Characterology

Ó American Sociological Association 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0094306114522406 http://cs.sagepub.com

EDITOR’S REMARKS CHARACTEROLOGY

There are stories told many times, then 159, 167, 169-171; Horowitz 1983: 48-53; retold, which animate our connection with Oakes and Vidich 1992: 57-90; Tilman 1984: the discipline’s past, either because they 50-53). Mills thought they could ‘‘knock it ‘‘resonate’’ with today’s preoccupations or out’’ in a year or two, based mostly on Gerth’s have become so improbably alien to our cur- lecture notes, which Mills would refine and rent way of doing business that they occa- Americanize. In short order the young Mills sion laughter. Sociology’s past prior to 1975 began hunting for a publisher. or so was, of course, mostly a story of men This jejune plan initiated an epic struggle arguing with other men. Soon, according to among authors, colleagues, editors, and pub- the latest data, the discipline’s larger schol- lishers which ended 12 years later when arly disputes will be carried out mostly Character and Social Structure: The Psychology among women. But no matter who is in of Social Institutions finally saw the light charge, in all human endeavors young aspir- (Gerth and Mills 1953), by which time Mills ants challenge their elders in the interest of was already famous for White Collar (1951). ‘‘improving’’ the field, occasionally propos- For decades following its appearance, ing some genuine innovation, but more sociologists could be heard discussing the often refurbishing or recasting a well-worn former book thus: ‘‘I don’t care for social- wheel. psychology of the lab experiment type One such probing youngster at 22 was because there’s too much psych and not described by a professor who knew him enough sosh, but I really admire the Gerth well: ‘‘The prevailing legend about him is to and Mills book since it’s the exception to the effect that he takes people up and pursues the rule.’’ Perhaps this preference is partly them furiously until they get so tired of it why the book remains in print these 60 years they rebuff him (or until he has milked later. (One of life’s little ironies concerns them dry and drops them). There is some- Stanford’s sociology department, where thing in it both ways. [He] is tremendously lab-oriented social psychology reached its eager and incredibly energetic. If he gets the apogee, and where the chairman objected idea that somebody has something, he goes ‘‘But Mills is not a sociologist, he is a Marx- after it like the 3 furies. . . . For several years ist’’ after it was suggested that Mills be hired he has been reading everything within his there [Tilman 1984: 202n2]). reach, and he really is prodigously learned So why has this book, unique in structure, for his years and situation. He also has acu- vocabulary, and intention, become a minor men, and the result of this combination of classic, even when so many others of that qualities has not been altogether to his advan- era now seem as antiquated as the type- tage’’ (Tilman 1984: 6-7). writers on which they were written? The Thus it was that in August 1941, just as he answer surely does not lie in the composi- turned 25, this precocious, obstreperous tional history of the book, which was filled graduate student at the University of Wiscon- with painful, anxious quarrels and false starts sin, C. Wright Mills, proposed to Hans from its very beginning. As Guy Oakes and Gerth—the untenured professor from whom Arthur Vidich explained in great detail, the he learned the most, only eight years his Gerth/Mills collaboration caused both men, senior and still a German ‘‘alien’’—that they especially Gerth, extraordinary discomfort jointly write a textbook for introductory from its beginning in 1940, shortly after Mills social psychology courses. It was expressly arrived at Madison from Austin, until long designed to differ sharply from all those after Mills’ premature death in 1963. Gerth’s then on the market (see details in Aronowitz ‘‘sensitivity to his rights in matters of intellec- 2012: 150-166; Geary 2009:50-53, 109-110; tual priority kept the fires of resentment Mills and Mills 2000: 125, 134, 140-141, 147, burning for more than a quarter of a century’’

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(Oakes and Vidich 1999: 144). Mills had The complete story of how Character and already affixed his name to their famous col- Social Structure came to be written cannot laboration, From Max Weber (in continuous be told without consulting not only the print since 1946), though Gerth claimed Oakes and Vidich monograph, but also Mills could not translate German, and that unpublished letters of Mills to Gerth (300 he had dictated the book’s famous introduc- are held by Gerth’s widow, Nobuko Gerth, tion to Mills, who was little more than his with copies sent to Mills’s heirs; N. Gerth typist and copyeditor. The book’s first adver- 1993: 146-148) and Gerth to Mills (20 are tisements and reviews featured Mills’ name extant), Mills’ papers at Texas, the Irving L. before Gerth’s, adding to the lopsidedness Horowitz archive at Penn State (which of their private versus public joint persona. includes much Mills material), the Robert Mills knew that Gerth, geographically K. Merton archive at Columbia, Nobuko trapped in Madison as an enemy alien, Gerth’s biography of her husband (2002), untenured and without money, was a gold- and so on. Yet the short version is this: Mills mine of information and expertise regarding heard Gerth’s lectures at Wisconsin, which the German intellectual tradition which the he thought could be used as the basis of younger man knew enough to hold in high the book; Mills was already a sophisticated regard. Weber (plus Marx) in particular student of pragmatist philosophy, especially became for a while Mills’ scholarly idol, and that of G. H. Mead, whose students had Gerth held the keys to that castle, Mills’ Ger- taught Mills at Texas; he prompted Gerth man being rudimentary. But Mills also real- to sign on for the project, and persuaded ized that he, like his father, was a skilled, Howard P. Becker (Mills’ dissertation direc- self-promoting negotiator and salesman, tor) to include the proposed book in a sociol- with editors, publishers, and colleagues, ogy series Becker edited for D.C. Heath while Gerth was anything but. In some prac- Publishing Company. After tortuous wran- tical ways they were a perfect team, yet gling over a suitable advance, and many try- as Mills became increasingly famous ing meetings with editors, the contract was through his two major works, White Collar revoked at the authors’ request, and trans- and The Power Elite, Gerth’s career lan- ferred to Harcourt, where Merton held guished. Rather than write topically ‘‘hot’’ sway on sociological titles. Eventually Mer- pieces in a quasi-journalistic mode of wide ton supplied a laudatory foreword to the appeal—supposedly inspired stylistically book. by Balzac and Veblen, both of whom Mills What Mills hypothesized, mostly due to read avidly—Gerth carried out an heroic Gerth’s teaching and writing, was that Amer- effort to translate and publicize Weber’s ican social psychology could be converted major works during the 1950s. This capital- and ‘‘improved’’ from its apolitical, micro- ized on his excellent education in Europe dimensionality into a field with structural, with the likes of Karl Mannheim (whose historical, and macro properties if Weber’s last major book Gerth edited for English ideas could somehow be grafted onto basic readers after Mannheim’s premature death; role theory as already developed by Cooley, Mannheim 1950), Theodor Adorno, Erich Mead, and others of that tradition. Horowitz Fromm, and Paul Tillich, while taking colorfully explains: ‘‘Mills saw Weber as pro- courses with peers such as Hannah Arendt, viding the necessary social-structure cement Hans Speier, and Hans Jonas. And like all in an American world of individualistic psy- of them, he also got to know Weber’s widow, chology where minds were discussed with- Marianne (Oakes and Vidich 1999: 3). With- out regard to bodies, where people were out Gerth’s labor, the anglophone sphere dicusssed without regard to publics, and in would have lacked Weber’s three monu- which interactions were granted without mental volumes on the sociology of religion. analysis of collectivities. Weber provided And even though, like all translations, these the intellectual sourcebook for collective psy- have been criticized on technical grounds, chology by giving strength and backbone to they have never been supplanted, remaining individual motivation’’ (Horowitz 1983: vital these 60 years later to a full understand- 183). Added to Weber would be insights ing of Weber’s sociology of religion. from Freud, Karl Mannheim, Harry Stack

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Sullivan, Karen Horney, and other thinkers impressed, particularly given the book’s het- whose names did not routinely figure in con- erodox nature. Philip Selznick, then a second ventional social psychology textbooks (e.g., year Assistant Professor at Berkeley and three LaPiere and Farnsworth 1949: 549-619). years Mills’ junior, wrote a lead review in The book’s bibliography, though small by ASR, concluding that Character and Social today’s standards (pp. 481-485), is packed Structure offered ‘‘a sophisticated presenta- with major macro-historical works, begin- tion of much of the best that has been said ning with the 11th edition of the Britannica in modern sociology’’ (Selznick 1954: 486), (1910) and The Encyclopaedia of the Social Sci- thus anticipating Horowitz’s sentiments by ences (1933). This ‘‘working bib’’ is urged 30 years. He began by praising the book for upon its readers: ‘‘we cannot help but feel its synoptic quality: ‘‘The book reflects, and that as a selection it does suggest the major will undoubtedly further stimulate, the inte- legacy available to the student of man and grative impulse in contemporary social society.’’ The first entries, inclusive, are by science. It is also an ambitious and often William Albright, Walter Bagehot, Charles impressive effort to breathe a sense of histo- Beard, A. A. Berle, Franz Borkenau, James ry into sociology and social psychology’’ Bryce, Karl Bu¨ cher, Jacob Burckhardt, (ibid., 485). Selznick noted ‘‘an especially Arthur Calhoun, E. H. Carr, W. J. Cash, valuable reworking of the concept of the John R. Commons—all of which are books, social self,’’ yet even if this obvious reliance not articles, and all of whom appear prior on Mead was commendable, ‘‘the discussion to C.H. Cooley, the first bona-fide social psy- of social structure is virtually unmatched for chologist to be named. In fact, of the 117 clarity and depth,’’ and that was owed to works listed, fewer than 10 are typically Weber’s ideas (ibid.,486). Yet after heaping regarded as bearing on the subject. It is as praise on Gerth and Mills, Selznick added if Gerth and Mills had overtly disregarded that the book seemed to him gravely inferior most research in the area they were hoping to David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd: A to introduce to novices, deciding instead to Study of the Changing American Character include, for example, H. L. Mencken, Rob- (1950) ‘‘because Riesman had an idea con- erto Michels, Gaetano Mosca, Lewis Mum- cerning a specific set of relations between ford, Gunnar Myrdal, Friedrich Nietzsche, types of historical situations and types of and Franz Oppenheimer before arriving character and socialization.’’ Based on his alphabetically at Jean Piaget. reading of Gerth and Mills, Selznick feared Simmel is indeed there, but so are Werner ‘‘a new and sterile scholasticism’’ might arise Sombart and Pitirim Sorokin; surrounding from ‘‘the current emphasis on schemes and Harry Stack Sullivan, the great psychiatric categories. . . a tendency to confuse theories theorist and practitioner, we find Hans Spe- with ‘analytical schemes’‘‘ rather than theo- ier, Herbert Spencer, R. H. Tawney, and The ries of the type Riesman’s work exemplified. Polish Peasant by W.I. Thomas and Florian Interestingly, Mills wrote a very positive Znaniecki. It could reasonably be observed lead review of Selznick’s The Organizational that Gerth and Mills had produced an Weapon (concerning Bolshevism) in the anti-bibliography if the book was truly March 1953 issue of AJS (‘‘not likely to be meant to serve in courses handling social- superseded in our generation. . . a sharp, psychology—as their editor at Harcourt clean job of sociological analysis. . . excellent firmly believed it would when in March in design and execution’’), though he did 1949 he offered them the remarkable find shortcomings in Selznick’s ‘‘formal’’ advance of $3000 ($29,400 today), $1000 theorizing (Mills 1953: 529). And in the small more, so he claimed, than any previous text- world of American sociology at the time, book advance from that publisher (Oakes Selznick also reviewed at some length Ries- and Vidich 1999: 71). man’s Faces in the Crowd, a companion vol- Was the resulting book, as Irving Horowitz ume to The Lonely Crowd for AJS (Selznick thought, ‘‘some of the best social theorizing 1953). In it he explained ‘‘Riesman’s theory’’ produced at the time in sociology,’’ or ‘‘intel- of characterological change over time and lectual ‘crap’,’’ Mills’ later judgment (Horo- historical setting, which he obviously had witz 1983: 48)? Reviewers were surprisingly in mind when he criticized Character and

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Social Structure for lacking the theoretical Mishler also notes that the chapters on tidiness evidenced in the ‘‘competing’’ vol- leadership and stratification do not compare ume. Oddly enough, Gerth and Mills’ book well with others (‘‘quite pedestrian’’), which was never reviewed in AJS. seems odd to him given the authors’ previous Tom Bottomore (1920-1992), later a noted work (ibid., 324). But Gerth and Mills redeem British sociologist, reviewed Gerth and Mills themselves with the ‘‘quite valuable and for The British Journal of Sociology, neatly exciting’’ ‘‘Symbol Spheres’’ and ‘‘The Unity summarizing their accomplishment: ‘‘Their of Social Structures.’’ And rephrasing Selz- most signal achievement is to re-introduce nick’s complaint, Mishler observes that a conception of social psychology as the psy- ‘‘they are interested in theory as a heuristic chology of social institutions, a ‘sociologists’ device which aids them in the interpretation social psychology’ as distinct from the psy- of concrete events rather than as a set of chologist’s social psychology, which often related hypotheses which are to be tested seems merely a continuation of individual by abstracting and isolating certain aspects psychology by other means, or the investiga- of empirical phenomena’’—what he calls tion of a multiplied ego’’ (Bottomore 1956: a ‘‘phenomenological as opposed to a posi- 66). He pointed out that ‘‘an irritating glib- tivistic approach.’’ He then correctly ness about their interpretations’’ only par- remarks that ‘‘this point of view is not a par- tially obscured the fact that ‘‘the body of ticularly fashionable one at the present material is too great to be mastered com- time,’’ which given the rampant scientism pletely,’’ and that after L.T. Hobhouse’s of the 1950s is surely true. He kindly accepts Morals in Evolution (1906), nothing short of Gerth and Mills’ ‘‘polemical air’’ as a useful a research team could possibly marshall corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy. Yet enough evidence to make good on the kinds perhaps most damning, he cannot fail to of theoretical goals Gerth and Mills note that ‘‘they neither mention nor utilize espoused. the theoretical and empirical work of any By far the longest review appeared in The major figure in social psychology of the last Public Opinion Quarterly, strangely enough 25 years.’’ Perhaps even worse, ‘‘it appears written by a demographer at Princeton, that it is their own personal experience Elliot Mishler. He, too, praises the book: which is to be the ultimate criterion of scien- ‘‘The inquiry is in the grand style and in its tific truth.’’ Mills especially would not have course we are provided with descriptions regarded this as a disabling characteristic and analysis of such phenomena, among for a book of this type. Nevertheless, after others, as the social structure of Sparta, the still further caveats, Mishler concludes with decline of Rome, the rise of Nazism, the a familiar sentiment: ‘‘With all its limitations, development of the self, the history of strat- this volume stands head and shoulders egies of warfare, and the conceptions of above the usual standard textbook in social time, reality, and freedom in revolutionary psychology.’’ movements’’ (Mishler 1954: 323). He then By all accounts the book did not succeed as provides a workmanlike summary of the a textbook in social psychology, hardly sur- book, laying out their ideas about social prising when compared with the books that roles, character structure, institutional their editor at Harcourt hoped it would best orders, spheres, vocabularies of motive, (e.g., ‘‘Krech and Crutchfield’s Theories and dynamics, and so on. (A capsulized diagram Principles of Social Psychology (McGraw- of the Gerth/Mills ‘‘model’’ is on p. 32 of Hill), Newcomb and Hartley’s Readings in Character and Social Structure, one of very Social Psychology or Otto Klineberg’s Social few visual guides in the book; see also Psychology (Holt), and Sherif’s Outline of p. 353.) Bottomore in his review claimed Social Psychology (Harper)’’ [Oakes and that the most Gerth and Mills could hope Vidich 1999: 67]). But it did something far for when digging through all the available more important and longer lasting than data in this field would be to use whatever filling a predictable role as a classroom sta- they found as examples, rather than ple: it became a beloved volume which social ‘‘proofs,’’ of their theorizing, a claim that scientists read for decades whether or Mishler echoes. not they were seriously interested in social

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Editor’s Remarks 153 psychology. Why? Surely it was not because as Erich Fromm’s best work, Escape from Free- of the authors’ ‘‘theory’’ (which Selznick cor- dom (1941), both against the unnamed back- rectly chastised as more categorical than pre- drop of Mead. The passage begins: ‘‘The self- dictive), nor their reliance on Freud, Marx, image develops and changes as the person, Mead, and Weber, none of whom held any through his social experiences, becomes special appeal for most sociologists during aware of the expectations and appraisals of the 1950s. They did not provide any new others. He acts one way, and others reward data of the standard type, the only fresh him with food, warmth, and attention; he ingredient being historical and anthropolog- acts in another way, and they punish him ical references they took from dozens of with inattention; when he fails to meet their books duly listed in their bibliography. The durable expectations, they deny him satis- prose style bore the marks of Mills’ inimita- faction and give him their disapproval. ble voice, but there are stretches where even ‘The approbation of the important person that does not save the work from a certain [whom Sullivan sometimes called ‘‘the pedestrian quality, an uninspired reporting mothering one’’] is very valuable’’ Harry of standard information which the authors Stack Sullivan has written ‘‘since disappro- probably felt obliged to record, but without bation denies satisfaction [psychic structure] the excitement readers came to expect from and gives anxiety [person], the self becomes Mills. According to their letters, each of extremely important’‘‘ (p. 84). Sullivan, of them read and edited material written by course, was speaking of the infant’s earliest the other in an effort at true collaboration experiences. (N. Gerth 1993: 147). Nothing fancy here, nor readily quantifi- It may be impossible to understand pre- able, but when one considers the current ‘‘cri- cisely why a scholarly book appeals to read- sis of the family’’ and all its attendant ers over time, particularly one which dilemmas, concise writing of this rare kind worked so hard at undercutting conventional becomes a tonic for minds wearied by equiv- expectations. Perhaps the sheer scope of ocation and technical superciliousness. This Character and Social Structure offered readers is only one attribute that sets Character and a canvas so immense that everyone could Social Structure apart from more ordinary imagine contributing something valuable to work, and why it still lives. the painting. Featuring subheads like ‘‘The The book’s valedictory rhetoric (excusing Social Unity of the Psychic Structure,’’ ‘‘Lan- the male pronouns) summarizes its achieve- guage, Role and Person,’’ ‘‘Vocabularies of ment while reminding its readers that even Motive’’ (borrowing from Kenneth Burke), in 1952, under the dark nuclear cloud, there ‘‘The Theory of Premiums and Traits of Char- was reason for rational optimism: ‘‘Man is acter,’’ ‘‘Four Theories of Biography,’’ ‘‘Types a unique animal species in that he is also an of Capitalism,’’ ‘‘Characteristics of World Reli- historical development. It is in terms of this gions,’’ or ‘‘Symbol Spheres in Six Contexts,’’ development that he must be defined, and among many others, the book promised far in terms of it no single formula will fit him. more than it could deliver. Yet no great book Neither his anatomy nor his psyche fix his is ever modest in its aims, and this one is no destiny. He creates his own destiny as he exception. Mills’ later repudiation of the responds to his experienced situation, and book may be owed to his awareness that the both his situation and his experiences of it general topic and its subdivisions eluded are the complicated products of the historical even his large grasp, as opposed to his ‘‘tight epoch which he enacts. That is why he does stories’’ in White Collar and The Power Elite. not create his destiny as an individual but Among the book’s lasting virtues is its as a member of a society. Only within the lim- catholicity of source material, a scholarly its of his place in an historical epoch can man practice still worth emulating. Consider one as an individual shape himself, but we do not example among dozens: the skillful inclusion yet know, we can never know, the limits to of Harry Stack Sullivan’s psychiatric theory which men collectively might remake them- under ‘‘Images of Self’’ (pp. 84-91), as well selves’’ (p. 480). Amen to that.

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References Mills, C. Wright 1953. Review of Philip Selznick, Aronowitz, Stanley 2012. Taking It Big: C. Wright The Organizational Weapon: A Study of Bolshevik Mills and the Making of Political Intellectuals. Strategy and Tactics. American Journal of Sociolo- New York, NY: Columbia University Press. gy, 58:5 (March 1953), 529. Bottomore, Tom 1956. Review of Gerth and Mills, Mills, Kathryn and Pamela Mills (eds) 2000. C. Character and Social Structure. The British Journal Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writ- of Sociology, 7:1 (March), 66-67. ings. Berkeley, CA: University of California Geary, Daniel 2009. Radical Ambition: C. Wright Press. Mills, the Left, and American Social Thought. Mishler, Elliot 1954. (Lead) review, Gerth and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mills, Character and Social Structure. The Public Gerth, Nobuko 1993. ‘‘Hans H. Gerth and Opinion Quarterly, 18:3 (Autumn), 323-326. C. Wright Mills: Partnership and Partisan- Oakes, Guy and Arthur J. Vidich 1999. Collabora- ship.’’ International Journal of Politics, Culture, tion, Reputation, and Ethics in American Academ- and Society, 7:1 (Fall), 133-154. ic Life. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. _____ 2002. ‘‘Between Two Worlds’’: Hans Gerth, Selznick, Philip 1953. Review of David Riesman in a Biography 1908-1978. Wiesbaden, Germany: collaboration with Nathan Glazer, Faces in the Springer Fachmedien. Crowd. American Journal of Sociology, 58:4 (Janu- Horowitz, Irving L. 1983. C. Wright Mills: An ary), 430-432. American Utopian. New York, NY: The Free _____ 1954. (Lead) review of Gerth and Mills, Press. Character and Social Structure. American Socio- LaPiere, Richard T. and Paul R. Farnsworth 1949. logical Review, 19:4 (August), 485-486. Social Psychology, 3rd edition. New York, NY: Sullivan, Harry Stack 1947. Conceptions of Modern McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. Psychiatry. Washington, D.C.: The William Mannheim, Karl 1950. Freedom, Power, and Demo- Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation. cratic Planning. Ed. by Hans H. Gerth and Ern- Tilman, Rick 1984. C. Wright Mills: A Native Radi- est K. Bramsted. New York, NY: Oxford cal and His American Intellectual Roots.Univer- University Press. sity Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Ó American Sociological Association 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0094306114522407 http://cs.sagepub.com CRITICAL-RETROSPECTIVE ESSAY

Medical Sociology in the Twenty-First Century: Eight Key Books

GRAHAM SCAMBLER University College London, UK [email protected]

Medical sociology has its roots in three different if related notions: medicine as a social The Future of Human Nature,byJu¨ rgen science, social medicine, and the sociology of Habermas. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003. medicine (Bloom 2002). Each of these point- 127pp. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 9780745629872. ed to the relationship between social and environmental conditions and health prob- The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, lems and to the meditative effects of social and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century, and cultural activity. Rudolf Virchow, writ- by Nikolas Rose. Princeton, NJ: Pri- ing in 1848, argued that medicine was nceton University Press, 2007. 350pp. a social science. He advocated a utilitarian $35.00 paper. ISBN: 9780691121918. perspective oriented to social reform, the objective of reform being the realization of The New Medical Sociology: Social Forms of people’s right to health. In the service of Health and Illness,byBryan S. Turner. this goal he deployed techniques we would New York, NY: Norton, 2004. 432pp. now see as variants of epidemiology, biosta- $22.00 paper. ISBN: 9780393975055. tistics and survey research. Social medicine, now re-defined as public health, referred to Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in population-based medicine. In its earliest Chicago,byEric Klinenberg. Chicago, IL: form it sought to ameliorate the worst effects Chicago University Press, 2003. 305pp. of industrialization, its focus (in Europe) $13.95 paper. ISBN: 9780226443225. being the urban poor; it too had a reformist orientation. Neophyte contributions to the The Medicalization of Society: on the sociology of medicine also called for reform. Transformation of Human Conditions into If Durkheim’s classic study of suicide, Treatable Disorders,byPeter Conrad. published in 1897, is discounted (his interest Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University was not in health or suicide per se), then the Press, 2007. 224pp. $24.00 paper. ISBN: two earliest volumes using the title ‘‘Medical 9780801885853. Sociology’’ comprised collections of essays by Elizabeth Blackwell in 1902 and James Unequal Lives: Health and Socioeconomic Peter Warbasse in 1904; and both editors Inequalities,byHilary Graham. Maiden- were physicians, not sociologists. head, UK: Open University Press, 2007. Cockerham (2000) dates the beginnings of 215pp. $37.00 paper. ISBN: 97803352 medical sociology between 1897 and 1955. 13696. He accords particular significance to a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine by Social Causes of Health and Disease, second another physician, Henderson in 1935. The edition, by William C. Cockerham. paper was entitled ‘‘The Physician and Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2013. 255pp. Patient as a Social System,’’ and Parsons $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780745661209. used it as a key resource for his The Social System, published in 1951, which in Chapter Medicine and Public Health at the End of Ten spelled out in impressive detail the Empire,byHoward Waitzkin. Boulder, potential for a sociology of health and health CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2011. 228pp. care. Crucially, Parsons demonstrated the $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9781594519529.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 156 Critical-Retrospective Essays role of medicine in macro-level social analysis in sociology, its parameters can be systems. overly confining for studies of health and Cockerham suggests that the years health care. One concomitant of processes 1956–1970 represented medical sociology’s of globalization that have gathered pace golden age. In the shadow of Parsons’ classic since the 1970s is the need for a more glob- text, Merton, Becker, Goffman and others alsociology;andthisismanifestlynot a conducted turning point studies. This era matter of exporting North American/ of institutional as well as intellectual break- European/Australasian sociology to devel- throughs culminated in Freidson’s (1970) oping societies. seminal Profession of Medicine, a core and A second tension is epitomized in Ritzer’s abiding text for the sub-discipline. The sub- (1996, 2001) documentation of a ‘‘McDonald- sequent phase identified runs from 1970 to ization’’ not only of society but also of higher 1989: medical sociology’s years of maturity. education. Ritzer’s argument in relation to By this stage independence from medicine, disciplines like sociology is that new criteria more of a problem in Britain and Europe for what counts intellectually and for what than in the United States, had largely been should be rewarded institutionally have accomplished and medical sociology had emerged, resulting in an irrationality of ratio- its own discrete body of theory, methods nal systems. Metrics have replaced more con- and research. This newfound independence sidered judgements, of individuals as well was marked by the publication of several as institutions, threatening thoughtful socio- textbooks beyond the confines of the United logical practice. Winning grant income can States. Different countries developed differ- count for more than using it wisely and ent areas of special expertise: in Britain, well, and publishing in high-impact journals for example, particular attention was paid more than the content of the article. to social determinants of health, health A third and related tension arises out of inequalities, interaction in medical settings, newly exerted pressures on universities to lay beliefs, qualitative investigations of cop- deliver a functional workforce. Teaching ing with chronic illness and feminist explo- and research should be applied, responsible rations of reproductive health. and useful. Students, like patients, must be From 1990 on, Cockerham suggests, the empowered to make their own choices, as rapid macro-level, even global, social long as they choose wisely and appropriate- changes that had accrued since the early ly. Moreover, to choose sensibly and wisely 1970s resonated within medical sociology. is to demonstrate that one is deserving rath- This extended to interrogations of the er than undeserving. It is a form of govern- taken-for-granted modern premises of socio- ment for which Foucault (1979) coined the logical enquiry. Some openly advocated term ‘‘governmentality.’’ new post-modern perspectives while others Fourth, a tension has arisen with the were equally dismissive of any such moves. relativization of culture. Notwithstanding In the United States at this time there was disagreements about our modern versus a noteworthy focus on stress-related condi- postmodern condition, circumstances and tions, mental health, HIV/AIDS, ageing lifestyles, there is no doubting that the old and health, gender, ethnicity and health, grand narratives have been displaced by health service use, health work, health poli- a pick-and-mix mosaic of petit narratives. cy and health system reform. British medical For some this is liberating, for others it is sociology embraced a similar set of phenom- neo-conservatism in new clothing. Arguably ena while continuing and increasing its what some have called the postmodern interest in health inequalities. impulse has already peaked. But if medical Cockerham’s division into phases stops at sociologists are no longer doomed to fall 2000, and it is clearly too early to offer a char- into the category of Bauman’s (1987) ‘‘inter- acterization of twenty-first century medical preters,’’ they are unlikely to recapture their sociology. It has been suggested, however, roles as ‘‘legislators.’’ that new tensions are apparent. I have posit- Finally, the longstanding tension between ed five of these (Scambler 2005). First, for all pure and applied medical sociology, or that the nation state remains a crucial unit of between sociology of medicine and sociology

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Critical-Retrospective Essays 157 in medicine, lingers on, even in the United supply and demand’’ (p. vii). Pivotal to States, pioneer of the former. Too great an Habermas’ argument are the concept of emphasis on the sociology in medicine can human nature and the possible implications stifle creativity within the discipline. Cer- of decisions taken in relation to PGD now for tainly aspects of McDonaldization have humans and human nature in the future.He undermined its cultural authority and reflects on (a) the lot of those personally and autonomous voice. Self-evidently the irreversibly affected by genetic interventions enduring and deepening health inequalities chosen prior to birth and ‘‘on their behalf’’ apparent across contemporary Western by others, and on (b) our future understand- societies, let alone the health catastrophes ing of human nature. With regard to (a) he in central Africa and latterly the former contrasts existing notions of being a ‘‘grown Soviet Republics, cannot be explained with- body’’ with possible future notions of being out reference to increasingly globalized ‘‘something made.’’ This transition from proprietors and manipulators of capital the grown and the made will likely prove and power; and yet addressing these issues no threatening and alienating. As for (b), he longer builds careers in medical sociology. suggests that this touches on our self-under- If this seems unduly pessimistic there standing as members of the species (i.e., is is no doubt that the opening, transitional potentially species alienating). The Kantian decade of the twenty-first century has concept of autonomy and all that goes with witnessed some significant and stylish books. it would be imperiled. Moreover, he The choices that follow are inevitably influ- continues, while Germany and Europe are enced not only by my own interests and showing a degree of reticence, this is not reading but also by my own perspective. the case in the more market-oriented United Having said that, some reflect theoretical States. Will discussions only commence commitments that I personally would strug- there when it is ‘‘too late’’? gle to accommodate; so there is a hint of The second volume is Nikolas Rose’s The balance. Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and I have been tempted to roam outside of Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Rose medical sociology on the grounds that traverses similar territory but takes a very many theoretical and conceptual innova- different route. Drawing on explicitly tions occur in the mainstream of the disci- Foucauldian theoretical foundations as well pline and are ripe for co-optation. I have as his previous work, he takes off from the resisted, although my opening choice is on current and growing ambiguity around the periphery of the sociology of health notions of the normal. Medicine, he main- and health care. It is Ju¨ rgen Habermas’ The tains, is re-writing abnormal. It is now well Future of Human Nature. Better known for beyond the profession analyzed by the likes his syntheses and commentaries on philoso- of Parsons and Freidson. Underpinned by phy and theory-building in sociology, this a new molecular understanding of bodies short volume comprises three pieces of and minds, together with new techniques direct relevance to medical sociology dating for manipulating ‘‘basic life processes’’ at back to 2001: the first two are expanded the level of molecules, cells and genes, med- versions of lectures delivered at the Univer- ical/clinical science is now in swift pursuit sities of Zurich and Marburg and the third is of ‘‘managing’’ human vital processes. based on a speech he gave on receiving the Rose’s book is a theoretically and empirical- Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. ly informed examination of this latest radical The focus of Habermas’ attention in the departure. book’s central contribution, ‘‘The Debate on Rose’s binding concept is that of ‘‘molecu- the Ethical Self-Understanding of the Spe- lar biopolitics.’’ He covers a lot of ground cies,’’ is ‘‘preimplantation genetic diagno- while explicating this concept, reflecting on ses’’ (PGD). It represents the perspective of developments in genomics, neuroscience a ‘‘future present,’’ from which ‘‘we might and neuro- and psychopharmacology, and someday perhaps look back on currently tracing their impact, in particular, on the pol- controversial practices as the first step itics of race, aspects of social control and the toward a liberal eugenics regulated by day-to-day practice of psychiatry. Picking up

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 158 Critical-Retrospective Essays but moving on from the well-documented that hit Chicago on July 13, 1995. Tempera- change from treating disease to treating tures soared to 106°F; city streets buckled ‘‘risk behaviors’’ for disease, he argues that and records for electricity usage were set pri- we are witnessing a switch to the very gover- or to the failure of the power grid, leaving nance of life itself. Like Habermas, he high- people without electricity for two days. By lights the ethical ramifications of this switch. July 20, over 700 people had perished. ‘‘If our ethics has become, in key respects, What is so impressive about Klinenberg’s somatic, that is in part because it is our account is its patient and thoughtful com- ‘soma’—or corporeal existence—that is giv- prehensiveness and its blurring of disciplin- en salience and problematized—to some ary boundaries. The heat wave created a extent at least, our genome, our neurotrans- perfect storm. It was not just a matter of mitters—our ‘biology’’’ (p. 257). These exceptional temperatures. The heat wave developments have a profound impact on left segments of the Chicago population who we are and/or want to be. This text is exposed as rarely before. It was a cruel cutting edge, like it or not. example of what ethnomethodologists like Bryan Turner has decisively intervened in Garfinkel might have called a natural medical sociology’s development more than breaching experiment. The degree of isola- once. His The New Medical Sociology consoli- tion of poorer older people in certain neigh- dates his reputation. He was the founding borhoods became apparent, as did the struc- editor of the journal Body and Society (with tural and institutional abandonment of those Mike Featherstone) and 2008 saw the third same neighborhoods. No less apparent were edition of his ground-breaking Body and Soci- the harsh ramifications of the retrenchment ety: Explorations in Social Theory. He was of public assistance programs. People a pioneer of theories of embodiment in med- passed away behind locked doors, forgotten. ical sociology. In this volume he emphasizes Nor did the city authorities respond as the salience of both macro- and micro-social quickly and efficiently as many thought structures and processes for a credible soci- they should have done. In short, cracks in ology of health, illness and health care. the urban fabric were exposed. Klinenberg’s He commits time and space to examining book hit a political nerve; but it also stands how well-recognized and researched phe- as a paradigmatic example of how sociolog- nomena like globalization, the ubiquity of ical research can enlighten and inform. risk, the neo-liberal de-regulation of finan- Peter Conrad has a long and distinguished cial markets, and technological innovation record of publications in medical sociology shape apparently individual, personal and that has proven influential well beyond intimate experiences of ‘‘being sick.’’ America’s shores. His early work on coping The pace and depth of change over the last with chronic illness has been superceded in generation, Turner contends, have under- recent times by an explication of medicine mined both the material and social requisites as an institution of social control and the for good health and longevity. Echoing related notion of ‘‘medicalization.’’ The Medi- ongoing research on the salience of psycho- calization of Society: On the Transformation of social mechanisms, he highlights the break- Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders. down of social cohesion, which disrupted Having noted the creeping and much- people’s stocks of social capital. He makes debated medicalization of birth, ageing and much, too, of the loss of rights of citizenship. latterly, obesity, this book focuses in particu- It is a strength of this independent-minded lar on the extension of medical discourse to book that we are taken from macro-processes accommodate female problems; diagnostic to the individual embodiment of illness. or ‘‘domain expansion’’ in general, reaching Eric Klinenberg’s Heat Wave: A Social out to embrace ever more people; the biomed- Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago would proba- ical enhancement of the body, for example bly make most people’s list of influential throughgrowthhormonesorsurgicalinter- twenty-first century contributions to medi- ventions; and issues of ‘‘continuity,’’ or cal sociology. It reports a detailed study— maybe obduracy, referring to a tendency to re- involving years of fieldwork, interviews medicalize conditions, traits or behaviors that and archival research—of the heat wave had been de-medicalized, like homosexuality.

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A key and important message is that the manages to combine ‘‘optimism of the significance of medical professionals as will’’ with ‘‘pessimism of the intellect’’ in agents or drivers of medicalization has time-honored fashion. She may draw a line diminished. Instead, Conrad argues, ‘‘big at reformism, but she has made accessible pharma,’’ the biotechnical industries, and a vast body of arcane and esoteric literature, in the United States insurance companies and done so with admirable clarity and and Health Maintenance Organizations, economy. have become major players in the opening In many ways the second edition of Bill up of new and often lucrative markets. Cockerham’s Social Causes of Health and Dis- And last but by no means least, ‘‘patients ease satisfies any lingering reservations as consumers’’ have begun to exert more about Graham’s text. While Graham concen- influence: authoritative medical labeling trates on the directly measurable, like socio- can open the way to additional resources, economic group (Europe) or status (United material, social and normative. The book States), Cockerham is willing to write more sums up a field of enquiry. boldly and classically of social structures. Hilary Graham’s Unequal Lives: Health and More precisely, he ‘‘sees’’ structures differ- Socioeconomic Inequalities sums up another ently, very much in the tradition of Marx field and is again the offspring of an active and Weber (although his primary allegiance and proven specialist researcher. It is an is to the latter). Deploying a frame versed in exemplary work of professional sociology, classical sociological theory and open to this time with a British and European rather multi-level techniques, he is able imagina- than strictly American focus, although it tively to relate known social determinants explicitly includes references to the litera- of disease—from absolute and relative pov- tures of social epidemiology and social poli- erty, low incomes and living and working cy. It takes readers through definitions of conditions generally through to lifestyle health inequalities and the various attempts factors and the experience of ‘‘stress’’ in— to measure them before offering a summary back to social change and enduring social and review of the empirical evidence processes like class, gender, age and (more that has accumulated particularly but not so in this second edition) race or ethnic exclusively over the last generation or so. relations. There is discussion of change by time and The book’s divisions reflect this ambitious place, an attractive and increasingly ‘‘neces- sociological agenda. Having established the sary’’ option I would suggest if we are ever undoubted contributions of social determi- to move on from a Western perspective to nants to the causation and distribution of a more global one. modernity’s core disease(s), he reflects on Part Three is devoted to ‘‘understand- the significance of adequately theorizing ings.’’ Graham does more than run through them. He draws on Bourdieu to discuss life- the standard models: material, psychosocial style, for example, against long-lasting but and behavioral. Rather, she adopts a broadly always subtly shifting social structures: class life-course perspective to trace the genesis occupies two chapters, followed by age, gen- and trajectories of biographical inequality der and race/ethnicity. He closes via reflec- over time and their implications for health tions on the causal input of social capital. status and life expectancy. The causal effica- What distinguishes Cockerham’s book cy of partnership and parenting are consid- from its rivals is precisely its sociological, ered as well as more orthodox ‘‘social deter- that is, theoretical, intent. It remains perhaps minants’’ like class, gender and ethnicity. the preeminent exemplar in this field of the Once again, the discussion is evidence-based social causation of health and health inequi- and shrewd. ties. In this sense it is a breath of fresh air. Chapter Eleven on policy formation and The last of my eight choices is Howard implementation addresses the successes Waitzkin’s Medicine and Public Health at the and, more prominently, failures of political End of Empire. A physician as well as a sociol- interventions to reduce those social and ogist, Waitzkin has built a reputation as material inequalities known to be decisive a radical commentator on health and health for health and wellbeing. Here Graham care. His past work bridges macro- and

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 160 Critical-Retrospective Essays micro-structures, ranging from comparative of my statement of a few years ago (Scambler studies of health care systems to the nitty- 2005). One of the authors I selected here, Bill gritty of physician-patient encounters and Cockerham, has recently edited a collection dialogues. In this, his latest volume, he that testifies to medical sociology’s dyna- tackles the domain of healthcare delivery mism in difficult times (Cockerham 2013). following the global financial crisis of Featuring many of the leading figures of 2008–9, triggered by shenanigans in the the sub-discipline, including Bryan Turner, sub-prime market in the United States. His Peter Conrad and Bill himself, all numbered brief is international rather than national. on my list, it is a collection that holds prom- The considerable role of corporate inter- ise for the future. ests in the business of death as well as the provision of healthcare is a central theme of the book, although another is what References Waitzkin sees as a renewed, bottom-up Baumna, Z. 1987. Legislators and Interpreters: On struggle for reform. Introducing the radical Modernity, Postmodernity and Intellectuals. philosophies and analyses of Engels and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Virchow, familiar to many public health Bloom, S. 2002. The Word as Scalpel: A History of specialists, he indicts capitalism, new as Medical Sociology. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univer- sity Press. well as old, for the premature deaths of Cockerham, W. 2000. ‘‘Medical Sociology at the many, many citizens across the globe and Millennium.’’ In Quah, S. and Sales, A., for the failure of healers to intervene effec- editors, The International Handbook of Sociology. tively on their behalf. He uses a case study London, UK: Sage. of coronary care to put flesh on the skeleton Cockerham, W., editor. 2013. Medical Sociology on of this argument. the Move: New Directions in Theory. New York, NY: Springer. It is a strength of this book, which is divid- Foucault, M. 1979. ‘‘On Governmentality.’’ ed sensibly and functionally into sections on Ideology and Consciousness 6:5–22. ‘‘empire past,’’ ‘‘empire present’’ and Freidson, E. 1970. Profession of Medicine. New ‘‘empire future,’’ that its author has an inti- York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Co. mate knowledge of societies and cultures Ritzer, G. 1996. The McDonaldization of Society, sec- other than his own. Latin America provides ond edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. the prime example. It is in my view vital ———. 2001. ‘‘The McDonaldization of American that we develop a global sociology that Sociology: A Metasociological Analysis.’’ In delivers frames allowing for a genuinely Ritzer, G., Explorations in Social Theory: From historically-informed and comparative study Metatheorizing to Rationalization. London, UK: of health and health care; and Waitzkin Sage. assists us in this project. Scambler, G. 2005. ‘‘General Introduction.’’ In There is continuity as well as divergence Scambler, G., editor, Medical Sociology: Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare. London, across these inevitably personal and there- UK: Routledge. fore questionable choices. Above all, per- Turner, B. 2008. Body and Society: Explorations in haps they promise good times ahead, a cor- Social Theory, third edition. Cambridge, UK: rective to the somewhat pessimistic tenor Polity.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Ó American Sociological Association 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0094306114522409 http://cs.sagepub.com SYMPOSIUM

Durkheim & Co.

MASSIMO BORLANDI University of Turin [email protected]

It would seem that the life of David E´ mile Durkheim would hold no surprises after E´ mile Durkheim: A Biography,byMarcel Marcel Fournier’s monumental biography, Fournier, translated by David Macey. which has been cut here and there, but Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013. 866pp. enhanced by a bibliography, with translation $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780745646459. by the late David Macey. Fournier, author of a no less voluminous E´ mile Durkheim: 1858–1917,byMarcel Marcel Mauss ([1994] 2006), begins this Fournier. Paris, FR: Librairie Arthe`me tome with four chapters on Durkheim’s Fayard, 2007. 946pp. $46.22 paper. youth, his Jewish upbringing and his educa- ISBN: 9782213615370. tion at the Colle`ge d’E´ pinal, then at the Parisian Lyceé Louis-le-Grand, and his admission, upon a third attempt, to the E´ cole defended at the Sorbonne in March 1893) normale supe´rieure in 1879. Durkheim’s and that of The Rules of Sociological Method grades for his philosophy agre´gation in 1882 (1894–1895); and the death of his father, were modest. For almost five years he taught Moı¨se, in February 1896. Great attention is in provincial high schools. In 1885 his early paid to the early institutionalization of soci- writings were published in the Revue philos- ology in France (in 1893 Rene´ Worms ophique. In 1886 he spent a seven-month sab- founded the Revue internationale de sociologie, batical in Germany (Leipzig, Berlin, and Mar- while, in 1895, the Colle`ge libre des sciences burg). Everybody he had any contact with, sociales and the Museé social came into whether family members, classmates or teach- being), to Durkheim’s colleagues at Bor- ers, is introduced by Fournier. At times, it is deaux (León Duguit, Alfred Espinas, Octave only a few lines. At others, entire pages—for Hamelin) and still other well-known savants instance, for Numa-Denis Fustel de Cou- such as the indianist Sylvain Le´vi. Dur- langes and Theódule Ribot. A similar treat- kheim’s controversial 1895 ‘‘revelation’’ con- ment applies to the authors Durkheim was cerning the ‘‘capital role played by religion reading or writing about: Alfred Fouilleé, in social life’’ is amply covered by Fournier, Albert Scha¨ffle, and Wilhelm Wundt. receiving its due attention. Events spanning from Durkheim’s appoint- Once Suicide was released in the spring of ment as charge´ de cours of social science and 1897, Durkheim devoted himself to the pedagogy at Bordeaux University (July greatest of his undertakings, the Anneé socio- 1887) to the end of his lectures on the history logique. The six chapters of Part III track the of socialism (May 1896) are treated in the publication of the first five volumes of this four chapters of Part II. These developments review (1898–1902), which contained rele- include: Durkheim’s wedding in October vant me´moires of his editor (the first being 1887 and the birth of his two children Marie ‘‘La prohibition de l’inceste et ses origines’’) and Andre´; the arrival of Mauss, who was and of some collaborators, both regular the son of Durkheim’s sister Rosine, in Bor- (Henri Hubert and Mauss, Gaston Richard, deaux in October 1890; the drafting of his Francxois Simiand) and occasional (Georg two doctoral theses (The Division of Labor in Simmel, Friedrich Ratzel, S. Rudolph Stein- Society and the Latin thesis on Montesquieu, metz). Fournier’s focus on them provides

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 162 Symposium a keen profile of each of these figures along- Deploige on the alleged German sources of side summaries of their articles. He then his thought, for example, and the countless tackles the conflicts within the Anneé‘s debates he took part in: on pacifism, patriot- team. Accordingly, Part III features extensive ism, trade unionism of civil servants, ethnol- digressions: Ce´lestin Bougle´’s doctoral the- ogy, and economics. In 1913, sociology was sis on Les Ideés e´galitaires (1899), the science officially recognized at the Sorbonne, albeit conferences held in Paris for the 1900 Expo- in a secondary role as Durkheim’s chair sition universelle, the Sixth section (Sciences was rebranded ‘‘Educational Science and religieuses) of the E´ cole pratique des hautes Sociology.’’ In the same year, the twelfth e´tudes. The Dreyfus Affair (L’Affaire) saw and last issue of the Anneé sociologique was Durkheim and some of the Durkheimians published, which in 1907 had changed for- move into action. mula and issue dates. A council member of In June 1902, Durkheim was finally elec- the University of Paris since 1910, Durkheim ted at the Sorbonne (Faculty of Letters), as was one of the targets of Henri Massis and a substitute of Ferdinand Buisson, who Alfred Tarde, who in two enquiries appear- held the chair in educational science. He ing in 1911 and 1913 under the pseudonym was to remain a junior lecturer and would Agathon, lamented the decline of classic cul- be promoted to professor, still and only in ture at the Sorbonne and opposed the recent educational science, in November 1906. scientistic turn taken by the teaching of arts The five chapters of Part IV cover these and philosophy. Agathon’s hero was Henri four years when Durkheim took up his Bor- Bergson. Durkheim’s 1913–1914 course of deaux lectures on moral education, which he lectures, Pragmatism and Sociology, was large- repeated more than once, and set up a new ly directed against Bergson and Bergsonism. course on the history of secondary education Part VI treats the Great War in two chap- in France at the E´ cole normale supe´rieure ters. It was devastating to Durkheim. The (both courses were published posthumous- year 1914 had looked good following the ly). He waged his last duel with Gabriel birth of his daughter Marie’s son Claude, Tarde, an ancient adversary, in December and a possible appointment as head of the 1903. In February 1906 he delivered his E´ cole normale. Almost four million French paper ‘‘La de´termination du fait moral’’ to were called up. And among these was his the French Society of Philosophy. In the son, Andre´ Durkheim. With other university Anneé, an article written with Mauss on professors, Durkheim was involved in pro- primitive classification and another on the paganda work and wrote the brochures matrimonial organization of Australian soci- Who Wanted War? with Ernest Denis, and eties pointed to the direction Durkheim was Germany Above All. News from the front taking. These texts caused reactions: among was ‘‘dreadful.’’ One after the other, Dur- them, that of Henri Berr, the founder of the kheim’s acquaintances were dying: Maxime Revue de synthe`se. There were now about fif- David, Jean Reynier, Antoine Bianconi and teen recruits to the Durkheim’s journal. Robert Hertz, all collaborators of the Anneé. Some would make a name for themselves: And in December 1915, Andre´ died in Mac- Georges Bourgin, Maurice Halbwachs, Paul edonia. Durkheim passed away two years Huvelin and Charles Lalo. Fournier recounts later at his home on November 15th, leaving their interests, careers, and relationships. an unfinished text on ethics. In Part V of Fournier’s book, five chapters In his introduction, Fournier hints at what consist of an excursus into the state of the could have been another title, perhaps social sciences in France around 1907: jour- a more appropriate one, for his book: E´ mile nals and groups. This part focuses primarily Durkheim & Co. In the epilogue, he sends on the developments of Durkheim’s reli- us the following postcard from a 1943 occu- gious sociology from his 1906–1907 public pied Paris. The Germans had requisitioned lectures on the origins of religion to The Ele- the house of Durkheim’s daughter (in the mentary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) and 16th arrondissement) and were throwing on the national and international reception out of the window his manuscripts and cor- of this book. Fournier then turns to the con- respondence which had been carefully troversies Durkheim engaged in with Simon stored in a big cupboard. ‘‘Hundreds and

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Symposium 163 hundreds of sheets of paper swirled around of Durkheimian sociology in the curricula in the wind and a memory was blown away. of primary education in France. Here the The traces of an immense body of work were English edition omits details regarding Lap- erased, the secrets of a lifetime were lost’’ ie’s two doctoral theses, the six members of (2013: 728). his jury (April 1902), Espinas’ remarks dur- Fournier’s E´ mile Durkheim: A Biography ing his dissertation defence, Lapie’s son reads like a novel, and to some extent it is Pierre-Olivier who was a future member of one. It is a choral novel based on facts com- parliament, and his 1935 thesis on L’E´ tat pulsively accumulated, where the support- actionnaire (2007: 521-522). ing and background cast often overshadows A proper evaluation of this book requires the central protagonist. The exuberance of a comparison with Steven Lukes’ earlier this book, the author’s love of digression, biography of Durkheim ([1973] 1985), pro- his virtuosity in weaving stories and anec- vided this comparison is carried out fairly. dotes are unusual and echo certain literary In that respect, it goes without saying that successes: Georges Perec’s Life, A User’s there is more to be found in Fournier’s Manual,ifImaybeallowedtodrawsuch work than in Lukes’, as Fournier had access a parallel. It is a shame that some of to archives Lukes did not survey. Among these detours, like brackets open within these, Durkheim’s letters to Mauss edited brackets, have disappeared from the English by Fournier himself (Durkheim 1998; Four- edition. nier 2005, 2008). The main difference In Chapter 15, Fournier tells us that in the between the two books lies in how they spring of 1902, among other concerns, Dur- approach Durkheim’s ideas, which— kheim was worried about his sister’s health. necessarily—are of three kinds: theoretical The translator-editor has eliminated her doc- statements (both statements concerning the tor’s advice, which included ‘‘foot massages, subject-matter and method of sociology glycerophosphate and salt tonic baths’’ and explanations of given social phenome- (2007: 506). A little further on, Fournier na); beliefs (political, religious, moral) and exploits Durkheim’s appointment to the Sor- opinions (personal views on current events). bonne in order to guide us through the new Lukes primarily focused on theoretical building that housed that august institution, statements, which he catalogued and ana- the Nouvelle Sorbonne. Built between 1885 lyzed, suggesting a summarizing of Dur- and 1903 by the architect Henri-Paul Ne´not, kheim’s ‘‘manner of thought’’ according to this structure covered 21,000 square meters. 12 basic terms: three concepts, six dichoto- The great amphitheater, with its 3,000 seats mies, and three arguments. He took inter- (which Durkheim also noted elsewhere), pretations of Durkheim up to the 1960s and the library stood out. Three frescoes into account and maintained that his sociol- dominated the sweeping staircase that led ogy, especially his realism, was outmoded. to the library which had a 75 meter-long Fournier, while also concerning himself reading room seating 300 readers with two with Durkheim’s theoretical statements, great wall-paintings at both ends. The does so only to a certain extent, not schema- English edition retains a description of the tizing them. He confines himself to specify- frescoes (The Song of the Muses Awakens the ing the contents of Durkheim’s books, evok- Human Soul is the largest), yet omits that of ing the disagreements they provoked at the the paintings: Frances I with Marguerite de time, and then moves on. He never points Navarre by Jean-Paul Laurens (1899) and out continuity or incoherence between one that of Richelieu by Marcel Baschert and text and another, neither does he join up Paul Thomas (1901) (2007: 516). In the mean- any threads of any reasoning, nor does he time, what is happening in Bordeaux? The refer to the use that twentieth century soci- post left vacant by Durkheim went to ologists made of Durkheim’s notions. Dur- Richard, who in the University Rector’s kheim’s body of work comprises, according words was ‘‘a modest man, but an upright to him, Durkheim’s ‘‘main fields of inter- one’’ (2013: 412). The post Hamelin was est’’: ‘‘education and pedagogy, morals to vacate a year later was filled by Paul and law, marriage and the family, and Lapie, who would introduce the teaching ethics and religion’’ (2013: 731). Instead,

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Fournier dwells at length on Durkheim’s Bourdieu’s or Raymond Boudon’s? Is there beliefs and opinions. a limit, when all is said and done, beyond The contrast between Lukes’ and Four- which you cannot make an author say nier’s biographies arises from the genus what you want? Nevertheless, you have to the latter belongs to: l’histoire des intellectuels. wonder whether a biography can answer The history of intellectuals is a French pas- these questions. sion which continues and has continued to In a book as packed as this one, some grow ever since the first studies on subscrib- errors are inevitable. Following are the ers to L’Aurore‘s ‘‘Manifesto’’ of January more important ones I spotted in the French 14th, 1898. It claims we should know specif- edition (two of which have been pointed out ics about writers, university lecturers, scien- previously: Merllie´ 2009: 224–225). The tists, artists, and journalists of the past: their author of the anonymous introduction to social origins, their educational background, the first issue of Revue de me´taphysique et de how much they earned, their clubs, their morale (1893) is not Xavier León but habits, whom they married (as marriage is Alphonse Darlu (2013: 58, 827). Suicide a means of social mobility), how their prog- appeared in June 1897 and not in March eny fared, where they lived (rive droite/rive (p. 228). The editor of the erratic Italian gauche?), where they spent their holidays, review La scienza sociale was not F. Cossenti whether they were believers or agnostics, but F(rancesco) Cosentini (pp. 431, 844). monarchists or republicans, pacifists or The summary of Durkheim’s 1906-1907 lec- interventionists, in the Resistance or collabo- tures on the origins of religion was pub- rationists, and so forth. Their theories, in so lished by Paul Fontana in the Revue de philos- far as they had formulated any, are of minor ophie and not in the Revue philosophique interest for two reasons. The first, because (p. 548). Agathon’s phrase on Durkheim they are the subject of other scholars (which ‘‘the regent of the Sorbonne, the all-powerful is true to the extent they belong to the pur- master’’ is in L’Esprit de la nouvelle Sorbonne view of historians of ideas as well as of pre- and not in Les Jeunes gens d’aujourd’hui sentists, who adapt and manipulate them); (p. 572). In the title of the 1885 article by Hen- and second, because these theories reflect ry Beaunis (and not ‘‘Beaumis’’) quoted on the context in which they took shape, a con- p. 739, fn. 22, the word ‘‘sycomore’’ should text whose investigation is crucial and suffi- be replaced with ‘‘psychologie.’’ The tempo- cient for the understanding of the theories rary editor of the new Revue de Paris, in 1894, under scrutiny (which is not true as far as was James Darmesteter, who died that same repeatedly tested scientific theories and year, and not Arse`ne (p. 756, fn. 39), his older sociological explanations are concerned). brother. The history of intellectuals has produced Moreover, a flaw in the book’s quality outstanding works in francophone universi- could have been avoided. It would be hard ties, with Jean-Francxois Sirinelli in the first to imagine a more incomplete bibliography place. His Geńe´ration intellectuelle (1988) pro- (pp. 801–838). Suffice it to say that of the vides a model. Fournier’s Durkheim is the 578 article references, 350 lack either page latest, impressive outcome of this school. numbers or (often) volume and issue num- For anyone wishing to engage with the ber of the referenced periodicals. Some founder of the Anneé sociologique and his authors, such as Gustave Belot, Marcel group, his competitors and his times, this Berne`s, Bougle´, Hertz, Mauss, Charles book is a treasure trove. Those who use Dur- Renouvier and most notably, Durkheim kheim in their everyday business will not, himself, are the victims of such an editorial however, find here satisfactory solutions to neglect. Why such a slip? their recurrent enigmas: was Durkheim really a precursor of functionalism? Did he really oppose sociology and psychology? Did References the Durkheim of The Elementary Forms really Durkheim, E´mile. 1998. Lettres a` Marcel Mauss betray the Durkheim of The Rules? And (Pre´senteés par Philippe Besnard et Marcel which one is the ‘‘real’’ Durkheim? Talcott Fournier). Paris, FR: Presses universitaires de Parsons’ or Harold Garfinkel’s? Pierre France.

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Fournier, Marcel. [1994] 2006. Marcel Mauss: A Lukes, Steven. [1973] 1985. E´ mile Durkheim. His Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Life and Work. A Historical and Critical study. Press. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fournier, Marcel. 2005. ‘‘Durkheim’s Life and Merllie´, Dominique. 2009. ‘‘L’’anne´e’ durkheimi- Context: Something New About Durkheim?’’. enne 2008.’’ Revue philosophique de la France et Pp. 41–69 in Cambridge Companion to Durkheim, de l’e´tranger, 134 (2): 217–230. edited by J. C. Alexander and Ph. Smith. Sirinelli, Jean-Francxois. 1988. Ge´ne´ration intel- Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. lectuelle. Khaˆgneux et Normaliens dans Fournier, Marcel. 2008. ‘‘E´ mile Durkheim. Une l’entre-deux-guerres. Paris, FR: Librairie vie, une carrie`re’’. Pp. 15–44 in Durkheim. Arthe`me Fayard. L’institution de la sociologie, edited by B. Valade. Paris, FR: Presses universitaires de France.

Slashing at Water with a Knife? Durkheim’s Struggle to Anchor Sociology in First Principles

DAVID N. SMITH University of Kansas [email protected]

Unconventional thinking often suffers the indignity of being mistaken for conventional E´ mile Durkheim: 1858–1917,byMarcel thinking. This is especially true when socio- Fournier. Paris, FR: Librairie Arthe`me logical realism and other forms of anti- Fayard, 2007. 940pp. $46.22 cloth. ISBN: reductionism are at stake since, in many 9782213615370. spheres, anti-reductionism is so far from conventional that, when unsuspecting E´ mile Durkheim: A Biography,byMarcel observers encounter it, they often confuse it Fournier, translated by David Macey. with reductionism. Marcel Fournier’s mas- Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2013. 866pp. sive new biography of E´ mile Durkheim $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780745646459. makes this crystal clear. Durkheim, who devoted his career to mapping the terra incognita of social facts, was accused of deny- attempts at social explanation, Durkheim ing the facts of individuality. Rather than put forward the hermeneutic principle winning plaudits for attempting to balance that sociologists must study not only indi- sociology and psychology, Durkheim was viduals but also the distinctive facts that charged with the radical negation of psy- emerge from social interactions. Society, chology. His professed goal (to open a new though made up of individuals, has domain of human experience to investiga- supra-individual properties as well. It is tion) was construed as an attempt to open a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. one frontier and close another. But did Durkheim also oppose reducing That Durkheim opposed the reduction of individuality to society? As Fournier shows society to the individual is plain. In the in great detail, many of his peers charged mid-1880s, while still in his twenties, he con- him with precisely this. From virtually the cluded that society is more than ‘‘the arith- start of his career, Durkheim was regularly metical sum of its citizens’’; it is, rather, said to have reduced individuals to ciphers a ‘‘real being which, while it is obviously wholly dominated by a reified society. Dur- nothing without the individuals who make kheim, time and again, denied the charge. it up, still has its own nature and personali- His sociology, he held, was not reductionist ty’’ (p. 81). This is clearly sociological in any sense. It was unconventional; in realism—the view that society has a sui some respects it was even unprecedented; generis reality all its own. Rejecting the one- but his intent was to widen the field of sided individualism of most previous vision, not blinker it. He expounded his

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Slashing at Water with a Knife? Durkheim’s Struggle to Anchor Sociology in First Principles

DAVID N. SMITH University of Kansas [email protected]

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 166 Symposium realist principles methodologically (in The right-wing and chauvinist publicists like Rules of Sociological Method, 1895) and illus- Agathon and Pe´guy. Endlessly, Durkheim trated them substantively (in Suicide, 1897, was charged with the latter-day equivalent and in The Elementary Forms of the Religious of medieval scholasticism—the view that Life, 1912) in order to equip sociologists society is a substantive, superordinate reali- with the tools they would need to appreciate ty, constraining individuality so utterly that the multidimensionality of facts that do not it has no separate existence. subsist in individual life alone—among By now, this stereotype has achieved so them money, language, solidarity, and the much reputational inertia that many sociolo- state. gists take its truth for granted. And there are These replies went largely unheeded in unquestionably bold and imperious pas- Durkheim’s day, and they have seldom sages in some of Durkheim’s texts, especial- won credence since then. Now, as in his ly his earlier works, which, viewed apart own day, Durkheim is routinely portrayed from his larger argument and the clarifica- as a sociological reductionist, as an enemy tions he offered in ensuing years, could of psychology and the inner life. Scrupulous seem to constitute an obvious warrant for readers will judge for themselves. But I this view. But I hold that Durkheim’s views regard this as a caricature. Durkheim’s case are far subtler than conventional readings for inquiry into the interplay of personal suggest. and group facts has been misleadingly ste- Fournier—whose giant volume is just the reotyped as Soziologismus, as reductionist second full-scale biography to date—offers individualism inverted, despite his best many reasons to support this contention. efforts to dispel the stereotype both discur- He writes on page one that he wants to dispel sively and empirically. the myth of Durkheim’s ‘‘supposed negation Fournier offers rich new evidence con- of individuality.’’ Much of what he reports in cerning Durkheim’s ill-starred encounter the ensuing text contributes to this goal. with his critics, much of which should cast doubt, at the very least, on the still-current stereotype. But Fournier also shows that, from Against the Stream the very start, many of Durkheim’s critics Before we turn to Fournier’s details, we can seemed almost immune to his actual words; reasonably ask why inversions of this kind indeed, some seemed positively enamored take place. Many readers will suspect that of the image of Durkheim the Metaphysician, Durkheim’s story is unique, and that he pro- elevating Society over the Individual. voked (and earned) the unflattering Fournier’s chronicle allows us to see how response he received. But my sense is that this happened, year by year, as if we were many people find sociological realism so watching time-lapse photography. At first alien and counterintuitive that they miscon- Durkheim was confident that he could win strue it in the light of their own preconcep- over his critics: ‘‘...the resistance I am fight- tions. The experience of Solomon Asch is ing has its uses,’’ he wrote to a vocal early instructive in this respect. One of the top critic (p. 208). But he was disconcerted social psychologists of the past century, when clarifications proved unavailing. He a seminal theorist and experimentalist, mused, after Suicide had failed to change Asch was committed to sociological anti- his critics’ outlook: ‘‘Am I just slashing at reductionism, which he articulated with water with a knife?’’ (p. 5). Soon he came striking clarity. His core experimental find- to a sad realization: ‘‘I am beginning to see ing, and his main theoretical conclusion, that I am powerless against prevailing opin- was that people under group pressure are ion’’ (p. 270). By 1908, Xavier Le´on could equally capable of conformity and noncon- report to Elie Halevy that Durkheim had formity. Yet Asch is now an icon of reduc- become, quite oddly, ‘‘one of the men you tionism. He is credited with a view that he must insult in order to become a philoso- repeatedly and sharply rejected—that peo- pher’’ (p. 611). The drumbeat of insults con- ple are mere puppets, moved by group pres- tinued to the end of Durkheim’s life in 1917, sure. And even Asch, unconventional think- coming not only from academics but from er that he was, misread Durkheim in

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Symposium 167 a similar way, mistaking a kindred spirit for This, plainly, is sociological reductionism, an adversary. as Asch explains: ‘‘The model was an indi- What sparks this kind of reversion to con- vidual deprived of autonomy, one whose ventionality? I will return to Durkheim, and actions stemmed not from an inner direction Fournier, in a moment. But first, to put Dur- but from external influences forcing them- kheim’s quest to establish first principles in selves upon him and taking control away context, I will consider Asch’s parallel from him’’ (pp. 400, 401).1 experience. Asch repeated his findings and conclu- Asch, of course, is most famous for the sions in Scientific American in 1955. He cited ‘‘line length’’ experiment, which he reported his evidence as a counter to conventional in several places, beginning with the treatise thinking in the social sciences, for which Social Psychology in 1952. His experiment social life was equivalent to sleepwalking. was simplicity itself. Placing an unsuspect- ‘‘GabrielTardesummeditallupintheaph- ing test subject in a group of play-acting con- orism: ‘Social man is a somnambulist’.’’ federates, Asch asked each person in turn to Asch traced this outlook to early students volunteer an opinion about the relative lengths of hypnotism like Bernheim, who had ‘‘pro- of several vertical lines. By the time the naı¨ve posed that hypnosis was but an extreme subject was asked for an opinion, Asch’s con- form of a normal psychological process federates had already agreed, unanimously which became known as ‘suggestibility’‘‘ and aloud, that two lines of clearly unequal (p. 31). But in his own work, instead of length were actually equal in length. Some of ‘‘waking suggestibility,’’ Asch found ‘‘star- Asch’s naı¨ve subjects then agreed with the tling individual differences’’ in behavior majoritydespitetheclearevidenceoftheir that reflected deeply rooted differences sense; others resisted the opinion of the major- in personality: ‘‘The performances of ity and voiced their own views. individuals in this experiment tend to be This study is now generally known as the highly consistent. Those who strike out on ‘‘Asch conformity experiment,’’ and most the path of independence do not, as a rule, commentators say that it proves the decisive succumb to the majority, even over an power of the group over the individual. extended series of trials, while those But Asch himself reported something quite who choose the path of compliance are different—namely, that his subjects were unable to free themselves as the ordeal is even likelier to resist majority opinion than prolonged.’’ to surrender to it—and he was perplexed In short, personality matters. Society acts and perturbed when conventional inter- upon individuals whose dispositions are preters began to credit him with results not simply malleable. Asch hence objected and conclusions that he rejected. to research guided by the banal assumption In 1952, in his first report on the experi- ‘‘that people submit uncritically and pain- ment, Asch reported that one-third of the lessly to external manipulation,’’ adding, subjects yielded to majority opinion, but with a touch of irony: ‘‘There is some reason that two-thirds were ‘‘critical’’ and indepen- to wonder whether it was not the investiga- dent subjects who disavowed the unani- tors who, in their enthusiasm for a theory, mous opinion of the majority. His conclusion were suggestible’’ (p. 32). was simple: ‘‘...There were extreme indi- Asch further elaborated his findings and vidual differences in response to majority conclusions in a research monograph in pressure, ranging from complete independence to complete yielding’’ (pp. 457, 459). 1 Asch credits the dominance of this reduction- Asch then marshaled this finding against ism to the influence of marketing and manage- the ‘‘baseless consensus’’ which he said pre- rial psychology, which takes as its premise the vailed in conventional social psychology: claim ‘‘that if these methods are followed, men ‘‘Current thinking has stressed the power can be made to accept wilfully imposed views.’’ Of the ‘‘modern psychology’’ that em- of social conditions to induce psychological braces this premise, Asch says that, ‘‘at bot- changes arbitrarily. It has taken slavish sub- tom, it works with a concept of man not very mission to group forces as the general different from that of modern organs of propa- fact...’’ (pp. 450, 451). ganda’’ (pp. 28, 29).

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1956. His position was unchanged and theory. It serves, on the contrary, as one of unambiguous. And yet, soon, a stereotyped the most dramatic illustrations of conformity, account of ‘‘the Asch conformity experi- of blindly going along with the group, even ment’’ contradicted Asch across the board. when the individual realizes that by doing A review of 99 textbooks found a steadily so he turns his back on reality and truth’’ rising emphasis on conformity from 1953 (pp. 348–49).2 to 1984. Fifty-seven books cited only those Asch called this prejudice—a bias, a´ la who yielded, while only 17 even noted Moscovici, which inhibits insight into even that twice as many subjects had remained simple statistics—’’social determinism,’’ unyielding! (Friend et al., pp. 35–36) By and he called E´ mile Durkheim its best repre- 1961, Asch was sufficiently disturbed by sentative. This brings us full circle to Marcel this trend to criticize it. Many key facts Fournier’s biography. Was the world wrong had been ‘‘slighted’’ or ‘‘ignored,’’ he about Asch but right about Durkheim? wrote, and even ‘‘cursory observation’’ should have convinced his readers ‘‘that it is not sufficient to concentrate on conformi- Through a Glass Darkly ty, they must be equally concerned with the Asch’s reading of Durkheim is classic: ‘‘Dur- conditions of independence.’’ ‘‘Indepen- kheim, the outstanding exponent of the posi- dence is not simply the weakening of con- tion that social facts have an existence and formity.... The respective trends are in a lawfulness of their own, concluded that opposition to each other’’ (p. 153; italics psychology is at bottom irrelevant to the mine). facts of society and historical change.’’ Asch argued that these ‘‘obvious distinc- Unaware that he himself would later become tions’’ had been largely ignored because the object of similar criticism, he accused many scholars were blinded by the preju- Durkheim of holding the same determinist dice that people are sheep-like (p. 154). views that were subsequently identified He restated this point in the 1987 reprint with ‘‘the Asch experiment’’: ‘‘The group of Social Psychology, observing that inflated swallows the individuals who become claims for the efficacy of marketing and mere recipients of group forces. The individ- propaganda had been credulously accepted ual thinks, feels, and decides in accordance by many scholars, who increasingly saw with forces to which he can only submit’’ people ‘‘in a miserable light’’ as either cheer- (1952, pp. 16, 254).3 ful or spiritless robots. ‘‘What struck me most...was a drift toward the trivializa- tion of human possibilities...’’ Asch sought 2 Lee Ross, in a 1990 volume on Asch’s work, to challenge these ‘‘taken for granted’’ took an equally typical albeit less nuanced assumptions, which he believed his research stance: Asch’s ‘‘compelling conformity studies, and Milgram’s...obedience studies, and had accomplished. But others saw matters many less dramatic and celebrated experi- differently: ‘‘Ironically, many investigators ment[s], all offer one common message: situa- were friendly to these efforts and tried to tional manipulations in general, and relatively carry them forward, without however subtle situational features or variations in par- departing in the slightest from their irratio- ticular, can produce behavior that one never nalistic starting point’’—the view, that is, could have anticipated from knowledge about the actors or their past behavior...’’ (p. 86). that group pressure moves people, not individual 3 What is particularly striking about Asch’s reasons for action. Asch’s conclusion is wist- approach to social facts is that, though he came ful: ‘‘As I was to discover, my medicine very close to Durkheim, his starting point was was evidently not sufficiently powerful’’ the wish to embed Gestalt social psychology in (p. x). the notion of a matrix of social interactions. For How true this was! Serge Moscovici, for this purpose, he found the concept of the example, saw the contradiction between ‘‘individual’’ shallow, since actual empirical individuals are always, in ways reminiscent Asch’s views and the standard inter- of Mead, intersubjectively linked as ‘‘I,’’ pretation, but he was so loyal to the stereotype ‘‘you,’’ and (vitally) ‘‘we.’’ The wealth of that he enjoyed Asch’s discomfiture: ‘‘...the insight in this perspective remains to be fully Asch experiment...clearly invalidated his tapped.

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Durkheim was drawn into debate on this did say was that collective psychology cannot subject in 1895, when his ardent critic, Gabri- simply be deduced from individual psycholo- el Tarde, wrote four articles attacking the gy because a new factor—association—has ‘‘fantasmagorie ontologique de M. Durkheim.’’ intervened and has transformed the psychic With silky innocence, Tarde demurred: ‘‘I raw material. That factor is the source of all admit, I have great difficulty understanding the differences and of everything that is what remains of society once we set aside new. A phenomenon of individual psycholo- individuals...Are we to return to the real- gyhasasitssubstratumanindividualcon- ism of the Middle Ages?’’ (2007, p. 234).4 sciousness, and a phenomenon of collective Durkheim responded with alacrity: ‘‘Most psychology has as its substratum a ground of the propositions that my eminent critic of individual consciousnesses.’’ attributes to me are not mine’’ (p. 205). Characteristically, he told Bougle´ that he This kind of response did not deter others hoped Suicide would soon ‘‘clear up any mis- from issuing similar criticisms. In rapid suc- understandings’’ (p. 263). But not long after cession, Durkheim found himself replying to Suicide appeared, he reported that he was Lucien Herr, who accused Durkheim of res- ‘‘profoundly discouraged’’ (*p. 345). ‘‘I urrecting the ‘‘phantom of the old realist thought that my Suicide would clear up the metaphysics’’; Paul Lapie, who faulted him ambiguities and determine an agreement. I for allegedly wishing to ‘‘annul individual now see that that will not be the case. I still initiatives’’; and Charles Andler, who wrote, sense the same misgivings in what people sarcastically, that ‘‘No one has ever seen write to me...’’ (p. 270). ‘the collective spirit’ speak or guide the This would be a recurring pattern. Each pens of secretaries of deliberative assem- time Durkheim published a new work, he blies’’ (*pp. 238, 239). Durkheim replied voiced the hope that his critics and col- patiently and respectfully to Lapie, as he leagues would finally see that his sociology did to everyone who appeared to want to could, and indeed must, accommodate the understand him: ‘‘I do not see sociology as insights of psychology.5 But each time, alas, anything other than a psychology, but it is he was disappointed. In 1912, he wrote to a psychology sui generis‘‘ (p. 264). But he Bougle´ for the Nth time, with more than was much less gentle with Andler as he a hint of recrimination: ‘‘I have so often was with anyone else whose criticisms been told that sociology is unable to account were, in his estimation, careless or disingen- for the ideal, that it is positive and realist. I uous: ‘‘...I completely reject the ideas M. have shown that it attends to the ideal Andler ascribes to me...’’ These ideas are because it is living.’’ But ‘‘until now, not ‘‘absurd.’’ ‘‘He is able to attribute them to a single word’’ had been said in defense of me only by distorting a few isolated words, that point—not even by Bougle´ (p. 583). whereas I took great care to warn the reader It could be the case, of course, that Dur- against such distortions’’ (p. 217). kheim’s critics simply grasped the import Durkheim was distressed to discover that of his work better than he did. But to consid- even his own circle was not immune to this er that possibility with proper care (or the kind of misreading. ‘‘Let me say once alternative possibility, to which I subscribe, more,’’ he wrote to Celestin Bougle´ in this that Durkheim remains an irreplaceable period, ‘‘that I never dreamed of saying that source of insight into self and society) we one can be a sociologist without having need to return to the books themselves. I a background in psychology, or that sociology invite anyone who has not recently re-read was anything other than a psychology. What I Suicide or The Elementary Forms of the Reli- gious Life to consult the fresh new translations, by Robin Buss and Karen Field, that 4 Henceforward, I will cite the original 2007 edi- have appeared in the past two decades. tion with asterisks, in this way: (*p.234) or (*p. 903). Citations from the translated edition will appear sans asterisks: e.g., (p. 234) or 5 One of his most direct attempts to correct prior (p. 601). Many of these citations are silently misunderstandings appeared in the preface to emended, since the translation is not always the second edition of Rules, which is available very precise. in the 1982 edition translated by W. D. Halls.

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Few works of sociological theory, in my able to change the social order as we wish, opinion, come close to matching the subtlety without taking into account customs, tradi- and power of the final third of Suicide or the tions, and the mental constitution of men final two-thirds of Forms. And combined, and societies’’ (pp. 303, 525).7 these two books are quite a bit shorter than One of the best sections of Fournier’s book Fournier’s biography! focuses on Durkheim’s pamphlets and activ- What Fournier offers, above all, is material ities during World War I. He pays close drawn from Durkheim’s correspondence. attention to the neglected but serious pam- His interest, as a biographer, is primarily phlet, Deutschland u¨ber alles, which pivots Durkheim’s career, which he documents in around the premise that Pan-German men- great and, at times, excruciating detail. tality was not only socially real but a phe- Despite the vast scale of the work, he pays nomenon of ‘‘morbid enormity,’’ infused only modest attention to Durkheim’s books, with will-mania and delusions of grandeur. and says surprisingly little about myriad fig- Though this pamphlet has typically been ures of major intellectual interest. At the dismissed as a journalistic or even jingoistic same time, he devotes an astonishing num- tract, it is, in fact, a subtle study of the ano- ber of pages to Wikipedia-like summaries mic extremes to which states and nations of the careers of secondary and tertiary fig- can be led by despair. That Durkheim’s ures in Durkheim’s orbit. Only dedicated intent here is psychological as well as politi- specialists will have the patience to wade cal is evident in the very vocabulary of this through the endless detail, and few will pamphlet: ‘‘humeur aggressive,’’ ‘‘volonte´ belli- regard Fournier’s attempt to turn this detail queuse,’’ ‘‘cruaute´sre´glementaires,’’ and ‘l’inhu- into a rounded biography as a literary suc- manite´ syste´matique’’ (*p. 681). This analysis cess. Beginners will continue to find Steven does not rise to the level of Durkheim’s Lukes’ 1972 biography more artful and exceptionally acute inquiry into melancholy engaging. The English-language edition of and rage in the later chapters of Suicide, but it Fournier’s book, meanwhile, has some very reflects a similar impulse. grave limitations.6 But Fournier offers many invaluable nuggets. On the subject of anti-psychological reductionism in particu- Food for Thought lar, he presents us with more than enough One of the ironies of Durkheim’s struggle material to gauge how seriously Durkheim against the reductionist reading of his work took the issue. is that he was vilified for this alleged reduc- In 1898, Durkheim published an essay in tionism. He fought, in part, to vindicate his which he wrote: ‘‘The agent endowed with integrity, moral as well as intellectual—to reason does not behave like a thing of which refute the notion that he saw individuals as the activity can be reduced to a system of small cogs in the social machine. But some- reflexes. He hesitates, feels his way, deliber- thing changed in the decades that followed. ates, and by that distinguishing mark he is When Asch was accused of the same reduc- recognized.’’ In 1909, he stated categorically: tionist view, he was lionized. When he ‘‘Sociology in no way imposes upon man resisted the reductionist reading of his ... a passively conservative attitude .It only famed experiment, he was resisting acclaim, turns us away from ill-conceived and sterile not infamy. He is still lionized, and for the enterprises inspired by the belief that we are same reason. Reductionism, in this sphere at least, is 6 Although Polity does not bill the translation as thriving. It has every quality of the collective an abridged edition, it is, in fact, sharply representations that preoccupied Durkheim. abridged. The original edition is over 150,000 When we as individuals try to undo them, words longer than the translation. Innumera- ble passages have been deleted throughout we discover they have a lasting and the volume, shortening nearly every substantive discussion and making many passages abrupt and disjointed. Often, minor material 7 This, of course, is just a sampler of the many is left untouched, while significant topics are similar and amplifying remarks which are pruned away. So—caveat lector! offered throughout Fournier’s long chronicle.

Contemporary Sociology 43, 2

Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on March 11, 2014 Symposium 171 constraining power. Culturally speaking, Durkheim, E´ mile. (1912) 1947. The Elementary collective representations have lives of their Forms of the Religious Life, translated by Joseph own. They can, of course, be changed; but Ward Swain. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Durkheim, E´ mile. (1897) 2006. On Suicide, trans- that requires collective action. lated by Robin Buss. London, UK: Penguin. Durkheim, E´ mile. (1895) 1982. The Rules of Socio- logical Method, and Selected Texts on Sociology References and Its Method, translated by W. D. Halls. Asch, Solomon. 1952. Social Psychology. New York, London, UK: Macmillan. NY: Prentice-Hall. Friend, Ronald, Yvonne Rafferty, and Asch, Solomon. 1955. ‘‘Opinions and Social Pres- Dana Bramel. 1990. ‘‘A puzzling misinterpre- sure,’’ Scientific American, 193 (5) November. tation of the Asch ‘conformity’ study,’’ pp. 29–44 European Journal of Social Psychology, 20. Asch, Solomon. 1956. ‘‘Studies of Independence ´ and Conformity, I: A Minority of One Against Lukes, Steven. 1972. Emile Durkheim, His Life and a Unanimous Majority.’’ Psychological Mono- Work. New York, NY: Harper & Row. graphs: General and Applied, 70 (9) Whole No. Moscovici, Serge. 1985. ‘‘Social Influence and 416. Conformity,’’ pp. 347–412 in Gardner Lindsey Asch, Solomon. 1961. ‘‘Issues in the Study of and Eliot Aronson (eds), Handbook of Social Psy- Social Influences on Judgment,’’ pp. 143–158 chology, Vol. 2, third edition). New York, NY: in Conformity and Deviation, edited by Irwin Random House. Berg and Bernard Bass. New York, NY: Harper. Ross, Lee. 1990. ‘‘Recognizing the Role of Con- Durkheim, E´ mile. (1912) 1995. The Elementary strual Processes,’’ pp. 77–96 in The Legacy of Forms of Religious Life, translated and with an Solomon Asch: Essays in Cognition and Social introduction by Karen E. Fields. Glencoe, IL: Psychology, edited by Irvin Rock. Hillsdale, The Free Press. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Contemporary Sociology 43, 2

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