To the extent that I ever picked up these feelings (luckily my
audiences were usually too sensible to be much influenced in this
way) I became even more depressed and guilty. What a way to
make a living: going round telling well-meaning people that what
they were doing was no good! This was a shared cognitive experience
for a large part of a generation of sociologists working in
the social-problems area. We could draw on the vast literature
around such issues as 'pure' versus 'applied' or 'committed' versus
'detached' social science, and criminologists arranged themselves
along various axes of these standard debates. Some interpret their
academic role in pure, ~eoretical, and intellectual terms; others
openly align themselves with conservative forces; and yet others
proclaim a committed, critical and radical role. Some stay outside