Talscott Parsons, Calvinist
To the Editor:
Mr. Bennett M. Berger’s article “On Talcott Parsons” [December 1962] was interesting but it failed to get to the root of the Parsonian dilemma. In The Structure of Social Action Parsons traced his social theory to the “greats” of the past, Marshall, Durkheim, Pareto, and Weber, but he renounced this pedigree in all of his subsequent writings—not in word, but in deed. He turned the Durkheimian epigram “society is a religious phenomenon” on its head and contradicted the conclusions of Pareto and Weber who specifically acknowledged the impossibility of systematic theory. Pareto (section 2143 of The Mind and Society) said that systematic theory was impossible because the data by which to solve the problem of society were inadequate, the ends of the actors were unknown, and Weber chimed in (“Religious Rejections of the World and their Directions,” From Max Weber, p.352) that “There is absolutely no ‘unbroken’ religion working as a vital force which is not compelled at some point to demand the credo non quod, sed quia absurdum—the ‘sacrifice of the intellect.’” Thus Parsons’s own explanation for his work is shot through with contradictions which obscure its real source, which is not the world of science and free thought, but the underground of superstition and dogma. Parsons, unfortunately, is a mere apologist for Calvinism (See The Structure of Social Action, p.248), whereas Weber gave his life to expose the evil and the good that it had brought into the world. But try as he may he cannot escape Weber’s damning conclusions (From Max Weber, p. 124 and the concluding comments of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) which prompt the convoluted reasonings that constitute his social theory and the confused cries of his conscience.
Selwyn G. Geller
Knoxville, Tennessee
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