MY JOURNEY THROUGH SOCIOLOGY

[RonPrice]

My experience these days of sociology, as a formal discipline, is just about entirely on the Internet. Occasionally I dabble, for I am retired now and I have made of dabbling an art-form; I dabble in this rich and variegated academic field which nearly fifty years ago I had just entered in the last year of my teenage life. I remember well that first year of the formal study of sociology; it was a year which ended in early May of 1964, just before I got a job checking telephone poles for internal decay with the Bell Telephone Company of Canada.

In about February or, perhaps, March of 1963, a tutor joined the sociology staff. He was able to explain the mysteries of the sociological theorist Talcott Parsons better than anyone. And at the time, Parsons occupied a position in the empyrean of sociological godheads. It was an empyrean at the very centre of that introductory course in sociology. If one wanted to pass that course in sociology one had to have a basic understanding of Parsons. That was no easy task.

Everyone admired this tutor as if he was some brilliant theologian who had just arrived from the Vatican with authoritative pronouncements for us all to write down on our A-4 note paper to be regurgitated on the inevitable April examination. He was an Englishman, if I remember, rather slim and a good talker. And Parsons, for all of us, was about as intricate and complex, as elusive and variable, as you could get and still stay in the same language and on the same earthly plane. I was able to pass sociology that year by the skin of my teeth.

For a year after that I had no contact with sociology, except for a short period of time toward the end of my second year at university. I got to know a young woman of 27 who had one son and who studied sociology. I took her ice-skating in about February of 1965. I can’t quite remember how I met her, but for two or three months I went to the occasional lecture with her in sociology. She had a passion for helping Africans and I had a passion for her. Our mutual passions interlocked nicely and it was this reciprocity that led us to join together in third year sociology.

I took six courses in sociology that year, 1966-7, enough to bring the dead to life, or is it the living to death or, perhaps more accurately, I should say enough to kill any of my enthusiasms for honours sociology in a 4th year. In retrospect it was fortuitous that Canadian universities begin in mid-September with exams starting in mid-April. With the Christmas break, the week off for Easter and exam study--the student is left with only six months of lectures, reading and tutorials. That is about all I could stand of reading sociology. It was all I could stand at the time due to a number of factors not the least of which was some of the intricacies of my bipolar disorder.

The cold Canadian winters kept sociology all on chill: nothing like a brisk walk at 10 below zero to class in sociology 1A6 to examine the essence of Marxism, if there is/was an essence, or the complexities of functionalism and it had then, as it has now, many complexities especially the Parsonian brand. From August Comte the founder of sociology, or one of the founders, to the 1960s in a quick hit, that was the core of the syllabus in sociology theory 3A6. It was not as quick as I would have liked. Part of me always wanted to take it seriously and part of me found it such a burden of words that my already incipient depression, the first complex episode of my life-long bipolar disorder, just got another kick-start on its way

Anyway, I got through my third year and found myself with a BA bracket sociology end-of-bracket. I did not get my degree until November because, when the transcript came out in June, I found sadly that I was four or five marks short of a passing grade, 60%. I had to pay a visit to the Head of the Department, a gentle spirit who frequently imbibed a white wine, a beer or was it a claret? He taught me sociological statistics. This was the most mysterious of all arts in this youthful discipline which by 1963 was about 100 years of age with roots going back into the dawns of time in the western intellectual tradition.

I remember, yes, as if it was yesterday, sitting in his class writing down as much as I could in the hope of unravelling it leisurely at home in a quiet evening where I lived over a restaurant in the small town of Dundas. Dundas was 15 minutes away on a good hitch-hike---and good hitch-hikes were important at 10 below zero with a cold wind blowing. Of course I never did, unravel it I mean; night after night I’d ponder these mathematical symbols in the hope that sincerity and effort would pay off. In this case they did not and here I was eight weeks after the end of the year asking him for a few marks. He came to the party, probably because it was late afternoon and by then he’d already had a few and he was one of those drinkers who got friendlier after knocking back that few.

I had periodic dalliances with sociology after that graduating year of 1966. At teachers’ college, 1966/7 we had a sociology unit. I had to go to a teachers' college to get some practical qualification because sociology was good for absolutely nothing insofar as a career was concerned. I could have tied it to social work as well as teaching, but untied to anything about the only use it had was at a bar in the evening, with your girlfriend discussing your(and her) inner life, driving a taxi and sitting around filling in time reading books.

However useful sociology may be in this private domain, you could not take it as far as the cornerstone of a career unless, of course, you just wanted your BA to get you into some commercial game like: selling insurance, working for the public service in some capacity in some department as a novitiate or, indeed, one of many other fields/jobs in which I had not the slightest interest.

I came to teach sociology in 1974 to trainee teachers in Launceston Tasmania and again in 1975 to library technician trainees in Melbourne. In 1976-78 in Ballarat it was part of the syllabus for engineers and social science majors. When I lived in Katherine in Australia’s Northern Territory I taught it occasionally in adult education to evening classes and in Port Hedland Western Australia to students in management courses. In the early 1990s in Perth I taught sociology in Certificate and Diploma courses. In 1997-8 I taught sociology theory to human service workers.

Now after nearly fifty years, 1963-2013, I find myself finally finished combing library shelves through books which I first saw two months before President Kennedy was assassinated(23/11/’63). These shelves have expanded immensely in that half century; there are 1000s of new volumes to keep the eager beaver busy into perpetuity. Some of the material is highly stimulating and some as dry and coagulating as a sewer after a long period of no rain. Many of the books are still as fat or fatter, and I find I can not spend more than an hour in a library hunting them down. An immense fatigue sets in toward the end of my first hour in the library and I must scoop up my allotment of seven or eight books to read in the leisurely quiet of my home with a cold or a hot drink in my hand depending on the time of year and where I am living.

I look forward in my dotage to a long and happy life with this strange field I chanced upon nearly half a century ago when I was trying to avoid the world of work and its deadening and so often predictable stamp of boredom. I was also trying to work out what package of courses would get me that BA in three years, that essential ticket to go somewhere, somewhere I knew not exactly where. The labyrinthine channels of sociology one can travel in forever; the library shelves are, as I say, getting more extensive; it is a burgeoning field as are all fields now. The river of sociology, now in its middle age, perhaps, or still in its youth, will flow on into its third century while I get old. Now that my days are long and I am freed from the work-a-day world and its routines I play among the waters of sociology; I bath myself in its endless streams, having learned how to avoid drowning in its heady froth. I will only sample its choicest and its freshest glasses of refreshment. For I am now an accomplished connoisseur of its mysteries, at least some of the mysteries which do not totally elude me---and there are many of them. I am now old and on an old-age pension. I am ready for my final sociological hour in the evening of my life.

Ron Price
Updated: 15/6/'12
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PS Two years and two weeks after writing the first edition of this essay I retired from full-time teaching in general and from teaching sociology in particular. I retired the same month and year that the famous Canadian hockey player, Wayne Gretsky, retired from ice-hockey: April 1999. By March 2011, as I write the latest revision of this essay, I had also been retired from teaching in any form: part-time, casual or volunteer. I found myself teaching sociology in a School for Seniors until 2005. My final hour with sociology on the internet and its many forms of teaching and learning had begun. I've had seven years, 2005 to 2012 in this world of cyberspace.

I had the pleasure of revising this essay today for what well may turn out to be the final time. I had seven arch lever files of notes, the residue from those many years of dabbling in sociology at my study in my home in George Town, the oldest town in Australia. By 2012 I had had more than a decade of sampling only the choice bits of the sub-field that I enjoyed the most: sociological theory. I continued what I had done since my first contact with sociology in 1963, enlarging my understanding of society and its individuals, of community and of individual enterprise, of the Cause I had been associated with for nearly six decades.

The Baha'i Faith was a Cause which I believed would have in the years ahead a significant role to play in the unification and planetization of the emerging global civilization. I had been engaged with that Cause, that global organizational Force, since the early 1950s thanks to the initiative and curiosity of my parents. Through the insights of this useful sub-section of the discipline of sociology, among other useful academic and experiential fields and factors I came to widen my understanding as the decades progressed. My final hour of engagement with that Cause and its many fertile fields, rivers and tributaries had also begun. As I headed into the middle years, 65 to 75, of late adulthood as some human development theorists call the years from 60 to 80 in the lifespan, my final hour had indeed begun. Who knows what would lie ahead as I lived into old age, the years after 80, if I lasted that long.

[creativesoul]

hoy- this is good- but i want to introduce you to peter collier of portland state university- he was - is still the best - ever of all my professors- he teaches sociology which is what i got a BA in- i am not done learning- but for now i like the sociology of kauai= [kauai children] study going in the ocean= that is what i love today- but seriously find hin- he really speaks this language
born a bahai- i walk the red road- but i know plenty of bahai= s aloha- my father- his 'out of hollywood' book etc

[RonPrice]

Thanks, creativesoul, for your personal and thoughtful response. It's always good to meet another Baha'i in cyberspace especially living as my wife and I do in a small Baha'i Group in a rural part of Tasmania. I'll give you the link to my annual email to save me writing more about my life in this small space: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/auto.html ....and thanks again for your "creative" response.-Ron

[Steve Plonk]

Ron, Enjoyed reading this one. Appears you've had a long and varied career... I remember one guy we studied in sociology...His name was Max Weber...

I ended up getting a B.S. in Public Health, with a minor in Counseling, and, later, another B.S. in Special Education with a teaching certificate attached, both at "land grant" universities.

Creative Soul, what is "walk the red road" ? Does that have to do with Bahais or
with Amerindian religion? Very interesting...I didn't know your folks were Bahais.

[creativesoul]

white bison.org= wallace black ekl- waliking in a scared way-google the red road and there are many chants and songs you can listen to- but the actual experience of 'walking the red road' is quite different than what you can read, or see in photos= the experience of walking the red road is about honoring GREAT SPIRIT and the great mystery and the keeper of the four directions- the medicine wheel speaks of a time=- when black, red, yellow and white will all turn and face the center and share what we call 'our medicine' ususally quite healing-ultimately it s a road leading to what i and many other s believe is a connection to Creator- of which i believe and FEEL that i have- the ceremonies validate the things we see both on the physical and spiritual levels- and now most of us are praying for the sacred mother-planet- and the future generations-
some of us feel we are 'walkinging two worlds-' which for the ones 'inside the cookie cutter box' is difficult for them to capire- understand-so it is a native thing[of the land] not an indian thing- although due to what has happened to natives- you are blessed to be included in those ceremonies- aloha

[creativesoul]

tasmania- wow- I AM SO curious ABOUT THE NATIVES OF THAT PLACE- WHEW=

[RonPrice]

Max Weber is still part of the core of sociological theory, Steve. You, too, have had a varied academic and professional career. I wish you well from Tasmania. As far as "the natives" are concerned, they had a difficult time to put it mildly; you can google that topic for some cruel stories, some of the most bitter and destructive experiences of indigenous peoples in the world.-Ron

[RonPrice]

Your comments, creativesoul, on the spiritual path I'm sure are shared with millions of others, especially the native, the indigenous, the aboriginal, peoples around the world. When I was in my early 20s, I went to live among the Inuit on Baffin Island. After studying politics, sociology, philosophy and psychology back in the 1960s, I became highly impressed with Inuit culture and became a primary school teacher in the town of Iqaluit, what was then called Frobisher Bay.

There is now a small Baha'i community in all the major administrative sections/districts of Canada's Northwest Territories including Nunavut. In the week I retired from a 40 year working life(1959-1999), 1 April 1999, the federal territory of Nunavut was created--making it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world. This probably does not interest that many here at Studio Eight but it is part of my memory/cultural baggage, interest inventory, as I head into my 70s.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the Baha'i Faith is the 2nd most widespread religion on Earth. I'll say no more here about this new world Faith; readers can always google the subject at the official international Baha'i site at: http://www.bahai.org/ ...among other internet locations.

[creativesoul]

i know bahai and there are native medicine ppl that are bahai as well- i have no beef with the bahai at all- extremely kind people=i am very interetsed inanything you may have to say on the topic- i just got really involvd in the red road

[RonPrice]

As I said, creativesoul, if you go to the official international site of the Baha'i Faith at: www.bahai.org.au/ ........you will find any information you might want. If you have any questions you can write to me at my website at: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/ or my email address: ronprice9@gmail.com ....or here at Studio Eight. -Ron Price, George Town, Tasmania

[creativesoul]

I CHECKED IT OUT- I FORWARDED IT TO THE FATHER UNTI AND HE AND YOU MAY FIND COMMON GROUNDS- ALOHA

[RonPrice]

I look forward to hearing from your father, creativesoul, at my email address whenever the time is right for him.-Ron