Reading and summarizing

Read the introduction to Parsons’ book “The Structure of Social Action” and do the tasks that follow.

Talcott Parsons

(1937)

The Structure of Social Action

Introductory the problem

(1)"Who now reads Spencer? It is difficult for us to realize how great a stir he made in the world.... He was the intimate confidant of a strange and rather unsatisfactory God, whom he called the principle of Evolution. His God has betrayed him. We have evolved beyond Spencer." Professor Brinton's verdict may be paraphrased as that of the coroner, "Dead by suicide or at the hands of person or persons unknown." We must agree with the verdict. Spencer is dead. But who killed him and how? This is the problem.

(2)Of course there may well be particular reasons why Spencer rather than others is dead, as there were also particular reasons why he rather than others made such a stir. With these this study is not concerned. But in the "crime," the solution of which is here sought, much more than the reputation of, or interest in, a single writer has been done to death. Spencer was, in the general outline of his views, a typical representative of the later stages of development of a system of thought about man and society which has played a very great part in the intellectual history of the English-speaking peoples, the positivistic-utilitarian tradition. What has happened to it? Why has it died?

(3)Spencer's god was Evolution, sometimes also called Progress. Spencer was one of the most vociferous in his devotions to this god, but by no means alone among the faithful. With many other social thinkers he believed that man stood near the culminating point of a long linear process extending back unbroken, without essential changes of direction, to the dawn of primitive man. Spencer, moreover, believed that this culminating point was being approached in the industrial society of modern Western Europe. He and those who thought like him were confident that evolution would carry this process on almost indefinitely in the same direction cumulatively.

(4)Spencer was an extreme individualist. But his extremism was only the exaggeration of a deep-rooted belief that, stated roughly, at least in the prominent economic phase of social life, we have been blest with an automatic, self-regulating mechanism which operated so that the pursuit by each individual of his own self-interest and private ends would result in the greatest possible satisfaction of the wants of all. All that was necessary was to remove obstacles to the operation of this mechanism, the success of which rested on no conditions other than those included in the conception of rational pursuit of self-interest. This doctrine, too, has been subjected to increasingly severe criticism from many quarters, by no means all relevant to the purposes of this study. But another article of faith about the workings of the social world has been breaking down.

(5)Finally, Spencer believed that religion arose from the prescientific conceptions of men about the empirical facts of their own nature and their environment. It was, in fact, the product of ignorance and error. Religious ideas would, with the progress of knowledge, be replaced by science. This was only a phase of a much wider deification of science. Indeed the interest of the Spencerian type of social scientist in religion has thus been virtually confined to primitive man - the question was, how has science developed out of primitive religion? In this field, too, there is increasing scepticism of the Spencerian view. It has been possible above to cite views on only a few questions. It is, however, enough to indicate that a basic revolution in empirical interpretations of some of the most important social problems has been going on. Linear evolutionism has been slipping and cyclical theories have been appearing on the horizon. Various kinds of individualism have been under increasingly heavy fire. In their place have been appearing socialistic, collectivistic organic theories of all sorts.

(6)The role of reason and the status of scientific knowledge as an element of action have been attacked again and again. We have been overwhelmed by a flood of anti-intellectualistic theories of human nature and behaviour, again of many different varieties. A revolution of such magnitude in the prevailing empirical interpretations of human society is hardly to be found occurring within the short space of a generation, unless one goes back to about the sixteenth century. What is to account for it?

Tasks

1. Read passages 1 and 2 and define their main points.

2. Read passage 3 and condense its content. Use the phrases:

The passage describes …

It emphasizes that …

3. Read passages 4 and 5. Speak about Spencer’s personality and beliefs, using the phrases:

Parsons claims that …

He defines the phenomenon of …

Attention is given to …

4. Read the last passage and define its main idea.

5. Summarize the text.