Two studies of the relations between ideas and social structure

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Two studies of the relations between ideas and
social structure

• Anderson and Harris each show that ideas and
  culture does not hang in mid air, but is created
  and sustained by social relationships.
• Culture neither changes nor persists by itself
  but by the persistence or change of the structure
  on which it is based.

2
How do group and institutional structures get
inside ones head?

• If you lived at the foot of Germantown Ave. would
  you join a gang? Why? Or why not?
• If you were Hindu, would you feel real loathing
  for cow-killers. Why? or Why not?
• If you worked at Auschwitz would you gas Jews?
  Why? or why not?

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Elijah Anderson

• Vice president of ASA 2002
• Streetwise Race, Class and Change in an Urban
  Community (1990)
• Code of the Streets Decency, Violence and Moral
  Life in the Inner City (1999).
• Topic of symposium American Journal of Sociology
  May 2002
• (Entry to the methodological and substantive
  findings of urban ethnography as possible paper
  topics)

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Groups and Norms along Germantown Ave.

• The head of Germantown Ave. (Chestnut Hill) is
  very upper class and the foot is very lower
  class.
• pp. 366-7 shows the same structure of Lancaster
  Ave. from ghetto poverty to the main line.
• The head is characterized by a norm of civic
  politeness the foot by rep or juice.
• The head is white the foot is black.
• Is this an example of institutional racism?

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Structures that make the code of the streets
crazy in Chestnut Hill

• Some Chestnut Hill residents see most blacks from
  down town as very rude.
• Where does that behavior come from?
• Anderson argues that down town, showing that you
  are bad and that anyone who messes with you
  is asking for trouble is adaptive.
• If you behave that way in Chestnut Hill, people
  will look at you as though you are crazy, and you
  may be arrested.
• Anderson argues it is like a language, a code.

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Situations and structures making resisting the
code of the streets hard at the foot of
Germantown Ave.

• Similarly, if you behave, downtown, in a way that
  would work and would be appropriate in Chestnut
  Hill, people will look at you as though you are a
  turkey, and take advantage of you.
• But in Chestnut Hill being nicey-nicey signals
  status, class, kindness and character.

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e.g. 1 The Story of Robert Small business and
Old Heads

• When I was dealing, I was treated as a king, and
  no one messed with me.
• When I follow the rules, I am in a dead end,
  everyone steals from me and every petty
  bureaucrat dumps on me.
• The view of the old heads in Mantua is that
  they are suckers and pathetic Toms.
• Why?

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Why Does the city discourage venders?

• In the overall structure of power and influence,
  people like Robert are at the bottom.
• They were the last hired (in 1969-73) and so
  they were first fired (in 1972-81)
• The city department that issues and enforces
  vendor licenses is mainly responsive to
  storeowners that regard Robert as a nuisance.
• What are the main priorities of the police?
• Anderson suggests that no one with any power or
  influences is particularly interested in having
  Robert succeed but his success is key to who
  wins the battle between the street and
  decency

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Example 2 the story of Tyree

• Tyrees Grandmother - decent folk.
• The bols
• Tyrees situation.
• Tyrees solution.
• The Outcome of Tyrees solution He is now in a
  gang, fighting in the street and hanging around
  with the worst people.

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Why doesnt he Just Say No

• The structure does not insure that every person
  joins a gang certainly not with commitment, but
  
• It insures that enough do so that the structure
  is reproduced.
• Those not in a gang, get it from all sides.
• Not an option? Well, not quite. But there is
  a special role for those who have no group.
• They are losers they are bullied they are
  cowards they are turkeys.
• The structure of alternatives means that the
  constrained choices reproduce the structure.

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Wacquants criticisms of COS

• Anderson is not honest about his own position as
  pro-decent and anti-street.
• The code has no reality there are two different
  fractions of the black working class that have
  different situations.
• Mentoring and opportunity-policies will not have
  much effect.

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Andersons replies

• Im an ethnographer, not an ideologue
• The people in the neighborhoods make the
  distinction between decent and street.
• People make choices under constraints.
• The situtional change that makes street toughness
  a virtue is disastrous for the community.
• Mentoring examples show the real tug-a-war.

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The Persistence of Culture a third
anthropological example

• Do ideas and cultural systems persist, out of
  inertia.
• What are the dynamic structures of persistence?
• What groups, activities and rewards come into
  play?

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Harris Cultural Materialism

• Marvin Harris Cows Wars, Pigs and Witches.
• Thesis no element of culture persists without
  reasons
• These reasons usually have to do with class,
  economic and ecological structures.
• Food (pigs, dogs, cows, people) are exceptionally
  clear examples.

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The sacred cow of India

• The cow has been sacred for 2,000 yrs.
• Only untouchables butcher or eat cows
  cow-killing produces an even more powerful
  reaction than murder.
• Most Indian food is cooked in butter-fat
• Nearly 100,000,000 foraging cows are everywhere.
• Even cow dung is used and is treated as pure.

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The Rockerfeller view

• Millions of people starve while millions of cows
  are protected by religious superstition.
• Avoiding cow-killing is
• Inefficient,
• Wasteful,
• Superstitious,
• Traditionalism
• India needs capitalist agriculture like the US

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Problems with that explanation, according to
Harris

• Millions of Indian villages have destroyed their
  livelihood.
• A sustainable economy must preserve the land and
  the population,
• unlike the commercial farming that created the
  dust bowl.
• Killing a cow creates one feast for one family in
  the short run, and disaster for the community in
  the not very long run.
• Even when a cow is too old to calf and is past
  milking, it is crucial to the ecology.

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Harris explanation

• 700,000,000 tons of cow manure per year are
  crucial to preventing ecological disaster.
• The non-cow-owners have a particularly strong
  motive for saving even an old cow.
• Unless we look at the social and ecological long
  run dynamics, we cannot understand present
  arrangements or suggest reasonable changes.
• Mixture of functionalism and conflict theory

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But why make the cow sacred?

• The cultural rules that preserve the society as a
  whole particularly those that require that
  people act in the public interest usually take
  this form.
• Bargaining over when to kill which cows could
  never preserve the society.
• For all cows to be sacred for all Hindus can and
  did preserve the society.

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2 Aspects of Bureaucracy

• Nice
• Efficient,
• Systematic,
• Fair
• E.g. the passport office

• Nasty
• Bottom line
• Arbitrary
• Without values
• Parking authority

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The debate about Weber

• Weber believed that modern rational organization
  has to be exploitative (one needs to concentrate
  resources) and undemocratic (one needs chain of
  command.)
• But this produces a society of Auschwitzes a
  world without community or value.

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Getting the best of both worlds

• Marx, Durkheim, Murray, and a host of other
  sociologists have tried to get the best of both
  worlds
• Bureaucartic rationality and efficiency.
• Social conscience and community.
• Buddy systems and other ways of structuring
  formal organization in such a way as to use
  primary group structures.

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Alcoholics Anonymous as a Hybrid Form.

• Primary Group Characteristics
• Small groups
• High fellowship
• No Professionals
• No Authority - sponsorship
• Core identity

• Secondary group Characteristics
• Tens of millions of members.
• Anonymity.
• Service arms.
• Conferences.
• Open networks.

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Alcoholics Anonymous as a SPIN

• The reason that AA can generate several million
  members in Russia in a few years is that it is a
  kind of SPIN
• The groups are autonomous and independent
• There are no leaders who could disgrace the
  organization by falling off the wagon
• But the members are committed to the organization
  and to its expansion.
• It can often socialize and incorporate new
  members relatively rapidly.