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Why are so many sociologists Jewish?

Just a question, I study sociology and so many of our theorists are jewish, marx, hoschschild, bernstein, rosenthal, zaretsky etc. just wondered why so many were jewish? not anything antisemitic, just curious

Reply 1

Ascend

This is a broader question of Jewish 'overrepresentation' in intellectual achievements. I do not know the answer but it seems like sociologists aren't too keen on studying such a sensitive topic, giving way to conspiracy theorists and bigots to hijack the debate.

Reply 2

zombie2233

Original post by Ferrograd

Do u study it at degree level

Reply 3

-Eirlys-

Debate & Current Affairs Helper

I've moved this thread to 'society'. The N&CA section is only for headlines and new stories with links.

Reply 4

the bear

the Jewish people are an intellectual powerhouse; not just in pseudo-sciences such as sociology & psychology, but in proper subjects such as Math, Physics etc.

Reply 5

username4528716

Original post by zombie2233

Do u study it at degree level

A-Level, also did GCSE.

Reply 6

username4528716

Original post by Ascend

Certainly, Jews do seem to be overrepresented in certain institutions. I've seen people claiming they are overrepresented in finance, but never sociology.

Reply 7

Arran90

How long will this discussion last before the mods shut it down at the behest of some Zionist or SJW (who probably isn't Jewish but purports to being a Jew) crying crocodile tears over anti-Semitism, simply because it doesn't fit in with TSRs business model or could frighten away investors?

Original post by Ferrograd

It is a good question. I had a science teacher who was a critic of sociology and stated that over half of sociology is highly specific to particular nations or communities of people and less than half is generic which applies to almost all nations and people. He then started rambling on about plenty of stuff written by American sociologists is not applicable in Britain due to differences in culture, social expectations, the education system, the corporate environment etc. and how the converse probably is true for stuff written by British sociologists in the US. Next he stated that stuff about white indigenous people in both Britain and the US isn't always applicable to immigrant and ethnic minority communities living in these countries, and how the demographic composition of the US is significantly different from Britain.

Reply 8

The RAR

Jews have always dominated academics and the intellectual sector throughout history, it's why so many people are anti-Semites because they are jealous of their success or fear that they are somehow "controlling the world".
I really don't know why Jews have always dominated academics, I think it's because they have a spirit similar to Asian families in wanting to succeed and become the best.

Reply 9

Ascend

Original post by Arran90

That depends on whether you turn it into some antisemitic conspiracy.

Original post by Arran90

'Aryan' sciences

Reply 10

Arran90

Original post by Ferrograd

Are Jews that are not Ashkenazi into sociology or is it just Ashkenazi Jews living in Europe and North America?

If it is only Ashkenazi Jews living in Europe and North America then it might have something to do with being a disliked minority group, or an out-group in sociologists parlance, which developed the desire to try to better understand how the society that they lived in operates, with the end result of producing theories.

I have noticed that some Muslims - usually from higher socioeconomic groups and with a fairly socially liberal stance - have started getting into the sociology game but they are yet to produce any new theories. It's common for them to think with a similar mindset of 'western' sociologists and use their parlance when writing articles - mostly involving Muslims - even though such sociology may well be suboptimal (or even downright wrong) when dealing with Muslims or people outside of the fold of white and not religious or mildly Christian indigenous folk. Muslim scholars tend to shun western sociology.

Reply 11

DR.DOOM

I'm Jewish and I did Psychology and Sociology as an A-level. What I think is the reason why, is because many of the theories made in the past were in the aftermath of World War 2. Sociology was also founded in the late 18th century by August Comte so this explains why so many Jewish scholars developed ideas on society because of world war 2. Psychologists and sociologists like Phillip Zimbardo, Stanley Milgram and Theodor Adorno were all interested in why the Nazi's committed war crimes and their reasoning for it. If you think about it, the Nazi's killed 6 million Jews (as well as a total of over 10 million if we count Soviets and other minorities like the Romani people) just because Hitler said that Jews were a threat to his theory of the "superior Aryan race", this is insane because it's just a statement from someone who was high on lord knows what drugs he took and was completely disillusioned. Therefore, theories were developed such as Zimbardo's Lucifer Effect as well as experiments which were carried out to test how a human can go from a saint to evil which was found in Milgram's Shock Experiment. This scientific intelligence can be used to understand human nature and how we can stop future catastrophe's from occurring in modern day society.

As for Marxism, it came from Karl Marx (who was Jewish) and Friedrich Engels (who was Christian). I do not support Marxism in anyway but I was fairly objective from what I learnt about it as I agreed with some of their ideas (mainly ones on education) while others I disagreed with. You have to remember that those who were inspired by Marxism and took it into their own hands in history were not Jewish, such as Kim Il Sung, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Castro, Guevara and so forth.

I guess most ideas were exploring how to make a "society of saints" as Durkheim explained because no one wanted a repeat of world war 2 but that isn't achievable as Durkheim pointed out. One day I'd like to come together with a group of other sociologists to make a documentary of some sort on society, it's been a great interest of mine so you can add one more Jewish person to your list :biggrin:

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 12

BlueIndigoViolet

Original post by Arran90

That's untrue as there is no evidence that Jews excelled in academics before 1800 at the earliest. They were involved in banking and money lending for centuries before this but not science subjects.

There is some Jewish strength in abstract areas of science but I'm doubtful that Jews dominate in 'Aryan' sciences like chemistry and engineering.