SOCIOLOGY, SELECTIVE DETERMINISM, AND THE RISE OF EXPECTATIONS.

The article discusses about sociology, selective determinism and the rise of expectations. While many complaints have been made about the inadequate impact of sociology on the U.S. society, one manifestation of its influence has been given little attention. It is the spread of some basic premises of the discipline, in particular the belief in the social cultural determination of personal life, which have deeply penetrated popular thinking in the 1960's. That sociologists, in their professional roles, subscribe to some form, or degree of such determinism is no revelation. It could not be otherwise. Sociology stresses the social over the personal, the group rather than the individual, social forces over personal motives, the patterned instead of the unique and the determined rather than the undetermined aspects of social existence. Not only does such an orientation follow from the most obvious and fundamental premises of the discipline, it is also intimately related to the liberal political values and social consciousness of most sociologists. One channel through which such ideas and orientations filtered through to the general public is college education.