Pre-Functionalism 1

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Pre-Functionalism 1

• MARX Substructure and Superstructure
• Superstrucural institutions are organised in
  such a way as to maintain the economic
  relationships of the base. That is, the
  superstructure is functional for the base e.g.
• a) Media individualises problems
• b) Law protects private property
• c) Religion provides comfort for the
• disadvantaged

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Pre-Functionalism 2

• DURKHEIM Functions and social order
• Actions have unexpected outcomes that
• help maintain the social system e.g.
• the functions of deviance
• a) identifies the normative boundaries
• b) enables reaffirmation of commitment to
  shared norms
• c) opportunity for collective cohesion
• d) experiment with new social forms

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What does FUNCTION mean?

• The consequence for a social system of a social
  occurrence where this occurrence is regarded as
  making an essential contribution to the working
  and maintenance of this system
• Jary Jary Collins Dictionary of Sociology

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The Theory of Structural Functionalism

• Talcott Parsons (1902-1979)
• 3 Important Facts
• Parsons was initially trained as a biologist
• His dad was a Professor of English
• He got an obituary in the PJ

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Forms of Understanding

• Analysis
• the division of a physical or abstract whole
  into its constituent parts to examine or
  determine their relationship
• Synthesis
• the process of combining objects or ideas into
  a complex whole
• Source Collins Concise Dictionary
• Structural functionalism is synthesis it shows
  how individual parts fit into the social whole
  the system

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Parsons The System of Reality

• Human existence is composed of1. Physical
  reality (matter)
• 2. Biological reality (life)
• 3. Social reality (action)4. Spiritual reality
  (values)

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Parsons Action Frame of Reference

• Resources (means)
• Goals (ends)
• Persons (actors)
• Values (purposes)

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The Unit Act

• PERSON selects appropriate RESOURCES to
  reach desired
• GOALS justified by dominant
• VALUES.
• There is the assumption that rational
  calculation links these elements together re
  WEBER
• Person is not equivalent to individual.
• Collectivities are persons

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Conditions of Action

• Possibility of action is dependent upon the
  AVAILABILITY OF RESOURCES.
• The acceptability of action is dependant upon the
  IMPOSITION OF NORMATIVE STANDARDS.
• The orientation of action is dependant upon the
  MOTIVATION OF ACTORS.
• The continuity of action is dependant upon its
  COORDINATION WITH OTHER ACTION UNITS.
• the STRUCTURE (framework) of action

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System

• System is the concept that refers to a complex
  of interdependencies between parts, components
  and processes that involves discernible
  regularities of relationship and to a similar
  type of interdependency between such a complex
  and its surrounding environment

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Society as System of Action

• Society system of mutual interdependence of
  action units through exchange
• e.g.
• Family ?? Education ?? Work ?? State

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FUNCTION

• The function of an action unit is whatever it
  contributes to the maintenance of the overall
  system of action.

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Functional Pre-requisites (Institutions)

• AGIL
• Adaptation (economy)
• Goal attainment (polity)
• Integration (community)
• Latency (cultury)
• STRUCTURE
• Note the parallel to the system of reality

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Function and Structure

• Function
• What any action unit contributes to the
  production of
• Adaptation,
• Goal-attainment,
• Integration,
• Latency
• System
• through utilising the output of other action
  units

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Action as Exchange

• Therefore social action is the exchange of
  essential resources among interdependent action
  units.
• What one action unit requires to perform its
  function is provided by other action units
• school and work

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Structural-Functionalism

• 'Theoretical approach in which societies are
  conceptualised as social systems and particular
  features of social structures are explained in
  terms of their contribution to the maintenance of
  these systems e.g. religious ritual explained in
  terms of the contribution it makes to social
  integration'
• Source Jary Jary Collins Dictionary of
  Sociology

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Biological Metaphor 1

• Hinduism social order as the body of Brahma
• St. Paul the church as the body of Christ

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Biological Metaphor 2

• re Parsons training as a biologist
• Think of society as we would think of a
  biological organism a unity composed of mutually
  interdependent parts.
• re Durkheim on organic solidarity
• Society, like an organism in nature, becomes more
  differentiated in terms of social structure
  through evolutionary change
• Abercrombie et al Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
  (re Parsons Societies)

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Function and change

• Argument structural functionalism can only
  explain things as they are, therefore cannot
  explain change therefore is conservative i.e.
  static
• Counter-argument change is part of any
  functioning social system. That is, change is
  adaptation to new circumstances re Marx on change
  in the mode of production.

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Social Change and Social Exchange

• Social Change is change in the frequency and
  significance of exchange among action units
• Instance
• Secularisation is the process through which
  functional exchange between religion and other
  action units diminishes

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(Problems of ) Functional Explanation

• Function (after the action in order to)
• Cause (before the action because)
• Teleology (problem of purposeful causes)
• giraffes and tall trees
• Human beings have purposes does society?

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Function and Purpose

• The term is not quite a synonym for
  consequence or purpose but combines elements
  of bothFunctional consequences are not mere
  accident. Rather it is because these consequences
  are beneficial for the system .. that the action
  occurs or the institution exists. Hence functions
  have a purpose but it is not necessary for
  functionalism that actors be conscious of the
  functions of their actions
• Source Bruce Yearly Sage Dictionary of
  Sociology
• (emphasis added)

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Durkheim on Functional explanation

• When, then, the explanation of a social
  phenomenon is undertaken, we must seek separately
  the efficient cause which produces it and the
  function it fulfils. We use the word function
  in preference to end or purpose precisely
  because social phenomena do not generally exist
  for the useful results they produce
• Source Durkheim The rules of sociological
  method (1938) p.96 Italics added

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Adapting the model

• From biology society as integrated system
• To cybernetics society as learning system
• Science of systems of control and communications
  in animals and machines
• Source Oxford English Dictionary
• e.g. thermostatic control, sweat reflex

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Feedback Loop

• In a system where a transformation occurs, there
  are inputs and outputs. The inputs are the result
  of the environment's influence on the system, and
  the outputs are the influence of the system on
  the environment. Input and output are separated
  by a duration of time, as in before and after, or
  past and present.

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• In every feedback loop, as the name suggests,
  information about the result of a transformation
  or an action is sent back to the input of the
  system in the form of input data. If these new
  data facilitate and accelerate the transformation
  in the same direction as the preceding results,
  they are positive feedback - their effects are
  cumulative. If the new data produce a result in
  the opposite direction to previous results, they
  are negative feedback - their effects stabilize
  the system. In the first case there is
  exponential growth or decline in the second
  there is maintenance of the equilibrium..The
  examples are numerous chain reaction, population
  explosion, industrial expansion, capital invested
  at compound interest, inflation, proliferation of
  cancer cells. However, when minus leads to
  another minus, events come to a standstill.
  Typical examples are bankruptcy and economic
  depression. In either case a positive feedback
  loop left to itself can lead only to the
  destruction of the system, through explosion or
  through the blocking of all its functions. The
  wild behaviour of positive loops - a veritable
  death wish - must be controlled by negative
  loops. This control is essential for a system to
  maintain itself in the course of time.
• Source Principia Cybernetica Web,
  http//pespmc.1.vub.ac.be/FEEDBACK.html

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Positive Social Feedback Loop

• MORAL PANIC (Cohen Taylor)
• This expression refers to the alleged
  over-reaction of the mass media, police and local
  community leaders to the activities of particular
  social groups which are relatively trivial, both
  in terms of the nature of the offence and the
  number of people involved
• Source Abercrombie et al Penguin Dictionary of
  Sociology

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Homeostasis

• the tendency of a system to maintain internal
  stability, equilibrium, owing to the coordinated
  response of its parts to any situation that tends
  to disturb its normal condition.

29
Social Order as Dynamic Equilibrium

• The condition of a system that maintains a state
  of balance among its parts through continuous
  motion and change e.g. a gyroscope
• that is change and order are not opposed
  social change maintains the social order through
  the adaptive capacity of the social system.
• Is society an intelligent system that learns?

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CYBERNETIC HIERARCHY

• Combining the models (biology cybernetics)
• Developing evolutionary stages are dominated by a
  particular functional pre-requisite. This is
  based on the cybernetic principle that as a
  system develops so mass is replaced by
  information e.g. computers
• Hence
• Adaptation ? Goal Attainment ? Integration ?
  Latency
• Postmodernity as the information age knowledge
  industries