摘要:

Alvin Gouldner's oeuvre is examined in terms of its confrontation with and critical appropriation of both empirical social research and Marxism. Traversing an enormous range of diverse topics‐the sociology of knowledge; industrial sociology; problems of bureaucracy and democracy; studies in leadership; the role of intellectuals and ideologies; sociolinguistics; functionalism, Marxism, Stalinism, and anarchism; and studies of Plato, Saint‐Simon, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Parsons‐Gouldner's work retains a basic thematic focus. This work is neither a harmonious synthesis of these various topics nor does it remain totally consistent with any topic taken individually. Nonetheless there is a thematic continuity underlying the creative tensions and contradictions in his work. This continuity is identified as the classical political and historical mission of social theory; namely, the Enlightenment quest for rational discourse and the establishment of the social conditions for a truly humane so

ISSN:0038-0245    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1984.tb00059.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The transformation of personal identities is an implicit or explicit goal of many organizations, including “new” religious movements, self‐help groups, “deprogramming” enterprises, rehabilitation programs, and others. This essay describes and accounts for one important structural feature of identity transformation organizations (ITOs): encapsulation. Three types of encapsulation are described–physical, social, and ideological–and reasons why different ITOs emphasize certain types of encapsulation rather than others are suggested. Finally, we discuss how the need for encapsulation may conflict with other organizational imperatives of ITOs and we discuss the implications of this organizational dilemma for the successful functi

ISSN:0038-0245    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1984.tb00060.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper examines the emergence, reification, and dissemination of the “midlife crisis” from a sociology of knowledge perspective. Two decades of articles on the subject from both professional and mass media sources (n = 233) are content analyzed. Upon elaborating the various biological, psychological, and social psychological theories of this biographical phenomenon, we address such questions as how different disciplines portray the event, what patterns of interdisciplinary citations there are, and how these professional depictions lead into the mass media. The results suggest longitudinal declines in the frequency of reductionist explanations from the biological and psychiatric paradigms and increasing attention given to the interplay between social dynamics and personality structures. From this, a new sociocultural theory is posited, one portraying this subjective experience deriving not simply from age, but from external social temporalities. Specifically, we consider the particularcohortthat most midlife research is based upon as well as the particular historicalperiodwhen it reached middle

ISSN:0038-0245    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1984.tb00061.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper analyzes how authority can be maintained by structuring reality through continuous violent conflict. Using Lewis Coser's reformulation of Simmel's propositions on fostering continuous conflict as a raison d'être in sect‐like struggle groups as a general frame of analysis, the Stalinist case is then examined in order to evaluate systematically these propositions in a societal context and to specify the morphology of violence as a method of conflict. By examining a societal context, it is noted that instability in the social structure not only can be a condition for the legitimacy of a problematic political leadership and system, but also simultaneously be a consequence of a form of preventive punitive sanctioning, whereby potential threats, both persons and alternative courses of action, are eliminated before they become present dangers. In turn, an official definition of reality, justifying leadership and system, is constructed through the public documentation of a conspiracy, which employs invented categories to demonstrate ideological continuity and fabricates pseudo events to demonstrate indispensability in fulfilling necessary functions. This public documentation of a conspiracy is then used as a facade for a larger plan of social prophylaxis that implicates the public as well as the police in ferreting out tangible and visible enemies to till the invented categories in the pseudo events. As public complicity conjoins with the official definition of reality, commitment to the leadership and system is acquir

ISSN:0038-0245    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1984.tb00062.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper proposes a way in which the concepts of alienation and anomie may be related in a single dimension of social experience and offers a refinement and expansion of traditional strain theories of deviance causation. It is argued that both alienated and anomic social actors seek a common goal–a sense of effective interaction with their environment; an experience of personal competence. Anomic persons are those who perceive the demands of primary roles as confusing and beyond their abilities and who respond by seeking to maximize certainty, security, and stability in social interaction. By contrast, alienated individuals are those who experience primary role requirements as simple but stifling and restrictive, bereft of meaningful challenges. These latter persons seek greater freedom and opportunities for creativity and self‐expression. The ways in which deviance may emerge as these alienated persons adapt to the perceived discrepancy between their abilities and responsibilit ies are outlined and illustrated following the adaptive modes suggested by Merton for anomic pers

ISSN:0038-0245    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1984.tb00063.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Lee's conception of the “socio‐spatial schema” was reexamined for a sample of respondents from a British new town. Results showed that over half of the respondents differentiated their neighborhoods from smaller “areas of belonging” and that neither the neighborhood nor area of belonging corresponded well to ecological concrptions of a “natural area.” Discriminant analysis revealed that differences betwren respondents who provided one neighborhood versus those who distinguished a neighborhood from an area of belonging had empirical significance. These two groups were discriminated on the basis of four components of community satisfaction, that is, distance from the town center, proximity of friends, length of residence, and respondent age. Size of the neighborhood was found to be a function of the location of the neighborhood center and length of residence. Size of the area of belonging was related to length of residence and proximity of relatives. Results are discussed in relation to the socio‐spatial methodology, the neighborhood concept, and differences between these findings and previous research, especially as related to the residential location of friend

ISSN:0038-0245    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1984.tb00064.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY