Frisse drank uit oude zakken: Hoe in de sociologie nieuwe vragen te stellen en tegelijk klassieke vragen verder te brengen [Refreshing drinks from old bottles: How to raise new questions in sociology while advancing classical ones]

Abstract

Against the backdrop of calls for renewal in Dutch sociology the author applies principles for asking questions in sociology and argues that broaching refreshing questions is furthered by sticking to classical ones. After showing how his own questions unfolded since the 1970s, the author reviews the Dutch state of sociology’s three main questions. As to the problem of inequality, the question of income disparities within countries progresses little by addressing effects of free trade in finished products, and may advance more by focussing liberalization of trade in agricultural products and the cartel of oil producers, whereas progress was and will be made in matters of the intergenerational transmission of life chances by shifting from questions about macro forces to questions on multiple actors. Old questions on societal cohesion are about criminals, victims, people who present gifts, people who receive presents, and bowling alone; new fruitful ones are about bowling apart, who gives to whom, and who injures whom. New questions about rationalization are about testing for secularization among Dutch Orthodox Protestants and Muslims. The question of the holocaust is not a question about a rationalized state. The question of why state-led genocide arose is to be articulated by bringing in the interplay of multiple institutions and of individuals and institutions.