The game of sociology goes on in a spacious playground.

I shall admit frankly that, among the academic diversions available today, I consider sociology as a sort of 'royal game'.

Maybe it’s just an elaborate game of sound bites and kabuki gestures that are all calibrated to the precise sociopathic degree necessary to convey empathy and ethics without ever descending into either.

Good sociology is sociological work that produces meaningful descriptions of organizations and events, valid explanations of how they come about and persist, and realistic proposals for their improvement or removal.

One did not go to Ebbets Field for sociology. Exciting baseball was the attraction, and a wonder of the sociological Brooklyn Dodgers was the excitement of their play.

The social game has a deeper double meaning—that it is played not only in a society as its outward bearer but that with its help people actually "play" "society."

Is it a form of social play that underneath the words people say, there is a different conversation going on?

There is no science of sociology. Perhaps there will be, some day, when a rigorous physics gives a finished science of colloidal chemistry and that leads in turn to a complete knowledge of biology, and from there to a definitive psychology. After that we may begin to know something about sociology and politics. Sometime around the year 5000 A.D., maybe—if the human race does not commit suicide before then.

It's possible to take genuine virtues like nuance, empathy, and impartiality, and to twist them into fucked up apologia for horrible, oppressive behavior. If you play this game long enough you can essentially explain away the entire concept of bigotry, and conclude that in reality there are no bigots, there's only tragically misunderstood people with difficult childhoods and valid concerns, cruelly demonized by militant activists defaming and silencing them with such reputation-ruining slurs as "homophobe".

A game of general knowledge about sexuality. Entertaining, informative and sensual.

Sometimes it is a fun sociology litmus test, like when my friend Ricky asked me, 'Did they ever catch the black guy that did that to you?' Hmmm. It was not a black guy, Ricky, and I never said it was.

With sociology one can do anything and call it work.