Sociology and Common Sense

Submitted to

Dr. Jyoti Prasad Saikia

Submitted by

Akhyai Jyoti Mahanta

Research Scholar (M.Phil)

Department of Sociology, Dibrugarh University

‘Sociology and common sense’ was a N.K. Bose Memorial Lecture delivered by Andre Beteille
in Calcutta on June 20, 1996 on the occasion of Golden Jubilee of the Anthropological Survey of
India. In this article, the author has forwarded his view on how sociology as a subject or a
discipline is perceived by the Indian professors and students in various universities and research
institutes and showed how sociology is distinct from common sense knowledge as both are often
seen as alternative to each other. He begins with the view that sociology in India is yet not
properly understood and applied in the intellectual arena and there are pervasive debate and
disagreement about its “aims, scope, approach, methods, concepts and subject matter.” (2011:
39). There are professors who are not clear about the possibilities of sociology while there are
laypersons who are simply acquainted with its terms and vocabularies but speak like experts.
Since sociology touches everyday experiences of the common people and are very close to
common sense, so many people have the tendency to use one for the other.

The founding figures of sociology such as August Comte, Herbert Spencer or Max Weber never
developed sociology as a discipline per se as they had nothing to do with universities. But the
scenario in India is quite different. In India sociology emerged as an academic discipline nearly
from the beginning itself (more than seventy years) and therefore the author has put his views as
a subject and on the basis of analyzing the works being done on universities and research centers.
Although sociology and common sense are not completely different to each other but it would be
right to consider both as similar. Sociology is a body of inter-connected concepts, methods and
data which common sense do not have no matter how acute and well-informed it is. Sociology
tries to be general, if not universal, whereas common sense is specific and localized. It is highly
variable as it is subjected to particular time and space. Recalling N.K. Bose’s observation about
scientists Beteille states that there are two categories of scientists – one who simplifies complex
things and other makes simple things complex. Sociology follows the former by transforming
complex things to simple through the use of technical process such as concepts and methods
while common sense may not be always successful in making complex things simple.
Nonetheless, the author suggests that sociology can neither submerge in the common sense of the
scholar’s own environment nor absorbed in the narrowed and self-satisfied technicalities which
have no connected with the ground social reality. In other words, sociology cannot be complete
without either common sense or cultivation of technical skills.
Secondly, Andre Beteille says that sociology is regarded as a soft subject by majority of the
students who opt for this subject because other subjects are considered as more difficult. It is
observed that throughout the country in the routine classrooms of sociology of both
undergraduate and post-graduate levels, neither teachers nor students show enthusiasm or
interest. The most serious obstacle comes from the relatively well equipped students who wonder
as what is very new to learn in sociology except a series of terms and concepts, and especially in
case of sociology of India they think that they are already familiar to a greater extent with the
topics like caste, class, family, community, urbanization, industrialization, modernization and so
on. There is hardly any kind of formal theory or body of facts in sociology subjected to definite
time and space unlike geography and history. It deals with both arguments and facts but the
connections among them seem loose, open and ambiguous for which the students are at times
unable to go in the right direction. The classroom situation is different from a seminar as in the
latter the topic of discussion is confined within the boundaries of particular subject where it is
easy to maintain a framework. On the other hand, in the classroom, there is shift from one course
to the other or again, within a subject, one topic to another. In this case although students can
comprehend the subject item by item but they often fail to see or grasp the connection among the
items. Sometimes the contradictory arguments also seem true and that is where the students fall
in dilemma on what to belief or what not.

According to the author, students find it hard to cope with a subject if the teacher is unable to
give clear and convincible answer to the questions whether it is related to kinship, religion or
politics. Unlike physical sciences or even subjects like history, in sociology the difference
between right or wrong is not clear but rather there is greater scope for ambiguity and
disagreement. Therefore, the students do not have a proper idea about the aim and scope of the
subject. Among them, there are students who are well equipped in fluently expressing their
common sense knowledge or superficial acquaintance with names and terms and while the others
may have relatively better understanding of the subject but are unable to produce attractive
answers because of their poverty of expression. In this case the examiner is often unsure whether
to give credit to the well written answer or to the answer that reflects good knowledge. Exactly
the same problem arises while evaluating scripts for journal articles or book; many a times trivial
article gets published because of their good prose style and others are rejected for their weak
presentation even if they have more substantial arguments.
He argues that through the use of common sense and fluency in language of expression the
Indian students can well written pieces on topics related to Indian society such as caste, class,
joint family or Hinduism. But students have little knowledge about other societies and so they
find themselves in difficulty if asked to deal with topics like kinship in Africa, or religion in
Indonesia, or social mobility in France. Andre Beteille openly wrote that he is always in
opposition to those scholars who because of their patriotic zeal confine the teaching of sociology
to materials relating largely to India. No student can construct proper sociological argument
unless he is taught to deal with material related to every type of society – his own society as well
as other societies. He has found that in Indian universities what is taught under sociological
theory is often integrated with what is taught under sociology of India. In the last forty years,
according to him, there is slow but steady movement of interest away from general concepts,
methods and theories of sociology towards current problems of the society, culture and politics
in India. By giving examples from his own experience he says that thirty years before when he
went to universities outside Delhi for delivering lectures to students on sociology, they were
interested in hearing general topics such as theories of evolution, types of lineage system, and
relations between status and power. Now, instead of such topics, they mostly urge him to speak
on reservations, caste politics, communalism, and secularism.

Virtually only the professors who teach in postgraduate and to some extent in undergraduate
level have active intellectual contact with the new developments in theory and method and also
those who work in specialized research institutes. Otherwise the research seminars mostly
concentrate on the issues dealing with India society and they have little to do with broader
comparative or theoretical interest. And the large annual conferences are mostly devoted to
current affairs where basic problems and issues get scant attention. Sociology always has
concern for current affairs but they are primarily concern with the issues that remote from the
coverage of newspapers and magazines. N.K. Bose dedicated his whole life in studying the
distribution of material traits; G.S. Ghurye worked on dual organization, on gotra and charana,
on Indian costumes and ancient cities; Irawati Karve wrote a book on kinship organization in
India. Such topics have marginal place in the discussions of seminars and conferences organized
by sociologists today. Moreover, these discussions are not much about methods and techniques
of investigation of creating and understanding sociological knowledge but rather, in his words,
tend to be “highly abstract and speculative terms and rarely lead to any concrete or workable
propositions” (2011:43). Alternative approaches in studying Indian society would hardly produce
results unless they are linked to the disciplined practice of sociology.

Today, according to Beteille, it is impossible to practice sociology as a serious academic

discipline without drawing connection with the larger sociological knowledge based upon the
concepts, methods and theories created by the scholars over the last hundred years. Therefore,
while doing sociology, whether in the west or in India, one has to be alert and critical to this fact.
In the case of India there can be an Indian perspectives but it cannot merely exist without
addressing to society and culture beyond its local geographical setting. The builders of modern
sociology such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber or others took the whole human society and
looked at its diversities and changing nature even if their central area of study was theory own
society. Their observations on other societies might be limited, one-sided or often misleading but
they did believe that the understanding their own society with disciplined application of the
sociological methods would be deepened and broadened only through systematic comparative
studies between their own and other societies. They believe that sheer common sense is not
enough in this regard but they must employ new tools and techniques to attain their objectives.

Durkheim stated that common sense creates an illusion being based on presuppositions and
limited knowledge. Such knowledge is not only often wrong but also appears as obstacle in the
systematic investigation of a subject and its available facts. His notion of superiority of approach
than common sense knowledge can be best understood on his revelations of suicide, which
evidenced on the basis of a great amount of data, which vary from between different societies,
religious, occupational and other groups with the same society. Also, suicide rate is fluctuated
based on economic and social causes. For instance, suicide rate goes up not only after an
economic depression but also during an economic boom. The point is when his idea on suicide
appeared to go against common sense; he decided to test it by collecting huge amount of data
and combined them with concepts and method so that it can be linked to other domains of life in
other parts of the world as well. Similarly, in the case of Weber he proposed that human
intention and action are hardly the same. It means the result of an action often differs from what
is expected to have in the course of action. He found this conclusion based on his rigorous
methodical research on the relationship between religious values and economic action. This
approach to religion by Weber was quite new as until Weber’s time the common notion of
religion is that, for good or evil, religion is a great source of social stability. Marx assigned a
negative value on religion while Durkheim put a positive value explaining how it contributes in
marinating stability and collectivity in the society. Weber on the other hand Weber’s originality
regarding religion was found in terms of his systematic and sharp details of study that revealed
the consequences of religion in the economic organization of the society. For him, neither the
commitment to the ideal values nor the demands of material existence but the dialectics between
the two determines the change in the society.

Thirdly, the author put forward two of the fundamental preoccupations of sociology: its rigorous
search for interconnections among different domains of society and its systematic use of
comparisons. “Sociology is not about economic, political or domestic life; it is not about class,
caste or community; it is not about the ideal of equality or the reality of inequality. It is about the
interconnections among all these and other aspects of social life.” (2011:46). This idea may be
called ‘factionalist bias’ of sociology by some but the fact is that such integrations are not
harmonious but inharmonious, unstable rather than stable. According to him, in sociology in the
last few decades a kind of mindless Marxism has invaded in such a way that the word
‘functionalist’ is considered as an inessential approach but they do not understand the distinction
between ‘social integration’ and ‘system integration’. Drawing an interrelation is a laborious and
time consuming task which can be achieved through survey research, statistical analysis,
participant observation, and case studies. These connections may not always lead to spectacular
result but even if it is trivial it is meaningful and unsuspected and this distinguishes sociological
knowledge from common sense knowledge. The systematic and detailed examination of
interrelations have shown that sometimes the economic factors appear as more influential while
in other marriage and kinship relation may have greater impact in various areas of social life. So,
be it economic or religious, these interconnections are always there in society which has been a
hindrance rather than help in sociological in sociological inquiry. Nevertheless, sociology cannot
avoid this interconnection.

Patient and systematic studies by sociologists have shown many things about Indian society that
were not seen before. After independence, whole range of monographs was published by trained
anthropologists that changed the perception of rural Indian and Indian society in general. Stating
M. N. Srinivas he commented that Srinivas formulated a distinction between ‘book-view’ and
‘field-view’ of Indian society and showed the errors of the former. He directly attacked the
misperception of caste among educated Indians as rigid and inflexible system based on the four
varnas of Hindu society. He said that varna model has given a wrong and distorted image of
caste. By drawing the attention from varna to jati, he showed the distinct form of social mobility
in the caste system. In his own study in the Tanjore district he found Indian village as ‘little
republic’ despite of having inequality and conflict. Similarly, A.M. Shah shows the
misconception about the changes in Indian family system. He says that although the Indian
families are moving away from joint family to nuclear family, but the average size of a
household in the Indian society has remained roughly the same in the last hundred years.

The author complains that despite of doing rigorous studies on practically every aspect of Indian
society and culture, there is still a striking lacking of studies by Indian sociologists on other
societies and cultures. Most Indian sociologists confine themselves in studying their own society:
Bengalis to West Bengal, Gujratis to Gujrat, and Tamilians to Tamil Nadu. They never have used
the comparative method of study which actually differentiates sociology from common sense.
Durkheim himself stated, “Comparative sociology is not a branch of sociology, it is sociology
itself.” (2011: 48). So, the sociologists must acquire the habit of comparison and bring insights
from other institutions and societies for better understanding of the area he is studying. India
being a country of large populations and variety of cultures offer greater possibilities for
comparisons within its own confines. He has given two examples from his own studies: the first
was the comparative study taluk by taluk in Tanjore district to understand the agrarian class
formation based on the differences arising from ownership, control, use of land and caste. The
second is the long-standing comparative study of positive discrimination in India and affirmative
action in the United States which enabled him to study the distinction between rights and policies
and the relationship between distributive justice and institutional well-being.

The author again reasserts that common sense is bound by time, place, class, community, gender
and so on and it does not have a distinct origin and presuppositions and no methodical approach.
It is based on a limited range of experience and in whatever way it is related to family, kinship,
marriage, work, worship and so on, people with common sense tend to believe that their way of
doing is right. It is because their observation is not context specific. On the other hand, in terms
of Sociology, comparison and contrast are integral parts. History too studies diverse beliefs and
practices among people at different places and different times over a long period of time. It is the
rare historian who does comparative history, whereas sociological study cannot be complete
without comparison and contrast. Unlike the perspective of any educated person sociology
follow certain procedures for selection and arrangement of facts and this is where it is different
from common sense or other subjects of humanities. Besides, common sense easily construct
imaginary social arrangements where there is no inequality, no oppression, no strife or no
constraints, but sociology is anti-utopian in nature since it sees the disjunction between ideal and
reality, between what human beings consider right and proper and the actual conditions of
existence. Sociology is also anti-fatalistic in its orientation since it does not accept particular
constraint taken for granted by common sense as eternal and immutable. It provides a clearer
awareness of the facts in the social setting.

This leads to the quality of value-neutrality of sociology in which it distinguishes value judgment
from judgment of values to show its difference from common sense. Sociology employs some
technical means through concepts and methods and thus differentiates questions of facts from
questions of judgments. There is an influential tradition in sociology where there is a belief that
the methods and procedures of sociology are same as those of natural sciences and so there is no
bias in the part of the investigator unlike common sense which is subjected to potential bias and
error. It is to note that not all sociologists consider sociology as a kind of natural science but as
moral science where sociology treats values as fact, as a part of data whether he is studying his
own society or some other society, or both. In this case, the sociologist must be clear about the
idea of objectivity while dealing with subjective data. In India this intellectual and moral grounds
often merge together for which the sociologists tend to slip towards plain common sense.

Finally, the author puts that whether studying one’s own society or other, the standpoint of the
investigator is most crucial and the successful creation and understating of sociological
knowledge is possible only when the investigator looks at the facts from different standpoints so
that there is a scope for mutual correction. It is true that sociology cannot give moral preferences
but his moral preferences must be based on somewhat different basis from usual common sense.
The author doubts that sociology can ever reach the point from where it can provide moral
choices to the people since all actions and decisions are built on individual judgment and
individual responsibility. Nevertheless, sociology can contribute in giving perspectives to
individual in looking at things and also alternative ways that clearly manifest the cost and benefit
of the reality outside which otherwise cannot be achieved simply through common sense
knowledge.

Source

Beteille, Andre. ‘Sociology and Common Sense’. Anti-Utopia. Ed. Dipankar Gupta. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2011. 39-52.