
You know what stings the most? It’s not the fact that people think I’m wasting my life on something as ridiculous as sociology.
It’s that they don’t even know what the hell sociology is. They look at me like I’ve declared my life’s work to be studying the mating habits of squirrels.
And you can’t blame them. You can’t. Most people can’t even name the difference between sociology and psychology.
To them, it’s all some kind of dreamy, airy-fairy bullshit to help you figure out why your neighbor leaves his lawnmower on his front porch at 3 a.m.
But here I am spending my days cracking codes on social behavior and constructing models that define, or at least try to define, why people do the things they do.
They call it science. They call it arts.
To the average Joe? It’s just fluff.
It wasn’t always like this.
Once, I thought I had it all figured out. I was one of those teenagers who read Nietzsche on a whim—because it made me feel smart, like I had this tortured view of the world that nobody else could possibly understand.
I don’t know, maybe I was just bored and needed a way to feel alive. Nietzsche’s bleak view on the human condition matched my mood; all that talk about the Übermensch and the will to power, like the answer to all life’s questions was wrapped up in defiance, strength, and above all, destruction.
Everything about that guy’s philosophy screamed, “Let it burn.” It didn’t matter if the world was falling apart—just make it fall apart.
Then I got older.
That was the fun part. Getting older made me realize that the world didn’t care about how much Nietzsche I could recite.
Instead, I learned that the world really doesn’t care about you at all.
It doesn’t care about sociology either.
You dive into sociology hoping for some clarity on this swirling, contradictory chaos of human behavior, and what do you get?
Ignorance and ridicule.
Somewhere, in the deep recesses of society, sociology is that kid who nobody invites to the dance because they don’t know how to “fit in” with the cool kids.
The cool kids are out there, strutting around with their economists, their psychologists, and their goddamn engineers.
It’s always the same. Those fields get their validation because they can talk about numbers, about concrete, visible, measurable results.
Sociology? “Eh, you guys talk about feelings and vague constructs. You’re just guessing.”
And maybe we are. Hell, I’ll admit it. We’re all just throwing darts in the dark, making educated guesses about how society ticks.
But even Nietzsche would agree with me here: “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
We’re the ones wading through the chaos, looking for meaning in it. That’s why the general public can’t wrap their heads around it—because they don’t want to face the fact that everything around them is constructed.
It’s easier to believe that things are the way they are because they have to be. People love their status quos.
Take this anecdote, for instance. One of my friends, a guy who’s so deep in his own nihilism that it practically oozes from his pores, took me to a bar once, right?
We were sitting there, talking about life, and of course, he started ragging on my sociology studies. He said, “You’re just studying nonsense. All this talk about power structures, inequality—it’s a distraction. We should all just accept that everything’s broken and that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
I tried explaining to him that it’s not about accepting it—it’s about understanding it, dismantling it. But he just took a swig of his beer and went back to complaining about his shitty job.
And that’s the thing, right? Most people don’t want to look too closely at what’s wrong with the world. They want their little illusion that everything’s okay.
The Existential Dilemma: Why We Are Perceived as ‘The Dreamers’
Karl Marx once said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”
Now, that’s a quote I can stand behind. It’s the reason sociology exists. We look at society, try to dissect it, and maybe—just maybe—use that knowledge to change it.
But that’s the crux of the problem: People don’t want change. They don’t want to look too closely at their cozy little systems, their comfortable lives. They’d rather label sociology as “fluff” than acknowledge it might hold a mirror to their warped view of reality.
I remember another time, sitting around with some old high school friends at a reunion. The conversation drifted toward me, and of course, someone asked, “So, what do you do now? You still studying that sociology stuff?”
And they said it like it was a joke, like it was some kind of embarrassing hobby I had on the side. “You mean, like, studying why people protest or why they’re oppressed?”
They snickered. And it hit me—sociology is the field everyone thinks they already know, so there’s no reason to take it seriously.
Everybody thinks they’re an expert on why people act the way they do because, hey, they’ve lived through it, haven’t they?
The truth is, that’s exactly the problem. Sociology challenges the core assumptions of how society works. It forces us to reckon with uncomfortable truths, like the fact that the “American Dream” is mostly a farce.
Most people don’t want to face that. They don’t want to confront the possibility that their whole existence might just be a byproduct of social engineering.
To them, it’s easier to dismiss it. To ignore it. To roll their eyes at the guy with the “fluffy” theories.
Sociology: A Tool for the Disenfranchised, or Just Fantasy?
Then there are the studies, the numbers, the graphs. Sociologists aren’t just sitting around, waxing poetic about the state of the world.
No, we’ve got tools. We’ve got theories, models, statistical analyses. But when people think of sociology, they see nothing but abstract ideas and fluffy discussions on gender, race, and inequality.
They don’t see the hard work behind the numbers. They don’t see the way we use regression models or cluster analysis to uncover patterns in social behavior.
But again, that’s the issue. The general public has no appetite for anything that’s not wrapped up in a nice, neat, easily digestible package.
Numbers are one thing; anything too abstract, too theoretical? That’s just nonsense. We’re all just “talking heads” with too much time on our hands.
Meanwhile, economists get praised for their statistical models that, in my humble opinion, often ignore the very structures that sociology attempts to confront.
Explaining Sociology As Simply as Possible
Okay, kid. Let’s break this down. You know how everyone in the world has different houses, different families, different jobs, right?
And you know how sometimes people argue about why they have more than other people?
Well, sociologists are the ones who try to figure out why that happens.
We study how things like money, education, and even race change the way people live. It’s like trying to figure out why one group of kids at school gets more toys than another group.
But here’s the thing, kid: The world doesn’t want you to ask those questions. The world just wants you to accept that some kids get more toys, and that’s just how it is.
We, the sociologists, come along and say, “Hey, maybe we should stop pretending everything is fair. Maybe we should look at why some kids don’t even get toys in the first place.”
And that’s when people start getting uncomfortable. Because they don’t want the world to change. They want to keep pretending that things are fine. So they’ll call us dreamers. They’ll call us fools. But we keep asking the questions.
Data and Dissent: Opposing Voices
Some people—some powerful voices—argue that sociology offers crucial insights that can lead to real-world change. Authors like Martha Nussbaum argue that sociology isn’t just a theoretical exercise; it’s a way to fundamentally reshape societies for the better.
Films like The Social Network and books like Outliers challenge the conventional wisdom of how social systems work and reveal just how much sociology shapes our everyday lives.
Hell, even someone like Max Weber, one of the founding figures of sociology, argued that understanding social systems, power, and behavior was the key to seeing how societies could evolve.
His work in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism remains a touchstone for understanding how societal structures shape individual lives and behaviors.
So, if you really want to argue that sociology is fluff, maybe try to read something that isn’t spoon-fed to you by the latest buzzfeed article.
The Conclusion
At the end of the day, maybe nothing does matter.
Maybe we are all just dust in the wind. But that doesn’t mean we don’t get to choose.
Albert Camus had it right when he said, “The struggle itself… is enough to fill a man’s heart.”
We may be swimming in a sea of nihilism, unsure of whether any of our actions truly matter, but the act of questioning, the act of seeking truth, is what keeps us human.
Maybe sociology won’t save the world. Maybe it will. But the only real choice we have is whether we will continue to ask the hard questions, or whether we’ll just stop and let the system grind us to dust.
As for me, I’ll keep questioning. Even if they think I’m just dreaming.
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