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CHAPTER 7 Mizrahi (Oriental) Jewry arrived in Israel under circumstances created by the initiatives of the Zionist movement which was mostly European. The reality formed in Israel by the encounter between the two parts of the Jewish people strictly negates both the expectations of the Mizrahim and the original ideas of Ashkenazi Zionism. The continuance of the current state of affairs is a constant contradiction to the Zionist dream of the creation of a new Jewish person in a new Jewish society, which would set an example for humanity . A conscious action on behalf of the Mizrahim is the only way to get closer to the realization of that dream. -Shlomo Swirski "Developed to Be Underdeveloped" Marxism Pluralism is an agenda of mediation and compromise, the concern of which is the amelioration of the status of underprivileged social groups in society. Radicalism is an agenda of contention and struggle, the concern ofwhich is the transformation of the social structure. An American anthology from 1971 introduces "radical sociology" as follows: Mainstream, contemporary sociology is largely the creation of coldwar liberals who, for the most part, have been content to observe and rationalize the operations of the American colossus from a position of privilege in the name of science. The emerging radical sociology rejects and condemns this posture and sees its responsibility as that of opposing such forces. (D. J. Colfax & J. L. Roach, eds., 1971:3) Though radical sociology is as old as sociology itself-Karl Marx was certainly a radical-a recognizable trend with that label made its appear119 120 Chapter 7 ance in conjunction with the emergence of the peace and civil rights movements, and more broadly the New Left, in the mid-1960s. Insurgent sociologists proclaimed the new trend at conventions of the American Sociological Association of those years and eventually organized in a Sociology Liberation Movement and later in the still active Radical Caucus of the ASA (cf.J. D. Colfax &J. L. Roach, cds., 1971; D. Horowitz, ed., 1971;Sociological Inquiry 40 (Winter, 1970); R. Blackburn, ed., 1972; R. Flacks & G. Turkel, 1978; for a retrospective account see M. Oppenheimer, M. .J. Murray & R. F. Levine, eds., 1990; and for a recent discussion of American intellectual culture from this perspective see N. Birnbaum, 1988). Radical sociology was doubly critical-critical towards the prevailing social order, but no less so towards the dominant practice within academic sociology itself. It deplored the discipline's compliance with dominant interests and preoccupation with professional decorum. It called upon sociologists if not to be less concerned with the technicalities of their work, at least to be more conscious of the causes they serve. It regarded sociology as a social vocation, rather than professional occupation , and placed at the heart of the discipline's agenda the question of its normative commitments. Its own notion of the sociological rationale was labeled by one protagonist as "participatory radicalism," that is, scholarship measured in terms of relevance and responsibility. Its principal task is one of providing research support and resources for the oppressed, in an effort to assist them in the struggle against the powerful and the oppressive. The political orientation of the participatory radicals ... ranges in its heterogeneity from left-liberal to revolutionary. The work produced by those who fall into this category ... tends to be applied, only loosely theoretical, and addressed to the political and social needs of various groups and agencies devoted to radical change. U. D. Colfax, 1971 :82) Contrasting itselfwith mainstream sociology, which it considered elitist and conservative, radical sociology claimed to be popular and revolutionary . Colfax, for one, defines the awareness of the "subjective" role of the knower in the creation of knowledge as "epistemological reflexivity" and of the "objective" social context of knowledge as "ontological reflexivity " and suggests that radical sociology's distinction, compared to other sociological approaches, is its high reflexivity in both dimensions (1971 :87-90). Radical sociology argued, in other words, that sociology is inescapably social and thus ought to disclose its implicit political premises and to reflect upon them. It objected to the scientist, objectivist, and positivist claims of both structuralist and empiricist, as well as orthodox Marxist, approaches in sociology. Developed to be Underdeveloped 121 In reference to the context of its origins in the West, radical sociology opposed the capitalist social order and the commodification ofsocial life. To this purpose it used components of Marxist analysis of class exploitation and human alienation. At the same time it also objected to the communist social order and the totalitarian bureaucratization of...

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