#fascists #sociology
"Why Fascists Hate Sociology
The anti-sociology politicians are on to something in grasping the field’s power.
Fascists hate sociology, and not without cause: Some of the discipline’s most basic lessons can impede the authoritarian control fascists aim to exert over the state, the economy and society as a whole. The extent to which the architects of fascism consciously grasp sociology’s threat isn’t clear, nor is it clear how much it matters. Even if Florida’s (to take the most egregious example) anti-sociology politicians are acting on instinct, the results are the same. In their bones they know sociology is the enemy and must be neutralized.
Fascist efforts to control a populace employ a familiar set of strategies: Establish the purity of a people—white Christians, in the case of the U.S.—as under threat by outsiders; undermine empathy for outsiders by dehumanizing them; create a mythical past of national greatness; deny that injustice can be perpetuated by the routine workings of societal institutions; define present social arrangements as naturally or divinely ordained; and undermine, as much as possible, growth of the kind of self-knowledge that exposes the moral corruption of fascism.
The ultimate goal of fascism—anyone still squeamish about applying this term to the contemporary U.S. hasn’t been paying attention—is to align economic power with state power, in the interest of profits and wealth accumulation. To make this possible, a populace must be led to subordinate reason to emotion. At root, that’s how fascist control works: Offer relief from feelings of insignificance and powerlessness in exchange for obedience. Sociology is about nurturing, on the contrary, capacities for critical self-reflection and rational self-government. Which is, of course, a danger to oligarchs and their hangers-on."
https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2026/04/02/why-fascists-hate-sociology-opinion