Toward a conception of sociology

This paper explores the bearing the idea of surrender-and-catch has on sociology. A detailed experience of this approach is followed by an analysis of its characteristics, especially the suspension of received notions, and by a discussion of its historical significance at a time of unprecedented crisis in human history-the capacity to end all life on earth. In surrender we transcend the everyday world and do so whenever we are fully absorbed; the transcendent(al) is thus democratized. While this is a historical phenomenon, two other human features are not: we are mixed phenomena in possessing both unique and shared characteristics as well as teaching our offspring how to take the world. The latter entails the paradox of socialization: without it we would have no access to the world; with it, we are limited to a one-sided one. The distinction between surrender, which is unpredictable, and surrender-to, which can be striven for consciously by suspending all notions having some bearing on the problem being investigated (i.e., being full absorbed by one's activity), highlights the significance this idea has for sociology. We can then ask who is thus fully engaged in our society (rather than holding a job) and realize the possibility of surrender-and-catch as a tool of social criticism