For a public sociology in Ireland – an outsider's view

Abstract

The role of the intellectual is not to consolidate authority, but to understand, interpret, and question it ... Indeed, the intellectual vocation essentially is somehow to alleviate human suffering and not to celebrate what in effect does not need celebrating, whether that’s the state or the patria or any of these basically triumphalist agents in our society (Edward Said, “On Defiance and Taking Positions”, 2000: 502–503).