Innovation
Great cultural emphasis upon the success-goal invites this mode of
adaptation through the use of
institutionally proscribed but often
effective means of attaining at least the simulacrum [material image] of
success - wealth and power. This response occurs when the individual has
assimilated the cultural emphasis upon the goal without equally
internalising the institutional norms governing ways and means for its
attainment...
On the top economic levels, the pressure toward innovation not infrequently
erases the distinction between business-like strivings this side of the
mores and sharp practices beyond the mores. As Veblen observed,
"It is not easy in any given case - indeed it is at times impossible until
the courts have spoken - to say whether it is an instance of praiseworthy
salesmanship or a penitentiary offense".
... But whatever the differential rates of deviant behaviour in the several
social strata, and we know from many sources that the official crime
statistics uniformly showing higher rates in the lower strata are far from
complete and reliable, it appears from our analysis that the greatest
pressures toward deviation are exerted upon the lower strata.
Cases in point permit us to detect the sociological mechanisms involved in
producing these pressures.
Several researchers have shown that specialised areas of vice and crime
constitute a "normal" response to a situation where the cultural emphasis
upon pecuniary success has been absorbed, but where there is little access
to conventional and legitimate means for becoming successful.
The occupational opportunities of people in these areas are largely
confined to manual labour and the lesser white-collar jobs. Given the
American stigmatisation of manual labour which has been found to hold
rather uniformly in all social classes, and the absence of realistic
opportunities fro advancement beyond this level, the result is a marked
tendency towards deviant behaviour.
The status of unskilled labour and the consequent low income cannot readily
compete in terms of established standards of worth with the promises
of power and high income from organised vice, rackets and crime.
page 149 [1968: p.203]
Ritualism
The ritualistic type of adaptation... involves the abandoning or scaling
down of the lofty cultural goals of great pecuniary success and rapid
social mobility to the point where one's aspirations can be satisfied. But
though one rejects the cultural obligation to attempt "to get ahead in the
world", though one draws in one's horizons, one continues to abide almost
compulsively by
institutional norms.
page 153 [1968: p.207]
Retreatism
Just as conformity
remains the most frequent [adaptation], the rejection of cultural goals and
institutional means is probably the least common. People who
adapt (or
maladapt) in this fashion are, strictly speaking, in the society but not
of it...
In this category fall some of the adaptive activities of psychotics,
autists, pariahs, outcasts, vagrants, vagabonds, tramps, chronic drunkards
and drug addicts.
They have relinquished culturally prescribed goals and their behaviour does
not accord with institutional norms. This is not to say that in some cases
the source the source of their mode of adaptation is not the very social
structure which they have in effect repudiated nor that their very
existence within an area does not constitute a problem for members of
society...
page 155 [1968: p.115]
Rebellion
This adaptation leads men outside the environing social structure to
envisage and work to bring into being a new, that is to say, a greatly
modified social structure. It presupposes alienation from reigning goals
and standards...
page 157 [1968: p.211]
The
strain towards
anomie
The social structure we have examined produces a strain toward anomie and
deviant behaviour.
The pressure of such a social order is upon outdoing one's competitors. So
long as the sentiments supporting this competitive system are distributed
throughout the entire range of activities and are not confined to the final
result of "success", the choice of means will remain largely within the
ambit of social control.
When, however, the cultural emphasis shifts from the satisfaction deriving
from competition itself to almost exclusive concern with the outcome, the
resultant stress makes for the breakdown of the regulatory structure.
With this attenuation of
institutional controls, there occurs an
approximation to the situation erroneously held by the utilitarian
philosophers to be typical of society, a situation in which calculations of
personal advantage and fear of punishment are the only regulating agencies.
This strain toward anomie does not operate evenly throughout society...
For purposes of simplifying the problem, monetary success was taken as the
major cultural goal, although there are, of course, alternative goals in
the repository of common values. The realms of intellectual and artistic
achievement, for example, provide alternative career patterns which may not
entail large pecuniary rewards. To the extent that the cultural structure
attaches prestige to theses alternatives and the social structure permits
access to them,
the system is somewhat stabilised. Potential deviants may
still conform in terms of theses auxiliary sets of values.
page 310 [1968: p.364]
Provisional List of Group Properties
13. Types and degrees of social cohesion: Since at least the work of
Durkheim, the degree of social cohesion has been recognised as a group-
property which affects a wide variety of behaviour and role-performance.
16. Character of the social relations obtaining in the group: This
property has traditionally been adopted as the major one distinguishing
various types of groups, as can be seen from such established
classifications as primary and secondary group, in-group and out-group,
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, formal and informal group,
etc.
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A bibliography entry:
Merton R.K. 1957 (Second edition) Social Theory and Social
Structure
Extracts at
<http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/xMer.htm>
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(Merton R.K. 1957 p. -)
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