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Character As a Sociological Phenomenon: an Interactionist Analysis of Seminary Life

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Character As a Sociological Phenomenon: an Interactionist Analysis of Seminary Life CHARACTER AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PHENOMENON CHARACTER AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PHENOMENON: AN INTERACTIONIST ANALYSIS OF SEMINARY LIFE By Arthur McLuhan, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Arthur McLuhan ii DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2014) McMaster University (Sociology) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Character as a Sociological Phenomenon: An Interactionist Analysis of Seminary Life Author: Arthur McLuhan Supervisor: Professor William Shaffir Number of Pages: 203 iii ABSTRACT In the social sciences, the dominant approach to the study of character—people’s essential interactional dispositions, especially of a moral and durable nature—has been to treat it as a set of objective dispositions lodged within the individual. This dissertation challenges the objectivist orthodoxy in the study of character by examining it from a symbolic interactionist perspective (Mead 1934; Blumer 1969; Strauss 1993). Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic research in two Protestant Christian seminaries as an empirical case, I find that character is ultimately a matter of audience definition, a self- other dispositional designation achieved in social interaction. Three empirical papers examine specific aspects of the character-making process. The first paper considers character as a contingency influencing people’s trajectories of involvement in group life. The second paper examines how ministry students define and experience character formation in the seminary. The third paper analyzes how character problems are identified and responded to in the seminary. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A dissertation is typically the product of collective action. This particular dissertation is typical in that regard, having benefited from the contributions of many mentors and friends. I make an attempt to acknowledge the various contributions of people in what follows, though I will probably fail to mention everyone. The students, faculty, and staff at Mainline Seminary and Evangelical Seminary welcomed a sociologist into their worlds. You all went well above and beyond the normally expected treatment of a stranger. Thank you. Robert Prus first encouraged me to pursue a study of character as a sociological phenomenon in an undergraduate seminar on Western social thought at the University of Waterloo. He also provided me with the theoretical and methodological foundation to hit the ground running when I arrived at McMaster. His support for me and enthusiasm for symbolic interactionism have never faltered. I have also profited immeasurably from the sage guidance of my dissertation supervisor, William Shaffir, and committee members, Charlene Miall and Dorothy Pawluch. They trusted me to tackle this project, nudged me in the right direction when I strayed from the analytic trail, and provided many incisive comments and suggestions that markedly improved my work. Corinne Jehle and Olga Cannon, sources of stability and surety, assisted me in too many ways to specify. Many thanks to you both. My time at McMaster was also marked by conversation and camaraderie with several fellow students: Michael Adorjan, Rachel Barken, Jessica Braimoh, Becky Casey, Sarah Clancy, Rebecca Collins-Nelsen, Darren Cyr, Christina DeRoche, Michelle Gilbert, Tony Gracey, Zachary Horn, Benjamin Kelly, Jessica Maurice, Iga Mergler, John McLevey, Roger Pizarro Milian, Emily Milne, Steph Shipton, Deana Simonetto, Erica Rae Speakman, Katie Steeves, Ally Stokes, Ismael Traore, Anna Nhung Vu, and Diana Zawadzki. Kyria Lynn Knibb has been a partner, supporter, and advisor throughout my academic pursuits. Without her, this project would not have been possible. To my parents, Michael and Mervi, thank you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1 Paper One – Character as a Career Contingency………………………………………...32 Paper Two – The Moral Character Career of the Ministry Student….………………….81 Paper Three – Character Problems as Collective Behaviour.……………………….….122 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…………………...166 References………………………………………………………………………………193 vi Ph.D. Thesis – A. McLuhan McMaster University – Sociology INTRODUCTION Virtue, then, is of two sorts, virtue of thought and virtue of character. Virtue of thought arises and grows mostly from teaching; that is why it needs experience and time. Virtue of character [i.e., of ethos] results from habit [ethos]; hence its name ‘ethical’, slightly varied from ‘ethos’…We are by nature able to acquire them [virtues], and we are completed through habit…We become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions….For what we do in our dealings with other people makes some of us just, some unjust; what we do in terrifying situations, and the habits of fear or confidence that we acquire, make some of us brave and others cowardly. The same is true of situations involving appetites and anger; for one or another sort of conduct in these situations makes some temperate and mild, others intemperate and irascible. To sum it up in a single account: a state [of character] results from [the repetition of] similar activities. That is why we must perform the right activities, since differences in these imply corresponding differences in the states. It is not unimportant, then, to acquire one sort of habit or another, right from our youth. On the contrary, it is very important, indeed all-important. Aristotle (384-322 BCE), Nicomachean Ethics, Book II There is nothing original or profound about pursuing a study of character in itself. The study of character is not new. Indeed, as the passage from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics demonstrates, interest in character is quite old. The intellectual history associated with the development of the idea of character is a formidable one. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Elyot, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill are among the many notable figures who have had something to say about character as a feature of human reality. Despite the concept’s long history in Western social thought, however, the study of character is still a site of contested knowledge and a number of basic questions remain: What is character? Does character exist? How shall we know if it does? How should we study character and how does it work? Is it possible that character—something that is intimately aligned with 1 Ph.D. Thesis – A. McLuhan McMaster University – Sociology individuality and unique personhood—is actually a social phenomenon? This dissertation takes up the challenges posed by these questions. Of course, some scholars would argue that most of the aforementioned questions have been adequately addressed. They would contend that character has an objective existence as set of dispositions lodged within the individual. Depending on the scholar’s theoretical predilections, the conception of these character structures varies from a set of (1) robust and unified dispositions that become manifest in a consistent way across a variety of situations to a set of (2) weak and fragmented dispositions that are localized and situationally specific. Either way, character is treated as one of the structural determinants of human behaviour. Further, character is treated primarily as an individual phenomenon whose proper method of study is either through philosophical reflection or psychological experimentation. However, by treating character as an objective essence, the propensity in the literature has been to conceptualize character in unduly individual and psychological terms as well as structural and deterministic terms. This dissertation argues that a symbolic interactionist conception of character, however, would differ markedly from the objectivist approach and would avoid its theoretical and conceptual inadequacies. In three recent articles (Prus 2007a, 2007b, 2008), Prus calls on social researchers to begin to lay the conceptual foundation for an interactionist understanding of character and moral virtue as community based, interactionally achieved phenomena. Beyond a few exceptions (e.g., Goffman 1967; Birrell and Turowetz 1979; Holyfield and Fine 1997; Jonas 1999; Nack 2002), the concept of character has received relatively little 2 Ph.D. Thesis – A. McLuhan McMaster University – Sociology direct empirical attention from interactionists. However, while interactionists have not considered character in their writings in any sustained, comprehensive sense, they have much to offer to its study, especially with respect to their conceptions of self, identity, and role. The symbolic interactionist approach that Herbert Blumer (1969) articulated has its philosophical foundations in the American pragmatist tradition. At the heart of an American pragmatist (Cooley, 1902; Dewey, 1922; Mead, 1934) conception of human group life is the primacy of activity, language, and interaction, as well as a rejection of all dualisms. This also includes a rejection of a sharp distinction between the individual and society, and this would also be the case in conceptualizing character. There are no characters developed in isolation; their development is based in social interaction. Moreover, just as analysts should be reluctant in conceiving character as an entirely individual phenomenon, they also should be wary of imposing deterministic and structural character frameworks so as to deny human agency. This brings me to the purpose of this dissertation. What would
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