Philip Zuckerman - The Social Theory of W.E.B. Du Bois

The Social Theory of W.E.B. Du Bois

Editor

PHIL ZUCKERMAN

Pitzer College

Copyright 2004 by Sage Publications, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963.
[Essays. Selections]
The social theory of W.E.B. Du Bois / edited and with an introduction by Phil Zuckerman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-2870-7ISBN 0-7619-2871-5 (pbk.)
1. Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963-Political and social views. 2. Social sciencesUnited StatesPhilosophy. 3. African AmericansSocial conditionsTo 1964. 4. African AmericansCivil rightsHistory20th century. 5. United StatesRace relations. 6. Social problemsUnited StatesHistory20th century. 7. United StatesSocial conditions20th century. 8. International relations. I. Zuckerman, Phil. II. Title.

E185.97.D73A25 2004
305.8960730092dc22

2003024076

04 05 06 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

I would like to thank Benton Johnson, Sandra Barnes, Ernest Allen, and especially Harry Lefever for their critical feedback and input. Appreciation is also extended to the following for all their work and assistance: Frederick Courtright, Amber Carrow, Joanne Zhang, and Elizabeth Shatzer. I would also like to sincerely thank Vonessa Vondera and Jerry Westby at wonderful Pine Forge Press.

A s an undergraduate majoring in sociology, and subsequently as a graduate student pursuing advanced degrees in the same discipline, I was taught that there were essentially three founders of the disciplinethree shapers, three intellectual visionaries, three seminal scholars who forged the theoretical backbone of sociology: Karl Marx (1818-1883) from Germany, Max Weber (1864-1920) from Germany, and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) from France. These three Europeans who wrote in the latter half of the 19th century andexcluding Marxinto the early decades of the 20th century, unambiguously constituted the big three. The canonization of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim as comprising the widely recognized trinity of sociological theory is well established within various secondary texts (Hurst, 2000; Giddens, 1971; Hadden, 1997; Altschuler, 1998; Pampel, 2000; Gane, 1988), as well as various popular introductory monographs (Berger, 1963; Collins, 1992; Willis, 1996; Charon, 1998, 2002; Kanagy and Kraybill, 1999; Curra, 2003). And in their survey of American professors who teach social theory, Brint and LaValle (2000) found that Marx, Weber, and Durkheim undisputedly constitute the founders of the field, with their names appearing on virtually every returned survey as theorists who are important to teach in a classical theory course. While the centrality of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim to sociology and social theory is taken for granted, additional scholars are also sometimes included in the canon, such as Vilfred Pareto (1848-1923) of Italy, Georg Simmel (1858-1918) of Germany, and George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) of the United States (see Collins and Makowsky, 1998; Pampel, 2000; Adams and Sydie, 2002; Ritzer, 2000a; Kivisto, 1998). Still others who are occasionally mentioned as significant founders of the sociological enterprise include the Frenchman Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the Englishman Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), and the American Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929).

One might be tempted to conclude that the reason Marx, Weber, and Durkheimalong with some of the additional individuals mentioned aboveare so widely recognized as the founding theorists of sociology is simply that they were the first to publish distinctly sociological analyses, and furthermore, that what they published was impressive and insightful in terms of both quantity and quality. However, such a conclusion would be inaccurate and easily challenged by a deeper investigation into the history of sociological scholarship. Canonization, as George Ritzer (2003:5-6) points out, is never a clean, objective process based upon who wrote what first or who wrote what best. Dont misunderstand me; Marx, Weber, and Durkheim were prolific, path-breaking social theorists who added enormously to our understanding of human behavior and its relationship to social institutions. However, there were others. There were other scholarscontemporaries of the big threewho were just as prolific and equally path-breaking in their sociological analyses. Yet their work was largely overlooked because the process of canonization invariably reflects political relations, racial fissures, class differences, national hierarchies, gender biases, and a host of other related imbalances of power, authority, and access to the means of scholarly production, distribution, and recognition. It is only by exposing such dynamics that we can accurately account for the fact that many intellectual contemporaries of the big three were almost completely ignored and wholly excludedor as Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantely (1998) argue, literally erasedfrom the canon of classical sociological theory. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) of the United States, Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) of England, and Marianne Weber (1870-1954) of Germany stand out as glaring examples. All three women wrote extensively on social matters of vast theoretical significance, and yet until very recently, were completely ignored within the discipline. Of course, an additional glaring, and perhaps ultimate example of a ground-breaking, prolific, and seminal social theorist whose breath-taking sociological and theoretical output was systematically ignored, excluded, and erased by the academic powers that be, is that of W. E. B. Du Bois of the United States.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois1 (pronounced Due-Boyss) was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1868. He died in Accra, Ghana, on August 27, 1963. The mere dates of his life span (18681963) are cause to pause. He was born just after the Civil War, and he died as the Vietnam War was well under way. He was born when Tchaikovsky was beginning to compose his classical orchestral works, and he died as the Beatles early hits were topping the pop charts. He was born a few years after the defeat of slavery, and he died the night before Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech at the nations capital. He was born before the invention of the telephone, and he died when transcontinental airplanes were flying regularly all over the world. He was born before the invention of the electric light bulb, and he died at a time when astronauts were orbiting the earth in space. He was born just after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and he died the year of John F. Kennedys assassination. Few individuals have lived through a greater period of historical, cultural, and technological change.