[SSC] SSC Digest, Vol 17, Issue 25

Tue May 22 21:43:37 UTC 2012

Dear Mike,

I think your piece on how you became (and perhaps have stayed?) a sociologist is both illuminating and moving. My heart goes out to the man 
you were working with who died so young. I know this was not the focus of the piece, but it gave me as much pause as anything else in it. To 
recognise our humanity and fragility, the lives that the 'ology' can so easily obscure.

Now I understand the 'red pill' that appeared on the 'what do I want to teach' paper from the Open Day. Your point about creating conditions -
- spaces, times but also opportunities and struggles -- for this sort of too much thinking (never!) to be possible is superb. I hope we're 
contributing to this with our work here...and I think that your points from your work are the sorts of things we could find more time to talk 
about. 

It would be fun to problematise the red/blue pill scenario. It has something original-sinny about it on the one hand (stories of suffering 
for choosing 'knowledge' and agency over the false consciousness of ignoring), and Soma-like on the other... You could do a whole course on 
critique and social struggle via popular culture this way. Problematic: explore your relationship with 'the red pill'. Hmm.

Steve G. is a good friend of mine. I was delighted to see his name here and find the connection!

I think this would be great for people interested in social science to read. Maybe consider posting it on the SSC blog, or linking in your 
bio? This reminds me that we had spoken once about working on an online library... Is your PhD available?

Best,
Sarah

On Tue 22/05/12 12:00, ssc-request at lists.aktivix.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. The Red Pill (Mike Ward)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 08:22:18 +0100
> From: "Mike Ward" <miward at l
> incoln.ac.uk>
To: <ssc at lis
> ts.aktivix.org>
Subject: [SSC] The Red Pill
> Message-ID:
> <34BD87617778BE4ABFC9F9F2AEC6509306A4F343 at AEXCMS01.network.uni>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hi All
> 
> I really enjoyed the AGM on Saturday and think it was very positive indeed.
> When I was at the meeting I remembered about a piece I wrote a while ago
> for a sociology blog about my relationship with the subject. It occurred to
> me that sociology was very much like the red pill in the film the Matrix,
> where the lead character Neo takes a pill to help him see the world in a
> different way. I wanted to share this with you all at the SSC, because in a
> way, I think we all have a relationship with the red pill. 
> http://socofed.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/sociology-and-me-the-ba
> ttle-with-the-little-red-pill/
> Cheers
> Mike Ward 
> 
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> End of SSC Digest, Vol 17, Issue 25
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