The question why mainstream sociology – as the Sociology that is being taught at universities especially as a supporting discipline to those who will later work within fields such as law, politics, PR and journalism as part of the PMC – struggles with its conceptions of nation and state become more pressing when considering that which it understands to be its object of analysis: society. Mainstream Sociology understands society as identical to human activities and relationships that take place within the territorial domain of the nation-state. At the same time, that kind Sociology uses society as an abstraction for deeper structures that order those activities and relationships, which are identical to those of the state. In short, mainstream sociological conceptions of society encompass both Estate and Establishment and often switch between the two, to whichever version is more convenient.
One thing that is striking about Mainstream Sociology is the considerable overlap between the core assumptions of the discipline (e.g. Social Order being a relatively abstract outcome of “negotiations” between participants that have unfolded over time and have been become more permanent and externalized through institutionalization) and the self-legitimation of the State-Apparatus (as an order bound by contracts that are anchored in laws that themselves are the outcome of processes of negotiation that have become more durable through the institutionalization of administrations and operations). It would of course be better to give concrete examples, so that those who feel attacked, have a better opportunity to reply. I might do so at a later stage but the two examples I was thinking of are Max Weber and Berger & Luckmann (Durkheim and Parsons would have been less of a challenge).
Does my notion of Mainstream Sociology also include the likes of Bourdieu and Foucault? And what about Feminist Sociologists? Well it must be stressed first of all, that these so-called “Critical Sociologists” identify themselves as opposition to Mainstream Sociology, so in that respect, they should not immediately feel inculpated. However, Critical Sociology does have a tendency to appropriate that which it seeks to criticize without considering its implications thoroughly enough. For example, when Bourdieu differentiates Capital in terms of financial, social, cultural and symbolic; he conveniently treats these adjectives as substantive categories whose existence is both a-priori and derived from institutions that have territorialized their operations in terms of distinctive fields. As Bourdieu has a very limited interest in historical Materialism and his dialectics are often indistinguishable from dualisms, the question of Capital as abstraction no longer appears.
For Feminist Sociology the challenges are a bit different. The central intervention is that the generic concept of society needs to be gendered, as it takes as its standard “the man in the street”. After all, Domesticity and Domestication are not as central to the sociological imagination as Publicness and Publication. However, by merely adding on that which has been lacking, and referring to it as patriarchy does not necessarily require a fundamental reconceptualization of “society”; as has often been the case with feminist politics, there often lacks a questioning of the additive logic when pointing out what is lacking in the generic conception of “man”. As long as we remember to include women, everything is supposed to be fine.
This, however, erases the question of whether “society” as conceived in terms of a doubling of Estate and Establishment has been necessarily shaped along patriarchal lines of interests? If that is the case, than merely re-membering the lack by adding women will not suffice. As soon as we consider the constitutive role of patriarchy for the very idea of Society as Estate/Establishment, we cannot but draw the conclusion that the genesis of what Sociology has conceived as its object of interest is itself shaped in the interests of patriarchal rule. There is no conception of nation state without a question of the ownership of the means of biological reproduction. Thus, the Estate of “Nationhood” is the binding of women to territoriality; women have to be placed, and thus “know their place” if Nationhood is to be sustained. And this is where the struggle over reproductive rights tests the boundaries of the primacy of Nationhood and its conception of “collective interests”. This is also why the choice of agonistic objects at the centre of the so-called culture wars are more often than not very closely intertwined with issues of gender and territoriality in relation to “race” or “ethnicity”. This is why right-wing political discourse is much more concerned about sexual violence if it crosses the lines between racial and ethnic divisions than when it is “merely” contained by “the home” or “the nation”. For example according to many right wing ideologues, rape within marriage is logically and legally impossible.
Whereas I would prefer to align my sociological analyses within a broader framework of critical thinking that is sympathetic to the likes of Bourdieu and even liberal feminists, not everything that goes under the label of Critical Sociology should be accepted. For example, the work of Michel Foucault only has limited relevance because of his dogmatic reliance on Kantian idealism when framing his historical investigations and his absolute refusal to think through the substantiality of his own abstractions. Foucault remained a liberal who was not really interested in the fundamental questions of the relationship between the Estate and the Establishment and mainly concentrated his “critique” on the workings of the latter.
In a similar vein, feminist analyses that fail to consider the fundamental importance of imperialism and capitalism for modalities of patriarchy must be rejected, as their additive logic will be restricted to the interests of bourgeois women. Patriarchy is not just a type of society, it is society. Merely conceptualizing patriarchy as stemming from an unwillingness of men to give up their privileges ignores how the patriarchal estate came into being in the first place. The real problem of liberalism is the interconnectedness of an idealist notion of the sovereign individual (including the ironic inversion of the meaning of subjectivity) with the ignorance of the operational and functional reality of the state. Whoever still thinks that the state has a moral obligation to implement universal notions of justice, for example will still continue to be surprised that the state does not grant them what they want.
What must ALWAYS be rejected is every single form of critical sociology that relies on “identity thinking” as it is often nothing but an expression of slave morality. Slave morality, the idea that you are good because the others are bad and repress you, is the cornerstone of the self-valorization strategies by the PMC. By “taking the side” of the oppressed, for which the word solidarity has been misused, becomes a virtue. Slave morality feeds the self-victimization of identity politics and functions as a mode of immunization against critical self-reflection. It also distorts and corrupts the notion of solidarity. By deploying it as a gift given to those less fortunate, it becomes an expression of the moral superiority of those who can afford the privilege of offering it. From that logic, even paying taxes becomes an act of solidarity.
In short, the statement of “being critical” means very little, if it is merely treated as a subjective stance, rooted in identity politics, while disregarding the privileges that one needs in order to be critical. The fact that this blog is still going, despite what many might love to distort as “hate speech” or whatever as a means to have it cancelled, testifies to my privilege. Had I been born in Gaza or the West Bank, I would not have been able to write this. Had I been working as a manual labourer, coming home every night with an increasingly broken body or had I been a working mother having to do all the housework after coming home, I probably would not have had the energy to write this. Privilege is a gift, provided at the expense of the suffering of others.
Disaffected Sociology 
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