By Jeffrey C. Alexander
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Extra info for Twenty Lectures: Sociological Theory Since World War II
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C learly correspond to the Communist regi m e bei n g devel oped in Russia, which was a different kind of response to growing "bourgeois" instability . Parsons has succeeded in showing that the so c i al developments which th reatened liberalism had theoretical di mensions. The " U tilitarian d il e mma " in theory was an e x istential dilemma as well . Parsons has linked this l iberal cirsis to the "theoretical logic" of n ineteenth-century liberal theory. What is h i s theoretical alternative?
Parsons is wrong here to i de n t i fy normative agreement with social cohesion and consensus. T h is is an illegitimate conflation of relatively autonomous theoretical levels. l\ormative agreement within one group of actors m ay lead them to promote social confl ict and increase social instability. When Parsons denies that material factors represent an acceptable version of collective o rder he is practicing theoretical conflation in a similar w a y : he argues not t h a t material forces are astructural but that the structures they produce are associated with the struggle for existence and even with chaos.
These teachers may have come from all corners of the earth , yet they must have experienced sufficiently similar s ociali zation experiences for them to have i n itially accepted the same social role. Yet th i s is only the be g i n n i ng of the role coordination demanded by a large and complex i nstitution . There must, further, be processes which allow these teaching roles to be specialized and interrelated. T eachers, moreover , must interact with others in substantially d ifferent roles, w ith secretaries, s taff, custodians , with publishers, editors, sal esmen , and, not least of all, with s tudents.