Thoughts on Functionalism

Functionalism is one of many theoretical perspectives in the social sciences. It is the eldest, and perhaps the most predominant. There are two main points that must be made for one to understand the ideas of this perspective. The first point is that it uses the scientific method to study the world around us. Secondly, there exists an analogy between organisms and society as a whole.

The idea of using the scientific method leads us further to idea that one can study the society as one might study a living, breathing life form. Therefore, the society must be observable by use of such techniques as surveys and personal interviews. To take that a step further, this positivistic view might be said to assume that society is capable of being value-free. That is, the scientist's own ideals will not interfere with those that he studies. The great French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who originated a great deal of the ideas in functionalist theory, can be considered the source for most of these ideas; he was one of the first social scientists to use scientific methods and statistical data is his research.

I spoke earlier about a second point that must be made. To restate that point, there must be use of an analogy between an individual organism and society. This often leads sociologists to wonder about what is necessary for a "social system" to exist. They also speculate about the ways that social institutions are utilized to meet those needs. This can be used to demonstrate functionalism's importance in studying the family. A functionalist would be able to say that every culture has a family unit, because the family as an institution has certain functions which contribute to survival of the society. Therein exists the analogy because just as society requires these institutions, so does an organism requires certain things (i.e. proteins) to survive.

There is a homeostatic nature of all organisms, so it is safe to say the same about the social systems; just as an organism must retain equilibrium and return itself to it after outside jolts disturb it, so does society. This equilibrium in society is primarily achieved by the use of socialization of the participants in a society into the norms and values of that particular society. On occasion, socialization proves incapable to cause conformity to what might be considered socially supported norms. In these cases, uses of social control mechanisms are created to return society to homeostatic equilibrium. Some of these social control mechanisms are listed here: schools, prisons, and mental institutions.

Often times, "systems theorists" in computer science, biology, or similar subjects use a vocabulary that proves very similar to that of the sociologist who uses the functionalist perspective. One might begin to realize that the functionalist views society as a system of parts that are very interrelated, and a single change in any one part can severely affect the other parts in the system. Within these boundaries, feedback and exchanges affect the equilibrium outlined in homeostasis. There are many ways that these changes occur, mostly through evolution of the society or by an outside force acting on it. An extreme functionalist such as Talcott Parsons, a famous sociologist of the late 1950s, view society as systems within systems; the individual system within the group system within the community system within the society itself. Parsons even went as far as to view societies as existing within the greater global village.

Often times, an individual's behavior is deeply affected by more powerful social forces, the behemoths of society. Functionalists often focus on this interesting phenomenon within society. Often times, these theorists speak of these individuals as decision-makers, although others have suggested that functionalists treat these people as though they were puppets, whose decisions are easily predicted according to where they stand in the social spectrum and how the social control mechanisms have socialized their norms and values, or instead of puppets, as prisoners of the same mechanisms that society has created to mold them. But these criticisms do not seem to affect the functionalist, especially since they have tended not be concerned with personal destiny and more by the limits imposed on us as individuals which make our behavior easily predicted.

One of many important functionalists, Robert Merton, had listed a set of clarifications in the hope of preventing potential weaknesses. First off, he made note of the manifest and latent functions; more respectively, those which the individuals in a society intend and therefore may represent motives, and those which we neither recognize nor intend. Secondly, he makes note of the consequences which are necessary for a society, those which are dysfunctional for the society, and another, unnamed category of those consequences which are neither necessary nor harmful for a society. Also, the third in the list, he makes note of the different social levels, and the specific social units. Fourthly, and finally, he recognizes that there are certain social structures which are indispensable to the society, but there may be structural alternatives which may also satisfy the same functional needs of the society.

Many critics of functionalism call the theory teleological, that is to say that they consider what happens afterward as the cause for what came before. For instance, a family would be considered by a functionalist as necessary for the society to survive, but such a tradition would have been established before it was ever clear whether or not the society would survive. These criticisms have proven that functionalist theory cannot in fact stand alone as the sole perspective of sociology. The hard core ideas of the extreme functionalists, such as Talcott Parsons, have long since gone out of style. However, functionalists still continue to hope that by carefully observing society and its phenomena that they will be able to discover the laws that govern society. This hope is what keeps the functionalists working, and is the motivation for a great deal of cutting edge research.


References -

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