CAN SOCIOLOGISTS FACE REALITY?

The psychiatrists, have had a great deal to say in recent years about the importance of "facing reality" and "accepting reality-situations," as of February 1, 1942. Just what this "reality" may be they never quite explain. Sometimes it appears that nothing is real unless it is unpleasant, and that anyone who is happy must be employing some escape mechanism. At other times, "reality" seems to mean environment, anything outside oneself, or any situation as defined by an observer. The term acceptance is similarly vague and ambiguous. Sometimes it seems to resemble stoical resignation to pain and deprivation; at other times, it appears merely as abstention from "kidding oneself." Perhaps the psychiatrists are wise in not going beyond their depth into the metaphysics of reality. Perhaps sociologists, too, will do well if they simply observe that some people dodge things they do not like while others seek to modify or remove disagreeable conditions; that some people alternately evade and fight, some fight on almost any occasion.