Jeepers, dear brother in Christ, I can't figure out how Talcott Parsons got integrated into this discussion. But I do find his "Structural–Functional Model of Society — Institutional Interaction" intriguing, and so did a little background research into Parsons.
On this base, I am confident that Parsons himself was not a socialist. And that it is absolutely the case that he detested both communism and national socialism equally, not discerning a dime's-worth of difference between them.
I gather he had two main mentors WRT his intellectual development and subsequent worldview: the great German idealist philosopher, Immanuel Kant; and John Calvin (who needs no introduction here). What an extraordinarily interesting "brew!"
Anyhoot, just because Parsons was not himself a socialist does not mean that socialists would not find his work attractive and helpful for their own ends.
What I find most remarkable about Talcott Parsons is that he really did seem to believe that the problems of the order of the human person and by extension to society at large could actually be reduced to a "scientific model." [And as we all know by now, Socialists are always fond of invoking "science!!!" to justify any lame-brained proposition they advance. In which case, people who cannot tell you the boiling point of water will nod they heads "sagely," in concurrence with "expert opinion."....
He had total confidence in the ability and fitness of the scientific method to reveal the heretofore hidden secrets of human nature and experience. With this supposition in mind, he persuaded Harvard University — where he conducted most of his distinguished and long-lived academic career — to help Pitirim Sorokin establish an official Department of Sociology there, in 1931; and to provide indispensable stewardship of the new department in the following years.
But to me, such a project is doomed to failure from the get-go. The scientific method, as it is currently understood and applied, deals only with a teensy little slice of the total Reality — that is to say, to that which falls under "direct observation/perception," under the further condition that the observer himself has already selected that which he will observe.
What could go wrong there???
Anyhoot, Parson's wonderfully vibrating "Structuralist/Functional Model" can be further translated from actual experience into such "scientific terms" as:
The Cartesian Plane. This is a two-spatial-dimensional layout, the grid onto which "evidence" is to be transposed, analyzed, and confirmed/disconfirmed. As if there were anything in human experience or Nature at large that could conceivably be reduced to two "measurable" dimensions!!!All this is so much speculation to me. To me the interesting thing is that such a deep, capacious, enormously well-researched social thinker as Talcott Parsons would get so abstracted by the idea that the "social sciences" could possibly advance by dumping all the "non-observational" elements of human existential experience in order to make it conform to generally accepted "scientific principles and methods."
The Context of Newtonian Space and Time. In this classical model, time is a linear, irreversible, sequential movement of "objects" (particles) moving from past to future state. [There is no "in-between," as Aristotle's Third Law demands. But then, Aristotle never heard of either relativity or quantum theory.]
And the law of causation that applies in this conceptual situation requires that (1) every motion invokes an equal but opposite motion; and (2) all causation implies LOCAL causation — an assumption about the very nature of things that quantum theory absolutely denies.
Parson's "Scientific Bent". Parsons may have been an intellectual/spiritual child of John Calvin, but he was also a child of the Enlightenment — who evidently had not digested the revolutionary implications of Relativity and Quantum Theory. I gather, being generally unaware of developments in these fields, he struggled to reconcile his Calvinist worldview with Newtonian dynamics as such.
In this process, he conceptualized a sort of "social action principle." This is what I see in the model you posted, dear xzins. Which reminds me that in science, physics has its "least action principle" as foundational to all the various disciplines of the natural sciences. Except, as some would argue these days, the biological sciences, which entail a "greatest-action principle."
I'd love to speak about the sectors of human Reality that have to be totally excised and obliterated from human consciousness for such a "method" to triumph. But I may not find respondents who care about such things.
Oh, before I sign off, I alluded to some kind of new "action principle" that Parsons was evoking in his Model. It seems to me it is premised in the Newtonian idea that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As if "actions" were fully "quantifiable" in the first place.
Which I daresay, they are not. At least they are not within the "measurable" reach of scientific predictive tools....
Thanks for mentioning Talcott Parsons. He was a man of enormous intellectual reach and influence. And I can say that, even if I think and believe that he spent most of his distinguished professional career on a "wild goose chase."
Of course, the Socialists LOVE Parsons' "science," >qua science. The Socialists — especially the Progressive wing — LOVE to invoke "science" in support of their fallacious and nefarious falsifications of reality. But as Professor Gruber says, they are so stupid they don't know how to think or make rational decisions about scientific propositions, let alone their their own personal welfare.
What could go wrong there???
I for one would love for you to mention some of the sectors of human consciousness that would be ignored in any attempt to apply the scientific method to such issues.
Thank you for your very informative and insightful essays, dearest sister in Christ!
Hi Betty, you ask in your #1773 "how Talcott Parsons got integrated into this discussion." Norm Lenhart's #1748, which I have copy-pasted above is the genesis of the comment. He mentioned the early communist goals of taking over education, and that reminded me of Talcott Parson's structural depiction of society.
I appreciate your well-written essay, it's focus on science, and it's background on Parsons. That is valuable information on any day, and I enjoyed reading it.
Where it can be shored up in this discussion is by understanding that those like Parsons -- who were attempting to find principles of 'mass behavior' that would explain how humans get pinged about in this force field of society -- were only barely interested in the psychology of the individual. The purists among them saw themselves as pursuing a different line of inquiry entirely. They wanted to discern societal level forces that moved masses of people.
So, Parson's 'structuralism' boiling society down into basic dynamic areas, those areas being education, governance, religion, and economy, fit with Norm Lenhart's observation of communists wanting to take over the 'education sector' of society and to use it as a launching pad in their offensive to gain power.
I observed that the 'religion' sector of society has largely maintained its independence, if one were thinking in terms of Parson's structuralism. Therefore, this might explain the animus toward religion, even though liberalism has made some inroads into mainline Christianity.
Especially in America, we are still able to speak our minds about our beliefs, and that is a great threat to enemies who wish to impose a dictatorship not just over our actions but also over our very thinking.
So, that is the background of my connection to Parsons' structuralism. Again, an excellent essay on your part, Sister in Christ. Thank you for it.