action theory & the human condition

 

III – SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION - 167

 

Introduction to Part III

 

As NOTED IN the General Introduction, Part III contains five essays dealing with the boundary of the general system of action in the direction of the telic system of the human condition, as we have called it.  In more familiar terms, these contributions all deal with problems in the "sociology" of religion; the quotation marks emphasize that if this word is interpreted in conventional terms its appropriateness in the present context is not to be taken for granted. 

 

            The first selection, Chapter 9, was, like Chapters 7 and 8 of Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory,¹ written for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968).  It was meant to be a highly general essay in historical sociology, bringing together a whole range of considerations touching on the religious aspects and background of Western society, which have come to be intellectually important to me over the years.  Many of these problems became paramount on my first reading of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,² which I translated into English and which has long been a major substantive anchor point.  In the background also were Weber's panorama of comparative studies in the sociology of religion and his famous "Author's Introduction" to the whole series, also included in my edition of The Protestant Ethic, although it was written many years later than that study.  Whereas in this article I did not attempt to deal with comparative materials, the comparative perspective is never absent. 

 

            ¹ Talcott Parsons, Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory (New York: Free Press, 1977).

            ² Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Scribner's, 1958; first published in German in 1904-1905), and in English 1930.

            ³ Max Weber, "Author's Introduction," ibid  pp. 13-31 the "Author's Introduction" was published in 1920.  See also Benjamin Nelson, "Max Weber's Author's Introduction (1920): A Master Clue to His Main Aims," Sociological Inquiry, vol.44, no.4 (1974): 269-277. 

 

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Taking, as I do, Weber's views on the Protestant ethic problem with great seriousness, I have felt it imperative to put the relevant considerations in as broad a historical perspective as possible, and Chapter 9, "Christianity," presents an essential part of my conclusions and recounts the salient facts on which they were based.  Of course, the article expresses a point of view that will not prove acceptable to all historical and religious students of the field.  I can only hope that the critic judging these conclusions will take as fully as possible into account their relevance to the theoretical problems that are involved not only in Part III but also in this whole volume of essays and beyond.  Some but by no means all of these problems are discussed in the other essays included in Part III. 

 

            I hope, too, that readers will keep in mind that the relevant theoretical problems bear not only on religion and its relation to society and culture but also on many other empirical fields dealt with in the theory of action.  For the reader who has read straight through this book and its predecessor, it should by now be evident that there are major, intrinsic connections between the phenomena of religion and those, for example, of the economy and of the polity.  Thus, I do not in the least think that dealing with the problems of Part III implies the abandonment of my early interests in understanding the modern industrial economy and the relations between economic and sociological theory.  Indeed, Chapters 9-13 are above all concerned with understanding what has been going on in modern, especially Western, society and with building a theoretical framework that among other things can enhance this understanding.  I emphatically disagree with

the contention of many authors that Weber's position has been refuted or that the Protestant ethic is dead.⁴  

 

            ⁴ The fate of Weber's famous Protestant ethic thesis would constitute an interesting study in the historical sociology of knowledge.  Weber's study was first published in 1904-1905 (see notes 2 and 3 above). As early as 1930 I was told that Weber had been "definitively refuted."  The reference was to the forthcoming book of H. M. Robertson, Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism: A Criticism of Max Weber and His School (Cambridge: At the University Press; New York: Wiley, 1933).

            From time to time, other voices have been raised in the same vein.  See Andrew Greeley, "The Protestant Ethic: Time for a Moratorium," Sociological Analysis vol. 25 (Spring 1964): 20-23; Daniel Bell, The Coming of post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books, 1973); and David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950). 

            On the other hand, Little, Eisenstadt, Nelson, and myself maintain a sharply opposed view.  See S. N. Eisenstadt (ed.), The Protestant Ethic and Modernization: A Comparative View (New York: Basic Books, 1968), Pt. 1, "The Protestant Ethic Thesis in the Framework of Sociological Theory and of Weber's Work," pp. 3-63; David Little, Religion, Order, and Law (New York: Harper Torch books, 1969); and Benjamin Nelson. "Weber's Protestant Ethic: Its Origins, Wanderings, and Foreseeable Future" in Charles Y. Glock and Philip Hammond (eds.), Beyond the Classics? Essays in the Scientific Study of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), chap. 2.  What accounts for the fact that the controversy has never been settled?  

 

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The second essay in Part III, a revisit to Durkheim's work on religion, illustrates the importance of theory for my own work in this field, which I stressed previously in relation to Weber's work on very different empirical subject matters.  Thus, Durkheim did not contribute much to the empirical understanding of Christianity or of Western religion more generally; rather, he devoted his main empirical attention in this field to the study of the religion of a primitive people, the aborigines of Australia.  Nevertheless, I consider Weber and Durkheim to have been the two most important social theorists of their generation in the study of religion not because they dealt with the same empirical materials but because, dealing with widely different materials, they converged on what is, in highly important respects, a common theoretical framework for the analysis of religious phenomena. 

 

            Chapter 10, "Durkheim on Religion Revisited: Another Look at The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life," was written in response to request from Charles Y. Glock and Philip F. Hammond to contribute to the volume they were editing on the status of the sociology of religion since the work of certain classical students in this field.  Accordingly, "Durkheim on Religion Revisited," was published in Beyond the Classics? (1973). 

 

            Among the many revisits I have made to the work of those whom I consider the classic authors in my field, this return to The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life ⁵ was one of the most fruitful.  (I reread Durkheim's book, from cover to cover, in the original French - the English translation is passable but not distinguished.)  Perhaps for present purposes it is sufficient to mention two principal points.  In the Introduction to Part III of Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory, I mentioned the problematic character of the concept "society," about which I disagreed with Whitney Pope.⁶  The best evidence that I could mobilize against Pope, in addition to Robert N. Bellah's Introduction,⁷ came from The Elementary Forms itself.  There it gradually became clear that the frame of reference in which Durkheim was attempting to analyze religion, even so "elementary" a religion as that of the Australians, was not society in the narrower analytical sense, which is part of a theory of social systems (the traditional meaning) but what I have been calling a general theory of action, with the human condition (discussed in Part IV, below), in the

background. 

 

            ⁵ Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. J. W. Swain (New York: Free Press, 1965; first published in French in 1912). 

            ⁶ Cf. Whitney Pope, "Classic on Classic: Parsons' Interpretation of Durkheim," American Sociological Review, vol. 38 (August 1973): 399-415; Talcott Parsons, "Commentary on 'Classic on Classic': Parsons' 'Interpretation of Durkheim' by Whitney Pope," ibid., vol.40 (February 1975): 106-110; idem, "Commentary on 'De-Parsonizing Weber: A Critique of Parsons' Interpretation of Weber's Sociology by Cohen, Haselrigg, and Pope," vol.40 ibid., (October 1975): 666-669; and idem, “Reply to Cohen, Hazelrigg, and Pope," ibid., vol. 41 (April 1976): 361-364.

            ⁷ Robert N. Bellab, "Introduction" to Emile Durkheim On Morality and Society, ed. Robert N. Bellah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). 

 

Introduction to Part III - 171

 

            Of course, Durkheim did not have explicitly in mind all of the theoretical conceptualizations and distinctions I would now use.  I in no way mean to suggest that he did.  I mean, rather, that if one applies a general action scheme to interpret Durkheim's great work, many of his assertions, which are otherwise difficult to accept, can be seen to make sense.  Exampies are the meaning of numerous religious symbols, totems and others, that he discussed at such length, as well as many of the "psychological" aspects of ritual behavior - particularly, perhaps, the phenomenon he called "effervescence," which most definitely is not crowd behavior in the usual sense.⁸   

 

            The second main point that I mentioned in the General Introduction is essentially a corollary of the first.  That is, if one takes Durkheim's concept of the social environment (milieu social) ⁹ as the focal meaning of "social" to him, this term can readily be interpreted in the more analytical sociological sense to designate the internal environment of the general system of action.  This is to say, it is the primary environment in which human individuals act and to the circumstances of which they respond.  There is here a notable convergence with Freud, who in his theory of object relations, which was particularly prominent in his later work, clearly was talking about social objects; among social objects he strongly emphasized persons other than the actor of reference and with whom the latter "interacted," as we say.¹⁰ 

 

            The concept of the social environment was central to Durkheim from the beginning, thus being essential to his concept of social facts.¹¹  Its theoretical significance, however, became greatly extended in his later work, notably The Elementary Forms.  I do not remember his giving any references to the work of his countryman Claude Bernard,¹² who introduced the concept of internal environment into physiology.  Yet Durkheim was to my knowledge the first social scientist to introduce and develop this concept for this subject matter.  Failure to appreciate what he was doing in this respect constitutes one of the main sources of the pervasive misunderstanding of Durkheim's work, for example, the egregious attribution to him of the "group mind fallacy." ¹³ 

 

            ⁸ Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937; reprint ed., New York:

ree Press, 1949) chap. 11; and Bellah, "Introduction" to Durkheim, On Morality and Society. 

            ⁹ Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, tran','. S. A. Sotovay and J. H. Mueller, 8th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1964; first published in French in 1895).

            ¹⁰ For a discussion on this point see Talcott Parsons, Social Structure and Personality (New York: Free Press, 1964), chap, 4, "Social Structure and the Development of Personality: Freud's Contribution to the Integration of Psychology and Sociology."

            ¹¹ Durkheim, Sociological Method.

            ¹² Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, trans. H. C. Greene (New York: Dover, 1957; first published in French in 1865). 

 

            The other three papers in Part III belong together in the sense that they are all oriented to understanding the place of religion in modern industrial and postindustrial societies, especially the more or less contemporary United States.  They are presented in the order in which they were written, a decision that has both advantages and disadvantages. 

 

            Chapter 11, "Belief, Unbelief, and Disbelief" was written for a conference on the "Culture of Unbelief' held under the auspices of the Vatican commission of that title, chaired by Franz Cardinal Konig.  This essay was published in 1971 in The Culture of Unbelief edited by Rocco Caporale and Antonio Grumelli.  Its focus is the phenomenon that has often been referred to as "secularization" in modern societies. 

 

            The article emphasizes a warning that departures from traditional patterns of religious belief in modern society should not too readily be interpreted to signify the loss of religious concern in favor of worldly or material interests.  This emphasis is reflected in the distinction between unbelief and disbelief in the chapter title.  Particularly important to me has been the Protestant pressure toward giving previously secular concerns religious meaning.  I have interpreted these pressures as outgrowths of the stance of ascetic Protestantism, which Weber first clearly analyzed,¹⁴ although they extend far beyond the field of economic affairs, as Weber formulated it in his concept of "the spirit of capitalism."  It was especially important to me that my former collaborator in the teaching of the sociology of religion, Robert Bellah, played a key part in this conference and contributed two articles to the volume that issued from it.¹⁵ 

 

            Chapter 12 is an article that I co-authored with Renee C. Fox and Victor M. Lidz.  I was asked by the editor of Social Research to contribute a paper to a special issue that was being planned on the subject of death.  Since I had already collaborated on the same subject with Victor Lidz,¹⁶ I asked the editor's permission to invite his collaboration, which was granted.  Renee Fox then informed me she also had been asked to contribute to the same issue and wondered whether we might not join forces, which pleased Lidz and myself and was accepted by Arien Mack, the editor. 

 

            ¹³ See the quotation in Morris Ginsberg, "Introduction" to L. T. Hobhouse, Sociology and Philosophy: A Centenary Collection of Essays and Articles, ed. Morris Ginsberg (London: Bell, 1966); see also Talcott Parsons, "Review of L. T. Hobhouse, Sociology and Philosophy, in Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory (New York: Free Press, 1977), chap, 2.

            ¹⁴ Weber, Protestant Ethic. 

            ¹⁵ Robert N. Bellah, "Religion and Social Science," in R. Caporale and A. Grumelli (eds.), The Culture of Unbelief (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), chap. 14.

            ¹⁶ Talcott Parsons and Victor M. Lidz, "Death in American Society," in Edwin Schneidman (ed.), Essays in Self-Destruction (New York: Science House, 1967). 

 

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            The three of us decided to focus our essay, "The 'Gift of Life' and Its Reciprocation," on the problem of attitudes toward death in the light of certain recent developments in biomedical research and practice, which could utilize Fox's intimate knowledge of these matters.¹⁷  We tried, however, to put these developments in a broader setting on two levels.  The more immediate of these was a consideration of the setting of medical practice and research in the society in relation to changes in ethical attitudes involved, and more generally in the background. In turn, we felt these developments could be related to a second level, that of the religio-cultural heritage. 

 

            The treatment of the last topic, which occupies the first part of the Social Research article for purposes of presentation, is related to Chapter 9 "Christianity."  There is, however, an important difference of emphasis in that the latter selection relies largely on doctrinal precepts and ethical maxims in their relation to institutional structures, whereas the former, attempts a different order of analysis of the set of religious symbols related to the meaning of death.  A third attempt to deal with the problem of death in our society, this time in the framework of human condition analysis, comprises Chapter 14 of Part IV. 

 

            Quite clearly, Chapter 12 could appropriately have been included in Part I of this collection.  Its treatment of the religious background of the problems with which it deals seemed, however, from the point of view of the theory of action to be more innovative than that of the medical aspect.  I am particularly grateful to my two collaborators for their permission to include this article in the present volume. 

 

            Chapter 13, "Religion in postindustrial America: The Problem of Secularization," is in a sense a sequel to both Chapters 11 and 12.  It is literally a sequel to the latter since it was also written at the request of Arien Mack and published in Social Research (1974).  It is yet another of my attempts, of which doubtless there will be others, to deal with the main phenomena of religious developments in modern society as these are made understandable through use of the theoretical framework of the theory of action, supplemented by a still broader conception of the human condition (which is discussed more fully in Part IV).  Perhaps Chapters 11-13 taken together, on the background of the general discussion of Christianity in Chapter 9 (and of course on the background of the rest of the volume and my other relevant writings), will give a better conception of the drift of these attempts than any one of them separately.¹⁸ 

 

            ¹⁷ Renee C. Fox and Judith P. Swazey, The Courage to Fail: A Social View of Organ Transplants and Dialysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). 

            ¹⁸ In Chapter 10 (p. 216) reference is made to the "behavioral organism" as one primary subsystem, the adaptive, of the general system of action.  The text is left unchanged since its original publication, but the reader should be aware of the substitution of the "behavioral" system in that formal position, a usage that is followed in Part lV of this volume.  See Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory, p. 106, note 17, for the rationale of this change.