ON THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF PLURALISM 29 turn, to the structure of historical society. It is precisely this problem of location that is attempted to be shrugged off, for the article concludes that it is the sociologist rather than sociology who must be vigilant; social reponsibility is implied to derive on personal integrity, which is the only arbiter of social truth : ^ I think the real question is not whether sociology is a conservative or radical discipline, but how sociologists face up to the challenge when they find their society in crisis. Only a single query is needed to explode the pretentiousness of this statement: what challenge is being alluded to here, the challenge of reaction or revolution? Academic freedom can be questioned by forces of progress as well as forces of reaction. Let there be no talk in the abstract, therefore, of the challenge of social crises, without specifying the nature of the anticipated crisis. If there is a genuine crisis it is in sociology itself and an ostrich-like headstand only further aggravates it. Instead of being a humanistic social science aiming to unravel the veils of mystification from repressive social institutions, sociology has, in the words of Martin Nicolaus,13 . . . worked to create and increase the inequitable distribution of knowledge; it has worked to make the power structure relatively more powerful and knowledgeable, and thereby to make the subject population relatively more impotent and ignorant. And all of us sociologists, including the distinguished author of the article in question, are partners in this unconscious intellectual conspiracy. And let us have the fewest possible illusions about the 'tolerant' society we are said to live in. Tolerance is the gift of the rulers to the ruled, of the master to the slave, of the exploiter to the exploited: tolerance is therefore no tribute to the society that permits; on the contrary it is an insult to those who are tolerated, who are being only 'allowed' the freedom that is the inalienable right of man, anyway. Let us turn away then, from the 'two faces of sociology', to the true face of sociology and learn to distinguish ourselves from those fellow sociologists about whom Martin Nicolaus14 has said: .. . the eyes of sociologists, with few but honourable (or honourable but few) exceptions have been turned downward, and their palms upward. Eyes down to study the activities of the lower classes, of the subject population—those activities which created problems for the smooth exercise of governmental hegemony .... 1 Andre Beteille, Inequality and Social Change, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1972. 8 Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class, New York, 1939. 8 Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society, New York, 1935. 4 Raymond Aron, ^Social Class, Political Class, Ruling Class" from Bendix and Lipset (ed). Class, Status and Power, The Free Press, New York, 1953. 5 Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, The Free Press, 1964. » Frederick Engels, "Letter to J Bloch, September 21-22, 1890'*, Marx and Engels