Category Archives: Sociology

Explaining away crime: The race narrative in American sociology and ethical theory

Posted on April 13, 2022 by Luke Ford

Stephen Turner writes in 2020: Rates of crime for Blacks in the United States in the post-slavery era have always been high relative to Whites. But explaining, or minimizing, this fact faces a major problem: individual excuses for bad acts … Continue reading →

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The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (1998)

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Luke Ford

Here are some excerpts from this book sociologist Randall Collins: * The long-term tendency of an active intellectual community is to raise the level of abstraction and reflexivity. * Individuals who participate in IRs [interaction rituals] are filled with emotional … Continue reading →

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The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (1998)

Posted on March 17, 2022 by Luke Ford

Here are excerpts of a review of this Randall Collins book: * Great doctrines must have great imperfections it they are to continue to generate excitement (32). And those who are most theoretically creative in developing these doctrines will typically … Continue reading →

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Interaction Ritual Chains

Posted on March 17, 2022 by Luke Ford

Here are some highlights from this 2010 book by Randall Collins: * humans have intrinsically limited cognitive capabilities, and that they construct mundane social order by consistently using practices to avoid recognizing how arbitrarily social order is actually put together. … Continue reading →

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Interaction Ritual Chains

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Luke Ford

Here are some highlights from this influential 2004 book by sociologist Randall Collins: * Eminent thinkers are energy stars. They are highly productive, turning out large amounts of published (and often unpublished work), only some small portion of which becomes … Continue reading →

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