The Empire Builder

A professor scoffs, "He's groping for a comprehensive theory of the universe with Newton's Principia as his ideal." A social relations tutor observes, "His followers are as avid as Marxists." And Pravda replies, "He's a tool of capitalistic warmongers." But while the scholarly tempest brews, Professor of Sociology Talcott Parsons answers for himself--"Heavens, let's not go off the deep end."

Despite all this interest in Parsons, hardly anyone seems to understand his work. This places a strange reserve upon most critics who, one section man says, "are never sure whether it's Parsons or themselves who are confused." Some claim sociology is not ready for Parson's broad generalizations, while others say his work could never be empirically tested anyway. And one bloc of hesistant support feels, "At this stage, any theory is better than no theory at all." But everyone seems impressed with the vastness of Parson's knowledge and his theoretical analyses of such specific subjects as the development of American romantic love, the causes of McCarthyism, professional roles in medicine, and the family unit in America.

In simplest terms, Persons is striving for "a general theory of action" unifying both personal psychology and broad economic, cultural and social theories. The British Journal of Sociology and some professors actually compare Parson's theories to those of Sir Isaac Newton. While Parsons himself laughs at this analogy, his own explanations sound like a Natural Sciences 3 definition of the conceptual scheme.

Parsons' heavy prose has exaggerated the complexities and difficulties of his generalizations. "If I were he," one professor claims, "I'd spend a whole year revising each book. He just doesn't stop to sweat out expressions." As a result, Toward a General Theory of Action was nicknamed. "The Yellow Peril," and the publishers called in a graduate student to clarify the writing. This graduate student later became one of Parsons' closest collaborators, but not before "Parsonian Prose" had become a permanent part of the faculty vocabulary.

"These criticisms may be emotional reactions to what is intrinsically difficult," Parsons believes, though he emphasizes "But I wouldn't be the best judge of this." He does look forward to when "sociology will very likely go mathematical." With a reserved smile, he predicts that then those who are unwilling to wrestle with complexities will stop reading sociology entirely. In writing five large books in as many years, however, Parsons admits he could not produce "polished or perfect" works. But sociology is not yet ready for a definitive work, he believes. When so many important problems await original exploration, "perfection can in a sense be a block to progress."

Parsons retires from department chairmanship this year to permit the office to rotate and to spend more time on writing and teaching. He stresses his desire to spend more time working with graduate students. While carrying one of the College's heaviest teaching loads, he constantly revises his old lectures and annually creates new courses. At the same time, he runs two informal graduate seminars each week. "Parsons has influenced more young men than any other sociologist," another professor believes. Comments upon his "disciples" rum from extreme comparisons to Marx's protagonists to hesitant admissions that "there is some element of religion in his followers." Once in a graduate school seminar at which Parsons was not present, a student critized a facet of his theorizing. An indignant student, so the story goes, rose to the occasion and stood for half an hour passionately explaining how everything really did fit together.

Despite his popularity, many feel Parsons presents a cold, rather impersonal exterior. As one graduate student in sociology explains, while "his overt behaviorial manifestations" are not warm, his great interest in students indicates otherwise. Nearly all who know him attribute his reserve to "excessive modesty" and shyness. After a few cocktails at a party, one friend jokes, his real warmth begins to glow. Similarly, while he usually speaks with painstaking care, his "Parsonian Prose" colors a bit when he defends Oppenheimer.

Parsons' intense absorbtion in his studies may further account for his apparent impersonality. Any questions directed at his personal accomplishments are invariably answered with generalized evaluations of progress in sociology. When asked to pinpoint a significant experience in his life, he brushes over "a few nice and heartwarming honors," and emphasizes the "sheer excitement of being in the middle of what seem to be important new ideas."

Although absorbed in his studies, Parsons still recognizes a tension between the individual as a social scientist and the individual as a social being. "Freud never talked psychoanalysis at the dinner table," he observes. "I disapprove of psychologists who experiment on their children." Parsons himself has three children, one son, a Harvard graduate, a daughter now at Radcliffe and another who has graduated.

"The bell ringing has been pretty uneven," says Professor Parsons, summing up the reaction to his books. But everyone agrees that his influence is continually growing. Since he first studied under Max Weber at Heidelberg, the German scholars have been the most enthusiastic. He is also well received in England where as a visiting professor to Oxford he lectured to separate groups of political science professors, anthropologists, economists and psychiatrists. In America, he now ranks among the most influential sociologists, and his invitations to lecture include such diverse groups as the Yale Political Club, the Cornell Business School and the American Psychosomatic Society. Meanwhile, Economics and Society, which he is now co-authoring, seems already embroiled in controversy.

But as Parsons himself continually emphasizes, sociology is a frontier science, and sound appraisals of its pioneers must await further exploration. In the meantime, as one professor has declared, "No one can be a serious sociologist without being influenced by Talcott Parsons."