Reconsidering Blumer's Corrective Against the Excesses of Functionalism

Abstract

Blumer's corrective to Parsons' excesses is presented against a backdrop provided by two reformulations of Parsons' concepts: The problems of social order is recast as the problem of nonauthoritarian social order, and voluntaristic action is distinguished from normative action. Blumer's corrective, then, was to see that distinctively voluntaristic action is ineluctably the product of actors' negotiations of meaning (whereas both purposive‐rational and non‐rational action can more legitimately be abstracted from this process and treated as more reified by social analyses). Parsons' optimism about social order was unwarranted, as was Blumer's complacency about the problem of arbitrary power. It is suggested in conclusion that Parsons' theory ironically evinces more respect for the individual's integrity than does Blumer's.

An Embattled Yet Enduring Influence: Introduction to a Special Issue on Blumerian Symbolic Interactionism

“…The contention is that Blumer engaged in widespread “adversarial” and contested critiques of what, at the time, were understood as established sociological assumptions and methods (Shibutani 1988:27). Others saw “acrimony” in how he approached scholarly debate (Sciulli 1988:71). Again, like Simmel who was variously characterized as one who is “exclusively critical, even a destructive spirit” and whose “lectures lead one only to negation” (Wolff 1964:xix), Blumer was capable of putting forth “views that appeared extreme, and he was often accused of being negativistic” (Shibutani 1988:27).…”

“…1616 Blumer himself has been criticized in the same way, for not having read Parsons closely prior to launching his critique of Parsonian structural functionalism (Sciulli 1988). …”