My first Sociology class was a revelation. I still have the notes I took, though they're in a cabinet in the back of the overstuffed garage.

The Professor was soft spoken, Iranian, brilliant, refined, and visting from somewhere. (Hence my realization that Prestigious University (PU) got heavy hitters from around the world who wanted a term or a year at PU. So I sought them out during the rest of my college years.)

There are different methods of explaining why things are the way they are, he explained:

*Who benifits?

*Who rules?

*The "Great Men" theory.

*Historical Materialism.

*Psychological or Social Psychological theories.

*And so on.

They are obvious, with regular people using them willy-nilly, switching back and forth haphazardly, not really noticing. (Social scientists presumably are more rigorous.)

All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. (None of them can actually contain reality, no explanation can. The map is not the territory.)

I don't really have a larger point. I was just remembering the class, and hadn't posted to this powerful blog in a while.