First Expressive Essay: What really interests me in
sociology
In 1969 I believed that we were on the verge of a
revolution. I thought that the instituted order would
crumble into to dust and that all we had to do was to "tune
in, turn on, and drop out." If we refused to carry out the
established roles (including student, worker, and
consumer), the institutional order would collapse--"suppose
they gave a war, and no one came?" That is how incredibly
naive and ignorant I was when I graduated from high school
and started college. First, I majored in political
science, because I thought that we could elect a new
generation of leaders (people like Bill Clinton and Al
Gore). Then, in 1970, after becoming totally disenchanted
by my experience as local campaign manager for an anti-war
U.S. Senate candidate, I became a sociology major. I had
learned that social movements and social change produce
political change. You can't legislate social change!
After a quarter of a century of study, I'm still committed
to that assertion. That's why I study social movements.
That's why I'm interested in community politics. That's
why I write papers about American third-party political
movements (1870-1900). That's why I write about the
politics of land-use in contemporary California--from
environmentalism to tax revolt to growth control.