Sociology and freedom

The answer to the question “Why now is sociology in Russia now?”, Tashed to me by the editorship of the TRV-hunger, in my opinion, does not depend on the specific time. Now, as in the past, sociology is necessary for understanding the actions of people, as well as to clarify very important questions about freedom, the choice and responsibility of people for their actions and inaction.

I'll try to illustrate the meaning of the sociological approach with the help of an example. In March 2012, Sergey Nazarov was delivered to one of the hospitals from the Dalny police department. He diagnosed the rupture of the rectum and other damage to the internal organs. Before the operation, he told doctors that he was beaten and raped by the police with a bottle of champagne. After the operation, Sergei Nazarov fell into a coma and died. According to the investigation, police officers tortured the detainee, achieving recognition in the theft of a mobile phone. As a result of the trial, eight employees of the Dalny Police Department were found guilty and punished by deprivation of liberty for a term of 2 to 14 years.

Everyone who learned about what happened arose the question of how it became possible? Why did police officers commit prohibitive sadistic actions? Common sense often contributes to the individualization of the causes and factors of human behavior. It is often necessary for us to explain the actions of other people with their personal features. Sociology insists on consideration along with the individual features of a number of other factors - situational, organizational, systemic.

The key sociological issue in this case is what systemic features of the Russian and Tatarstan police made what happened possible. The absence of external and internal control, the pressure of the leadership in order to ensure disclosure, the need to demonstrate the winning reports, the appointment of positions on the principles of loyalty and the presence of connections, and not competence, vertical corruption ties and a sense of impunity, the presence of appropriate samples of actions? Unfortunately, much more attention after the death of Sergei Nazarov was not given to these issues that sociologists and human rights activists (Kazan human rights center and the Association of Agora) insisted, and the punishment of specific police officers, directly guilty of the death of the detainee.

One of the strokes of this situation: the Minister of Internal Affairs of Tatarstan, asgat Safarov, after his resignation in April 2012, was first appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan, and later the head of the apparatus of the President of Tatarstan, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia Rashid Nurgaliev since May 2012 has been working as deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council.

Sociologists emphasize that the actions of people are much more determined by social factors - common behaviors, role -playing, orientation to reference groups, subordination of power, etc. than personal qualities. However, this does not mean that specific participants - officials, police, military, judges, ordinary citizens - are not responsible for their actions or their absence. There is always a choice of what to do, and dominant samples of behavior are created precisely as a result of many such elections. This is another important sociological situation: social reality is not something tough and pre -predicted, it is constantly constructed by people themselves. We ourselves create the world in which we live, and in our power to change it.

As for relations with the authorities, they are always difficult to develop in sociology. Social sciences are characterized by significant critical potential; Sociological methods allow us to identify non -freedom, operation, discrimination, suppression and exclusion of entire groups, making their voices audible, as well as inefficiency and corrupt of power structures. For example, a year before the letters of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova from the Mordovian colony, a book of my St. Petersburg colleagues was published “Before and after the prison. Women's stories ”, brightly highlighting on the basis of a number of life stories“ humiliation, associated with the demoralization and desocialization of a woman and female ”in“ correctional ”colonies. Therefore, in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, independent sociology is usually suppressed, the authorities are trying to take control of sociological services.

This is exactly what is happening in Russia. Authoritative sociological centers, in particular the Center for Independent Sociological Research in St. Petersburg and the Center for Social Policy and Gender Research in Saratov, were declared “foreign agents” (in December 2014, the Central Board of CSGI ceased to exist as a legal entity). The implementation of independent projects is complicated due to the departure of international funds from Russia. Teachers of sociology with a critical position in relation to the authorities are ousted from universities, an example of which is a recent story with a non -transmission of a contract with three employees of the Department of General and Ethnic Sociology of Kazan Federal University.

As a result, the authorities are even more trapped in a trap of reality, designed by controlled media and servile "experts". History shows that the consequences of this kind of breaks between the reality of the authorities and the reality of citizens are very serious.