Most sociologists, at some stage in their careers, hope to make a difference. It is true that some seek knowledge for its own sake. Some students just want the qualification. However, most sociology students hope that their better understanding of society will help them to make their societies better places. In these respects nothing has changed since the birth of sociology.
The nineteenth-century theory builders (Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber) all wanted to identify laws of history and thereby accelerate and ease the birth of more advanced social orders. The social factgatherers who measured poverty, ill-health, mortality rates and housing conditions all hoped — and expected — that the sheer weight of their evidence would lead to improvements in social conditions.
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