'Silent sociologists' speak up

David Walker (THES March 17) writes about the supposed lack of meaningful messages from Britain's "silent sociologists". He might as well be writing about Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs for all its relevance to the real development and maturity of British sociology.

If, as Walker argues, sociology has no big idea, or indeed anything to say, why write about it at all? The fact that he does rather suggests that he himself has no big ideas or meaningful messages to convey to your readers. His only contribution is to recycle an antiquated, negative stereotype which was promoted by the New Right, at the height of its political power in the early 1980s.

Where, Walker asks, are sociology's big ideas? He recognises that Thatcherism was notoriously aggressive and demonising towards sociology. But that, he says, is no excuse! Given that his own employer - the BBC - was subsequently treated in like manner, one might have expected a touch of sympathy for sociology. But what Walker fails to notice is that Thatcherism asset-stripped sociological research to promote its own cause. This process was hidden from public gaze by the age-old expedient of claiming that the victim - namely sociology - is a worthless non-subject with nothing to say.

One striking example of the use of sociology by politicians is what Walker refers to in passing as "studies of affluent Luton car workers". This research, undertaken by a team of sociologists in the late 1960s, showed that modern affluent workers, as opposed to their traditional counterparts, identified with a "money-model" of society. The workers took an "instrumental" attitude towards political parties and trade unions, assessing them in terms of what they could deliver financially.

This was a far cry from the ingrained loyalty of traditional workers to their community, their trade unions and to the Labour Party. Affluent workers were home centred and keen to acquire consumer durables. It was realised that messages about free markets, monetarism, consumerism and privatisation could thus be used to attract rather than repel a substantial section of working-class voters.

Revealed in the Luton study was the theoretical and empirical basis for Thatcherism's big idea - viz the realisation that it was possible to appeal to the working class, especially the skilled workers, and wean them away from old Labour and "wet" Tory assumptions. Even the term privatisation was "lifted" from this sociological study and redefined as a set of policies directed towards the commercial sale of state-owned assets.

But as Professor J. A. Barnes has pointed out, today's big idea is tomorrow's received wisdom. Walker's problem seems to be that he is condemned to live in the world of received wisdom because he lacks the perspicacity to spot today's big ideas.

Noel C. A. Parry

University of North London