ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author talks about the history of technology and found himself reading about the history of organizations, indirectly. As a country mouse the author had much catching up to do in living and arguing; it was perhaps a sufficient excuse for not having written more than one or two short stories. But a philosopher there, William Levi, had a profound effect upon me, and he began an education in the social sciences. In his sociology he found immense learning which could be put to some remote good–it provided an aspect, a view, a position, a metering device, a sense of proportion, almost a sense of engagement with detachment. He gradually came to perceive the students clustered around Shibutani and Goffman as a cult, and unfortunately never took any of their courses. Berkeley Sociology could have been third-rate in the late 1950s and its new offspring would have been none the wiser.
