Editor's Comment: WHAT PASSES FOR THEORY IN SOCIOLOGY?

The article focuses on sociology as a subject and its understanding. Among reasonably competent papers submitted to the journal of "Sociological Theory" perhaps the single most important and frequent critical question the author finds himself posing is "How does this paper help to understand social life better? The journal deserves sponsorship by the American Sociologists Association because it can and should speak to a broad constituency within sociology, because theory is important for all good sociological work. Potential contributors seem to think, however, that "general theory" in sociology consists mainly of commentaries on what other people have said. This is not to say that historical studies are not useful or that commentaries and reanalyzes cannot advance theory in important ways. Accepting sufferance on the basis of staying out of other sociologists' affairs is only one strategy for survival. And it is likely to secure no more than mere survival.