Republican/Democrat affiliation is a a somewhat different matter, of course, and increasingly about litmus test questions.

My 13-year-old son just expressed amazement that Lincoln was a Republican. After all, he seemed to stand for all kinds of things now associated with Democrats.

Maybe it’s time to historicize system theory.

I think you are right that awareness of social inequalities is an important aspect when it comes to the decision for stuying sociology. Yet I would want to add: it is not the only aspect.

Although I accept your description of the study choices i wouldn’t mix left with an awareness of social inequalities.
Last not least left and r

The other part is the social background of students who choose to study sociology,and that changes, too. In the 1990s, people with a political affiliation toward the left would chose sociology as their subject - and almost everybody in a student cohort would share some basic orientations in political thinking; if one did not share this orientation this was a matter of discussion. But this had also to do with the social background of young people starting to study sociology and with subjects offered within the diploma-education. In the 1990s more people from the lower strata discovered socilogy as a good possibility to enter the German university system whereas they had no chance (or almost no chance) to get into economy, medicine or law. Particularly in disciplines such as medicine and law, students are more homogeneous, such that the majority of them are sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers or from academics of adjacent disciplins. Today it seems like the social background of students in sociology has become more heterogeneous, such that you find students from all strata and milieus, and increasingly, find the sons and daughters of academics of almost all disciplines. It is not as unusual for the son or daughter of an entrepreneur to study sociology as it was ten years ago.

A reasonable question. I will address it in a future blog post.

Very roughly speaking, modern day ‘Left-wingers’ prioritize the well being of people, especially those not so well off. As a result they seek a system of government that assures a good life for a nations citizens (including social security, freedom from oppressive traditions and authorities such as the helplessness promulgated by orthodox Christianity’).

Modern day ‘Right-wingers’ instead prioritize the well being of corporations and the promotion of economic growth. As a result they seek a system of government that assures good conditions for a nation’s capitalists and entrepreneurs (including fighting unions and social security, and promoting an authoritarian and traditionalist mind set among workers, including the passive Christian promise of salvation in heaven rather than on earth).

Of course, both the left and right run the risk of becoming anti-liberal.

Perverted forms of ‘leftism’ have led to authoritarian communist societies, a fact that should not be confused with being ‘left’. Cf. the ‘left wing’ liberal Bakunin who fought Marx vigorously and warned of the dangers of a new “red bureaucracy” which would prove to be “the most vile and terrible lie that our century has created.”

Similarly, the right’s reliance on irrationally motivated authority, faith and tradition are basic components of fascism, a fact that should also not be confused with being ‘right’. Cf. the antiauthoritarian ‘right wing’ liberal Adam Smith who spoke of “those who live by profit” especially monopolistic ones “an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”

In terms of professors, I guess sociologists study real societies, groups and individuals and tend to adopt their goals and priorities. Economists who study economies, corporations and homo economici similarly tend to internalize their priorities. Those economists who prioritize people over corporations (who perhaps come from or know people from the not so well of walks of life) may then be left.

Btw, I am honestly curious about how you square the rational ambitions of classical liberalism with the irrational conservative ideals on ‘orthodox Christianity’ and reliance on Authority? Christianity and Authority are of course practical tools for pacifying workers and more generally promoting corporate rather than individual freedom. This seems highly consistent with interests of the Smithian ‘profiteer’, but hardly with the sentiments of Smith himself.