Sociological Theory in Transition (RLE Social Theory) by Mark L. Wardell Stephen P. Turner

Author:Mark L. Wardell, Stephen P. Turner [Mark L. Wardell, Stephen P. Turner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138782563
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2014-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

The failure of hard structuralism as a scientific program tells us something about the prospects of manipulated reform. Despite promises of its irrelevance, culture has proved to be a significant category of social explanation. The failure of structural sociology to reduce culture to successfully explained dependent variables, and to identify the structural variables through which it can be manipulated, is paralleled by a failure of the program to change persons by changing circumstances. Historical cultures have a way of not collapsing when their alleged structural supports are removed. The past continues to weigh on the minds of the living. Structural sociology has promised us a lever with which people who resist ‘education’ can be changed anyway. All too often disappointment in the effectiveness of this non-coercive lever has led to the use of a coercive means of social change. The relative autonomy of culture from circumstance, and the ways in which culture is built into the very concept of structure, partially explain the practical and conceptual failures of even the more coercive programs. A greater respect for the integrity of culture might be an antidote for both the theoretical extravagance of structural sociologists and the arrogance of the social engineer.

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