Institutionalised Individualism. Parsons and Luhmann on American Society Gert Verschraegen

Institutionalised Individualism. Parsons and Luhmann on American Society Gert Verschraegen Although Luhmann’s work has been enjoying increased attention in Anglo-Saxon scholarship,1 its overall resonance in English-speaking academia, and especially the U.S, has been remarkably small. While systems-theoretical insights and categories crafted by Luhmann have been seeping into the theoretical language of numerous European social and cultural scientists, this is hardly the case in the U.S.2 Many different reasons can account for this state of affairs (see the introduction to this volume). For the ends of this chapter it will suffice to single out three of them. Firstly, the sheer complexity and abstract quality of Luhmann’s writings, bearing little reference to concrete social relations, as well as its almost continuous dialogue with general philosophical and trans-disciplinary problems, is without doubt off- putting to most American social scientists, which are steeped in a pragmatic, empiricist and a-philosophical scientific tradition. Secondly, the contested legacy and reputation of Talcott Parsons’ functionalist systems theory – which was the leading school of thought in the American social sciences from the 1930’s to the mid- 1960’s, but retreated into the shadows from the 1970’s onwards – has long impeded a fair-minded American reception of Luhmann’s work. A third reason is of a more substantial nature: Luhmannian systems theory largely dispenses with ‘human beings,’ ‘individuals’ and ‘agency’ as basic concepts to explain society and culture. This theoretical anti-humanism sits very badly with the cultural centrality of the individual actor in American thinking and U.S. social science. As Jeffrey Alexander puts it: 1 Witness, for instance, the several translations of Luhmann’s writings into English which have been published over the last decennium. 2 A notable exception is the work of Stephan Fuchs, merging Luhmannian sociology with network analysis: “Beyond Agency.” Sociological Theory 19.1 (2001): 24-40; id, Against Essentialism. A Theory of Culture and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. 172 Gert Verschraegen American ideology has focused, often myopically, on the individual self. What has marked American sociology is its preoccupation with the individual above all else, thus its extraordinary concern with the motives of individuals (“action” in sociological terms) and their mutual relations (“interaction”). Even when the focus of American sociology has shifted to institutions, its concern has been to understand how these collective forces provide either a supportive arena for the realization of individual interactions or block their realization. (Modern Reconstruction i-ii) Even Talcott Parsons, the pivotal figure in 20th century American sociology and a notorious ‘systems’ thinker, pays tribute to this grand American tradition. Throughout his long career, Parsons’ work was dedicated to showing the societal preconditions for the individual actor’s freedom and autonomy. For this he mainly drew upon European social thinkers such as Weber and Durkheim, who have stressed the external and dominating power of society over individuals. Parsons translated their sociological ideas, however, into the American, optimistic idiom of individual liberty, (Alexander, Modern Reconstruction x) thus writing the macro-sociological chapter in the thick book of American individualism. This contribution will outline Parsons’s sociology of American individualism in more detail. It will show how Parsons’s writings on the U.S. largely align with the idea of ‘American exceptionalism’ because they see the societal conditions for the individual actor’s liberty best realized in the modern, American system of society. In the second part of this chapter, I will confront Parsons’s rather congratulatory writings on American society with Niklas Luhmann’s sobering theory of functionally differentiated world society, which takes a wholly different stance on issues of individualism and regional particularities. As is well known, Luhmann has explicitly presented his systems theory as a critical evaluation and modification of the work of Talcott Parsons – according to Luhmann “the only systematic sociological theory” (Luhmann, Gesellschaft 21) developed in the course of the twentieth century. Yet, despite important theoretical similarities with Parsons’s theory architecture, the insights on American society and individuality one can draw from Luhmann’s work are rather different. Niklas Luhmann agrees with the main lines of Parsons’ treatment of individuality and individualism: both are considered to be highly instititutional, historical constructions which coincide with the process of functional differentiation. Luhmann, however, radicalizes many of Parsons’s insights. While .

Load more