Sociology is the study of patterns of social relationships. The other sciences seem to be the study of other sorts of relationships. H. Krebs, a lurker on this Coop, wonders why in the hell won’t anyone write a book about grand concepts that sweep across disciplines (philosophy, physics, law, biology, economics, religion, psychology, chemistry, anthropology, linguistics). She suggested we start with duality and brainstorm a list. So, I thought I’d start the list with duality, list some other things on my own, and the open it up for said storm of brains. Turns out, my list didn’t get any longer. I know this post is ridiculous, but as Tony Soprano would say with a shrug, whaddaya gonna do.

Duality. Examples: (wave/particle as in quantum mechanics) (mind/body as in Decartes) (signs/signifiers as in semiotics) (yin/yang) (id/superego as in psychoanlaysis) (mass/energy as in Einstein) (structuralism/poststructuralism) (modernity/postmodernity) (base/superstructure)

Note that many of these divide up the world into two, yet really describe them as one system in which opposing forces are at work to shape diachronic change–i.e., the unity of opposites, or more precisely and interestingly, dialectics, though it’s prob very passe to talk dialectics these days…but in case you think it’s only Marx and Hagel, note that it’s sort of an organizing concept in Taoism, too.

Okay, and I tried to think of some other things that can’t get lumped in the above taxonomy. Spirals/circular stuff…nope, that’s all wrapped up in an explanation of dialectics. Okay… entropy! There you go–thermodynamics, fragmentation, nyce. Except the more I think about that, the more I think that it’s just another way of thinking about the workings of the above concept. Stick with me, I’m an amateur at this:

So, within a system there is a continuum of forces generally divisible into two categories–e.g., the light and the dark side, in the Star Wars formulation, or the solid and the scattered, etc. There are two possible ways (probably both) that these two components of the binary articulate. 1) Synthesis: They build and play off each other (see, again, dialectics). 2) Entropy: They’re conflicting and increasingly falling to pieces.

It’s not bullet-proof, but it’s cool-sounding in my head right now. And the only other category of sweeping concepts that I can think of is power. Power is about how things (like those things above) interact, are subject to one another, relate to one another. There is power in both synthesis and in entropy. So it’s like the seran wrap concept that stretches across all the other concepts I came up with, and holds them together with its awesome explanatory power.

So power is the Occam’s razor of all theories (keeping in mind that within power, there are competing theories in the structuralist/post-structuralist vein, as in coercion/consent, Machiavelli/Foucault)? I’ll buy it. You?