RAT ZA DUŠU SOCIOLOGIJE: SUKOB DVEJU VIZIJA SOCIOLOGIJE U KONTEKSTU DRUŠTVENIH PROMENA DRUGE POLOVINE XX VEKA
A WAR FOR THE SOUL OF SOCIOLOGY: A CONFLICT OF TWO VISIONS OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL CHANGES IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The paper considers substantial changes in sociology which started in the sixties. By using the method of contextual analysis, these changes in the sociologist’s identity are situated in the context of social changes in the second half of the XX century, that is, in the context of the world revolution of 1968 and the culture wars. Therefore, Wallerstein’s world-system perspective and Hartman’s history of the culture wars served as a theoretical foundation for understanding the socio-historical context in which a metamorphosis of the sociological science took place. In the paper, the author presents three complementary contentions. The first one is that during the sixties sociology, like the rest of the scholarly community, found itself drawn into the tumultuous social events of that time. The next contention is that sociology itself, unlike other academic disciplines, has undergone far-reaching transformative processes as a consequence of these social upheavals. Lastly, the author contends that a conflict of two diametrically opposed visions of sociology, a conflict of what Friedrichs designated as “the priestly and the prophetic mode”, should be perceived as a clash of the New Left and the reactionary fraction of the Old Left within the sociological community. The main contribution of this paper is the identification, systematization and interpretation of the sociology wars.

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