Talcott Parsons and the Social System

University Content.

What are some of the Key Ideas of Parsons?

• Grand Theorist (combining Durkheim and Weber)

• Social order and passing on of norms and values = Consensus

• The Unit Act and explaining constraint

• Why is his work unfashionable?

What did Ian Craine say about Parsons?

Parsons boxed his ideas into ‘files’ but one one else seems to understand them.

What did Parsons want to do?

Parsons wanted to create a theory of ‘everything’, which would cover everything related to society, often based upon the works of Weber and Durkheim. Parsons did not focus any of his ideas on Marx due to being anti-Marxist.

An Introduction to Talcott Parsons (1902-79)

• The most influential sociologist of c20?

• Sociology as a science

• Grand Theory - Durkheim and Weber

• Voluntarism - Patterns without orchestration: How do individuals ‘fit’ into systems?

• The communication of norms and values.

• Social order key concern.

What is Voluntarism?

We don’t just do exactly what we want, we think about societal rule/constraints and how others may react to certain actions.

What is the study of Sociology for Parsons?

Sociology for Parsons is the study of constraint, to be a member of society is to submit yourself to constraint, checks and balances, etc. To fail to follow these rules there may be punishments, some legal, some more illegal.

What are Norms?

Actual practical behaviours that are considered appropriate to the group, people absorb them through their lives.

What are Values?

Our norms reflect our values.

Parsons as a Structural-Functionalist.

• Structure as patterning

• We like to think of ourselves as authors of our experience

• Agency the product of social structure

• Assumption of consensus

• Political context - professionalism, McCarthyism, capitalist expansion

• Norms and values; social solidarity; authority legitimate; order persists; systems are integrated. (Craib, 1992: 58)

What did Parsons say in The Structure of Social Action ([1937] 1949)?

• Voluntaristic social action.

• Reject the autonomous, non-social individual

• Humans seek to maximise gratification in all sorts of ways. But in a social context.

• How do norms and values persist? Become socialised? - The Unit Act.

What do we think we do?

We think we do things because that is what we want to do or if we succeed it’s due to our own works, but we are social animals and therefore we may do these things due to wider society?

What is The Unit Act?

• Theory of a whole system starts with an actor who has certain means to use in pursuit of goals in an environment.

• Institutionalisation of norms and values,

• Agency can lead to structures that in turn pattern subsequent behaviour.

• Institutionalisation of unit act = its repetition.

What are the four elements of The Unit Act?

1. Actor - Someone who exercises agency

2. Every actor has certain means/skills/stuff that they want to use throughout their lives.

3. Every actor has certain goals.

4. The environment - Goals are shaped by environment with there being different ways to reach them.

Who is Robert K. Merton?

• Working with Parsons, but..

• Key figure in Criminology - shows how theory can be applied to different contexts.

• ‘Theories of the Middle Range’ — away from Grand Theory.

• Interested in dysfunctions (manifest and latent), social things that don’t work.

• Difference - ‘functions’ not universal

• The Unintended Consequences of Social Action (1936)

How does Merton rework the Unit Act with the Strain Theory?

• ‘Strain’ between the means and the goals (back to the pitch).

• Acknowledgement of differential and capacities/uneven context.

• Explains change as well as stability.

• ‘American Dream.’ - Strain Theory.

Why is Parsons so unfashionable? - Mills vs Parsons

• Almost impossible to understand.

• Out of touch with reality! The ‘fetishism of the concept’ (Mills, 1959: 35).

• Assumption of consensus.

• Where are the people? Systems, OK, but actual people?

• Marxism as the missing perspective.

• Systems are not even or neutral — power?!

• Reproduction and

• Social life is not ‘out there’ it’s ‘in here’…

What is the Normative Orientation?

The wider context of how things are supposed to be in order to meet specific goals.

What is the Immediate Situation?

Conditions that can hinder or aid a goal set.