What Kind of ‘Ology’? Two Cultures and the Success of British Sociology

Sociology in Britain flourishes. It does so as a radical discipline that is as happy to embrace revolution as reform, happier to deny that science exists than to claim to be scientific, and to shun any cumulative knowledge base or any consensus definition of its activities. However, the logic of much sociological thought is far more consonant with contemporary society than its radical reputation might lead us to expect. Some of its concepts and forms of argument unwittingly passively reflect major currents of contemporary ideology. A discipline with little interest in the systematic treatment of empirical evidence may nevertheless equip its practitioners with eminently transferrable skills in spin, the management and pseudo-resolution of all kinds of social issues.