FLORIDA, SOCIOLOGY, AND EXISTENTIAL THREATS

 

By now you have probably read about the decision in Florida to remove “Principles of Sociology” from the state’s general education core course options. We are grateful to our members in Florida and beyond who have been working hard to make the case for the value of sociology. ASA has also been working hard to advocate for our discipline in Florida and in other states facing the prospect of similar decisions.

In advance of the final Florida decision, ASA submitted a public comment objecting to the proposal, joining in an effort undertaken by many local sociologists who shared deeply compelling arguments in writing and in person. Once the decision was made, ASA responded with comment to the media, leading to extensivE coverage in outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Huff Post, Guardian, Fox News, and Tampa Bay Times. We’ve reached out directly to relevant Florida staff and will continue lobbying members of the Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida and counterparts in the Florida College System with hope for a reversal. We’re hoping an op-ed from ASA leadership on the danger of politicizing education will soon be in press.                                                                                                                                                                         Excerpt from a letter to the American Sociological Association membership from Joya Misra, President, Nancy Weinberg Kidd, Executive Director

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Let’s remind ourselves why sociology is an essential science.  There is a social level of analysis that cannot be reached by the physical and natural sciences.  This stems from the fact that humans arrive on the evolutionary stage already, always, and everywhere social.  This in turn is a development that originated when evolutionary forces invented colonial cooperation at the cellular level as an adaptive mechanism.  This invention was ratcheted up over millennia into grouping behavior, sociation, and the development of societies.  We are not going to solve global problems that threaten human and planetary ecologies, nor the everyday problems of families, communities, and social order if we rely on technological fixes (including STEM and the absurd idea that physics can solve all of our problems from how to cross the universe to consciousness and any number of social problems).  We need sociology because it gives us problem solving tools relevant to everything from family conflicts to existential threats. 

Some resources: Hamburger Centre for Apocalptic and Post-Apocalptic Studies based in Heidelberg, Germany. They study sociological aspects of narratives of apocalypses, existential risks, and the end of the world. 

https://twitter.com/ElkeSchwarz/status/1602928950308753409  – Between Dystopia and Utopia: The Eschatological Ambiguity of Silicon Valley Longtermism


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