A Reply to Glenn: Fashioning Families and Policies for the Future--Not the Past

Abstract

I take as my text the wisdom of John Updike: An old world is collapsing and a new world arising; we have better eyes for the collapse than for the rise, for the old one is the world we know.l My thesis is that Glenn's eyes are fixed on a world that's going away, and for which he deeply mourns. His accompanying critique must be interpreted in the light of his myopic visionhis unawareness of the new social worlds that people themselves are inventing. His comments must be seen as a lament that scholars are no longer writing the kind of book he thinks should be written-the sort of book that was published prior to the 1970s. The difference between Glenn and me is in large part theoretical. His view of society in general, and family in particular, seems to be that because social structures are handed down to us, we are thus obliged to preserve them. That was, of course, the structuralfunctional perspective (Old Action Theory) pervading family studies prior to the 1970s (Alexander, 1988). My 1995 book contrasts that view with a more contemporary perspective called New Action Theory, and is in fact entirely fashioned around it (Scanzoni & Marsiglio, 1993; Kingsbury & Scanzoni, 1993). Proponents of this theoretical approach hold that persons continually invent fresh social arrangements, as constrained but also as enabled by their surrounding environments. Because Glenn appears more attune to Old, rather than New Action Theory, he seems to have enormous difficulty grasping the notion of social invention. There is, moreover, a disquieting theme throughout his writings that at best may be taken as an unintended disregard for women's interests, and at worst a backdoor effort to put the brakes on women's historic struggles to gain social justice. Although a mood of imperiousness permeates his entire paper, I am particularly incensed by the smugness of his attacks on the work of our distinguished and influential colleague, Jessie Bernard. I cannot imagine a scenario in which a male sociologist would, in comparable fashion, dismiss the contribution of a eminent male scholar-someone, say, of the stature of Reuben Hill. Although unable to respond, I have no doubt that Jessie, from the vantage of her eternal reward, is bemused by the spectacle of someone who, to my knowledge has never published any books at all (or at least any that I've heard of) arrogating to himself the lofty role of academic muckraker. Not only do Glenn and I follow divergent theoretical paths, we also disagree quite sharply in our methodological assumptions and perspectives. One of the most fundamental canons of science is humility, and I am deeply disturbed by its absence in Glenn's paper. His arrogance and assumed self-importance have virtually obscured the basic [scientific] principle that one can never say that one has proved anything (Anderson, 1971, p. 170). Some time ago, I expressed my concerns to Glenn that his methodology, like his theory, was in desperate need of updating. In 1996, he sent a letter voicing his concerns over my 1995 book in which, among other things, he claimed that I had associated his ideas too closely with those of David Popenoe. I wrote back offering a dialogue over our contrasting perspectives.2 I suggesteda public forum at ASA, NCFR or elsewhere. After reading your papers [Glenn, 1993, 1995, 1996], it seems to me that although we share much in common, we diverge in certain key areas. Some of our differences stem from disparate methodological assumptions. Your plea for an objective assessment of Popenoe [1993] and your assertion that he is correct, sidestep the precise matters Cowan [1993] raises. There is no such animal called objective assessment. Nothing in social science is ever undeniably correct or incorrect-there are merely degrees of validity. Consequently, faith in the methods of the past on which you base your conclusions (as does Popenoe) has become misplaced and might even be naive. …