The Ivory Tower

A member of the faculty, no less, of a small college in the West has forwarded material relevant to national review’s investigation into indoctrinational activities in American colleges. The document in question is a sociology “workbook.”

An incredible amount of mischief goes on under the general franchise of sociology, much of it terribly elusive, windy and amorphous. One has to struggle, among other things, with a strange and terrifying and tirelessly abundant jargon. (In sociology “social” is spelled “societal,” and the antonym of “privilege” is “disprivilege”). But above all, the field of study seems to suffer from the inability of a number of brilliant men and women to impose on it any discipline, or scope. With the result that sociology is about everything; and, almost everywhere, it is a great favorite with students, who like to be led from a discussion of Tasmanian sex habits to discussions of mannerisms of Newport Upper-Upper Class society, all in a single course.

A member of the faculty, no less, of a small college in the West has forwarded material relevant to national review’s investigation into indoctrinational activities in American colleges. The document in question is a sociology “workbook.”

An incredible amount of mischief goes on under the general franchise of sociology, much of it terribly elusive, windy and amorphous. One has to struggle, among other things, with a strange and terrifying and tirelessly abundant jargon. (In sociology “social” is spelled “societal,” and the antonym of “privilege” is “disprivilege”). But above all, the field of study seems to suffer from the inability of a number of brilliant men and women to impose on it any discipline, or scope. With the result that sociology is about everything; and, almost everywhere, it is a great favorite with students, who like to be led from a discussion of Tasmanian sex habits to discussions of mannerisms of Newport Upper-Upper Class society, all in a single course.