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ETHNIC STUDIES AS MULTI-DISCIPLINE 225

My next guess is that analysis of such data would also show significant
Northern European vs. Southern European and probably also Western vs.
Eastern European differences, Kennedy did not report on that. But there
is some data to suggest a more recent breakdown of the religious walls;
for example, the number of intermarriages among Jews and Gentiles has
risen so much that Egon Mayer, a contemporary Jewish sociologist, has
written a cautionary book on the subject. Probably even more between
Catholics and Protestants, especially in cities. Maybe. I do not have data
on that. What has been most startling is the high intermarriage rate
between Whites and third and fourth generation Asians in America. It
reaches the 70% level. Intake the agony of the older generations to see
this. One can occasionally see backlash in the newspapers, but not all
of the older generation are opposed. And, although amalgamation was
once seen as both the sign and effect of complete assimilation, it is
noticeable that the very generations that are intermarrying are also
asserting ethnic revival.
To turn to another topic, and again please correct me, but my impression
is that American positivistic social science, going back to the 1930s, with its
heavy reliance on statistical analysis, arose among those with an aversion
to facing up to the stresses involved and patience needed for ethnographic
or qualitative-interpretive investigations of ethnic issues. In place of the latter,
one could turn it all into numbers, counting and measurement, and thus
avoid empathizing e,g,, with someone who wished to marry someone of
another racial or ethnic group while her grandmother is agonizing over such
a prospect. Am I speaking to an issue?
I think it originated differently. The quantitative approach in American
sociology was championed by an anti-miscegenationist, Franklin Henry
Giddings (1855-1931), one of the founding fathers of sociology in the
United States. He developed a concept, "consciousness of kind." Although
he tried various ways to hide the fact, for him the phrase meant ethnic
kind. He thought he could quantify and measure the degree of conscious-
ness of kind through surveys and he hoped, also, to promote it. Not all
of his disciples took that angle, but he made it a centerpiece of his
teachings.
There is another aspect of the quantitative approach in sociology that
deserves attention. Quantification counts units. Now the unit that is
counted by a sociologist is the socius, i.e., the socialized individual. The
relationship of his or her attitudes, status, and class are the problems
investigated by this kind of sociology. Thus, in one sense, quantification