ABSTRACT
The world’s peoples face daunting challenges in the 21st century. While apologists herald the globalization of Eurocentric capitalism, many people on our planet experience recurring economic exploitation, immiseration and environmental crises linked to capitalism’s spread. Across the globe, social movements continue to raise issues of social justice and democracy. Given the 21st century’s serious challenges, Joe R. Feagin argues here that sociologists need to rediscover their roots in a sociology committed to social justice, cultivate and extend the long-standing sociological ‘countersystem’ approach to research, encourage greater critical self-reflection in sociological analysis and re-emphasize the importance of the teaching of a public sociology committed to social justice. Finally, many more sociologists of all backgrounds should examine the big social justice questions of this century, including the issues of economic exploitation, racial and gender oppression and the looming environmental and climate crises. And, clearly, more sociologists should engage in the study of alternative social futures, including those of much more just and egalitarian societies. Critical sociologists need to think deeply and imaginatively about sustainable social futures and aid in building better human societies.
