Take Home Final
K. D. Kappus
Fall 2006: SOA 466 (Stivers)
Social Theory
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1) Compare and contrast a qualitative, dialectical approach to research and theory
with a positivistic, statistical approach
I will draw contrasts between qualitative and numerical/statistical approaches to research and
theory. First, I will illustrate the assertion of the class lectures and authors that quantification
confounds understanding and strips phenomena of their true social meaning. Second, I will
contrast the motivations for use of a qualitative approach with the interests of a social thinker
who uses a quantitative approach. Third, I will distinguish the concepts that quantitative and
qualitative theorists use to understand the social world. Finally, I will detail what several of the
course texts say in support of the distinctions I have made.
“A quantitative, statistical method, on some level,” Stivers said, “reduces theory down to the
variables that are used for measurement.” Vandenberg makes a similar accusation about
quantification when he has his readers ponder a Cartesian view of the French Pantheon in which
the value of the structure has been reduced to the number of bricks out of which the shrine was
built, and their individual dimensions. If we quantify the Pantheon, we are no longer able to
speak about the strong feeling it inspires in the heart of a Frenchman. We no longer see the
Pantheon, but instead, merely a pile of bricks.
The statisticians want the facts, but like Vandenberg points out, the facts don’t speak for
themselves. Facts need context in order to convey useful meaning. We want to back away in an
ostensible attempt to be “objective.” Fleeing context, a phenomena’s relationship with the whole,
we attempt to abscond with the phenomena’s meaning, perhaps a single figure or index score.
Arrested later for attempted robbery, we are embarrassed to find that we were caught both redhanded and empty-handed.
Why would anyone wish to be caught empty-handed after so much effort? In fact, a choice to
quantify is ultimately political (Habermas). Compte’s positivism and the empirical social science
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that has followed his lead are attempts to control, manipulate, or forecast the future, and these
attempts are mostly carried out in service to the State. Compte would have formed a committee
to run the nation based on the relevant numbers, the “Stat”-istics; Osterberg notes that the study
of statistics arose because princes wished to control their subjects more effectively. If a theorist
doesn’t strive to serve the interests of the State, s/he can serve the interest of conserving the past
into the present by using a historical/hermeneutical method. The rest of us, being interested in
human liberation, can create social theory that is a criticism of power and ideology. This last
approach to theory doesn’t especially lend itself to quantification because a power relationship is
a holism, irreducible to decontextualized numbers.
The statisticians’ intent is to use logical, positivistic concepts to describe the essential
qualities of a thing in the social world. They count the bricks in the Pantheon, and the
dimensions of those bricks, and they say that their conceptualization of the Pantheon as a sum of
bricks, which they have counted and measured, is the same as the Pantheon itself. For the user of
these logical, positivistic concepts, ideally, there is only one true, reliable, and therefore best way
to capture the meaning of the Pantheon: it always has the same number of bricks, and those
bricks always measure the same number of cubic meters each, no matter who measures.
On the other end of a spectrum, some social scientists have used metaphor to describe the
essential qualities of a thing in the social world, just as if they were poets. For the user of
metaphor, there are many possible ways of conveying the meaning of something. Shall I
compare thee to a summer’s day, or do you feel more like a kid at Christmas? Is capitalism from
the point of the worker more like a massive machine (Charlie Chaplin comes to mind here--) or
is it more like Sinclair’s jungle?
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In this class, what we have done is essentially split the difference between pure metaphor
and pure positivism with a third, middle way of capturing social reality. If we used metaphor, a
prisoner’s release from bondage after a long sentence would be like a breath of fresh air. If we
used quantification, his/her freedom would be an amount or a distinct category: we are 95%
confident that we have successfully measured his/her freedom to be at least 90% greater than it
was previously. In our middle way, we use dialectical concepts, and say that the former
prisoner’s freedom takes its meaning in contrast to his former confinement. Unlike metaphor,
there probably is a single dialectical concept that is more accurate and reliable than all the others;
unlike quantification, the parts are irreducible to a single figure.
Part of the work of the course in for the first month or so was to show that quantification is
not the best way to capture the meaning of social phenomena. We started with Lakoff, who
contests the relevance to the social sciences of the idea that standing outside and apart from the
object of investigation, we are able to extract a single reliable measure of a characteristic of that
object. He proposes that the overall meaning of a social phenomenon is contained within a set of
internal meanings and inter-relationships that are contradictory and changing—a dialectic.
Osterberg continues this argument when he talks about internal and external relations. The key
for these writers and the ones we read later is that studying holistically how the parts of a system
work together conveys more meaning than reducing the whole to a sum of its parts.
2) Discuss Ellul’s views on propaganda. Distinguish political from sociological
propaganda. What are the sociological conditions for the existence of
propaganda? Discuss in particular the mass society, public opinion, the mass
communication media, and an average culture. Discuss why both the political
state and the individual need propaganda. What is the new relationship
between propaganda and ideology, and between action and ideology?
Ellul believes that propaganda is a simple necessity in mass society. When mechanical
solidarity (Durkeim’s term) is broken, the individual is left without the moorings of the small
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groups that make up this sort of society. He or she is merely a member of the mass, and his/her
identity is based on his/her similarities to other members of the mass. Psychologically isolated
from others, the individual has no community aside from the community of people who consume
the same products.
Ellul draws a distinction between sociological and political propaganda. Political propaganda
is an intentional and overt attempt to influence a group towards a party or government’s position.
Its use is deliberate and calculated. Sociological propaganda, on the other hand, is much more
diffuse. In either case, the attempt is to disseminate an ideology.
Ellul defines sociological propaganda as “the penetration of ideology by means of
sociological context.” By this, he means that the ideology is disseminated via the general climate
in which people live their lives. In an earlier part of his work, he insists that propaganda works
when it is so pervasive as to be unnoticeable. Sociological propaganda exemplifies this
pervasiveness. It is in the structure of the movies, the way that social services are administered,
and what clothes people wear. The upshot of the pervasive and diffuse quality of sociological
propaganda is to create a common lifestyle for the mass society.
Propaganda must speak to the individual both as an individual, and as a member of a
grouping that is based on what s/he shares with other members of the mass. When I lived in San
Francisco, I was a member of the target demographic consisting of 18-35 year-old college
educated men, non-television owners, with disposable income, who lived in a leading market
area. To manipulate my opinion, the propagandist needed to appeal to me as an individual and as
a member of this group.
Ellul says that there are both “sociological” and “objective” conditions that must be met for
propaganda to flourish. The sociological requirements are for a mass society, about which I
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already commented, the existence of mass media of communication, and the crystallization of
public opinion. The objective conditions are the existence of an average culture and an average
standard of life. I will discuss each of these in turn.
In addition to a mass society, there must be public opinion. Public opinion is different from
the opinions that small groups form in a mechanical society in that the people in mass society do
not usually have direct experience with the subjects about which they will form common
opinions. What has to happen for public opinion to form, then, is that someone has to tell these
people what subjects are worthwhile having an opinion about, and ultimately, what their opinion
on those topics should be. A linked sociological requirement for the flourishing of propaganda,
then, is the prevalence of mass media. The mass media are the best way of spreading public
opinion.
The objective conditions for the flourishing of propaganda are an average culture and an
average standard of living. The average standard of living is necessary so that people can buy the
means to be propagandized—Ellul mentions televisions, the newspaper, and a formal education.
Aside from having the means to absorb lots of unverified secondhand information, the individual
must have financial means to free him or herself from worry about mere survival. Average
culture is a necessity because it allows people to be predicted and controlled. The message gets
to the individual because s/he is just like everyone else in the mass.
In the mass society of America, propaganda is a necessity for social solidarity. It forms our
identity, telling us who we are. It defines what our needs are so that we will buy more stuff in
order to fill those needs. There can be no mass consumption without a million people who all
believe that their identity and needs are the same, and will be similarly fulfilled by the purchase
of a mass-produced tchotke.
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Propaganda is a political necessity, especially in a democracy. Governance in a mass society
is not possible without propaganda
A ruler cannot escape the mass, but [s/]he can draw between
[her/]himself and them an “invisible curtain,” a screen, on which the
mass will see projected the mirage of some politics, while the real
politics are made behind [the screen]. (122)
3) Discuss Bell’s theory of the disjunction of the three realms—techno-economic,
polity, and culture—with special attention to that of culture. Discuss his views on
modernism, especially the eclipse of distance. Discuss his ideas about a
technical civilization and its relation to culture. Contrast Bell’s theory of the
relationship of technology to culture with that of Ellul.
Daniel Bell believes that fundamental characteristic of each of the realms mentioned in the
question text put them at odds with the other realms. The two largest conflicts are between
economy and polity and between culture and economy.
Of Bell’s realms, the realm of culture is the most important because within it occurs the
greatest rate of innovation and change. Culture, for Bell, contains the great artistic and creative
expressions of the day.
The contradiction between the economic and cultural realms arises because while the
capitalist economy requires functional rationality (separation of personal identity and role),
efficiency through the application of known rules, prudent investment, and delayed gratification,
modernist culture demands absolute immediate self-realization and the breaking of all strictures
related to convention. Originally, individualism helped the bourgeoisie engage in the
experimentation in commerce and science that lead to the rise of capitalism. Since that time,
individualism developed two different and opposed strands. In economy, individualism fostered
acquisitiveness, rationality, and bourgeois values, or, in other words, disciplined rational selfinterest. By contrast, in the cultural arts, individualism became radical, and demanded the
removal of all strictures and all rules in its quest towards absolute self-expression.
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Bell argues that in the century that preceded his 1973 publication of The Cultural
Contradictions of Capitalism, this unbridled self-expression in culture lead to ever more
shocking and challenging art and literature that less and less frequently followed rational rules
for composition or meaning. In these works, the artist or writer abdicated the role of rational
interpreter of the world (“mimesis”) altogether. The effect was to diminish the distance between
the audience and the artist, which, according to Bell, reduced the audience’s ability to rationally
consider the work. As time has progressed, the unbridled narcissism and hedonism of culture has
become a widespread factor in peoples’ lives, and has chafed against the economic demands of
rational functionalism and efficiency.
Bell spends the second, weaker half of his book talking about the conflicts that the realm of
polity has with economy and culture. The modernist culture is hedonistic, and motivates people
to seek out their own “self-realization.” The economy allows an endless accumulation and great
competition towards individual ends. The polity, on the other hand, asserts that all people are
equal, or should be. Put roughly, the disjunction here arises because the polity insists on equality,
which is a group end, while the classic liberal capitalist idea is competition towards individual
ends, and furthermore, the culture insists on endless hedonism. Bell’s question is how the polity
might come to control the economy, perhaps despite the culture, so that goods are more evenly
distributed, and more peoples’ needs are met. (Here he contrasts “needs” with “wants.”)
Having summarized Bell’s main points, I can compare his conception of the relation of
technology to culture with those of Ellul. Bell would argue that in the nineteenth century, it was
the confounding speed of technology that created the modernist forms that evolved into those he
denounces.
In the everyday world of sense impressions, there was a disorientation of
the sense of space and time, derived from the new awareness of motion
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and speed, light, and sound that came from the revolution in
communication and transport. (47)
In tone, at least, this sounds similar to a quote that class lecture attributed to Ellul:
“Technology is the chief organizing and disorganizing force in society.” For Bell, the
technologies that were a product of capitalism have now spawned a contradictory reaction in the
cultural arts. The arts respond to the speed, light, and disorientation of the train and telegraph by
developing the eclipse of aesthetic distance (mimesis) and the focus on immediacy. According to
lecture, Ellul, like Bell, pointed to the emphasis on technique in art (cf Bell’s comments on
Jackson Pollack and abstract expressionists), the loss of a moral self in the novel/literature (cf
commentary on Burroughs), and art as undisciplined self-expression or release. The difference is
that while Bell sees culture as being a dominant force driving a disjointed society, Ellul sees it as
a response to, and sometimes an “escape valve” from, the pressures of technology.
4) Discuss Caillois[‘] theory of games. What do games reveal about culture?
Discuss the two fundamental combinations of games. Why do they tend to go
together? Discuss the corruption of games, especially in the context of a
technological civilization.
Caillois attempts to define a sociology derived from games. To this end, he first sets out a
definition of games and then a typology of games. He observes that even games that are played
by a single player are truly social. He explains that while elements of games can sometimes
become a part of everyday life, if elements of daily life intrude on a game, the game is corrupted.
Finally, he develops a sociology derived from games.
For Caillois, the essential qualities of games are that they are free, separate, uncertain,
unproductive, regulated, and fictive. Games are free in the sense that people engage in them
voluntarily; anyone forced to play a game is no longer truly engaged in play. They are separate in
the sense that they are rituals set aside in time and space from the normal logic of peoples’ lives.
They are uncertain because the course of a game is not known in advance. They are unproductive
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because they do not generate new goods; wealth may pass from one player to another based on
the outcome of a game, but the sum of all the players’ material wealth will not have increased.
They are regulated because there are rules and forms that must be adhered to in play. Finally,
because all players are aware that the game is an unreality, an artificial space apart from most
life, games are fictive.
After he defines what games are, Caillois sets out a typology of games based on their
characteristics. Games can be based on competition (agon), chance (alea), mimicry, vertigo
(ilinx)1. They can also be distinguished on the basis of where along a spectrum from rigidly and
arbitrarily structured (ludus) to absolutely free (pædia). Examples of games that fit are listed, and
an illustrative table can be found on page 36. Alea and agon form a natural combination on one
end of a continuum with mimicry and illinx on the other end. They work together because alea
and agon are rule bound (ludus) while mimicry and illinx epitomize release from rules and
structure.
Caillois continues in chapter three to assert the relevance of studying games to studying
society. He points out that no game is truly a solitary game; all games have spectators,
competitors, or both. When I fill out a crossword, I am acting alone, but I am implicitly in
competition with the achievements of everyone else who fills out crosswords, The social nature
of games that he explains here is the basis of his theorizing later on in the book.
Some authors have said that games are worthless, entirely isolated from culture, “entirely a
loss.” This is one theory of games—they are sort of a carnivalesque inverted image of society
that provides participants with an “out.” Another theory, which is closer, I think, to what Caillois
has in mind, is that games convey and reproduce social meaning. Children learn to play cops and
1
I will use the plain-English word and the greek/latin/???? word interchangeably.
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robbers, and then they become cops and robbers in their later years. People of all ages play
games that have elements of rules, fairness, equity, chance, loyalty, courage, and other qualities,
and they learn something about the emphasis that their society places on associated values. It is
through games that people “learn to construct order, conceive economy, and establish equity”
(58). This last observation is where Caillois starts to develop a sociology derived from games.
Caillois says that there is a truly reciprocal relationship between society and the games it likes to
play.
The corruption of games occurs when the separateness of play from real life is violated in a
certain way. Without any problem, the daily lives and professions of people may contain the
characteristics of games. Businessmen may compete, for example, spies may rely on deception
via mimicry, and medics may base their professions on managing vertiginous risk. But if the
characteristics of quotidian life creep into a game, the game becomes corrupted. Competition,
agon, is corrupted when the will to power, trickery, or unregulated violence appears disrupt the
careful artificial equality that made the competition meaningful. Games of chance are corrupted
when the players stop believing that the game is aleatoric and instead superstitiously hope that
some outside force, like the stars, controls play. If mimetic players lose themselves to the role for
a time period beyond the confines of the game, they cease to be playing a character, and this
corrupts the purpose of play, as well. Finally, in a similar manner, if players at vertigo become
permanently spirited away into a place of freefall, the game is corrupted because it is no longer
separate from life; it is a game for Hunter S. Thompson to go and ingest endless psychoactive
drugs in Las Vegas, as long as the fear and loathing end when he arrives back in LA and avoids
permanent dependence.
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I suppose that the relationship of the corruption of games to the spread of technology
happens when agon is reduced to technique, when there are statistical models to predict (even
control) chance outcomes, and illinx is a permanent and necessary escape from the pressure. I
only posit these relationships tentatively.
5) Compare and contrast the work of Elias, Ellul, van den Berg, Bell, and Caillois
Elias, Ellul, van den Berg, and Bell all use dialectical means to make arguments about the
structure of society or part of society. Each places the object of his interest within a context in
which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Elias relates Kultur to civilization, van den
Berg relates the birth of “maturation” and multivalency to technology, Ellul exponds the place of
technique in society, and Bell the relationship of culture to polity and economy. Even though all
of the works are about different subjects, the authors share an interest in how meaning is
constructed or obliterated by the dialectical relationships on which they focus. Finally, several of
them draw the dialectic relationship that is central to their argument within a context that is
strongly shaped by power.
Elias explains the soul of the French and German people based on their history. He notes that
Kultur, for Germans, is the body of intellectual and artistic things that Germans have achieved
over the years, the patrimony of the German people. To explain this term more carefully, he
draws it into a dialectical relationship with the French and English “civilization.” By comparison
to Kultur, civilization is a set of rules about how people think and act. Civilization is a sort of
courtly virtue. In fact, the point of much of Elias’ work is to explain the historical relationship of
the development of the Kultur/civilization relationship, and he shows that it arose in response to
French dominance in the German court—a relationship having to do with power. In this case, the
power of the French courtly manners in the German court distanced the German bourgeoisie
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from the court to the extent that when the bourgeoisie took over, they did not accept the set of
meanings that go into the word “civilization.”
Van den Berg locates a certain universal obliteration of meaning within modernism. Words
have been denuded of their context, and can now, because of the modernist technique,2
quantification, can take on multiple, and sometimes contradictory meanings. A word or cultural
meme that is multivalent in this way ceases to convey value. Again, van den Berg locates the
production of multivalency amongst a set of historical factors, and deals with the power that
technology has to reduce words’ meaning to nihil.
Ellul, for his part, examines the force of technology. Specifically, in our classwork, he is
looking at propaganda as a technique or technology. Ellul asserts that propaganda exists not as a
reducible object, but as a relationship between the massification of society, the individual’s
relationship to the mass, and so forth. As with the other authors, Ellul is talking about power,
though it’s a little harder to see where the start of the strand of power is.
As previously mentioned on this exam, Bell writes about the relationship—see? the
relationship is everything to these writers!—between culture, polity, and economy. And that’s
not the only set of relationships that he writes about. For example, he produces an
interrelationship between milieu, social characteristic, and the social games people play that
looks something like the following:
Milieu
characteristic
The games people play
Nature
Survival
Game against nature for
survival
2
I’m honestly a bit confused here.
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Technology/industry
industry
Game of modifying nature
instrumentally
Post-industry
Information
Game against other humans
But this isn’t the only one of these intriguing interrelationships. Bell loves tables like this. At any
rate, aside from being prone towards making up dialectical relationships, Bell believes that the
power to create meaning is in culture, narrowly defined as high culture.
Finally, we come to Caillois. Caillois is talking about a system of meanings or values that are
expressed by play. The games that are popular within any one society are characteristic in some
way of that culture because they help in the social reproduction of values. So the games both
affect and are affected by society.
Just to keep my argument straight, I’ll add a table
Writer
Power/determining factor
Parts, the sum of which is less than the whole(!)
Elias
French court vs. German
civilization/Kultur
bourgeoisie
van den Berg
Technology
modernity+meaning=multivalency= no
meaning
Ellul
Technology/propaganda
Mass society needs propaganda and propaganda
needs mass society
Bell
Modernist culture
Culture vs. economy vs. polity
Caillois
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Play both affects and is affected by society
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