Afterthought: On Writing; On Writing Sociology

Abstract

Quoting the Czech poet Jan Skacel’s opinion on the plight of the poet (who, in Skacel’s words, only discovers the verses that &dquo;were always, deep down, there&dquo;), Milan Kundera commented (in LArt du roman, 1986), &dquo;To write, means for the poet to crush the wall behind which something that ’was always there’ hides.&dquo; In this respect, the task of the poet is not different from the work of history, which also discovers rather than &dquo;invents&dquo;: History, like poets, uncovers, in ever new situations, human possibilities previously hidden. What history does matter-of factly is a challenge, a task, and a mission for the poet. To rise to this mission, the poet must refuse to serve up truths known beforehand and well-worn truths already &dquo;obvious&dquo; because they have been brought to the surface and left floating there. It does not matter whether such truths &dquo;assumed in advance&dquo; are classified as revolutionary or dissident, Christian or atheist-or how right and proper, noble and just they are or have been proclaimed to be. Whatever their denomination, those &dquo;truths&dquo; are not this &dquo;something hidden&dquo; that the poet is called to uncover; they are, rather, parts of the wall that the poet’s mission is to crush. Spokesmen for the obvious, selfevident, and &dquo;what we all believe, don’t we?&dquo; are false poets, said Kundera. But what, if anything, does the poet’s vocation have to do with the sociologist’s calling ? We sociologists rarely write poems. (Some of us who do take for the time of writing a leave of absence from our professional pursuits.) And yet if we do not wish to share the fate of &dquo;false poets&dquo; and resent being &dquo;false sociologists,&dquo; we ought to come as close as the true poets do to the yet-hidden human possibilities. And for that reason, we need to pierce the walls of the obvious and selfevident, of that prevailing ideological fashion of the day whose commonality is