\n\n<\/span>Talcott Parsons (1902-82): Social system, Pattern variables
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\n<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n\n- Talcott Parsons was born in Colorado. His father at the time was a professor in English at Colorado College and vice-president of the college. Parsons studied biology, sociology, and philosophy as an undergraduate at Amherst College, receiving his Bachelor\u2019s degree in 1924. He then studied at the London School of Economics and later earned his Ph.D. in economics and sociology from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Parsons taught at Amherst College for one year during 1927. After that, he became an instructor at Harvard University in the Department of Economics. At the time, no sociology department existed at Harvard. In 1931, Harvard\u2019s first sociology department was created and Parsons became one of the new department\u2019s two instructors. He later became a full professor. In 1946, Parsons was instrumental in forming the Department of Social Relations at Harvard, which was an interdisciplinary department of sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Parsons served as the chairman of that new department. He retired from Harvard in 1973, however he continued writing and teaching at Universities across the United States.<\/span><\/li>\n
- He was the best-known sociologist in the United States, and indeed one of the best-known in the world. He produced a general theoretical system for the analysis of society that came to be called structural functionalism.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- The impact of \u2018the classics\u2019 on Anglo-American sociology was, in the first instance, very much the achievement of\u00a0Talcott Parsons (1902\u201379), whose graduate studies in the UK and Europe in the 1920s had familiarised him with the work of, among others, the trio of Marx, Weber and Durkheim .<\/strong>\u00a0In the 1930s Parsons set out to construct a major work of theoretical synthesis, drawing especially upon the work of Weber and Durkheim. The result of his efforts, The Structure of Social Action, appeared in 1937. The work consisted in large part in the presentation of four thinkers, two of whom\u2014Alfred Marshall, the economist, and Vilfredo Pareto, the economist\/sociologist\u2014have not enjoyed such continuing significance for sociology. This book provided the world of English-speaking sociology with its first significant and systematic presentation of the ideas of Weber and Durkheim.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Parsons acknowledged Marx to be a great thinker, but argued that he remained firmly within the prevailing nineteenth-century way of thinking in the social sciences,<\/strong>\u00a0while Weber and Durkheim had, by contrast, contributed to breaking it down.<\/span><\/li>\n
- One of the main targets of Parsons\u2019s criticism was utilitarianism, which, involves the idea that people\u2019s actions follow fundamentally practical objectives, and that the human mind is essentially a mechanism for calculating the most effective way to get the most rewarding results.\u00a0<\/strong>This picture captures the very essence of economics, where \u2018the economic human\u2019 is an individual with a clear set of wants and the economic capacity to fulfil some of them; he or she then sets out to figure out a way to get the most rewarding assortment of goods in terms of the resources available. In constructing its theories upon the assumption of such a rational, maximizing individual, economics is building upon the model that was very widespread in pre-twentieth-century social thought.<\/span><\/li>\n
- This model, as previously noted, found its most explicit and, in some ways, most crucial expression back in the seventeenth century, in Thomas Hobbes\u2019s. Leviathan (1994). Very briefly, Hobbes\u2019s argument was that human beings are selfish creatures living in a world of scarce satisfactions. Each individual has wants and seeks to satisfy as many of them as possible. In working out the most efficient way of getting what they want, individuals realise that they are in competition with one another, that one person can only gain at another\u2019s expense.<\/strong>\u00a0Thus individuals are by nature truly selfish and see others only as obstacles or possible resources in their own pursuit of maximum satisfaction. The most logical way to achieve one\u2019s ends, then, is either to eliminate the competition\u2014remove others by killing them\u2014or to turn them towards the serviceof one\u2019s own ends, by forcing or deceiving them into compliance with one\u2019s will.<\/span><\/li>\n
- However, if every individual is conceived as a rational being, i.e. someone who operates logically, then each person will reach the same inevitable conclusion, making social life into a state of perpetual struggle.\u00a0<\/strong>Hobbes called it a \u2018war of all against all\u2019, colourfully characterising it in a justly famous passage as \u2018solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short\u2019. Of course, for most of us human life is not that bad, as Hobbes himself explained: valuing their own lives above all else, these rational individuals can perceive the slippery slope to mutual misery and destruction, down which they would slide if they did not accept some restrictions on their freedom of competition. These restrictions are in the form of society, as represented by the sovereign ruler to whom individuals effectively cede their autonomy.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Parson also refuted positivist and idealist: The positivists\u00a0<\/strong>believe that social actors have complete knowledge of their social situation. This leaves no room for error on the part of actors or even for variation among actors.\u00a0The idealists\u00a0<\/strong>position that social action is that realization of the social spirit and the ideas such, as of a nation or a people, and consequently pay scant attention to real everyday impediments on the ground that obstruct the free realization of ideas. Similarly, in the idealist treatment of social system, Democracy is seen simply as the fulfillment of the spirit of national. Idealism places too much emphasis on values and ideas and not enough on social practice. Weber too, in a way, belonged to this tradition for he argued that capitalism was aided in its early stages by the Protestant ethic. But it must be admitted that Weber elaborated at length certain values such as those of \u2018rational asceticism\u2019 or inner worldly asceticism\u2019 but neglected the role of needs of search for utilities.<\/span><\/li>\n
- The positivists go to the other extreme and insist that true human action is born out of full information of the situation. There is thus a finality and inflexibility in their scheme for there is only one way to act; the correct way. Consequently there is no room for values, error and variations social action.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Parsons was interested in Durkheim, weber, pareto and Marshall because they were all, in their different ways, concerned to think their way out of the framework of utilitarian assumptions.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- The key move, which they all made, was to reject the utilitarian assumption that people\u2019s ends are random.\u00a0In a scheme like Hobbes\u2019s, it does not matter what kinds of things people want, only that they have plenty of wants, more than can collectively be satisfied by the finite resources of the world, and it is this simple fact which makes them competitors<\/strong>. In such reasoning, the way people come by their wants, or the nature of these wants, is essentially irrelevant; viewed as a theoretical system, the ends might as well be random.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Durkheim, weber and the others had perceived, however, that people\u2019s ends are not random; they are socially acquired and, in consequence, are related to one another in systematic ways. For example<\/strong>, Durkheim examines the notion of anomic suicide in terms of the way people\u2019s wants are patterned; they are shaped by ocial arrangements which accord with the hierarchy of stratification and embody normative requirements which prescribe proper and acceptable wants.<\/span><\/li>\n
- On this basis, Parsons thought that a start could be made on developing a general scientific scheme for understanding human life.<\/strong>\u00a0Between his first major work and his next there was a fourteenyear break though Parsons did publish many essays in that time. Then, in 1951, he published two books, one self-authored, The Social System, the other a collaborative work, Toward a General Theory of Action. In a way, Parsons had retreated from the ambitions he had held in 1937, but the plan laid out in these two books was none the less grandiose. Toward a General Theory drew its contributors from across several disciplines; necessarily so, for Parsons sought to lay out a ground plan for a large range of the social sciences\u2014or \u2018sciences of action\u2019, as he called them. Thus psychology, sociology, economics, political science and other disciplines were all to be unified within a single theoretical framework, which was basically devised by Parsons. The Social System was the sociological element in the project, showing how this general scheme, this general theory of action, would be developed in sociology.\u00a0Parsons drew from the work of his four theorists a picture of social life involving motivated compliance.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- Motivated compliance: Social life does work, rather than disintegrating into Hobbes\u2019s war of all against all. It works not only because people go about their activities in ways that are socially prescribed, but also because they believe these ways to be right and therefore they actually want to follow them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
<\/span>Social System:<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\nParsons\u2019s concept of the social system is\u00a0developed in the nature of a general sociological theory which can be applied for the study of both the simple primitive societies as well as the complex modern industrial societies.<\/strong>\u00a0Parsons has developed his theory from the level of action to the social system.\u00a0His conceptual scheme is provided to analyse the structure and processes of social system.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nParsons formulates his approach to the social system through his theory of social action which is an intrinsic element of the social system.<\/strong>\u00a0Parsons own\u00a0approach to the social system is integrative in nature<\/strong>\u00a0since he not only brought out the significance of motivational factors, such as those present in the utilitarian perspective in the formation of the system, but also that of values.<\/span><\/p>\nAction,<\/strong>\u00a0according to Parson\u00a0does not take place in isolation.<\/strong>\u00a0It is not empirically discrete but occurs in constellations\u201d which constitute system.<\/strong>\u00a0The concept of action, according to Parson, is derived from behaviour of human beings as living organisms. As living organisms, they interact (orientate) with outside reality as well as within their own mind.<\/span><\/p>\nBehaviour becomes action when four conditions are present:<\/mark><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n- It is\u00a0oriented to attainment of ends or goals\u00a0<\/strong>or other anticipated affairs,<\/span><\/li>\n
- It occurs in\u00a0situations,<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- It is\u00a0regulated by norms and values of society,\u00a0<\/strong>and<\/span><\/li>\n
- It involves in investment of\u00a0\u2018energy\u2019 or motivation or effort.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For example<\/strong>, a lady driving an automobile to go to a temple. She is probably going to offer prayers. In this case then the offering of the prayer is her end or goal to which she is oriented. Her situation is the road on which she is driving and the car in which she is sitting. Moreover, her behaviour is regulated by social norms or values in which the offering of prayers is recognized as desirable. In addition, she is applying her intelligence in the skill of driving which is learnt from society. Finally, the very act of driving the car implies expenditure of energy, holding the wheel, regulating the accelerator and skilful negotiation through the traffic on the road.\u00a0When behaviour is seen in this analytical context, it can be defined as action.<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nAs mentioned earlier, action according to Parsons does not occur in isolation but occurs in constellations:\u00a0These constellations of action constitute system.\u00a0<\/strong>These systems of action have three modes of organization which Parsons describes as\u00a0The personality system, the cultural system and the social system<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\nHe proposed that the actual operating life of a society is made up of the following elements:<\/mark><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n- The abstract patterns of behaviour (cultural system)\u00a0<\/strong>which prescribe what individuals should properly or appropriately do in particular cases.\u00a0FOR EXAMPLE<\/strong>, the highway code prescribes how fast drivers should drive under what conditions and how they should co-ordinate with fellow motorists;<\/span><\/li>\n
- The pattern of ongoing activity, (social system)i<\/strong>.e. how actual people in actual situations behave in ways, which (roughly, more or less) accord with the abstract patterns. FOR EXAMPLE, in traffic on the road, drivers are busy looking out for what others are doing, and tactically adjusting their driving to accommodate and avoid one another, such action depending in various ways upon the conventions of the highway code being respected by most, if not all, drivers;<\/span><\/li>\n
- The personalities, or characteristic patterns of preference, of reaction and so forth of the individuals carrying out these patterns (personality system). For example<\/strong>\u00a0in traffic they act as drivers, and they interact with one another in terms of their characters: some drive much more quickly than others, some are more respectful of others\u2019 rights on the road, some get angry with traffic conditions, and others remain calm.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
However, the great majorities of these drivers abide broadly by the rules of the road\u00a0(Motivated Compliance)\u00a0<\/strong>and do so not merely from prudence, for safety\u2019s sake, or from nicely calculated considerations as to just how much adherence to the rules would maximise their self-interest, but because they think it is the right thing to do. They regard these rules as binding on themselves and on others. They can become indignant with other drivers just because those drivers show disregard for the rules of the road, even though the infraction of these rules may cause them no danger, nor harm them in any way.<\/span><\/p>\nMotivated compliance\u2019 means no more than the drivers being motivated to abide by the rules of the highway code, but this illustration of the idea draws attention to the way actual situations in society are made up of three \u2018action systems\u2019, as Parsons called them:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n- Cultural System<\/strong>\u2014the pattern of ideas, principles, etc. which abstractly specifies how people should behave;<\/span><\/li>\n
- Social system<\/strong>\u2014the ordered patterns of activity and relationship among individuals as they go about their affairs in conjunction, even collaboration, with one another;<\/span><\/li>\n
- Personality System<\/strong>\u2014the psychic make-up of individuals which affects how they behave in actual situations, how they go about doing things and how they react to other people. Parsons argues that any society has to provide somehow for the integration of these three elements.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Integrating culture, social system and personalities<\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nSomehow, things will have to work out so that:<\/mark><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n- Culture will prescribe what people should do in ways which will prove practically effective, relative to what people want to do.<\/span><\/li>\n
- The pattern of activities and relationships in which people engage will prove capable of allowing the prescriptions of the culture to be effectively followed out (a good deal of the time).<\/span><\/li>\n
- The personality structures of the parties to social life will have that which will enable them to associate with others, to participate in conjoint, collective ventures, and to accept and comply with the demands that the culture lays on them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cultures, social systems and personalities have to interact in integrated ways if there is to be any social order.<\/strong>\u00a0Cultures have to be organised in ways such that their prescriptions will be viable in practical affairs (if cultures demand impractical things of their members, then those members will soon either abandon the culture or die out). The different prescriptions for the actions of an individual have to fit together with those that other individuals abide by, otherwise they would always be acting at cross purposes, nothing requiring their joint participation would ever get done, and no social system would have even temporary stability. Imagine if drivers had different cultural instructions as to which directions they were to drive in on the roads.<\/span><\/p>\nSocial activities themselves have to be organised in ways that will offer sufficient involvement of the personality types who will participate in them;\u00a0<\/strong>if people are utterly frustrated and completely alienated by the demands of participation in some activity, e.g. a pathological fear of competition, they are going to be very resistant to being involved in society, e.g. competitive sports. Parsons insists that these are the minimal condition for social order. A society can, of course, tolerate the fact that there will be some, relatively few, people who follow different prescriptions, or have personalities incongruous with (say) the generally competitive character of American culture, but it can only operate if the \u2018lack of fit\u2019 in such cases is confined to the relatively few.<\/span><\/p>\nWithout sufficient integration between the culture, the social system and the individual personality, social relationships cannot be organised and carried on. Of course, \u2018sufficient\u2019 is far from being a precise notion.<\/strong>\u00a0In view of the hostile response which Parsons\u2019s work eventually met, we should draw attention here to the fact that he does not see the integration of culture, social system and personality as either automatic or complete\u2014far from it. In dealing with something as complex as the order of a society, its pattern of institutions and relationships, its culture built up over its history, and the varied personalities of its numerous members, we should recognise that integration is highly problematic.<\/span><\/p>\nIn any ongoing society which is not collapsing into internecine strife, it must be the case that there is a level of integration, since things are getting done, people are acting broadly in line with their cultural prescriptions, and many individuals are engaged in and committed to activities.\u00a0<\/strong>The perceptible stability of society indicates that its members (or the great majority of them, for most of the time) are not alienated, in the sense of \u2018turned off\u2019. However, there may not be thoroughgoing integration, since some aspects of the culture may conflict with the way the social system is organized, and the way both are organized may impose deprivations on participants\u2019 personalities.<\/span><\/p>\nIn any real society, many people may not be so disenchanted with their jobs that they would rather give them up, so opposed to authority that they would rather fight their supervisor than do what he or she says, or so contemptuous of the law that they would happily violate it.<\/strong>\u00a0Nevertheless, those same people may be unhappy in their work, reluctant to comply with their supervisor, and so uncommitted to a law-abiding existence that they may not pass up every temptation to transgress. Parsons recognizes just such possibilities. They are partly what we mean by the integration of culture, social system and personality being problematic, i.e. the working out of the interconnections between them is neither automatic nor guaranteed. Although any real society must have exceeded the \u2018minimal\u2019 requirements of integration\u2014as testified to by the sheer fact of its existence\u2014none the less it is an empirical question as to how far beyond this minimum the integration extends.<\/span><\/p>\nIt is also a logical consequence of Parsons\u2019 systems analysis that there will be tendencies for the system to counterbalance tendencies towards disintegration, to contain dissidence, to keep dissidents isolated from one another, thereby preventing them from building up collectively organised opposition to the dominant culture, and redirecting their deviations into ways that do not damage overall integration.\u00a0<\/strong>The system \u2018handles and channels\u2019 social disturbances, although there is no theoretical guarantee that disturbances will never overwhelm the system. In talking about the achievement and surpassing of this \u2018minimal\u2019 level, Parsons is not discussing the ways the members of the society, through conscious, deliberative processes, \u2018work out\u2019 solutions to the problem of integration between these three aspects of social reality. Such matters do not exercise the members. The terms in which these issues are formulated are analytical and sociological; Parsons is talking from a \u2018system standpoint\u2019 about the way things work themselves out; how the social order through the interaction and mutual effects of the culture, social system and personality becomes at least minimally integrated. If societies did not satisfy these minimal requirements then they would not be there for us to study; the fact that there is a society to study means that it has somehow met the minimal requirements of social integration. How far it is integrated depends on how much more than the minimum has been effected. It is important to note that the three elements Parsons identifies are \u2018integrated\u2019 in the minimal sense that any actual, concrete social situation is made up of all three of them. These three elements are all mixed up in actual situations. In fact, says Parsons, they interpenetrate one another. People in social relations do not just stand in purely personal relationships, but relate to one another on the basis of social positions (the status, or status roles) they occupy.<\/span><\/p>\nHence two individuals in a workplace stand not just as \u2018Joe\u2019 and \u2018Jim\u2019 but as, say, a worker and his supervisor.\u00a0<\/strong>Their respective positions are not just a matter of what they are doing, but of rights and entitlements, e.g. Jim may be entitled to give Joe orders, and Joe required to do as Jim tells him. In other words, a work relationship, like any other, is a matter of rights and responsibilities, i.e. it includes cultural elements, and these cultural elements go to make up the social system. In its turn, the social system becomes part of the personality of its participants; the position that one holds, the job one occupies, is not merely a matter of external requirements, but is, obviously, bound into and constitutive of the way one thinks of oneself. The kind of position one occupies is contributory to one\u2019s self-esteem. Further, in so far as one identifies with one\u2019s job, then of course one comes to regard the things one is entitled to do and to be responsible for not simply as things to be done because they are formally required, but as things one would want to do even if not required to do them. In this way, the cultural requirements and responsibilities of a job become part of one\u2019s personality.<\/span><\/p>\nIn Parsons\u2019s terms, the social system is made up of cultural elements and of personalities. The social system and the culture interpenetrate because the latter is institutionalised in the<\/strong>\u00a0former. In one sense, a social system is a pattern of institutionalised culture, i.e. a set of rules and requirements which have become accepted as defining how people should act and relate to one another, just as the highway code is ubiquitously accepted as saying how drivers should handle their vehicles and communicate with and respect the drivers of other vehicles. The connection between the social system and the personality is through internalisation.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nInternalisation<\/span><\/h6>\nThis concept refers to the ways the members of society come to make the requirements of their various positions an integral part of their personality by \u2018taking over\u2019 these requirements and building them into their own convictions about how and what they should do.\u00a0 |
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