Social Science and National Security Policy by Janeen M. Klinger

Author:Janeen M. Klinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030112516
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Against the prospect of breakdown, science with social science included represented the central rationalizing force to avert it. Parsons observed that “it is impossible to draw any rigid line between science as the pursuit of knowledge as such and its practical applications to the rational management of human interests and affairs.”59 What is more, the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the 1930s offered proof that social order was indeed fragile and society always vulnerable to backsliding into more primitive social relations. Parsons’ pointed out that under National Socialism, Germany replaced “rational knowledge and technical competence” with membership in the “mystical body” of the German people that emphasized racial particularism and loyalty to the Fuhrer, thereby substituting a traditional order for a rational-legal one.60 Indeed, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels recorded in his diary that he listened to his mother because “she knows the sentiments of the people better than most experts who judge from the ivory tower of scientific inquiry, as in her case the voice of the people itself speaks.”61

Parsons’ concern with social order led him to develop frameworks for understanding processes related to stability and change. One way to analyze social stability was to conceive of all societies as functioning systems where individual motivation (or value orientation) could be correlated with different social structures. Here, psychology and sociology were brought to bear, and individual actions “were mediated by a set of regulating values transmitted through the institutions that ensured social order.”62 For Parsons, a disconnect between value orientation and social structures would create a strain that would likely prompt a reequilibrating process. Because of his concern with social stability and equilibrium, Parsonian analysis is often criticized as having a conservative political bias. But as Gabriel Almond pointed out, Parsons’ assertion that social systems tend toward equilibrium was meant to convey that social systems, whatever their particular character, tend to preserve that character and only change slowly.63 Furthermore, while true that Parsons was concerned with a stable equilibrium of the interactive process between motivation of the individual and the structure of the social system, his intent was to provide a theoretical point of reference only. He pointed out, therefore, that in reality, “no social system is perfectly equilibrated and integrated,” a point he underscored in an essay on McCarthyism titled, “Social Strains in America.” In that essay, he suggested that changes in the structure of American society growing from the expansion of political responsibility both internally and externally generated strains culminating in McCarthyism.64

If a conservative tone is to be found in his discussion of what he saw as a moving equilibrium, it lies in his assertion that if a social breakdown occurs and leads to the emergence of an alienated, revolutionary movement, their ascendance will necessarily lead to the reestablishment of some equilibrium involving some change, but not as much as their ideology might suggest.65 For Parsons, the Soviet Union’s abandonment of utopian aspects of their ideology under the pressure of running the country illustrated this reality.

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