Influence and canonical supremacy: An analysis of how George Herbert Mead demoted Charles Horton Cooley in the sociological canon

Abstract

This analysis assesses the factors underlying Charles Horton Cooley's place in the sociological canon as they relate to George Herbert Mead's puzzling diatribe-echoed in secondary accounts-against Cooley's social psychology and view of the self published scarcely a year after his death. The illocutionary act of publishing his critique stands as an effort to project the image of Mead's intellectual self and enhance his standing among sociologists within and outside the orbit of the University of Chicago. It expressed Mead's ambivalence toward his precursor Cooley, whose influence he never fully acknowledged. In addition, it typifies the contending fractal distinctions of the scientifically discursive versus literary styles of Mead and Cooley, who both founded the interpretive sociological tradition. The contrasting styles and attitudes toward writing of the two figures are discussed, and their implications for the problems of scale that have stymied the symbolic interactionist tradition are explored.

Realizing dignity in housekeeping work: Evidence of five star hotels

“…Feeling they were under suspicion formed a component of the room attendants' 'self'. It is believed self-perceptions are partly founded on observations of others' actions toward oneself (Jacobs, 2009). By feeling they were initial suspects of dishonesty, due to their occupation, represented discrimination for the room attendants.…”

Charles Horton Cooley, Pragmatist or Belletrist? The Complexity of Influence and the Decentering of Intellectual Traditions

“…This is attributed to the fact that Mead wrote a bitterly critical commemorative article about Cooley's social psychology in the year following Cooley's death in 1930, which effectively established the precedent for subsequent secondary treatments denigrating him in favor of Mead. Moreover, Cooley's writing style was less academic and more “literary” than Mead's, and it played an evident mediating role in the judgments and evaluations assigning Cooley to a secondary place in the sociological canon and within the symbolic interactionist tradition (Jacobs :123–4, 131–6).…”

“…Cooley now is undergoing a revival as Mead's supremacy is held up to reappraisal, and as sociologists have found fertile material in Cooley's more emotionally, versus Mead's cognitively, grounded notion of the social self (Jacobs ; Scheff :33–56; Schubert ). Although Cooley shared the ideology of American exceptionalism, it is his distance from the intellectual and professional currents of his time, and its singular bent that makes him an “exceptional” exceptionalist (Jacobs :22–52)!…”

“…A number of scholars have mentioned the concordance of Smith's and Cooley's ideas, but Cooley himself never acknowledged a debt to Smith (Costelloe ; Dingwall :239, 241; Jacobs :22–52; Joas ; Reynolds :32; Shott ; Stryker ; Truzzi ). Perhaps this bespeaks Cooley's exceptionalist strain, indicating as well that Cooley was not immune to what Harold Bloom calls the “anxiety of influence” or the denial of one's precursors to vouchsafe the certainty of one's originality, the very mechanism employed by Mead against him (see Barbalet :85; Bloom ; Jacobs :123–5, 129–31). In any case, the certainty of Smith's influence on Cooley is not irrefutable as I have encountered no mention of him in Cooley's published work or his journals.…”

Sympathetic introspection as method and practice: Cooley's contributions to critical qualitative inquiry and the theory of mind debate

“…Part of Cooley's relative unpopularity is likely due to Mead's () critique of Cooley (for a defense of Cooley contra Mead, see Jacobs, , pp. 90–101; ). However, Cooley may be “undergoing a revival” in symbolic interactionism (see Jacobs, , 27f; e.g., stressing Cooley's influence on Goffman in Scheff, ).…”