Social Theory

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Social theory begins with ordinary questions, like why do some passively accept authority while others respond with political violence? Religions provided answers in a distant past. Social theory emerged as a secular alternative, often joining ethical and positive elements. Three traditions of social theory are important for the social sciences.

A first tradition comes from Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). After years of bloody warfare between Catholics and Protestants, Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) offered a worldly theory of social order. What was really at issue was power. As an early example of what would be termed ideology critique, Hobbes asks “cui bono?”—whose interest does this idea serve? People obey, he argued, because of fear of violent death. Social order thus turns on who has ultimate power over violence. If there is not one final authority, there would be war of all against all, and life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Better, he argued, is a society founded on fear of a great leviathan, whose power guarantees stability.

Leviathan relied on no Absolute Good, whether God or Nature. In tracing all “higher” ideas to “lower” things—power, fear, death, the body, violence—Hobbes set the tone for one main strand of social theorizing. This approach continued in writers from Karl Marx (1818–1883) to Michel Foucault (1926–1984) and Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002). While each differs, they are Hobbesian in asking “cui bono?”—and answering with a complex power struggle, even if it is denied, for example, in art, religion, and morality. This first type of social theory ferrets out hidden power structures behind everyday interactions and institutions.

Hobbes’s stress on fear led others to ask: Does not social order depend on more? What of obligation or love? How could the passions of a millennium and a half of Christianity be redirected onto earth, without producing the disastrous consequences Hobbes feared?

Such questions led to a second strand of social theory, stemming from Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). He emphasized not fear but devotion as the foundation of social order. In our long-forgotten natural condition, Rousseau argued, we were independent, loving ourselves for ourselves; but society creates new needs, amour propre : We love ourselves based upon how much others love us. Not power, but the struggle for recognition and status regulates social order.

For Rousseau, justice can transcend nature and inequality. Justice depends in turn on the social contract, wherein each person must totally submit to the general will. Private freedom, he argued, depended on public equality, which required a “lawgiver.” Moreover, the social bond, to last, should be held sacred.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) and V. I. Lenin (1870–1924) transformed the lawgiver into the revolutionary vanguard; the redefined social contract was the abolition of private property, as the condition of freedom and justice. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) later pursued Rousseau’s connections between social solidarity and religious sentiment.

Critical theorists—Theodore Adorno (1903–1969), Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), Axel Honneth—explored how modern societies create vast inequalities, not only in wealth, but respect and self-worth. They expanded Rousseau’s ideas that culture can create unnecessary dependencies, focusing on the “culture industry”—the popular press, music, movies, advertising, and fashions. These sought to promote “needs” like Marx’s false consciousness, where people became blinded to their own interests and dependent upon corporate and political masters. Some, like David Riesman (1909–2002), extended Rousseau’s amour propre to the 1950s conformism of American “other-directedness,” while others, like Daniel Bell, analyzed how politicians and corporations could shift the erotic into a political ideology. Thus social theory identified key foundations of power, even if exercised in subtle arenas.

These first two traditions invoke a strong state to right social wrongs, as theoretically defined. The third tradition is more cautious. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was equally concerned with the roots of order and governance, but took a different course. Writing after the French Revolution (1789–1799), Tocqueville the aristocrat pondered the implications of equality. Societies emphasizing equality—like postrevolutionary America and France—were hostile toward exceptional talent and excellence; they could level out uniqueness and difference, generating a middling mediocrity. Moreover, equality threatened social identity and meaning: In a hierarchical society, one knew one’s place and did not have to anxiously make one’s place. In equalized societies, all is in doubt: Foreign observers regularly noted that Americans suffered a permanent “identity crisis,” which was spreading globally at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Traveling across America, Tocqueville commented on the deleterious effects of equality, and potential remedies. Loosed from primordial hierarchies, Americans, he argued, developed a passion for voluntary associations. The town hall and the local church were key examples, sustained by their members’ voluntary efforts more than the weight of tradition or the power of elites (or a leviathan or lawgiver). What mattered was commitment by each participant, and Americans were joiners. The strongest social structures, Tocqueville argued, emerged not just through struggles for power or regard of others, but by citizens voluntarily developing shared commitments in local associations, which trained future leaders.

Tocqueville’s voluntaristic, bottom-up approach informs a third strand of social theorizing. Max Weber (1864–1920) stressed voluntarism in probing the religious roots of capitalism. Capitalists did not just strive to make money. Rather, Weber argued, Puritan sects encouraged their members to seek salvation in voluntary, committed “good works”—against the old nobility that valued leisure over work. Capitalism was the unintended consequence. Though Weber felt we inherited an “iron cage” of capitalist society that we did not choose, his response was voluntaristic: If you are a scholar, do it as a “vocation,” not as a heartless specialist; if you are a politician, lead, do not act as a technocratic bureaucrat. Voluntary commitment was key. In egalitarian America, every social interaction among equal citizens became a source of identity, obligation, and meaning, following G. H. Mead (1863–1931), C. H. Cooley (1864–1929), and Herbert Blumer (1900–1987). Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) extended voluntarism to critique past social theories, but like Weber joined basic values with individual choices. Edward Shils (1911–1995) and Daniel Elazar (1934–1999) continued Tocqueville’s concern for hierarchy, honor, and glory, noting that even within an egalitarian society, they remain social powers. Still others, such as Robert Putnam, suggest that the individualistic strain in voluntarism has gone so far in contemporary American life that the commonwealth Tocqueville saw had weakened, as more Americans “bowl alone.” Some postmodernists are so individualistic and egalitarian that they deny the possibility of meaning beyond the minds of separate individuals.

These three traditions have been revised and combined in efforts to interpret deep social changes. Consider the rise of industry, the division of labor, and bureaucratic organization in the theories of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber.

Marx, working in London, wrote of the English countryside transformed by industrial manufacturing; he saw people from all races and religions living near factories. These proletarians were a nascent class, opposed to capitalist/owners of the forces of production. In his theory, conflicts between such classes drove history.

Durkheim saw similar changes, but focused on the division of labor. Traditional societies, he argued, held together from pressures toward homogeneity. Modern societies are more like organisms. Social cohesion arises from interdependence; individuals perform specialized functions and develop a heightened sense of uniqueness. But without some firm social regulation, normlessness or “anomie” can undermine differentiated societies. Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) extended Durkheim’s social differentiation into multiple, interconnected subsystems that fill different social functions, while others, such as Robert Merton (1910–2003), developed the idea of anomie and deviance as central to modern life.

Max Weber, writing in Germany, stressed the hierarchical rationality of government bureaucratic officials. Bureaucracies are ancient, but Weber stressed how modern organizations grew ever larger, more rational, and more hierarchical. Not only was the bureaucrat’s personality stunted by his duties, everyone risked bureaucratization—since it was balanced increasingly less by the charisma of religion or respect for tradition. Seeking a “value-neutral” perspective, Weber posited that modern society is increasingly subject to “rational authority,” as opposed to “traditional” or “charismatic authority.” But the theory also had a quasi-moral intent, namely, to provide modern models for styles of action—rooted in the bonds of tradition or the electricity of charisma—which Weber saw threatened by the cold, abstract rationalism of bureaucracy.

Rationality was a political weapon that Enlightenment philosophers used to attack the “irrationality” of the ancient regime before the French Revolution of 1789. The secular theories of Hobbes and Rousseau helped refocus thinking on specific secular arrangements, rather than divinities or kings. But the legacy of this rational approach proved so powerful that Weber feared its excess. Analysis and criticism of rationalism in modern society have been among the most doggedly pursued strands of twentieth-century social thought, especially by Jürgen Habermas and other critical theorists and postmodernists.

Since Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, social theories have continued to stretch the imagination, seeking to capture the times and perhaps guide them. New topics emerge with new social forces: the massive rise of cities and new urban lifestyles; mass media, electronic media, and mass education; increased global interconnection; general increase in leisure time across societies; and a resurgence in the global power of religions are but a few of the subjects whose causes and meanings social theorists continue to pursue.

SEE ALSO Associations, Voluntary; Blumer, Herbert; Bourdieu, Pierre; Bureaucracy; Class; Critical Theory; Durkheim, Émile; Egalitarianism; False Consciousness; Foucault, Michel; Hobbes, Thomas; Identity Crisis; Individualism; Lenin, Vladimir Ilitch; Lonely Crowd, The; Marcuse, Herbert; Marx, Karl; Mead, George Herbert; Nationalism and Nationality; Parsons, Talcott; Protestant Ethic; Revolution; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques; Social Psychology; Social Science; Sociology; Tocqueville, Alexis de; Weber, Max; World-System

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lemert, Charles, ed. and commentator. 2004. Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Parsons, Talcott, Edward Shils, Kaspar D. Naegele, and Jesse R. Pitts. 1965. Theories of Society. 2 vols. London: Collier-Macmillan.

Daniel Silver

Terry Nichols Clark

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE 1950s

Anxious Society

While it might not have been apparent to many people at the time, American society in the 1950s was less stable than it seemed. The Depression, World War II, and the unprecedented growth and prosperity of the postwar period had wrought fundamental changes in American life. Economists, psychologists, and sociologists wrote bestselling books during the decade charging that these changes were not altogether for the better. The titles of these books—The Affluent Society (1958), The Lonely Crowd (1950), The Organization Man (1956)—became catchphrases which described the pressures and anxieties of contemporary life. A running theme throughout these works was that America was growing and changing more quickly than its citizens could comprehend.

Inner or Other

The first of these books to appear during the decade was The Lonely Crowd (1950) by David Riesman, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, and a colleague, Nathan Glazer. The authors' thesis was that Americans had become "other-directed"—pressed to conform to social values dictated by institutions and mass media—rather than "inner-directed"—holding to a personal set of ambitions and beliefs. The . highest goal of such conformists was to be a valued member of the community. To a certain degree "other-directedness" is responsible for cooperation and tolerance in society, but it can also lead to alienation when a group is held together not by personal convictions but by its members' desire to belong. Other-directed Americans were at once in a crowd and lonely.

End of Individualism?

William Whyte's The Organization Man made a point similar to Riesman's. Whyte claimed that big business, bureaucracy, and suburban living had smothered the puritan ethic, which championed hard work and self-motivation. The work ethic of the organization man dictated only that he contribute to the success of the organization. The phenomenon was most closely associated with the business world; but academia, government, religion—all increasingly structured—likewise subtly discouraged individual initiative. Again, as with Riesman and Glazer's idea of "other-directedness," there was a tension: cooperation among its members is necessary to the success of an organization, but creativity and innovation are as well.

Dynamics of Power

Also published in 1956 was The Power Elite by the maverick scholar C. Wright Mills. Mills was a brilliant professor of sociology at Columbia University who rode a motorcycle and dressed in flannel shirts and combat boots. He first came to national attention with the publication of his White Collar (1951), a stinging depiction of a class of workers with middle-class pretensions who are likely paid less than their blue-collar counterparts. In The Power Elite Mills turned from the pretenders to those actually in control. He described the developing close relationship among heads of industry and heads of state and the military, what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" in 1961. Some critics charged (as they had with White Collar) that Mills's analysis of social dynamics was too simplistic; but others believed that he rescued 1950s liberals from stagnation by making adversaries of the rich and powerful.

Conventional Wisdom

The Affluent Society was the work that made economist John Kenneth Galbraith a household name. Galbraith, a Canadian, was active in American politics, campaigning for Adlai Stevenson during his 1952 presidential bid and for John F. Kennedy in 1960. He was also chairman of the Democratic Advisory Committee during the Eisenhower presidency. Although an avowed liberal, Galbraith took both liberals and conservatives to task for relying too much on what he called "conventional wisdom": outdated beliefs that obscure social issues rather than explain them. Specifically, in The Affluent Society he attacked the conventional wisdom that prosperity was based on the increased production of consumer goods. Consumerism, Galbraith argued, led to "social imbalance," in which citizens were rich in material goods but real social progress—better schools, highways, and medical care—was considered an unwanted burden.

Social Position

Several other key works of social criticism influenced people's thinking during the time. Vance Packard's The Status Seekers (1959) made the case that Americans obsessively strove for higher social position through the purchase of status symbols such as expensive cars, houses, clothing, and appliances. This social climbing was, of course, encouraged by producers and advertisers of such items. With its broad generalizations, The Status Seekers was not really considered a work of serious scholarship, but it was widely read and discussed. Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman was published in 1960 but developed from magazine articles the author had written in the latter half of the 1950s. Goodman placed the blame for the growing youth rebellion squarely on the society that provided them with no clear system of values. Another book of the 1960s that had its genesis in the previous decade was by Betty Friedan, who found that no magazine wanted to print an article she had written on the stifled aspirations of American women. Taking a cue from Packard, she expanded her article to book length and saw it published as the early bible of American feminism, The Feminine Mystique, in 1963.

THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY

One passage of The Affluent Society that John Kenneth Galbraith nearly deleted from his final draft of the book turned out to be the most quoted from it:

The family which takes its mauve and cerise, airconditioned, power-steered, and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should have long since been put underground. They pass on into a country-side that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art.… They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius?

Source:

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958).

Sources:

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in Our Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981);

David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Villard, 1993);

Rick Tilman, C. Wright Mills: A Native Radical and His American Intellectual Roots (University Park 8c London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984).

social theory See THEORY.