Reddit mentions: The best sociology of social theory books

You're right, it is unfeasible to change things by voting. The good news is, our power extends far beyond checking a few boxes every couple years. All it takes is realizing it.

I would start by strongly questioning voting for representatives as a means of getting what we want. The system itself does not favor us: Despite the fact that we get to choose who we allow to have power over our lives, we are still submitting our own power to a remarkably small group of people. This system naturally lends itself to those people trying to hold and gain more power for themselves, as their decisions that affect all of us are naturally influenced by their own personal gain.

But what else is there if not representative democracy? How about a system where we do not accept that a select few people are allowed to have power over all of us? Why do we need a president? Why do we need 100 Senators to decide what happens to 300 million of us? I strongly encourage people to consider direct, participatory democracy as an alternative. It's messy and complicated, sure, but so is our current system. The only difference is that now we hold onto our own power as individuals and use it to collectively shape our world. For an in-depth look about how these ideas could be applied, Iris Marion Young's Inclusion and Democracy is a phenomenal book.

But, you say, we don't have the power! They've got all the money and they control the laws! True, so it won't be easy. But it's important to remember that money and laws are only real because we believe in them. We're like the doberman that thinks it's impossible to walk off the edge of the property just because the owner said so. Plus, we have the most incredible, potentially-game-changing tool quite literally at our fingertips. Whereas for the last 100 years money and power were virtually required to have a loud, influential voice (mass media), we now have the ability to communicate as loudly as anybody for virtually no cost. Good ideas (and bad ideas, admittedly) can make it to the front page of Reddit and be seen by millions of people. We can now communicate directly with people all over the planet! Holy shit!

So we can get loud, but we can't just do that on Reddit. As we all know, it is frequented by a certain demographic with certain predispositions, and can too easily turn into an echo chamber, a circle jerk, and a preaching to the choir. We need to take these ideas and spread them to all other demographics! Stop bickering about Republican vs. Democrat and start reaching to others with different political viewpoints. Imagine the ideal of a world without war and poverty and hunger, a world where everybody is given as much actual security as possible, a world that actively cares for EVERYBODY within it, and then work to come up with the best way to do that. Don't be afraid to question socially created systems like markets and the economy and nations and borders and the silly notion that we are naturally stuck with such a broken system if those are the things that are actively stopping us from having a better world. Understand people who have different points of view than you and work to come up with a solution that benefits them just as well as you. Nobody should be left out of this process.

Now, I know this has been a bit rambling, and it certainly doesn't equip everyone with the tools to instantly fix such entrenched problems. Still, I can assure you that an absolutely necessary prerequisite to changing a system that does not benefit us is to understand that we have the power to change that system. Getting people to realize and understand this plight, along with the power we DO have, is a massive step to solving the world's problems.

TL;DR: Why are we waiting for the people on top of a broken system to fix this for us? Why the hell would they? To paraphrase John Dewey, why would you expect the poison to suddenly create the cure? Thankfully, we have the power to do so all on our own, we just need to realize it first.

Dr. Thomas Sowell wrote an amazing book on this topic. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

Sowell discusses the premise behind Vision of the Anointed

>Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

Also Intellectuals and Race

>Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense of one that goes to the root of the problem. The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light.

>The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras.

>Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence-- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism.

>In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.

I may be in the minority but I don't think that Mills's Sociological Imagination is a good starting point for an introduction to sociology. While the first chapter (The Promise) may be worth a read, the rest of the book is very much an insider's critique of the subject and requires the reader to have a general understanding of sociology as it is being practiced post-WWII. I think that you will get the most out of Mills after familiarizing yourself with sociology more broadly.


As others have mentioned, Ritzer & Stepnisky's Sociological Theory is a very comprehensive overview of sociological thinking but it may be a bit overwhelming. While it isn't as encyclopedic as Ritzer & Stepnisky, I like Seidman's Contested Knowledge because it provides the reader with both a historical overview of sociological thinking and provides easy to read summaries of important thinkers.


I am not sure if you will find these too difficult but here are some other books that may expand your understanding of sociology:

• Outsiders: Studies In The Sociology Of Deviance by Howard Becker
  
• Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram

Not the first poster but I can take this one. This is one of the first myths Thomas Sowell busts in The Vision of the Anointed. I'd recommend buying the book, but in lieu of that here's an online version, relevant part starts around page 26.

>As early as 1968, nearly half of all schools in the country-public and private, religious and secu-lar-had sex education, and it was rapidly growing.49 As sex edu-cation programs spread widely through the American educational system during the 1970s, the pregnancy rate among 15-to 19-year-old females rose from approximately 68 per thousand in 1970 to approximately 96 per thousand by 1980.50 Among unmarried girls in the 15-to 17 -year-old bracket, birth rates rose 29 percent between 1970 and 1984,51 despite a massive increase in abor-tions, which more than doubled during the same period. Among girls under 15, the number of abortions surpassed the number of live births by 1974.52 The reason was not hard to find: According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the percentage of unmarried teenage girls who had engaged in sex was higher at every age from 15 through 19 by 1976 than it was just five years earlier.53 The rate of teenage gonorrhea tripled between 1956 and 1975.54 Sar-gent Shriver, former head of the Office of Economic Opportunity, which led the early charge for more sex education and "family planning" clinics, testified candidly to a congressional committee in 1978: "Just as venereal disease has skyrocketed 350% in the last 15 years when we have had more clinics, more pills, and more sex education than ever in history, teen-age pregnancy has risen."55 Such candor was, however, the exception rather than the rule among those who had pushed for sex education and birth con-trol ("family planning") clinics

I started to make one a while back but didn't get too far. There are just too many great books to choose from.

Classics 1950-1970

What is Conservatism?

The Conservative Mind

The Road to Serfdom

The Constitution of Liberty

Ideas Have Consequences

The Quest for Community

Economics in One Lesson

Capitalism and Freedom

In Defense of Freedom


Age of Reagan 1970-1990

The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945

Modern Times

Knowledge and Decisions

A Conflict of Visions

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Roots Of American Order


Modern Must Reads 1990-Today

The Clash of Civilizations

A History of the American People

The Vision of the Annointed

Intellectuals and Society

Illiberal Reformers

Restoring the Lost Constitution

How To Be A Conservative

Well anyways, here's a NRx reading list I'm slowly making my way through...

​



Introduction

The Dark Enlightenment Defined*
The Dark Enlightenment Explained*
The Path to the Dark Enlightenment*
The Essence of the Dark Enlightenment*
An Introduction to Neoreaction*
Neoreaction for Dummies*

Reactionary Philosophy in a Nutshell*
The Dark Enlightenment – Nick Land*

The Neoreactionary Canon

The Cathedral Explained*

When Wish Replaces Thought Steven Goldberg *

Three Years of Hate – In Mala Fide***

****

The Decline

We are Doomed – John Derbyshire*
America Alone – Mark Steyn*
After America – Mark Steyn*
Death of the West – Pat Buchanan***
The Abolition of Britain – Peter Hitchens

****

Civil Society and Culture

Coming Apart – Charles Murray
Disuniting of America – Arthur Schlesinger
The Quest for Community – Robert Nisbet
Bowling Alone – Robert Putnam
Life at the Bottom – Theodore Dalrymple
Intellectuals and society – Thomas Sowell

****

Western Civilization

Civilization: The West and the Rest – Niall Ferguson
Culture Matters – Samuel Huntington
The Uniqueness of Western Civilization – Ricardo Duchesne

****

Moldbuggery

Mencius Moldbug is one of the more influential neoreactionaries. His blog, Unqualified Reservations, is required reading; if you have not read Moldbug, you do not understand modern politics or modern history. Start here for an overview of major concepts: Moldbuggery Condensed. Introduction to Moldbuggery has the Moldbug reading list. Start with Open Letter series, then simply go from the beginning.*

****

​

To the ctrl-left, they see themselves as the Annointed, because of the school they went to and the credentials (note: I did not say degree) they earned while there, and that this therefore grant them the moral authority to dictate to everyone not like them how to live their life.

All of you really need to read Visions of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell. So much of what the SJW does will be made perfectly clear to you once you do.

https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy-ebook/dp/B002TZ3D1M/

For social theory, I recommend Peter Kivisto. It's a reader with great selections from both classical and contemporary theorists.

>Who is deeming it unacceptable?

The Anointed Ones. Your personal betters. Your minders. Your racial superiors. The elites. The morally sound. The pure. The pious. The Intellectuals. Every single person that deems to be better than you in some way, and has the ability to use enough force to do it. The narcissists. The sociopaths.

Isn't it strange how the credit card companies still want to make money? I guess good intentions do not always lead to good policies.

So I’m guessing you’re not actually a Neoliberal, because you must of missed Sowells, Friedman, and others view on the subject.

>entirely natural that white males dominate leadership positions

Well it might have something to do with being a white majority country? Especially the UK, and that said the white males in question usually come from upper middle class/upper class backgrounds it perfectly makes sense.

Why? I’d take a guess you could do an analysIs of any top private firm leadership positions and you’ll find the majority of those people come from upper middle class to upper class backgrounds. The reason is simple their parents afford them a superior education, and thus have better qualifications.

Why are the majority of people in said positions also taller than average?

Again your making arguments based on equity not equality. also you have not a single data point that supports your claims. Your looking for problems where their are none; all there are, are differences in individual choices between me and women.

And again you completely ignore blind recruitment which controls for subconscious bias and eliminates sexism/racism in hiring.


It’s funny because your beliefs are almost religious in nature, but here this might help you out. It’s a book by a black male.

https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X

after seeing this, I had to let you know that this book exists and talks about something that is quite common in this subreddit. The Twilight of Equality is also an excellent book and a must read.

Economic Facts and Fallacies, The Vision of the Anointed and/or Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Depending on your interests.

> I don't read enough conservative media to get a sense as to whether pessimism still reigns there

Well, in some places it does.

Also, on the topic of "how will all this immigration work out?", optimism/pessimism maps pretty clearly to liberalism/conservatism.

R2: True politics is angsty. [Tropes warning] There are plenty of conservative pessimists and progressive optimists, and the diagonal "axis" seems to be pure shade-throwing, not actual criticism.

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, by Thomas Sowell.

This Guy


should read


some books

Here are some I suggest for you!

1

2

3

4

https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X

>I'm very liberal minded.

You mean modern American liberalism (which isn't liberal in the slightest), or do you mean Classical Liberalism (ie, modern day Libertarianism)?

Perhaps you're the one who needs to read up on the roots of your political philosophy.

http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318974177&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

Il ne faut pas se faire d'illusion, il y a des milieux professionnels féroces et la grande distribution en fait partie. J'avais croisé il y a fort longtemps un mec qui a fait un livre de son expérience.

http://www.liberation.fr/portrait/1998/01/28/gregoire-philonenko-36-ans-chef-de-rayon-licencie-par-carrefour-se-fait-le-sociologue-de-son-alienat_224898

https://www.amazon.fr/Au-carrefour-lexploitation-Gr%C3%A9goire-Philonenko/dp/2220040704

Ce qui est intéressant c'est qu'on parle enfin de ce genre de choses à la télé. C'est le quotidien d'un paquet de gens de longue date mais jusqu'à maintenant, ça n'a jamais été de l'info.

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Sociological-Theory-Craig-Calhoun/dp/0470655674/

http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Sociological-Theory-Craig-Calhoun/dp/0470655666

Ridiculous? It's a ban based on sound science and statistics. Isaac Asimov died of HIV from a tainted blood transfusion—and now we're going to put more people at risk, just for the sake of being politically correct.

AIDS carriers have been a favored protected victim class of liberals since the 1980s when the courts found it to be a "handicap" entitling its carriers to special privileges and anonymity to the detriment of public health.

From Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed:

>As late as 1983, people were being reassured that their chances of catching AIDS from transfusions of untested blood were 'extremely remote.' Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler went on nationwide television on July 3, 1983, to 'assure the American people that the blood supply is 100 per cent safe.'

>But just one year later, the Centers for Disease Control began reporting dozens of cases of people who caught AIDS from blood transfusions; just two years after that [1986], the AIDS deaths from blood transfusions were in the thousands."

>The problem was not simply with what medical authorities did not know at the time but with what they presumed to know and to proclaim to the benighted–to those who, in Secretary Heckler’s words, had ‘irrational fears’ and ‘unwarranted panic.’ [According to U.S. News and World Report, it turns out that whereas the Red Cross and others] ‘put the risk of getting AIDS from a transfusion at about 1 in a million. In fact, it was at least 1 in 660–and up to 1 in 25 in high-exposure cities like San Francisco.’]

>It was at one time triumphantly proclaimed that no health-care worker had ever contracted AIDS from patients, but by September 1985 there were the first of many cases of nurses, lab workers, and others who caught the disease from AIDS patients and by 1991 there were cases of patients who caught AIDS from a dentist . . . .

>Precautions to protect the public from AIDS carriers have repeatedly been backed into only after new revelations devastated previous reassurances . . . . Instead of erring on the side of caution in defense of the public, as with previous deadly and infectious diseases, ‘responsible’ officials approached the spread of AIDS by making the protection of the AIDS carrier from the public paramount.

>One political reason has been fear of offending the organized, zealous, single issue homosexual organizations and their allies in the media, in the American Civil Liberties Union, and in other liberal bastions. But this only raises the further question as to why the interest of carriers of a deadly, incurable, and contagious disease should be regarded in such circles as preemptive over the rights of hundreds of millions of other people . . . .


http://www.amazon.com/The-Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social/dp/046508995X

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

So, no.

You are all idiots because you disagree with meeeeee reeeeeeeee! The self Annointed at it again...


The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy Thomas Sowell

https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X

Articles:

The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies
by Kay Hymowitz, City Journal, The Manhattan Institute

Liberalism Versus Blacks by Thomas Sowell, Creators Syndicated.

Books:

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell.


Race & Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination? by Walter Williams.

Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed by Jason Riley.

Archives for the links in comments:

• By Muskaos (amazon.com): http://archive.fo/PxNeH
  
• By StabbyPants (funnyjunk.com): http://archive.fo/KhkwI
  
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Ladies and gentlemen: I give you utilitarianism. You have no value aside from your ability to make choices or feel good.

Now, combine that with aggressive statism where everyone is thought of as a charge of the state(you can't have positive legal rights without it). Suddenly anyone below what the anointed declare to be minimum health/happiness can be killed. There is no innocence, crime, rights, or justice, just judgement by those in power.

> “This change in views about euthanasia and assisted suicide are the result of a tide of increasing morality in our world,” he stated.

This is a transition from principled morality like natural law and virtue ethics to a utilitarian morality. Morality isn't increasing, it's morphing into the culture of death. The dead do not endure earthly suffering.

Have you ever read The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy?

>Book Description
Publication Date: June 28, 1996
Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell

>The Vision of the Anointed is a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Thomas Sowell sees what has happened not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a vision whose defects have led to disasters in education, crime, family disintegration, and other social pathology. In this book, "politically correct" theory is repeatedly confronted with facts -- and sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a whole set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites. These elites -- the anointed -- often consider themselves "thinking people," but much of what they call thinking turns out, on examination, to be rhetorical assertion, followed by evasions of mounting evidence against those assertions.

I don't know of any books, but there must be some out there. The book I read, that changed my life, and the way I look at studies today was this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/046508995X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is called the "Vision of the Anointed". I can give you the synopsis if you want.

Basically, it comes down to, the plan is good, the people are to stupid to follow it. Ever get skin cancer? Blame it on yourself for not using sunscreen.

​

Are you to fat? Move more eat less, because it is your own fault that you are fat.

All of these things scream to me, the plan is good, the people are to stupid to follow it.