Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

age generations, individuals ages sixteen to sixty five, pay through their earnings for governmentinitiated entitlement and needs programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, educational grants, welfare payments, and so forth, programs to maintain and enhance the lives of the less fortunate. These generations may participate in these programs somewhat grudgingly, but they do so with the knowledge that they were supported during their childhood and with the expectation of being supported by these same programs in their old age. This pattern of society-wide transfers is characteristic of serial service.

Such massive transfers have reduced the economic burden of families in caring for dependent members. In some instances these programs have diminished the need for family members to provide extensive and intensive social and emotional support (Kreps 1965). Social Security pensions and other vested retirement programs, in both the private and public sectors, provide sufficient income for an increasing number of retirees. Most of them will be able to live independently or with minimal support from their relatives during their later adult years. Being economically independent or quasi-independent in old age with little need to rely upon the family’s financial resources is a radical shift from earlier periods, when older relatives depended on the determinations of the inheritance system.

The society-wide transfer system based on universal taxation has not completely replaced the family inheritance system. One can view the former as an impersonal, bureaucratized, and universal system enacted primarily by statute or charter and monitored by official regulations. Participants become part of a large formal system and once they qualify are treated in a uniform manner. The use of computers and identification numbers increases the impersonality of support systems.

The family inheritance system, on the other hand, is influenced but not controlled by largescale economic transfers. It exists and functions within a set of norms that extoll interpersonal relationships, continuity of marriage and blood lines, symbolic meanings, feelings of filial piety, nurturance, support, care, distributive justice, and reciprocity.

These institutional systems and programs that mutually support families probably condition the

bases upon which individual inheritance dispositions are made. Sussman, Cares, and Smith (1970) indicate that as a consequence of the growth of society-wide transfer programs,

Inheritance transfers may be less a consequence of acts of sexual reciprocity, based upon what specific individuals of one generation in a family do for others of another generation, but more a function of serial service. Serial service (a concept elaborated by William Moore, 1967) involves an expected generational transfer that occurs in the normal course of events. It is expected that parents have to help their young children, and middle aged children may be called upon to give care or arrange for care of an aged and often ailing parent. This is within the cycle of life, and services of this kind are expected and are not based upon reciprocal acts. Whatever parents have in the way of worldly possessions will in due course be passed on to lineal descendants. (p. 10)

Since the 1970s there has been a strong movement to reduce, or at best not increase, taxation to support benefit systems that assure society-wide economic transfers across generational lines. Those who support a reduction in such transfers strongly believe that the society has reached its absorptive capacity to pay increasingly higher costs for retirement and a variety of services to dependent family members. The cutback in government programs coupled with the exhortation that the government ‘‘should get off the back of family members’’ and the reglorification of the myth that families in ancient times cared for their own have resulted in increasing burdens for families in the care of their elderly and dependent members. This shift away from society to family responsibility for family members suggests a new look at family economic transfers and the role such inheritance plays in intergenerational relationships and in the solution of long-term care of aged and other dependent members.

INHERITANCE ISSUES FOR THE 1990S

Believing they do not want to be a burden to their children, older adults with economic resources and few relatives for whom to function as primary caregivers when needed are spending their inheritance on travel and other leisure activities and for

total medical and physical care as they move from independent to dependent living. A likely result is the diminishing of available funds to heirs and legatees and increased importance of family heirlooms. These gifts express the meaning and significance of the relationships between family members prior to the death of the testator.

The increasing unavailability of relatives, especially children, to care for aged family members will result in the assignment of heirs and legatees who are not related by blood or marriage. These are friends and service providers who supply social support, care, and nurturance and are ‘‘like family.’’ Elders in the latter part of this century and well into the twenty-first, that is, members of the World War II baby boom generation, will be searching for a relative or someone to care for them in their declining years. Their drastically low reproduction rates and the consequences of the gender revolution begun in the 1960s will result in the availability of a severely limited number of immediate family members or distant relatives able or willing to provide care. Elderly people will turn to persons not related by blood or marriage—members of the individual’s wider family (Marciano 1988). Wider family members are not a certain age, nor must they conform to traditional social norms; they are not related by blood or marriage. Bondings express deep friendship and voluntary informal contracted obligations and expectations. Wider family members today are on call and respond to requests for assistance immediately. They act and feel that they are at home in each other’s household.

The consequence is an increasing incidence in the naming of such persons in wills and the probability that courts in the future will uphold their right to share the estate even in the case of intestacy. The courts may rule that traditional patterns of distribution to surviving family beneficiaries be modified to include those who provided care and nurturance to the deceased. The basis for such action is the notion of distributive justice, which invokes fairness. Those who have voluntarily provided services, intimacy, friendship, and care should be recognized and even rewarded. They have fulfilled the role of filial responsibility.

The dark side of this pattern is the exploitative friend, surrogate, or service provider who manipulates the care receiver and takes over the estate

through an inter vivos transfer or by a rewriting of the will. This sorcerism, coupled with an increasing number of will contests, will keep attorneys in good financial stead and courts very busy for a long time.

Distributive justice, a just and fair distribution of resources as perceived by a testator or promulgated by the laws of intestacy, will be characteristic of transfers to family and kin as well as wider family members in the coming decades. A component of distributive justice is equality (Piaget 1932), a standard that is invoked by statutes governing intestacy. Equality is determined by the degree of relationship of the deceased to the survivor. Thus, upon the death of a parent intestate, equal shares are given to surviving children. If a spouse survives, she or he usually receives one-third of the estate, and the remaining two-thirds are distributed to surviving children.

Equity is another component of distributive justice. It implies a just and fair condition. It is not the same as equality. It is the ‘‘distribution of rewards and costs between persons’’ (Homans 1961, p. 74). Equity is the component most suited to arrangements for payment of rewards for incurred costs. Hence, both family and nonfamily members can expect rewards in property inheritance in relation to the costs incurred in caregiving and related activities. Such exchanges will become normative and generally accepted. Reciprocity is to be recognized and rewarded.

Portending the future, testators will increasingly enter into contracts with either family or nonfamily (wider) members, setting forth conditions and expectations of needed supports and caregiving (Hanks and Sussman 1990). Such contracts, seemingly as legal as any other contract, are likely to be challenged in the courts by those who stand to inherit under the laws of descent and succession. The rootedness of these contracts in distributive justice, with its fairness and equity principles, suggests that their validity will be sustained.

Contracts can involve inter vivos transfers or declarations in a will. For example, a middle-aged testator can give resources to a young relative or member of a wider family with a pay-back arrangement of care and service when needed by the benefactor. A will provision can readily be made.

The exact instrument that will enhance its legality needs to be developed in consultation with attorneys. Such contracts, similar to prenuptial agreements, drawn with both parties of sound mind, should be legal. These contracts will have provisions for modification and cancelation, like any other contract. The major point is that such contracts can reduce the concerns of an aging population regarding their life-style in very old age and diminish their total dependence upon institutional forms of care. The ‘‘inheritance contract’’ fosters independence and utilization of one’s resources in meeting health and social needs. Caretaking as a family enterprise can reduce potentially the outlay of public monies currently expended for health and social service programs. This reduction in the economic burden of government is not tantamount to the elimination of current universal support programs. At best the inheritance contract helps provide meaningful relationships, establishes a procedure for planning and expending one’s resources, and encourages individuals to rely less upon governmental institutions.

Openness in discussing wills is a new departure from the past and leads to forthrightness in discussing other family matters. Hanks (1989) reports in her sample of 111 corporate family members that 88 percent discussed their wills and 60 percent their funeral arrangements. Such openness with relatives can reduce future will contests and result in conversations and negotiations regarding foreseeable generational transfers and caregiving arrangements. The symbolic meaning attached to the passing on of jewelry, paintings, furniture, books, and other household items has been given very little attention (Sussman, Cates, and Smith 1970). Allocations of these items demonstrated to the recipients the kind of emotional and affective relationship they had with the deceased. More individuals experienced pain and depression from not receiving a promised or expected heirloom than from receiving a lesser share of property or equities. Strong feelings are aroused because of the memories connected with these heirlooms, and the deceased cannot be asked regarding her or his feelings and emotions toward the heir. Openness in discussing wills and related matters can reduce misunderstandings and misinterpretations regarding the meaning attached to the transfer of heirlooms and the trauma of not knowing.

In the 1990s and future decades inheritance will continue its patterns of transfer and distribution of properties and equities over generations. It will be a different system from that found in rural areas in historic or current time. It will continue to be insignificant in the generational transfer of status and power except for the wealthy classes. Things that will distinguish inheritance in the future from that of the past is the emergence of the inheritance contract; openness in discussing will contents with potential beneficiaries; greater inclusion of distant family relatives in wills; increased number of will contests; and increased incidence in the number of older adults who spend money on leisure activities or on their own health care rather than contribute it to their children’s inheritance.

(SEE ALSO: Intergenerational Resource Transfers)

REFERENCES

Benedict, Ruth 1936 ‘‘Marital Property Rights in Bilateral Society.’’ American Anthropologist 38:368–373.

Burke, Edmund 1910 Reflections on the French Revolution and Other Essays. New York: DuHon.

Cates, Judith, and Marvin B. Sussman 1982 Family Systems and Inheritance Patterns. New York: Haworth Press.

Gaunt, David 1983 ‘‘The Property and Kin Relationships of Retired Farmers in Northern and Central Europe.’’ In Richard Wall, Jean Robin, and Peter Laslett, eds., Family Forms in Historic Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Garrett, Mario D. 1995 ‘‘Filial Piety or a Filial Pie: Capital Transfer from the Elderly to Their Offspring within Southeast and Eastern Asia.’’ In Stanley R. Ingman, Pei Xiaomei, Carl D. Ekstrom, Hiram J. Friedsam, and Kristy R. Bartlett, eds., An Aging Population in an Aging Planet, and a Sustainable Future. Denton, Tex.: Center Texas Studies.

Gross, Stephen J. 1996 ‘‘Handing Down the Farm: Values, Strategies, and Outcomes in Inheritance Practices among Rural German Americans.’’ Journal of Family History 21:192–217.

Hanks, Roma 1990 ‘‘Inheritance and Caregiving: Perceptions in Veteran and Corporate Families.’’ Unpublished paper, College of Human Resources, University of Delaware.

———, and Marvin B. Sussman 1990 ‘‘Inheritance Contracting: Policy Implications of Inheritance and Caregiving Patterns.’’ Unpublished paper, College of Human Resources, University of Delaware.

Hill, Gretchen J. 1995 ‘‘Inheritance Law in an Aging Society.’’ Journal of Aging and Social Policy 7:57–83.

Hoebel, Edgar A. 1966 Anthropology. New York: Mc-

Graw-Hill.

Homans, George C. 1961 Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

Hooyman, Nancy R. 1989 ‘‘Women as Caregivers of the Elderly: Implications for Social Welfare Policy and Practice.’’ In David E. Bregel and Arthur Bloom, eds., Aging and Caregiving. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

Kochanowicz, Jasalav 1983 ‘‘The Peasant Family as an Economic Unit in the Polish Feudal Economy of the Eighteenth Century.’’ In Richard Wall, Jean Robin, and Peter Laslett, eds., Family Forms in Historic Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schaie, eds., Age Structuring in Comparative Perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum.

Sussman, Marvin B., Judith N. Cates, and David T. Smith 1970 The Family and Inheritance. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Tsikata, Dzodzi 1996 ‘‘Gender, Kinship and the Control of Resources in Colonial Southern Ghana.’’ In Rajni Palriwala and Carla Risseeuw, eds., Shifting Circles of Support: Contexualizing Kinship and Gender in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira.

Van-Houtte, Jean, Marc Keuleneer, and Kathelijne Van- den-Brande 1995 ‘‘Inheritance Law and Practice in the USA and Belgium.’’ Sociologia-del-Dritto 22(3):75–106.

Kreps, Juanita 1965 ‘‘The Economics of Intergenerational Relationships.’’ In Gordon F. Streib and Ethel Shanas, eds., Social Structure and the Family. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Maine, Henry S. 1963 Ancient Law. Boston: Beacon Press.

Marciano, Teresa D. 1988 ‘‘Families Wider Than Kin.’’

Family Science Review 1:115–124.

Niraula, Bhanu B. 1995 ‘‘Old Age Security and Inheritance in Nepal: Motives versus Means.’’ Journal of Biosocial Science 27:71–78.

Peart, Nicola 1996 ‘‘Towards a Concept of Family Property in New Zealand.’’ International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 10:105–133.

MARVIN B. SUSSMAN

IN-LAW RELATIONSHIPS

See American Families; Intergenerational Relationships; Kinship Systems and Family Types.

INSTITUTIONS

See American Society.

Piaget, Jean 1932 ‘‘Retributive and Distributive Justice.’’ In Moral Judgement of the Child. New York, Harcourt, Brace and World. Reprinted in Edgar Borgatta and Henry J. Meyer, eds., Sociological Theory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956.

Plakans, Andrejs 1989 ‘‘Stepping Down in Former Times: A Comparative Assessment of Retirement in Traditional Europe.’’ In David I. Kertzer and K. Warner Schaie, eds., Age Structuring in Comparative Perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum.

Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. 1935 ‘‘Patrilineal and Matrilineal Succession.’’ Iowa Law Review 20:286–303.

Rosenfeld, Jeffrey P. 1991 ‘‘The Heir and the Spare: Evasiveness, Role-complexity, and Patterns of Inheritance.’’ In Judith R. Blau and Norman Goodman, eds., Social Roles and Social Institutions: Essays in Honor of Rose Laub Coser. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Schwartz, T. P. 1996 ‘‘Durkheim’s Prediction about the Declining Importance of the Family and Inheritance: Evidence from the Wills of Providence, 1775–1985.’’

Sociological Quarterly 37:503–519.

Sorensen, Aage B. 1989 ‘‘Old Age, Retirement, and Inheritance.’’ In David I. Kertzer and K. Warner

INTEGRATION

See African-American Studies; Segregation and

Desegregation.

INTELLECTUALS

NOTE: Although the following article has not been revised for this edition of the Encyclopedia, the substantive coverage is currently appropriate. The editors have provided a list of recent works at the end of the article to facilitate research and exploration of the topic.

Modern societies face a growing dilemma posed by the fact that key institutions and their elites are increasingly dependent upon intellectuals, particularly those in universities, research institutes, and the cultural apparatus generally. Yet, the leaders in these same social units are among the major critics of the way in which the society operates, sometimes calling into question the legitimacy of the social order and its political structure. A ruling

elite, even one that is conservative and anti-intel- lectual, cannot respond to such challenges by crushing the intellectuals, unless it is willing to incur the punitive costs which such suppression entails. As the Polish ‘‘revisionist’’ philosopher Leszek Kolakowski (1968, p. 179) wrote while still a member of the Communist party, ‘‘the spiritual domination of any ruling class over the people . . .

depends on its bonds with the intelligentsia . . . ; for the less one is capable of ruling by intellectual means, the more one must resort to the instruments of force.’’ Decades earlier, the classically liberal (laissez-faire) economist and sociologist Joseph Schumpeter (1962, p. 150) argued that under capitalism the dominant economic class must protect the intellectuals, ‘‘however strongly disapproving’’ they are of them, because they cannot suppress intellectual criticism without initiating a process of repression which will undermine their own freedom.

The word intellectual is fraught with ambiguities. The meanings attached to it are diverse (Lipset and Dobson 1972, pp. 137–140). In the loosest sense in which the word is used in common parlance today, intellectuals may be said to be all those who are considered proficient in and are actively engaged in the creation, distribution, and application of culture. Edward Shils (1968, p. 179) has suggested a comprehensive definition: ‘‘Intellectuals are the aggregate of persons in any society who employ in their communication and expression, with relative higher frequency than most other members of their society, symbols of general scope and abstract reference, concerning man, society, nature and the cosmos.’’ For analytic purposes, however, it is desirable to distinguish between several types. It is particularly useful to emphasize the much smaller category of ‘‘creative intellectuals,’’ whose principal focus is on innovation, the elaboration of knowledge, art, and symbolic formulations generally. Included in this group are scholars, scientists, philosophers, artists, authors, some editors, and some journalists, as distinguished from the more marginally intellectual groups who distribute culture, such as most teachers, clerics, journalists, engineers, free professionals, and performers in the arts, as well as those who apply knowledge in the course of their work, such as practicing physicians, lawyers, and engineers. To differentiate them from the intellectuals, they may be categorized as the intelligentsia.

The creative intellectuals are the most dynamic group within the broad stratum: Because they are innovative, they are at the forefront in the development of culture. The intelligentsia are dependent upon them for the ideational resources they use in their work. Much of the analytic literature dealing with intellectuals has emphasized their seemingly inherent tendency to criticize existing institutions from the vantage point of general conceptions of the desirable, ideal conceptions which are thought to be universally applicable. Thus, Joseph Schumpeter (1950, p. 147) stressed that ‘‘one of the touches that distinguish [intellectuals] . . . from other people . . . is the critical attitude.’’ Raymond Aron (1962, p. 210) argued that ‘‘the tendency to criticize the established order is, so to speak, the occupational disease of the intellectuals.’’ Richard Hofstadter (1963, p. 38) noted: ‘‘The modern idea of the intellectual as constituting a class, as a separate social force, even the term intellectual itself, is identified with the idea of political and moral protest.’’ Lewis Coser (1970, p. viii) in defining the term stated: ‘‘Intellectuals are men who never seem satisfied with things as they are. . . . They question the truth of the moment in higher and wider truth.’’

These concerns are iterated by the fact that ‘‘intelligentsia’’ and ‘‘intellectuals,’’ the two words most commonly used to describe those in occupations requiring trained or imaginative intelligence, were used first in the context of describing those engaged in oppositional activities. ‘‘Intelligentsia,’’ first began to be used widely in Russia in the 1860s, referring to the opposition to the system by the educated strata. It was generally defined as ‘‘a ‘class’ held together by the bond of ‘consciousness,’ ‘critical thought,’ or ‘moral passion’.’’ (Malia 1961 p. 5) ‘‘Intellectual’’ as a noun first secured wide usage in France during the infamous Dreyfus case in 1898. A protest against Dreyfus’s unjust imprisonment (after a biased court-martial), signed by a variety of writers and professors, was published as the ‘‘Manifesto of the Intellectuals.’’ The anti-Dreyfusards then tried to satirize their opponents as the self-proclaimed ‘‘intellectuals’’ (Bodin 1962, pp. 6–9; Hofstadter 1963, pp. 38–39). The term was picked up in the United States in the context of characterizing opponents to World War I.

The American intellectual also has been seen as a source of unrest. Many have called attention to this phenomenon, seeing it as a continuing one in

American history (May 1963; Hayek 1949, pp. 417–433). Richard Hofstadter (1965, pp. 111– 112) described their stance of alienation as ‘‘historical and traditional,’’ and pointed out that ‘‘even the genteel, established intellectuals of the mid-nine- teenth century were in effect patrician rebels against the increasing industrialization and the philistinism of the country. So that it has been the tradition of American intellectuals of all kinds and stamps to find themselves at odds with American society: this, I think, to a degree that is unusual elsewhere.’’ A century ago, Whitelaw Reid (1873, pp. 613– 614), the editor of the New York Tribune, pointed to the role of the American ‘‘Scholar in Politics’’ as a foe of the ‘‘established,’’ and a leader of the ‘‘radicals.’’

The reader should not get the impression that intellectual and student involvement in protest is confined to left-wing or progressive movements. This is not true, as witnessed, for example, by the intellectuals and students who constituted a core segment of activist support for the Fascist party of Mussolini, and of the National Socialist party of Hitler, before they took power, as well as among fascist and assorted anti-Semitic right-wing extreme groups in France and various countries in Eastern Europe up to World War II (Hamilton 1971; Röpke 1960, pp. 346–347). In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, intellectuals have been in the forefront of the struggles against Communist regimes, behavior that is perceived as left, i.e. opposition to statism, authoritarianism, and severe stratification.

In the United States, although scattered groups of right-wing intellectuals have emerged at times, the record seems to validate Richard Hofstadter’s (1963, p. 39) generalization that for almost all of this century the political weight of American intellectuals has been on the progressive, liberal, and leftist side. Quantitative data derived from attitude surveys, the earliest dating back to before World War I, plus assorted other reports of the political orientations of the American professoriate, down to the present, strongly indicate that American intellectuals have consistently leaned in this direction (Lipset and Dobson 1972, pp. 211– 289; Lipset 1991). This bias, to a considerable extent, reflects the absence or weakness of a legitimate national conservative tradition in America. National identity and national ideology are linked to a value system that emphasizes egalitarianism and populism, stemming from an elaboration of

principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Thus, when American intellectuals point up the gap between the real and the ideal, whether the latter is represented by what was in a bygone Jeffersonian laissez-faire era (a utopia of equal yeoman farmers) or what it should be (a classless participatory future), they challenge the system for not fulfilling the ideals implicit in the American Creed.

Still, the argument is frequently made that inherent in the structural changes since World War II, which have been described as leading to a ‘‘postindustrial society,’’ has been a growing interdependence between political authority and intellectualdom, which should have reduced the critical stance. Modern developed socioeconomic systems are highly dependent on superior research and development resources, which mean better support for universities, and research centers, and the much larger component of persons who have passed through the higher education system— thus creating a mass, high-culture market that pays for the institutions and products of the artistic community (Bell 1973). Governments are increasingly a major source of financing for intellectualdom, ranging from artists to scientists. Recognition and financial rewards from the polity conceivably should help to reduce the historic tensions and the intellectual’s sense of being an outsider. A further trend pressing in this direction is the fact that the complexities involved in ‘‘running’’ an advanced industrial or postindustrial society forces laymen, both political and economic leaders, to seek advice in depth from, to defer to, the scholarly-scientific community (Dahl 1989, pp. 334–335; Gagnon 1987). Many, therefore, have seen these trends as fostering the role of the intellectual as participant, as leading to the ‘‘interpenetration’’ of scholarship and policy (Shils 1968; Brint 1991).

These developments, however, have not led to the decline in the critical role of the intellectual in the United States, although patterns elsewhere appear somewhat different (Lerner, Nagai, and Rothman 1990, p. 26). A number of analyses of different American scholarly disciplines have emphasized the significant presence of political radicals among them and their greater alienation from the powers than in Western European societies (Lipset 1991). In seeking to explain this transAtlantic difference, a Swedish scholar, Ron Eyerman (1990) notes that unlike the situation in America,

Swedish (and I would add European) intellectuals are not an ‘‘alienated stratum’’ opposed to the state ‘‘because the avant-garde tradition was absorbed through a reformism [that] put intellectual labor to use in service of society,’’ that is, largely through the labor and socialist movements. While the overwhelming majority of American intellectuals view themselves as outsiders, and have had little experience in directly influencing power that could moderate their sense of alienation, many European intellectuals have worked in a somewhat more integrated context. And most are, it should be noted, still on the left politically, though less radical relative to their national spectrums than their American counterparts.

The dilemma remains for intellectuals everywhere of how to obtain the resources necessary to pursue creative activity without ‘‘selling out,’’ without tailoring creative and intellectual work to the demands of employer, patron, or consumer. In modern times in the West, the emphasis on originality, on innovation, and on following the logic of development in various creative fields— be they painting, music, literature, physics, or sociology— has been responsible for a recurrent conflict between intellectuals and those who pay for their works or exert control through the state, churches, businesses, the market, or other institutions. Intellectuals have often felt themselves to be dependent on philistines while wanting to do whatever they liked according to the norms of their field.

Much of the discussion has focused on the tensions created for unattached intellectuals. It has been asserted ‘‘that free-lance intellectuals are more receptive to political extremism than are other types of intellectuals . . . [since] the freelance intellectual . . . has been dependent on an anonymous and unpredictable market. . . . Rewards are much less certain to be forthcoming for the freelance intellectual, the form of reward less predictable, and the permanence of the recognition more tenuous. . . . [They] tend to be more dependent on their audience, over which they have relatively little control, and to feel greater social distance from it (Kornhauser 1959, pp. 186–187).’’

To understand the continued anti-establish- ment emphasis of intellectuals, even when well rewarded, it is important to recognize the relationship of this emphasis to their concern for creativity

or innovation. The capacity for criticism, for rejection of the status quo, is not simply a matter of preference by some intellectuals. Rather, it is built into the very nature of their occupational role. The distinction between integrative and innovative roles implies that those intelligentsia involved in the former, like teachers, engineers, and exponents of mass culture, use ideas— scholarly findings—to carry out their jobs; those in the latter activities, like scholars, poets, and scientists, are concerned with the creation of new knowledge, new ideas, new art. To a considerable extent, in such endeavors, one is much more rewarded for being original than for being correct —an important fact, a crucial aspect of the role insofar as we consider that such intellectuals tend to be socially critical.

(SEE ALSO: Postindustrial Society)

REFERENCES

Allen, Norm R., Jr. 1996 ‘‘Religion and the New African American Intellectuals.’’ Nature, Society, and Thought

9:159–187.

Aron, Raymond 1962 The Opium of the Intellectuals. New

York: Norton.

Beaud, Paul, and Francesco Panese 1995 ‘‘From One Galaxy to Another: The Trajectories of French Intellectuals.’’ Media Culture and Society 17:385–412.

Bell, Daniel 1973 The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books.

Bodin, Louis 1962 Les Intellectuels. Paris: Presses

Universitaires de France.

Brint, Stephen 1991 ‘‘The Powers of the Intellectuals.’’ In William Julius Wilson, ed., Sociology and the Public Agenda. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

Coser, Lewis 1970 Men of Ideas. New York: The Free Press.

Dahl, Robert A. 1989 Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Drake, W. Avon 1997 ‘‘Black Intellectuals and the Politics of Race: The Affirmative Action Debate.’’ Research in Race and Ethnic Relations 10:147–168.

Eyerman, Ron 1990 ‘‘Intellectuals and the State: A Framework for Analysis; with special reference for the United States and Sweden.’’ Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, University of Lund, Sweden.

Gagnon, Alain (ed.) 1987 Intellectuals in Liberal Democracies: Political Influence and Social Involvement. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Hamilton, Alastair 1971 The Appeal of Fascism: A Study of Intellectuals and Fascism, 1919–1945. London: Anthony Blond.

Hofstadter, Richard 1963 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

———1965 ‘‘Discussion.’’ In A. Alvarez, ed., Under Pressure. Baltimore: Penguin Books.

Hollander, Paul 1998 Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

‘‘Intellectuals and Social Change in Central and Eastern Europe.’’ 1992 Partisan Review 59:525–751.

Karabel, Jerome 1996 ‘‘Towards a Theory of Intellectuals and Politics.’’ Theory and Society 25:205–233.

Kellner, Douglas 1997 ‘‘Intellectuals, the New Public Spheres, and Techno-Politics.’’ New Political Science 169–188.

Kempny, Marian 1996 ‘‘Between Politics and Culture. Is a Convergence between the East-European Intelligentsia and Western Intellectuals Possible?’’ Polish Sociological Review 4:297–305.

Kolakowski, Leszek 1968 Marxism and Beyond. London:

Pall Mall Press.

Kornhauser, William 1959 The Politics of Mass Society. New York: Free Press.

Reid, Whitelaw 1873 ‘‘The Scholar in Politics.’’ Scribner’s Monthly, vol. 6.

Röpke, Wilhelm 1960, ‘‘National Socialism and the Intellectuals.’’ In George B. de Huszar, ed., The Intellectuals. New York: Free Press.

Royce, Edward 1996 ‘‘The Public Intellectual Reconsidered.’’ Humanity and Society 20:3–17.

Schumpeter, Joseph 1950 Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Shils, Edward 1968 ‘‘Intellectuals.’’ In David L. Sills, ed.

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 7. New York: Macmillan and Free Press.

Smith, James-Allen 1991 The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite. New York: The Free Press.

Torpey, John C. 1995 Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Weijers, Ido 1997 ‘‘Educating the Modern Intellectuals.’’ International Journal of Contemporary Sociology

34:81–91.

SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET

Lepenies, Wolf 1994 ‘‘The Future of Intellectuals.’’

Partisan Review 61:111–119.

Lerner, Robert, Althea K. Nagai, and Stanley Rothman 1990 ‘‘Elite Dissensus and Its Origins,’’ Journal of Political and Military Sociology 18 (Summer): 25–39.

Lipset, Seymour Martin 1991 ‘‘No Third Way: A Comparative Perspective on the Left.’’ In Daniel Chirot, ed., The End of Leninism and the Decline of the Left. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

———, and Richard Dobson 1972 ‘‘The Intellectual as Critic and Rebel: With Special Reference to the United States and the Soviet Union.’’ Daedalus 101 (Summer 1971):137–198.

Malia, Martin 1961 ‘‘What is the Intelligentsia?’’ In Richard Pipes, ed., The Russian Intelligentsia. New York: Columbia University Press.

May, Henry 1963 The Discontent of the Intellectuals. Chicago: Rand McNally.

INTELLIGENCE

In everyday life people commonly refer to each other as being smart or slow. The perception that individuals differ widely in mental adeptness—in intelligence—long preceded development of the IQ test, and there is indeed a large vernacular for brilliance, stupidity, and the many points in between. There has been much sparring over the scientific meaning and measurement of intelligence, both in the rowdy corridors of public debate and in the sanctums of academe. But what do we actually know about intelligence? A lot more in the last decade, and some of it surprising even to experts. Moreover, the data form a very consistent pattern showing that differences in intelligence are a biologically grounded phenomenon with immense sociological import.

Misra, Kalpana 1997 ‘‘From ‘Capitalist Roaders’ to ‘Socialist Democrats’: Intellectuals in Post-Mao China.’’

China Report 33:267–295.

Petras, James 1991 ‘‘The Metamorphosis of Latin America’s Intellectuals.’’ International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 28:3–4.

MEASUREMENT OF INTELLIGENCE

The effort to measure intelligence variation among individuals is a century old. Two strategies for measuring such differences have emerged, the psychometric and the experimental. Both spring from

the universal perception that, although all people can think and learn, some are notably better at both than others. Accordingly, intelligence research focuses on how people differ in cognitive competence, not on what is common to all of us. (Other disciplines such as neuroscience and cognitive psychology specialize in the commonalities.) The aim of intelligence research is thus much narrower than explaining the intricacies of how brains and minds function. These intricacies are relevant to intelligence experts, but generally only to the extent that they illuminate why people in all cultures differ so much in their ability to think, know, and learn.

Psychometric (Mental Testing) Strategy. The IQ test represents the psychometric approach to measuring intelligence. Alfred Binet devised the first such test in France to identify children who would have difficulty profiting from regular school instruction. Binet’s idea was to sample everyday mental competencies and knowledge that were not tied to specific school curricula, that increased systematically throughout childhood, and that could reliably forecast important differences in later academic performance. The result was a series of standardized, age-graded test items arranged in increasing order of difficulty. A child’s score on the test compared the child’s level of mental development to that of average children of the same age. Binet’s aim was pragmatic and his effort successful.

Innumerable similar tests have been developed and refined in the intervening century (Anastasi 1996; Kaufman 1990). Some are paper- and-pencil tests, called group tests, that can be administered cheaply to many individuals at once and with only a small sacrifice in accuracy. Others, such as the various Wechsler tests, are individually administered tests that require no reading and are given one-on-one. Today, individually administered intelligence tests are typically composed of ten to fifteen subtests that vary widely in content. The two major categories are the verbal subtests, such as vocabulary, information, verbal analogies, and arithmetic, which require specific knowledge, and the performance subtests, such as block design, matrices, and figure analogies, which require much reasoning but little or no knowledge. The highly technical field that develops and evaluates mental tests, called psychometrics, is one of the oldest and most rigorous in psychology. Its products have

been found useful in schools, industry, the military, and clinical practice, where they are widely used.

Professionally developed mental tests are highly reliable, that is, they rank people very consistently when they are retested. A great concern in earlier decades was whether mental tests might be culturally biased. Bias refers to the systematic overor underestimation of the true abilities of people from certain groups—a ‘‘thumb on the scale’’— favoring or disfavoring them. There are many specific techniques for uncovering test bias, and all mental tests are screened for bias today before being published. IQ tests generally yield different average scores for various demographic groups, but the consensus of expert opinion is that those average differences are not due to bias in the tests. The consensus among bias experts, after decades of research often trying to prove otherwise, is that the major mental tests used in the United States today do not systematically understate the developed abilities of native-born, English-speaking minorities, including American blacks. The American Psychological Association affirmed this consensus in its 1996 task force report, ‘‘Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns’’ (Neisser et al. 1996).

The biggest remaining question about IQ tests today is whether they are valid, that is, whether they really measure ‘‘intelligence’’ and whether they really predict important social outcomes. As will be shown later, IQ tests do, in fact, measure what most people mean by the term ‘‘intelligence,’’ and they predict a wide range of social outcomes, although some better than others and for reasons not always well understood.

Experimental (Laboratory) Strategy. The experimental approach to measuring differences in general intelligence is older than the psychometric but little known outside the study of intelligence. It has produced no tests of practical value outside research settings, although its likely products could someday replace IQ tests for many purposes. The approach began in the late 1800s when the great polymath Francis Galton proposed that mental speed might be the essence of intelligence. He therefore set out to measure it by testing how quickly people respond to simple sensory stimuli such as lights or tones. Galton’s measures did not clearly correlate with ‘‘real-life’’ indicators of mental ability, such as educational success, so his chronometric approach was quickly dismissed as

wrong-headed and far too simplistic to capture anything important about the beautiful complexity of human thought.

Advances in statistics after the mid-twentieth century, however, showed that Galton’s data actually had shown considerable promise. New medical and computer technology have since allowed researchers to measure elements of mental processing with the necessary precision that Galton could not. The revival of his approach in the 1970s has revolutionized the study of intelligence. It is the new frontier in intelligence research today. No longer producing ‘‘fool’s gold’’ but the real thing, the study of elementary cognitive processes has attracted researchers from around the world. It now appears that some differences in complex mental abilities may, in fact, grow from simple differences in how people’s brains process information, including their sheer speed in processing.

There is no single experimental approach, but perhaps the dominant one today is the chronometric, which includes studies of inspection time (IT) and reaction time (RT). Chronometric tasks differ dramatically from IQ test items. The aim is to measure the speed of various elementary perceptual and comprehension processes. So, instead of scoring how well a person performs a complex mental task (such as solving a mathematics problem or defining a word), chronometric studies measure how quickly people perform tasks that are so simple that virtually no one gets them wrong. These elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) include, for example, reporting which of two briefly presented lines is the longer or which of several lights has been illuminated. In the former, an IT task, the score is the number of milliseconds of exposure required to perceive the difference. In the latter, an RT task, the score is the number of milliseconds the subject takes to release a ‘‘home button’’ (called ‘‘decision time’’) in order to press the lighted response button (called ‘‘movement time’’).

Both average speed and variability in speed of reaction are measured over many trials. It turns out that brighter people are not only faster but more consistent in their speed of stimulus apprehension, discrimination, choice, visual search, scanning of short-term memory, and retrieval of information from long-term memory. In fact, variability in speed is more highly correlated with IQ (negatively) than is average speed. ECT performance

correlates more highly with IQ as the tasks become more complex, for example, when the number of lights to distinguish among increases from two to four to eight (respectively, one, two, and three ‘‘bits’’ of information). Composites of various speed and consistency scores from different ECTs typically correlate −.5 to −.7 with IQ (on a scale of −1.0 to 1.0, with zero meaning no relation), indicating that both chronometric and psychometric measures tap much the same phenomena. Psychometric and chronometric measures of mental capacity also trace much the same developmental curve over the life cycle, increasing during childhood and declining in later adulthood. Debates among the experimentalists concern how many and which particular elementary cognitive processes are required to account for differences in psychometric intelligence.

MEANING OF INTELLIGENCE.

The meaning of intelligence can be described at two levels. Nonexperts are usually interested in the practical meaning of intelligence as manifested in daily life. What skills does it reflect? How useful are they in school, work, and home life? In contrast, intelligence researchers tend to be interested in the more fundamental nature of intelligence. Is it a property of the brain and, if so, which property exactly? Or is it mostly a learned set of skills whose value varies by culture? Personnel and school psychologists, like other researchers concerned with the practical implications of mental capability, are often interested in both levels.

Practical Definitions of Intelligence. The practical meaning of intelligence is captured well by the following description, which was published by fifty-two leading experts on intelligence (Gottfredson 1997a). It is based on a century of research on the mental behavior of higherversus lower-IQ people in many different settings.

Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or testtaking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our sur- roundings—’’catching on,’’ ‘‘making sense’’ of things, or ‘‘figuring out’’ what to do. (p. 13)