bonilla silva, 2006

7/28/2019 Bonilla Silva, 2006

1/5

Review: Towards a New Radical Agenda: A Critique of Mainstreamed Sociological RadicalismAuthor(s): Eduardo Bonilla-SilvaReviewed work(s):

Enriching the Sociological Imagination: How Radical Sociology Changed the Discipline byRhonda F. Levine

Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Mar., 2006), pp. 111-114Published by: American Sociological Association

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30045724Accessed: 13/08/2009 16:26

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Contemporary Sociology.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30045724?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asahttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asahttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/30045724?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/5

Symposium 111However, once we acknowledge that weare living in a world that is changing in intrin-sically uncertain ways, what kinds of moralchoices are before us? This is the questionthat Weber raised, but never answered in asatisfactorymanner, when he spoke of sub-stantive rationality.(Incidentally, we shouldremember that "substantive"is a very badtranslationof the Germanoriginal which wasmateriell, and that we should really bespeaking of materialrationalityin its contrastwith merely formal rationality.)Radicalsoci-ologists seem to think they have their moralchoices clearly indicated. I would thinkrather that the subject is never really debatedeven by them, and certainly not within theconfines of sociology. Weber raised theissues in his Munich lectures, but we-theWeberians, the Marxists,and all the others--

have collectively buried these issues eversince.It will only be when we have faced up tothe major intellectual questions before us(which seem to me to startwith the episte-mological questions), and then to the ques-tions of what material rationalityimplies forus all, that we can get to the question thatinspired radical sociology originally-thepolitical implications of our intellectual andmoral analyses. The radical sociologists ofthe 1960s and 1970s had less of a lastingeffect than they had hoped, primarilybecause they took for the most partthe short-cut of working back from their politicalobjectives to the intellectual and moraltasks.Perhapsif we tried to work ourway forward,from the intellectual analyses to the moraldebates to the political conclusions, wemighthave a more long-lasting impact.

Towardsa New RadicalAgenda:A Critique of Mainstreamed Sociological RadicalismEDUARDOBONILLA-SILVADuke University

To be radical is tograsp the rootof thematter.But,for man, the root is manhimself.-Karl Marx,Introduction o the Critiqueof Hegel's"Philosophy f Right"

In The Wretchedof the Earth, Frantz Fanonstated that "Eachgeneration must, out of rel-ative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it,or betray it." The work of the authors com-piled in this edited collection represented animportantmoment in American history and,for those of us in the field of sociology, anepistemic breakwith Parsonian-inspiredsoci-ology. Their work provided the theoreticalweapons for my generation to reframe ouragenda and enhance our sociological imagi-nation. In short, their work provided the"mission"for many sociologists of my age.But we are now far removed from the sixtiesand seventies and, thus, it is time to assesshow well their radicalism has aged. Havetheir views, as with good wine, improvedwith time? Or have they become rancid andstale?Therefore, with this evaluative goal inmind, I proceed in this essay as follows. First,I make some general comments about this

book as a book project. Second, I highlightsuccinctly a few of the articles in this collec-tion that, for one reason or another, bestwithstood the test of time. Third,I discuss theradical project advanced by these authorsand examine if it provides the "mission" orthe new generation of radicals.Lastly,I out-line a few elements that I believe a radicalsociological project for the 21st centuryought to include.This is a dandy of a book. RhondaLevinehas done a fabulous job of producing a verywell-organized and edited book. The bookbegins with a 1972 essay by RichardFlacksconceptualizing what radical sociologyshould look like and ends with an essay byMichael Burawoy addressing the future ofradicalsociology. In between, we are treatedto a "who is who" in the radical tradition

Contemporaryociology5, 2

Enriching the Sociological Imagination:How Radical Sociology Changed theDiscipline, edited by Rhonda F. Levine.Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press, 2005. 357pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN:1-59451-168-3.


3/5

112 Symposium(e.g., Therborn, Wright, Bonacich, etc.)based on articles originallywritten n the sev-enties in The Insurgent dealing with theissues of "Power and Class," "Class andInequality,""Raceand Gender,"and "Capital-ism and the World Economy."Levine did amasterfuljob of removing unnecessarymate-rial from the original articles while stillmain-taining the essence of the authors'arguments.This editing makes manyof thesearticles much more readable. She also didsomething else which will be extremelyuse-ful for posterity: she asked each author toreflect on their piece and write a short com-ment on it. Hence, this book will be ofimmensurable value for those interested inthe historyof ideas and in the historyof soci-ology. I also believe this book can be used asa supplementary text in basic courses onpolitical sociology and stratification at thegraduateand even undergraduate evel.The article by Richard Flacks is of histori-cal interest and, if only for that, is a must-read. Reading this piece gives us the coordi-nates of thought among those whodeveloped the notion of a "socialistsociolo-gy"in the 1960s and 1970s. Therborn'sarticleis still relevant as political scientists and po-liticalsociologists, despite yearsof radicalcri-tique, still operate with "subjectivists"and"functionalists"understanding of power. G.William Domhoff, the most clear and directwriter of this group, produced an analysisofpower dynamics that allowed people to un-derstand "who rules America"as well as howthey do so. Albeit many structuralists ate his"subjectivism,"Domohoff has done a careerof producing data and analyses that haveforced people to think and maybe act.Bowles and Gintis'spiece is as relevanttodayas the day when it was written. Who has notused their work in "Introduction o Sociolo-gy" courses or in graduate seminars on edu-cation to show how class is reproduced inschools? And, lastly, the piece that I find themost useful in this collection-and the mostadvanced for its time-is that of ZillahEisenstein on "capitalist patriarchy."Eisen-stein wrote about intersectionality,the class-gender nexus, and articulation in 1977. Andher thinkingdid not stagnate as she followedthis piece with work dealing with race andsexuality.Now let me proceed with the hardtask ofcriticizingthe radical sociological and politi-ContemporarySociology35, 2

cal project offered by many of these authors.And I do so with some trepidationas someof the authorsin this volume aremy mentors,some are my friends, and some are both.However, and as consolation for thosewhose ideas I will criticize, I am already ofthe age when people have begun criticizingmy work. As radicals,we should expect to bespanked by a younger generation searchingto develop their critical voice. One caveatbefore I proceed with my critique-I ammaking general comments about the radical-ism of this generation, but my comments,obviously, do not apply to every member ofthis generation.The first limitation of the radicalproject ofthis cohort was its whiteness. Flackacknowl-edges this as much when he describes hisreference group as "all-whitemale" (p. 14).These radicals hardly ever included anyminorities in their intellectual midst (checkthe acknowledgements of theirbooks), hard-ly ever cited minorityscholars (check the ref-erences in their books), and ended up, witha few notable exceptions, denying the struc-tural import of race in America. This isastounding considering that so many claimedthe civil rights movement had a profoundinfluence on them. Their organizationalandintellectual whiteness explains in part whythese radicals were not able to connect in ameaningful way with the radical efforts ofblack and Latinosociologists in the 1970s and1980s.Second, this movement was not onlymostly white, but also mostly male. Not sur-prisingly then, issues of gender were notdealt with in a forthrightmanner. I, for exam-ple, trained by members of this generation inPuerto Rico and the United States, could notunderstand in the early eighties how patri-archy could be viewed as a category of equalmagnitude to the capitalist mode of produc-tion. And, like most Marxistsof my genera-tion, I believed "sexism" and "racism"wereideologies used by the bourgeoisie to dividethe working class.The third limitation was the class reduc-tionism of this generation. Their marriagetoa narrow-Marxistperspective limited themseverely-and I say narrow because therewere already some openings to think of theclass-race nexus (e.g., the work of W. E. B.DuBois, C. L. R.James, and Cedric Robinsonamong others) and class-gender nexus (e.g.,


4/5

Symposium 113Angela Davis, Gloria Anzaldtia,etc.). Hence,many of them were unable to appreciate theradical possibilities of the race- and gender-based mobilizations of the eighties andnineties. Worse, lacking the tools to fullyappreciate how race and class are centralcleavages of modernity, too many membersof this radical generation opposedthe praxisof minorities,women, gays and lesbians, andother subaltern folks as divisive "identitypol-itics."Todd Gitlin is a prime example of this,but unfortunately,some of the authorsin thisvolume seem to hold this view, too!Fourth, with a few notable exceptions,these authorswere-and still are-first-worldcentered. The problem with this fixation isthat their theories of class, state, and politicswere accordingly driven by the ideas andexperiences of ten percent of humanity.Hence, theorizations they advanced, I sug-gest, were ultimately of limited use andapplicability for most of the societies andpeoples in the world-system (on this, see therecent work of Amin, Wallerstein, and mostnotably, of Anibal Quijanoand his colleagueson the subject of the "colonialityof power").To this day, the Eurocentricimaginationstillweighs like a nightmareon the brain of manyof these authors and therefore, they do notbother to read the radical scholarship pro-duced by Indian, African, Caribbean, andLatinAmerican scholars.Fifth, too many members of this genera-tion became enamored with theory and for-got one of the central radical elements of theMarxist radition: its unrepentant call for rev-olutionary praxisto "changethe world."Theytraded the streets for the comfort of thesweets and claimed this trade was "revolu-tionary."And in their quest for theoreticalpurity, some became "analytical Marxists"and, much like Althusser, they decided toexcise "unscientific"concepts and ideas fromMarxism such as "consciousness," "alien-ation," "dialectics," and, more recently, the"labor theory of value" (see Wright's com-ment on page 253). Lacking direct connec-tions to social movements, the radicalismofmany of these radicals became inorganic.

Sixth,albeit many of these authorsbelievethey won the battle against mainstreamcon-servative sociology (see, for example,Burawoy's contribution in this volume), onewonders about the perils of incorporation.What happens when radicals get jobs at

Wisconsin, Berkeley, and other majoruniver-sities?What happens when their articles arepublished by the American SociologicalReviewand their books are published by theUniversityof CaliforniaPress?What happenswhen their income rises significantly andthey no longer have to deal with the threat ofinsecurity, instability, and unemployment?What happens, in short, when they join thesociological elite?I will tell you what can happen (it defi-nitely did not happen to all the members ofthis generation) and what I have seen happento members of this radical generation. Andmy remarksapply to this generation as wellas to mine. (As I write this article, I am nowa member of Duke's sociology departmentand have privileges similar to those that haveaccrued to my friends and mentors. Thus, mycomments here are also a sort of self-criti-cism.)First, being professors in major universi-ties means that we have to tone down ourpolitics. We have to become careful in ourpublic statements and interventions.We haveto think before we sign a petition or supporta cause (e.g., how many of these radicalssupported the efforts of minority scholars tochallenge the ASA Council's decision on ASRa few years ago or signed the petition to taketo the ASAmembership a ballot to decide onan anti-war resolution two years ago?).Second, when we publish in ASRor AJS,we abdicateformal and maybe even substan-tive radicalism.We write for a certain audi-ence and in a certainway and that audience,whether it loves or hates us, does its best toco-opt us. We become reviewers for thesejournals, members of their editorial boards,and guest editors and even editors of thesejournals.And when we do so, do we breakwith the canonical rules of normative sociol-ogy or do we reproduce their rules andbecome gate-keepers?Third,when we make some real money inthis business and have stability,we are affect-ed by the process that Marx described sowell in The German Ideology ("Life is notdeterminedby consciousness, but conscious-ness by life"). That is, we may believe ourradicalism is beyond reproach, but whenpeople perceive us as Gucci Marxists, wemust pay attention to that perception and tothe possibility that it has a material founda-tion.

ContemporarySociology35, 2


5/5

114 SymposiumLastly,when we are heralded as academicstars and join the center of the discipline asmembers of ASA Council, as Presidents ofASA, as distinguished scholars, as namechairs in universities,we must watch out!Our

move from the periphery to the core mayhave changed the discipline somewhat, but ithas also transformed us and our radicalism.Hence, I remain deeply skeptical aboutthe depth of the break we created in sociol-ogy. The inclusion of class as a variable, thediscussion of Marx as a central theorist, andthe like does not mean we gave birth to rad-ical or socialist sociology. Unlike my friendand comrade Michael Burawoy, I do notbelieve for a second that "The world lagsbehind sociology" and that "Nowthe point isnot to transformsociology but to transformthe world" (p. 314). Sociology, I contend, isstill in deep need of transformationand soci-ologists need to learn from the real experi-ments of anti-systemic social movements inthe world and not the other way around.Now, I outline some elements I believewill be central for the reconstruction of theradical sociology project in the 21st century:1) If race, class, and genderare articulat-ed in a matrixof domination n mod-em societies,we mustdeveloppracticesand theories that fit this realityratherthan continue our quasi-religiousbelief in prefabricatedmodels of col-lective action (e.g., "Workersof theworld. . .").2) Fromthe radicalism f yesteryears,wemust retainthe insistence on the cen-tral role of praxis.But we must lookwith disdain on their infatuationwiththeoreticalcorrectnessand their chicradicalelitism.3) The disciplines are implicated withpower and, therefore,we mustremain

criticalof them. Hence, sociology,as adiscipline, is partof the problemandwe must remain criticalof its socialproject (greasing the wheels of capi-talismthroughreform so thatthe pro-cess of accumulationruns smoothly)and skeptical of its various lullabiesregardless f whatsegmentof thesocio-logical communitythey come from.

4) Democraticsocialism is still our goal,butnot based on datednotions of "theindustrialworking class" or on thenotion that class-basedpolitics is theonlyway of unitingthe people hereorelsewhere.5) We must seriously question theEurocentric ssumptionsand thewhitenationalism Americanism,f you will)that have plagued sociology. This isimportantas it is an obstaclefor all ofour radical nterventions.

6) We must struggle againstthe demonsof complacency,objectivism,depoliti-cization, and incorporation. If weremain in the core of sociology (and Idoubt that if we regain our radicalspirit,we will remainin the core), wemustcontend with the positiveas wellas the negativeeffects of thatlocation.But these are just pointers and, since I amgetting old and have just moved to the coreof the discipline myself, I suspect the newgeneration of sociologists coming up will nottrust my instincts (and I do not blame you).That new generation will carve its own radi-cal script "out of relative obscurity" and Itrustthey will do a much better job at deep-ening the radical imaginationthan my gener-ation-and those before us--did.

ContemporarySociology35, 2

bonilla silva, 2006

Documents