Yes, but WHY?

Things are running away with me. They have lots of legs and are black and shiny.

Delirium tremens must be really unpleasant. William arrived by special delivery from the Magistrates Court: remanded for psychiatric reports.
He was arrested on the steps of the Cenotaph, (‘Breach of the Peace’ and ‘Drunk and Disorderly’) during a protest against British involvement in Iraq.

Actually, William was protesting against the protest.

He had spent all his earnings from selling the Big Issue on several cans of Tenants Extra Strength (oh yes, and their was an additional charge of ‘Depositing Litter’) and what with the hot sun and the lager, William had got a bit excited: Left-wing loonies, long-haired tree-shaggers (I think he meant 'huggers') were a couple of his more printable rants.

Bernie told me that William used to be a sociologist at a prestigious university. But he became disillusioned. One day he told his head of department that sociology was ‘intellectual masturbation’. And he resigned – and went to Zambia, to do something for the Zambians. I don’t know what he did for them, but he must have finished doing it, because he came back.

But let me make it clear that I am not knocking Sociology. Sociology is about asking questions. That is what made me feel so much at home when I 'discovered' it. Yes I was originally trained as a sociologist, before I found my way to psychology via phenomenology and ethno methodology.

And the most important question is WHY? You should ask it of parent, teacher, priest, policeman, politician – in fact anyone who tries to tell you what you should do. Or how you should live.

Unacceptable answers to the question WHY? are: Because I say so; because this ‘holy book’ says so; because tradition says so; because society says so.

Keeping on asking this question is the only way you can safeguard your liberty. And although continually asking this question may lead to the accusation that sociologists end up with their head up their own arse… well that is just an occupational hazard. And one we must accept.