Read on Twitter
[thread about antisemitism and sociology]
People are calling on the @BristolUni to do something about its antisemitic Sociology professor. Quite right.
But what about The School for Policy Studies itself at Bristol, where he works? ...
![[thread about antisemitism and sociology]People are calling on the @BristolUni to do something about its antisemitic Sociology professor. Quite right. But what about The School for Policy Studies itself at Bristol, where he works? ...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EulX98aXIAAQG5L.png "[thread about antisemitism and sociology]People are calling on the @BristolUni to do something about its antisemitic Sociology professor. Quite right. But what about The School for Policy Studies itself at Bristol, where he works? ...")
People are calling on the @BristolUni to do something about its antisemitic Sociology professor. Quite right.
But what about The School for Policy Studies itself at Bristol, where he works? ...
...Sociology was invented to offer a scientific account of structures of power in our society. The founders of sociology - a number of whom were Jewish - were aware that one reason why this was so important was because of the attraction of conspiracy fantasy, and specifically...
...antisemitism, as a way of understanding the world. They wanted to undercut antisemitism and offer something better.
David Miller's webpage says that he "is an investigative researcher interested in concentrations of power in society and how they might be democratised...". ...
David Miller's webpage says that he "is an investigative researcher interested in concentrations of power in society and how they might be democratised...". ...
...But Miller doesn't study it in a way which is in any sense scientific, sociological, or related to any kind of sociological method or framework.
It's bad sociology. Antisemitic and racist sociology is bad sociology, it's false. It contains no truth about the world...
It's bad sociology. Antisemitic and racist sociology is bad sociology, it's false. It contains no truth about the world...
...The sociologists at Bristol are partly responsible for him, aren't they?
Miller's antisemitism is not that unusual on campus but it sticks out because he likes to say clearly and baldly the things that other academics prefer to say in fancy and ambivalent language...
Miller's antisemitism is not that unusual on campus but it sticks out because he likes to say clearly and baldly the things that other academics prefer to say in fancy and ambivalent language...
...Miller has apparently been accepted by his colleagues. It's not as if there isn't any sociological research into this kind of antisemitism. It's not as if the European Sociological Association doesn't have a Research Network (31) which has been doing this since 2005...
He has a Chair, the highest position of respect and responsibility in academia, he has tenure, he is a professor. To be promoted to that status requires the explicit endorsement of - references from and other kinds of approval from, I don't know, at least ten other professors...
...If there is a sociology that can't recognise the kind of explicit and clear antisemitic conspiracy fantasy offered by David Miller as being outside of its boundaries, then what does that tell us about the state of sociology today? ...
...I myself still have a significant loyalty to sociology. The sociology that I was taught by Robert Fine and others is keenly aware of the dangers of racist and totalitarian thought; alive to the ways human beings exclude each other in hidden, complex and unconscious ways...
...If anybody wants to come to this thread and denounce sociology as rubbish, they'll also be denouncing my work - not least on antisemitism - as rubbish. I think that the methods and intellectual frameworks of sociology have been important to my work on antisemitism...
...I spend quite a lot of my working life socialising students into sociology itself, introducing them to some of its basic ways of thinking. I'm proud of that work.
But the fact that David Miller has tenure tells us something about his peers as well as something about himself.
But the fact that David Miller has tenure tells us something about his peers as well as something about himself.
