…policies have been made by people with very narrow life experiences and imposed on others with whom there is ‘no intercourse and no sympathy’…This indifference is as true of our scientific and medical elites as of our politicians and public servants. Although STEM disciplines have traditional been ladders of social mobility, we are seeing the fulfilment of Michael Young’s prediction that meritocracy would lead to the creation of a new elite that was just as unsympathetic to those who did not share its privileges…
Why can’t you just stick to the sociology, I get asked from time. There is a whole other answer about the nature and purpose of the sociological study of medicine, science and technology – but this topic is core sociology. It is about the way patrician elites make supposedly rational policies for ordinary people in ‘ignorance of their habits, thoughts and feelings’. It is the historic role of sociologists to call this out.
A socialsciencespace blog