Mills the sociological imagination （二）

平生 Posted on 05 十二月 2010

第二章，米尔斯以帕森斯Parsons的社会学代表作为例，批判了社会学中的宏大理论grand theory建构。帕森斯是战后美国社会学的代表人物，也是冷战格局中政治意识形态在社会科学中的一个映射。因此在理解一种理论如何产生，如何兴起，成为某一时代流行的被共同接受的范式，其本身就可以成为理解那个时代的一种表征（representation）。grand theory 在帕森斯的理论中主要是以社会均衡为核心观点，The social equilibrium。米尔斯说这恰恰就有意忽视了社会权力的不平等的实质，因为这种理论表述将社会矛盾和冲突简化为达到某种平衡状态，就是所谓和谐，而社会中不同阶级和阶层、不同种族和民族的人就是为了要是实现社会稳定而达成这样的共同契约，并且遵循它。帕森斯假设，在社会秩序稳定的前提下，一个人在行动action时会考虑到社会中其他人的价值观，因此他在行动时就会有某种以别人的价值观为参照的理性预期，这样，社会秩序的稳定就建立在人们互相设身处地的基础上。那么一个疑问是，社会不平衡状态在这种理论关照下应该如何解释？如果人们的社会行动是为了达成整体的社会稳定秩序，那该如何解释真实世界中无处不在的冲突和矛盾？米尔斯批评的是，这种理论代表了一种学术研究的不好的方面，即通过构建宏大理论而忽视甚至遮蔽现实中的人类实际状态，最后理论就变成从概念到概念的能指的循环，是毫无意义的工作。

Mills在某种程度上不完全把帕森斯的理论看成是意识形态浓厚的作品，而着重批评的是以这种理论构建为代表的某种社会科学的一般趋势，它无助于我们理解和把握我们所生存的时代，无助于去理解那些暴露在时代之下的个人。

second chapter

an institution is a set of roles graded in authority.

translate Parsons’s book:
That this is a metaphor I am now going to forget, because I want you to take as very real my Concept: The social equilibrium.

米尔斯用了4段话就概括了帕森斯的整本书，用简洁通俗的语言translate帕森斯看似来很复杂的“社会系统”论。这也是功夫。

There are two major ways by which the social equilibrium is maintained, and by which—should either or both fail—disequilibrium results. The first is ‘socialization/ all the ways by which the newborn individual is made into a social person. Part of this social making of persons consists in their acquiring motives for taking the social actions required or expected by others. The second is ‘social control/ by which I mean all the ways of keeping people in line and by which they keep themselves in line.
By Tine’ of course, I refer to whatever action is typically expected and approved in the social system.

新出生的婴儿经过社会化成为一个社会人，帕森斯把这个过程假设为他理论的核心前提，即社会化的过程就是将一个人变成顺从于某种社会秩序。费孝通在分析中国乡村社会时，也说在横暴权力（社会冲突）、同意权力（契约，合作）、时势权力（新旧交替时代）三种权力之外，还有一种教化权力，即长老权力（教化权力，不容反对）。在乡村社会中，这确实是维持共同体稳定和保持同质化空间的必要措施。当乡土社会秩序趋于瓦解，“现代性”深入介入到乡村社会中后，教化权力必然衰落。因此，帕森斯实际上将社会化socialization看成是一种静止的合法的没有意识形态和权力介入的比较纯洁的过程，这恰恰是其理论最可诟病的地方，也是破绽和裂缝。因为社会平衡论如何解释它最后竟导致了社会失衡甚至暴虐的结果disequilibrium results？因此真正构成一个稳定的社会秩序的原因究竟是什么，帕森斯的理论是无法有效解释的。

不过再推开来联想下，this social making of persons ，社会主义的“新人改造”和“共同体心灵工程”其实本质上也是一种社会化过程，意在打造出政治人。只不过其目的不在于稳定，而在革命。但真要到所有的年轻人要革命的时候，社会就崩溃了。

Grand theory is drunk on syntax, blind to semantics. Its practitioners do not truly understand that
when we define a word we are merely inviting others to use it as we would like it to be used; that the purpose of definition is to focus argument upon fact, and that the proper result of good definition is to transform argument over terms into disagreements about fact, and thus open arguments to further inquiry.

概念：语法与语义，宏大理论沉醉于语法，而盲于语义。我们使用一个词语概念不是为要别人来使用它，定义概念的目的是将论证焦点集中在事实上，好定义的应有结果是将对术语之间的争论转变成为对事实的异议，然后为更深入的研究打开争论的途径。

The capacity to shuttle between levels of abstraction, with ease and with clarity, is a signal mark of the imaginative and systematic thinker.

在各种抽象层次之间的穿梭能力。

As David Lockwood has noted, such a statement delivers the sociologist from any concern with ‘power,’ with economic and political institutions.I would go further than that. This statement,
and, in fact, the whole of Parsons’ book, deals much more with what have been traditionally called legitimations’ than with institutions of any sort.

帕森斯处理的的是合法化问题，而不是任何制度问题。

Various thinkers have used different terms to refer to them: Mosca’s ‘political formula’ or ‘great superstitions,’ Locke’s ‘principle of sovereignty,’ Sorel’s ‘ruling myth,’ Thurman Arnold’s ‘folklore,’ Weber’s legitimations,’ Durkheim’s ‘collective representations,’ Marx’s ‘dominant ideas,’ Rousseau’s ‘general will,’ Lasswell’s ‘symbols of authority,’ Mannheim’s ‘ideology,’ Herbert Spencer’s ‘public sentiments’—all these and others like them testify to the central place of master symbols in social analysis.

莫斯卡的“政治模式”或“伟大迷信”，洛克“主权原则”，索雷尔“统治的神话”，阿诺德“民间传说”，韦伯“合法化”，涂尔干“集体表征”，马克思“统治思想”，卢梭“公意”，拉斯韦尔“权威的象征”，曼海姆“意识形态”，斯宾塞“公共情感”……

what Parsons and other grand theorists call ‘value-orientations’ and ‘normative structure* has mainly to do with master symbols of legitimation.

合法化的主要符号。

Often—although not in the United States since World War II—there are quite well organized
symbols of opposition which are used to justify insurgent movements and to debunk ruling authorities.

A skilled compositor employed by a reactionary newspaper, for example, may for the sake of making a living and holding his job conform to the demands of employer discipline. In his heart, and outside
the shop, he may be a radical agitator. Many German socialists allowed themselves to become perfectly disciplined soldiers under the Kaiser’s flag—despite the fact that their subjective values were those of revolutionary Marxism. It is a long way from symbols to conduct
and back again, and not all integration is based on symbols.annotation:Gerth and Mills, op. cit. p. 300.

从符号到行为不会是直接的线性关联。这是在做分析时时刻需要注意的，因为理论最喜欢的事就是见过这个复杂的过程，最后变成理论内部的问题，而不是关乎问题本身、事实本身。

We cannot assume today that men must in the last resort be governed by their own consent. Among the means of power that now prevail is the power to manage and to manipulate the consent of men.

权力管理和操作“同意”，而不是人们自己的“同意”。后者几乎就是某种政治理论的基础，契约论。经济的契约导致了政治的契约？根本没有的事。霍布斯设想了一种战争状态下的人性，竞争敌对，自私自利。帕森斯在这里似乎又反过来论证一种和谐状态下的人性和社会秩序，但两者相同的地方在于假设了一种与人类实际生存不一致的状态，从而在本质属于一种历史的建构和创造，而并非对人类社会发展自然而然的描述型过程。

Furthermore, such ideologies as are available to the powerful are often neither taken up nor used by them. Ideologies usually arise as a response to an effective debunking of power;

Today, of course, many people who are disengaged from prevailing allegiances have not acquired new ones, and so are inattentive to political concerns of any kind. They are neither radical nor reactionary. They are inactionary. If we accept the Greek’s definition of the idiot as an altogether private man, then we must conclude that many citizens of many societies are indeed idiots. This—and I use the word with care—this spiritual condition seems to me the key to much modern malaise among political intellectuals, as well as the key to much political bewilderment in modern society. Intellectual ‘conviction’ and moral belief are not necessary, in either the rulers or the ruled, for a structure of power to persist and even to flourish. So far as the role of ideologies is concerned, the frequent absence of engaging legitimation and the prevalence of mass apathy are surely two of the central political facts about the Western societies today.

既非激进，又非反对，而是迟钝、无行动的一代人，他们脱离了从前的政治效忠，而没有获得新的效忠。

The idea of the normative order set forth leads us to assume a sort of harmony of interests as the natural feature of any society;

和谐社会……