Synecdoche and Structural-Functionalism

Abstract

Both critics and defenders tend to regard structural-functionalism as a single school with a distinct identity and a common strategy. This paper argues that the illusion of unity has obfuscated the debate. It suggests that structural-functionialism harbors at least two quite different approaches. While both are legitimate, they lead to different conclusions and different vulnerabilities. Thus, it matters whether one is primarily concerned with the structural or the systemnatic whole. In each case there are advantages and disadvantages, but charges of Panglossian unity, illusions of indispensability, and ideological conservatism do not apply equally to both. Each is exposed to biases, but the biases are not the same. T nhe debate over structural-functionalism now involves at least three positions. First, there are those who defend the school as a distinct approach to sociological phenomena. Second, there are those who are hostile to structural-functionalism and would temper assumptions of harmony with assumptions of conflict.1 Third, there are others who feel that all science is structural-functional; we should do away with the debate to get on with the analysis.2 There are clear differences between these positions, but there is also common ground as well. Each tends to view structural-functionalism as an almost seamless whole. Each sees it as a single theoretical stance that can be evaluated in its entirety. It is here that the present paper suggests a departure. If structural-functionalismn is open to charges of analytic myopia and omnipresent utopia, some of its forms are more vulnerable than others. If there are no distinctions between structural-functionalism and sociology in general, there are certainly distinctions within structural-functionalism itself. term synecdoclhe, in suggesting a confusion of the with its parts,3 is doubly apt in this context. First, structural-functionalism includes distinct subspecies with distinct consequences, and we should not judge the whole on the basis of only one of its parts. Second, a crucial difference between subspecies 1 Two leading spokesmen for this view are David Lockwood, Some Remarks on the 'Social System,' Britishi Joutrnal of Sociology, 7 (June 1956), pp. 134-146, and Ralf Dahrendorf, Out of Utopia: Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis, Americac Journal of Sociology, 64 (September 1958), pp. 115-127. Dahrendorf's Class and Class Coi.flict ini Industrial Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959) is similar in tack but milder in tone. It actually applauds Parsons on some points and feels that system analysis, even static analysis, is appropriate for some situations. As this suggests, not all theories are inimical to structural-functionalism. Lewis Coser's reworking of Simmel's insights, Futnctions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1956), is avowedly within the structural-functional school. Here conflict is often seen as leading to ultimate harmony and stability. For these and other positions in the far-flung dialogue, see N. J. Demerath III and Richard A. Peterson, Systemt, Changc, ansd Conflict: Debate over Fioutctioncalsmn (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, forthcoming 1966). 2 leading figure here, of course, is Kingsley Davis, The Myth of Functional Analysis as a Special Method in Sociology and Anthropology, Am-ierica;t Sociological Review, 24 (December 1959), pp. 752-772. But while Davis makes the poiilt as of an attack, it had earlier statements as of the functionalist's defense. Talcott Parsons has long argued that function is the dynamic element in sociology's scientific equation; it is an effort to maintain the general scientific tradition rather than a departure from it. Marion Levy echoes Parsons and anticipates Davis in Stritcture of Society (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1952), p. 28. 3 For a discussion of the term in another sociological context, see Robert Wenkert, Reply to the Critical Exchange on 'Working-Class Authoritarianism,' Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 6 (Spring 1961), p. 110. Wenkert accounts for a tempest in a teapot in terms of the synecdochic fallacy. A similar relation might be drawn in the literature on structural-functionalism. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.163 on Wed, 21 Sep 2016 04:57:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SYNECDOCHE AND STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIFONCLIS 391 is whether the analyst is primarily interested in a particular part (a discrete institution) or in the configuration of the whole (the total society). In elaborating these points, the paper seeks a measure of clarity but has no pretense of ending the debate. Because the present approach is non-partisan and methlodological, it can have little hope of ceasing a dialogue that has taken on ideological overtones. Its only pretension is to make the dialogue more understandable to the audience at