doubtful that sociology
can ever attain a state from which it can dictate the moral choices of the individual. Those
choices in the end, matters of individual responsibility. Our day to day life choices, no
matter how small or insignificant they seem, do make a difference and therefore we all
are obliged to display behaviours that result in socially positive consequences and
towards well being of the society as a whole.
REFERENCES
1. Johanson, Allan G. 2008, The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life Practice and
Promise, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, Introduction and Chapter 1, ‘The
Forest, The Trees and One Thing’, Pg. 1-36
2. Beteille, Andre, 2009, Sociology: Essays in Approach and Method, Delhi; Oxford
University Press, Chapter 1, ‘Sociology and Common Sense’, Pg. 13-27