**6. The alertness of reflexive sociology: Fulfilling the promise of sociology**

Reflexivity implies the awareness of the practical implications of sociological research and knowledge, which further necessitates posing the questions regarding the ends, the beneficiaries and victims of knowledge. In other words, as Robert Lynd ([1939], 1970), simply put it, for what and for whom do sociologists produce scientific knowledge at a given time and in a given historical era. Precisely because sociology entails both theory and practice – and, accordingly, has, like all science, a social dimension – doing reflexive sociology involves intellectual and emotional adherence to certain values (rather than to

A third dialogical activity, closely connected with negation, is the critique of the social conditions of sociological theorizing. Several sociologists, such as Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman, have put forward 'critiques of modernity', and have developed new concepts like 'postmodernity' and 'late modernity', to point out that (early) modern theories of society, or particular concepts, that used to authoritative have lost their validity. Robert Nisbet (1966: 318), for instance, concludes that Ferdinand Tönnies' well-established *Gemeinschaft*-*Gesellschaft* distinction has lost much of its theoretical vitality for studying social experiences in the 1960s. Tönnies' ideal types were once useful to grasp the movements of society, but, the further individualization of the individualized society, has implied that the collectivities of the *Gesellschaft*, including the nuclear family, gender, nation, citizenship and class, have turned liquid (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002: 18-19; Bauman, 2003). The ideal types that used to make it possible for sociologists to interpret the meaning of individualization have become 'zombie categories'. As social existence increasingly takes place outside the realm of classes, gender, nuclear family, or nation, these collectivities of the individualized society are accordingly increasingly insufficient to understand social experiences and identities. Instead, sociological concepts such as selfmanagement and lifestyle have been coined or re-introduced as more appropriate for

According to reflexive sociologists, sociology therefore moves, or develops, as a science through three dialogical activities: recognition of contradictions, negation and critique. Through these activities, sociologists are able to move from practice to theories, and back to practice, back and forth; in this way, they try to do justice to rapidly changing social worlds. The problem of outdated concepts or theories lies not in their being outdated or old, but in the fact that sociological theories also constitute changing forces. By clinging on to old concepts, theories might simply become redundant, irrelevant to social practices, but they can also be harmful if they are used by policy makers for instance. They can serve to freeze social existence, or ignore important social dimensions. The identification of the vigour and weakness of current social structures, the denunciation of structures that are closed to reason and freedom, and the conceptualization of social alternatives constitute a dialogical sociological ethos. Several sociologists, however, have noted that in the current era of global capitalism, this particular sociological ethos is not at all appreciated by those in power, who hold power in the current acme of stability and would lose it if familiar certainties were undermined (c.f., Burawoy, 2005a: 263). Given the concentrations of power in the current era, there is a rather strong pressure from the power centres, ideologically supported by the ideology of neoliberalism, to destroy all imaginable social alternatives to the current state of

**6. The alertness of reflexive sociology: Fulfilling the promise of sociology** 

Reflexivity implies the awareness of the practical implications of sociological research and knowledge, which further necessitates posing the questions regarding the ends, the beneficiaries and victims of knowledge. In other words, as Robert Lynd ([1939], 1970), simply put it, for what and for whom do sociologists produce scientific knowledge at a given time and in a given historical era. Precisely because sociology entails both theory and practice – and, accordingly, has, like all science, a social dimension – doing reflexive sociology involves intellectual and emotional adherence to certain values (rather than to

enquiry into current social affairs.

(globalizing) social existence (Bauman, 1991: 269).

certain powers) that sustain or promote sociological dialogue. In other words, a value-empty sociology is not only a hollow concept, but is also undesirable and dangerous, since such sociology is typically allied to ideologies. C. Wright Mills ([1959], 2000) argues that the European values, reason and freedom, are important criteria to distinguish between true, liberating knowledge that is connected with the social form of the dialogue, and false, ideologically motivated knowledge that is connected with the social form of the orator. According to Mills, sociologists are, in their scientific activities, bound to the Delphic oracle, to a 'promise' as he calls it. This is the promise to expand the role of Socratic reasoning and genuine freedom in social affairs, to be achieved through developing a reflexive 'quality of mind' that will help people, including managers, professionals, citizens and consumers, 'to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves' (Mills, 2000: 5). This quality of mind is not the exclusive property of reflexive sociologists. Instead, the promise of sociology is to 'sociologize' the minds of a variety of people or 'publics' as Mills calls them (Ossewaarde, 2007a) – encounters where sociology and appliers of sociological insights come together.

Sciences, in general, and sociology in particular, are in the first place a representation or embodiment of the European value of reason. Reason is the Socratic, dialogical capacity to search for truth, involving the intellect, imagination, consciousness, and empathy; it ultimately finds its expression in self-knowledge, and knowledge of the other, these two forms of knowledge being inseparable and intimately related. For reflexive sociologists, reason is not a one-off instantaneous faculty, but is developed through dialoguing; dialogue is the playground of reason par excellence. Irving Louis Horowitz (1993: 144) notes that the belief in the goodness of representing the value of reason in society, through dialoguing, and the corresponding Delphic quest for self-understanding as a European cultural force, ought to inspire scientific conduct: 'if one cannot believe in social science as a higher rationality, then all is lost'. Without Socratic reason as a supreme value, science is indeed devoid of intellectual and moral substance; and hence degenerates from being a cultural force into being a mere instrument that can serve all purposes, including destructive and oppressive causes. A 'higher rationality', however, constantly exposes people, including power holders, to scrutiny, and to the uncomfortable realization that, given the fundamental scientific obligation to embrace ambivalence and ambiguity, there is no simple solution to certain situations, no foolproof choice, and no social order that is exempt from reification (Bauman, 1991: 44-5).

As a manifestation and servant of reason, sociology is a continuation and elaboration of the permanent Delphic quest for self-understanding; there can be no science (knowledge) without self-knowledge. Sociology, Alvin Gouldner (1973: 126) says, is a social activity in pursuit of 'the ancient human aspiration for self-knowledge. If that is not a high calling, then none is.' Sociology can be both the study of society and the aspiration for self-knowledge, also within organizations and through work, because the self and social life, that is, social processes and activities, are related. To fulfil the promise of sociology in organizations is to develop a quality of mind that would enable people, say, managers and professionals to locate their organization within a historical period. It is to link the most remote structural transformations (such as globalization or technological revolutions) to the most intimate features of their own existence in their organization. And it is to identify the major crisis of

Fulfilling the Promise of Sociology: Some Steps for Generating Reflexivity in Organizations 369

no surprise that bureaucracies typically sponsor positivist research; and as long as social arrangements are being rationalized, the tendency to fund and favour positivism – hence undermining the dialogue between the sociologies, and enabling one kind of sociology to be dominant – is hard to stop (Horowitz, 1993: 141). The positivist theory of society is one of a rationalized society, a bureaucratically controllable mechanism devoid of ambiguities. Positivist sociology is useful for further rationalization efforts, for improving bureaucracies, enhancing their effectiveness in further annihilating ambiguity. Reflexive sociology is organized to resist rationalization pressures, which includes resisting the pressure of being included in bureaucratic structures. The promise of sociology can only be fulfilled if sociologists are willing to adhere to European values rather than abiding by bureaucratic demands or value systems of dominant powers that control the bureaucracies; and when science funding administrators, businessmen and foundation officials do not decide what is worthy to be studied. This scientific commitment to the European values does have its prices, such a permanent, tiresome struggle, and exclusion from academic settings that are

Once it is recognized that all social activities, including scientific activities, are many-sided, it becomes illegitimate for sociologists, given the promise and call of sociology, to work with wooden, fixed, cut and dried, concepts, simple uniform variables that are seen to be immutable (Bloch, 1983: 284). In sociological activity, particularly in dialoguing, the reflexive awareness of the ambivalence of existing theories, blind spots or personal prejudices, and of the (latent) desire for certainty is a prerequisite. In and through dialogue, sociology moves through contradictions. It does not move linearly to some apex, but it moves dynamically, as a process of perpetually becoming something new. Sociologists are called to do justice to the ruptures, catastrophes and troubles of social worlds, those non-linear transformations that bureaucracies fail to see, seek to halt or simply tend to trivialize. Political or ideological ends are perceived to be better served when social words are made graspable and manageable. Reflexive sociology has the potential to contest such closing of the mind, out of commitment to the Delphic oracle, in the fundamental belief that without this commitment despotism and barbarism are destined to follow through the employment of value-empty and nonreflexive science. Reflexive sociology holds the key in expanding the role of freedom in social affairs because it alone enables its holders to become aware of their own unreason, prejudices and bias in their claims, teachings, writings, strategies, policies, evaluations and consults; and it makes holders sensitive to how sociology is used or misused in the destruction and creation of realities, thereby achieving summations of what is going on in

also dependent on these powers for their survival (c.f., Shils, 1980).

the world and of what may be happening within themselves.

**7. Locating reflexive sociology in society: The alliance with publics** 

Sociologists can contribute to the construction and destruction of social worlds; they are involved in transforming daily life and in creating a new society, new ways of making the European values flourish (Gouldner, 1973: 105). If sociology is to have value as a representation of the European values in society, that is, is to be constitutive for people's self-understanding, self-organization and self-government, then it must enter public debates and inform public opinion in all realms of social existence. In this way, the dialogue between sociologies is extended to a public dialogue, in which sociology is a partner; such a public

institutional arrangements (like the crisis of corporate governance systems) and to discover the issues of stakeholders and organizations in our time (issues like bonuses, alienating methods of production, enveloping monitoring techniques, international anarchy, and so forth). Fulfilling the promise of sociology implies having the key values of reason and freedom at the centre of organizational concern. Understanding society, including understanding organizations, also means understanding the values – typically transmitted through social channels – that constitute, inspire and move selves in organizations. A reflexive sociology that takes the Delphic quest as the cornerstone for its own intellectual and moral enterprise, inside and outside sociology (in banking, journalism, management consultancy, marketing, public agencies, buying and selling, and so forth), integrates questions of values in all activities (c.f., Goldfarb, 2005: 290-291).

The founders of sociology, including Tocqueville, Durkheim, Veblen, Mosca, Simmel and Weber, have noted how the flourishing of reason in social affairs is undermined by the rationalization of social existence. Rationalization refers to the modernization process of eliminating all social ambiguities through various forms of technical control mechanisms; in this way, one particular definition of society, which facilitates and sustains a particular ideology or cause (peace for instance), dominates at the expense of all others. This bureaucratic mode of expression, which includes codification, protocolling, hand-booking, categorization, schematization, registration and quantification, has little capacity for tolerating ambiguity, owing to its incapacity and unwillingness to generate dialogical reasoning and reflexivity (c.f., Levine, 1985: 53). In bureaucratic structures, of states, corporations, hospitals, universities, NGOs, armies, churches, and so forth, preoccupation with control, certainty and methodological and legal rigour takes precedence over intellectual substance and public significance of European values. Bureaucracies function to create a world free of ambiguity, a transparent society of rational (or rather, technical) choices in which means are adjusted (efficiently, effectively and legally) to objectified political or ideological ends (c.f., Bauman, 1991: 230). Such a rationalized and ideologized society, however, is stuck in the ice of the cold and lifeless world of reifying and hopelessly simplifying and reductionist theories.

Bureaucracies prefer fixed categories and well-known variables to ambivalence and dialogues. They propagate compulsive identifications with a certain theory of a rationalized society, with the help of positivist sociology in which the ambivalence of social categories is conveniently denied. The used conceptual schemes and methodologies, characterized by their strictly univocal modes of representation in one-dimensional terms, are oriented to constructing precise information regarding social processes and their breakdowns (Levine, 1985: 8). In other words, bureaucracies represent a mind-set that can only deal with the superficial appearances of society, and not with the deeper structures that are constituted by contradictions, cultural factors or solidarity bonds. Therefore, sociologists like Horkheimer and Adorno, Lukacs, Mills and Gouldner have denoted bureaucracies, similarly to ideologies, as forces of unreason, as eclipses and destructions of reason and science. That is to say, the rationalization (that is, bureaucratization) of social arrangements expropriates the very intellectual, moral and political capacity to act as a free person – including free politicians, free managers, free entrepreneurs, free professionals, free media, free citizens, free consumers and free scientists – in society and its organizations (Mills, ([1959], 2000: 169; 173).

When scientific research is dictated by bureaucracies, positivism is destined to become predominant; the latter is namely the most applicable as bureaucratic tool. Hence, it is also

institutional arrangements (like the crisis of corporate governance systems) and to discover the issues of stakeholders and organizations in our time (issues like bonuses, alienating methods of production, enveloping monitoring techniques, international anarchy, and so forth). Fulfilling the promise of sociology implies having the key values of reason and freedom at the centre of organizational concern. Understanding society, including understanding organizations, also means understanding the values – typically transmitted through social channels – that constitute, inspire and move selves in organizations. A reflexive sociology that takes the Delphic quest as the cornerstone for its own intellectual and moral enterprise, inside and outside sociology (in banking, journalism, management consultancy, marketing, public agencies, buying and selling, and so forth), integrates

The founders of sociology, including Tocqueville, Durkheim, Veblen, Mosca, Simmel and Weber, have noted how the flourishing of reason in social affairs is undermined by the rationalization of social existence. Rationalization refers to the modernization process of eliminating all social ambiguities through various forms of technical control mechanisms; in this way, one particular definition of society, which facilitates and sustains a particular ideology or cause (peace for instance), dominates at the expense of all others. This bureaucratic mode of expression, which includes codification, protocolling, hand-booking, categorization, schematization, registration and quantification, has little capacity for tolerating ambiguity, owing to its incapacity and unwillingness to generate dialogical reasoning and reflexivity (c.f., Levine, 1985: 53). In bureaucratic structures, of states, corporations, hospitals, universities, NGOs, armies, churches, and so forth, preoccupation with control, certainty and methodological and legal rigour takes precedence over intellectual substance and public significance of European values. Bureaucracies function to create a world free of ambiguity, a transparent society of rational (or rather, technical) choices in which means are adjusted (efficiently, effectively and legally) to objectified political or ideological ends (c.f., Bauman, 1991: 230). Such a rationalized and ideologized society, however, is stuck in the ice of the cold

and lifeless world of reifying and hopelessly simplifying and reductionist theories.

free scientists – in society and its organizations (Mills, ([1959], 2000: 169; 173).

Bureaucracies prefer fixed categories and well-known variables to ambivalence and dialogues. They propagate compulsive identifications with a certain theory of a rationalized society, with the help of positivist sociology in which the ambivalence of social categories is conveniently denied. The used conceptual schemes and methodologies, characterized by their strictly univocal modes of representation in one-dimensional terms, are oriented to constructing precise information regarding social processes and their breakdowns (Levine, 1985: 8). In other words, bureaucracies represent a mind-set that can only deal with the superficial appearances of society, and not with the deeper structures that are constituted by contradictions, cultural factors or solidarity bonds. Therefore, sociologists like Horkheimer and Adorno, Lukacs, Mills and Gouldner have denoted bureaucracies, similarly to ideologies, as forces of unreason, as eclipses and destructions of reason and science. That is to say, the rationalization (that is, bureaucratization) of social arrangements expropriates the very intellectual, moral and political capacity to act as a free person – including free politicians, free managers, free entrepreneurs, free professionals, free media, free citizens, free consumers and

When scientific research is dictated by bureaucracies, positivism is destined to become predominant; the latter is namely the most applicable as bureaucratic tool. Hence, it is also

questions of values in all activities (c.f., Goldfarb, 2005: 290-291).

no surprise that bureaucracies typically sponsor positivist research; and as long as social arrangements are being rationalized, the tendency to fund and favour positivism – hence undermining the dialogue between the sociologies, and enabling one kind of sociology to be dominant – is hard to stop (Horowitz, 1993: 141). The positivist theory of society is one of a rationalized society, a bureaucratically controllable mechanism devoid of ambiguities. Positivist sociology is useful for further rationalization efforts, for improving bureaucracies, enhancing their effectiveness in further annihilating ambiguity. Reflexive sociology is organized to resist rationalization pressures, which includes resisting the pressure of being included in bureaucratic structures. The promise of sociology can only be fulfilled if sociologists are willing to adhere to European values rather than abiding by bureaucratic demands or value systems of dominant powers that control the bureaucracies; and when science funding administrators, businessmen and foundation officials do not decide what is worthy to be studied. This scientific commitment to the European values does have its prices, such a permanent, tiresome struggle, and exclusion from academic settings that are also dependent on these powers for their survival (c.f., Shils, 1980).

Once it is recognized that all social activities, including scientific activities, are many-sided, it becomes illegitimate for sociologists, given the promise and call of sociology, to work with wooden, fixed, cut and dried, concepts, simple uniform variables that are seen to be immutable (Bloch, 1983: 284). In sociological activity, particularly in dialoguing, the reflexive awareness of the ambivalence of existing theories, blind spots or personal prejudices, and of the (latent) desire for certainty is a prerequisite. In and through dialogue, sociology moves through contradictions. It does not move linearly to some apex, but it moves dynamically, as a process of perpetually becoming something new. Sociologists are called to do justice to the ruptures, catastrophes and troubles of social worlds, those non-linear transformations that bureaucracies fail to see, seek to halt or simply tend to trivialize. Political or ideological ends are perceived to be better served when social words are made graspable and manageable. Reflexive sociology has the potential to contest such closing of the mind, out of commitment to the Delphic oracle, in the fundamental belief that without this commitment despotism and barbarism are destined to follow through the employment of value-empty and nonreflexive science. Reflexive sociology holds the key in expanding the role of freedom in social affairs because it alone enables its holders to become aware of their own unreason, prejudices and bias in their claims, teachings, writings, strategies, policies, evaluations and consults; and it makes holders sensitive to how sociology is used or misused in the destruction and creation of realities, thereby achieving summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves.
