Once again the season of the anti-sociologists is upon us…[a]curious admixture of illogic and sentiment…makes up the creed and canons of anti-sociology.” Those words come from Robert K Merton, writing in the New York Times in July 1961. They are a timely reminder that some bad ideas never die. They simply find new sponsors and… Read More »
The grudging disclosure of the Epstein files by the US government has rightly attracted a great deal of commentary. The responses have laid bare the devastation of the lives of those forced to supply sexual and other services to the rich and powerful on the financier’s island. So has the impunity of that class in… Read More »
Watching recent events in Minneapolis from the comfortable distance of several thousand miles and a large ocean, my mind turned to an influential paper by Everett Hughes, based on an extended visit to West Germany in 1948. ‘Good People and Dirty Work’ began as a public lecture… Hughes asks two questions: How did ‘good Germans’… Read More »