A Critique of Parsons's Theory of Culture

It can hardly be denied that Parsons tried hard to find an appropriate place for the concept of culture within a general theory of individual and social action, and that his ideas were developed in close contact with modern linguistics and semantics. This attempt is in line with his general strategy of integrating diverse and apparently divergent theoretical traditions within a common frame of reference. In light of such attempts at theoretical integration, it is advisable to modify somewhat the symbolic interactionists' widespread objection that Parsons's theory deals exclusively with structural factors and neglects their symbolic mediation (cf. Blumer 1969:15–21, 85–89, 1975:62–65; Parsons 1974; Marrione 1975). But even given this modification, there remains in his integrational theorizing^[3] a number of somewhat questionable implications that fail to stand up to closer scrutiny.

Terminology Problems

There are, first, some purely terminological problems. Parsons nowhere accounts for the fact that he introduces his cultural system through terminology and concepts that should under no conditions be persistently equated with one another and thus conflated. For example, Parsons uses the concept of meaning partially in the sense of reference , thus expressing in a usual way that certain signs have the task or function of referring to an extrasymbolic Gegenstand (or object ) (Par-

sons 1953:34); in discussing some basic ideas of Max Weber, he understands the concept of meaning as relevance in the sense that an object might be bedeutsam (meaningful) for an actor and his aims insofar as such an actor has a "problem of meaning" (a Sinnproblem according to Weber) (Parsons 1951:164–167, 1986:93–94), which in turn implies that it might be appropriate to differentiate between empirical and non-empirical meanings or aims (Parsons 1951:328–329, 332–334, 359–379, 1986:87–109). It is obvious that these two "meanings of meaning" should not have been confused and that by implication these Sinnprobleme are elements of the cultural system only as they are symbolically formulated. Thus they have, if one likes, only a kind of derivative cultural status, and we require an additional argument why such Sinnprobleme should be so dominant in the definition of the cultural system. I do not overlook the fact that Parsons is here examining a problem posed by Max Weber, and that Weber might have some quite acceptable reasons for emphasizing the Kulturbedeutung of Sinnfragen or that, as Parsons has expressed it himself, "die affektive Anpassung an eine emotional aufwühlende Situation" (the affective adjustment to an emotionally stirring situation) could be a problem worth avoiding (Parsons 1986:94). But it is puzzling that Parsons, as late as his Human Condition (1978:352–433), should lend such weight to the problem of meaning in his theorizing on actors' orientations and situational definitions. Parsons's assumption is questionable because he clings to the idea that such problems of meaning demand religious (Parsons 1951:163–167, 367–368, 1972:258–259, and elsewhere), or, as he calls it in his later work, telic , answers (Parsons 1978:381–392). He is ultimately adhering to a Durkheimian thesis that cannot be derived without additional qualifications from his conceptual definition of the cultural system and that can be contested empirically.

A similar objection can be raised to Parsons's constant identification of culture with values, values with norms, and meanings with values (1968:75–77, 1951:213–215, 263–264, 1972:236–237, and elsewhere). Without wishing to be pedantic, I feel it necessary to point out that a number of normally discrete ideas have been yoked together in Parsons's definition of the cultural system as a "normative pattern-structure of values" (Parsons 1951:37), or in the statement that "culture provides the standards (value orientations) that are applied in evaluative processes" (1953:16), or in the conceptualization of culture as "the organization of the values, norms, and symbols" (Parsons and Shils 1951:55). The original definition of culture as an exclusively

symbolically organized system of abstract Sinnzusammenhänge (Parsons 1951:11, 237, 1953, 1961:963) quite evidently does not justify limiting the definition of culture to an ordered set of values, even if these values are the ultimate instances that have to be appealed to in order to resolve provisionally those decisional dilemmata that are a logical consequence of the voluntaristic character of human action (cf. Alexander 1978; Procter 1978). Culture actually includes everything that is symbolically accessible to actors, and values quite obviously do not exhaust the set of culturally encoded Sinnzusammenhänge . Parsons, indeed, is well aware that this is the case (1972:258–262); nevertheless, we repeatedly encounter these quite misleading summaries and easy definitions, and even the most benevolent reader can only conclude that Parsons intends to confine culture to standards and values (1951:237; Parsons and Shils 1951:159–160, 170–172). It should be obvious that this limited understanding of culture cannot be accepted on the basis of Parsons's formal definitions.

In addition, the internal differentiation of the cultural system (and, consequently, the development of an acceptable theory of action) is poorly served by the lack of a firm distinction between norms and values.^[4] The concept of value denotes a "desired state of affairs" (as Parsons knows [1969:441]), while the concept of norms can indicate "demands" or "expectations"; if conceptualized in this way, value and norm obviously refer to two completely different phenomena that can vary independently of each other. The empirical relation between them cannot be examined scientifically if both concepts are constantly conflated, as occurs, for example, whenever the assumption is made that a certain state is desired if it is normatively expected or that the formulation of a norm is identical with the achieving of a desirable state.^[5] Unfortunately, this danger of conflation has not been exposed even by some of the most prominent interpreters of Parsons's work (cf. Alexander 1982:65–69, 73–74, 76–79; Münch 1982:68–69; an exception can be found in Saurwein 1988:21).

Similar objections can be raised to the equating of meaning with values . It may be uncontestable that "questions concerning the meaning" (or relevance) of a phenomenon (in the sense of Sinnfragen ) can sometimes amount to "questions concerning ultimate values" ("Fragen nach den 'letzten Werten,'" as Schluchter [1980:131] formulates it). It is, however, somewhat rash to conclude that such a thesis will hold for all questions of relevance, for it is conceivable that people might wish to solve problems (or to answer questions) of meaning that have nothing

to do with ultimate values (or letzten Stellungnahmen in a Weberian sense) or that they may believe in the validity of these ultimate values without thus invoking problems of meaning or Sinnfragen . Thus, to clarify such impermeable relations between values and meanings, it may be advisable to eschew purely terminological questions when proposing hypotheses about their factual status.

In order to clear away such conceptual discrepancies and inconsistencies, I propose the use of the word cultural (or culture ) solely to denote the fact that a certain object is available in a symbolic form, that is, only when actors necessarily orient themselves toward these objects by means of symbolic operations. This definition implies a twofold conclusion that is crucial to my understanding of the theoretical problem. The existence of nonsymbolic cultural objects^[6] need not be postulated; nor does the proposed definition of culture imply any a priori stipulation concerning the specific (empirical) character of those cultural objects. The important thing is for actors only to be able to communicate with each other by having at their disposition an intersubjectively shared and normatively regulated set of symbolic operations that allows the construction of informative propositions, which in turn can be kept open to collective (critical or confirmative) argumentation and use. It is exclusively the dispositional character of symbols that grants them (and the rules of symbolic operations) their "objectivity," which is irreducible to the mental preconditions of their subjective use.^[7]

Culture and Social Integration

Parsons is customarily regarded as a theoretician of social integration (see Demerath and Peterson 1967; Gouldner 1971). This is correct insofar as he (like Durkheim) reconstructs the dynamics of all (not just social) system processes by presupposing a state of perfect system integration in order to identify a set of mechanisms that necessarily produce this very state of integration. It is this mode of reasoning that defines his functionalism (Parsons 1951:480–490, 1977:234).

This kind of explanatory logic, the merits of which need not be discussed in the present context (see Schmid 1989:130–164), also determines Parsons's conceptualization of culture. Like all systems, the cultural system is analyzed on the assumption that the conditions of its internal integration are fulfilled, that is, that culture can be regarded as a logically and semantically consistent system. The most important conse-

quence of this functionalistic analysis is clear. For Parsons, every ordered communication between actors depends on a logically consistent use of symbols; this in turn seems to be possible only so long as the actors can refer to a commonly shared system of rules or, in one of Parsons's formulations, to a "shared cultural tradition" (1951:12); as this common culture is in turn an inevitable precondition of any successful mutual adaption of action orientations, social integration will result if and only if the necessary preconditions are realized. Taking these considerations to their logical conclusion, we may infer that social order and solidarity will immediately occur if the rules of symbolic usage are consistently formulated and shared by all actors. Conversely, as Parsons cannot conceive of these rules and standards—the cultural code, in short—functioning without being consistent and mutually shared, we may further conclude that the very existence of a common code is sufficient to evoke such actions that eventually lead to mutually integrated social relations (cf. Parsons 1953). In any case, the commonality of consistent collective symbols suffices to ensure societal solidarity (to put it in Durkheimian terms).

However, this assumption is open to criticism in several ways. Parsons seems to be defending the position that the ordered, integrative functioning of culture can only be assumed if all actors have free and equal access to their cultural tradition. But in a society that exhibits a high degree of division of labor and that secures its continuity by anonymous exchanges of goods and achievements rather than exclusively by a common culture, at least two problems arise that Parsons does not consider. First, he seems unable to imagine a society that is integrated, not on the basis of a common moral or value system, but largely by means of the external control of such externalities as are unacceptable to the controllers. The decisive theoretical point is that we might (under conditions requiring further clarification, of course) expect the perfect integration of a society even if there is no complete consensus on those externalities that have to be controlled and excluded. On the other hand, Parsons's position seems to imply that there will be no integration if the actors, in order to assimilate their actions to their social or nonsocial situations, activate quite divergent parts of their cultural tradition. That is to say, Parsons seems unable to imagine the empirical possibility of conflict-free social relations where actors are orienting themselves, not to a common culture, but to quite different, and possibly contradictory, parts of it (cf. Lechner 1985).

These considerations are closely related to another point. Parsons

obviously presupposes that the commonality of cultural symbols implies that the cultural system contains no contradictory elements, neither in the sense that the rules constituting the cultural code may be formulated inconsistently nor in the other sense that it is possible to construct incompatible, ambivalent, and contradictory cultural objects (or propositions referring to these objects). Parsons seems, that is, to exclude the possibility that divergent cultural interpretations may arise from one and the same set of symbols or codes. It would surely be unfair to imply that Parsons' idea of a unified cultural system entails the conclusion that every empirical (or contingently factual) cultural system must be logically consistent and without incongruencies of meaning. Otherwise his repeated theoretical treatment of control mechanisms (1951:31–32, 207, 234–235) and integrative communication (1961a: 68–69, 74–76) would be quite superfluous. Nevertheless, his functional analysis constantly presupposes that these standards of logical consistency and semantic congruency might serve as a "theoretical point of reference," including the assumption that a system of social relations can indeed be regarded as stable and integrated only if the corresponding actors have recourse to a commonly binding cultural tradition. But, quite contrary to this assumption, it is empirically incontestable that under certain conditions it may well be possible to detect socially stable relations between actors without reference to a unified and commonly accepted cultural system. That is to say, actors may be able to exchange gratifications fairly and to the satisfaction of each without the exchange being mediated and supported by an unambiguous, nondivergent system of symbols (cf. Archer 1988:185–226).^[8] This conclusion suggests that Parsons's thesis is definitely in need of serious qualification.

That Parsons's hypothesis of the necessary accord between cultural consistency and social integration might be untenable can also be shown by the aid of an argument found in the writings of Luhmann and Bauman (Luhmann 1971:48–50, 84–86, 100, 1986a:176; Bauman 1973:170–178). These authors assert that it is erroneous to identify the unity of a symbolic code with the factual guarantee of social consensus; the logical consistency of a code does not rule out saying "no," thereby negating the normative demands or value convictions of other actors by proposing a new regulation of social relations or even by initiating conflict. It is even possible to strengthen this argument: without a unified consensual code, actors would be unable to negate at all, and, without recourse to a consensual cultural tradition, they might never have a forum for their

deviant opinions and proposals. But that would mean that actors are never able to circumvent the uncertainty of their social relations, a fact that Parsons quite correctly took as a starting point for his whole theoretical program. Consequently it is difficult to believe that the "double contingency" of these relations can ever be neutralized by the fact that actors speak the same language. Of course actors may minimize that double contingency to a certain degree by finding a common set of normative ideas to define their mutual rights and duties, even if such a means of stabilizing their mutual social relations cannot answer all the questions that may arise, as the "dilemma of altruism" clearly shows (cf. Spencer 1875:234, 1894:253–256, 260–265; Ullmann-Margalit 1977:48). But such a commonality of normative duties does not logically derive from the acceptance of a common symbolic code, which can only serve as a medium of communication, and which, as such, can guide action but not determine it (Luhmann 1986a:176); Parsons seems to be suggesting as much when he calls himself a "cultural determinist" (1977a:234). This argument remains true notwithstanding Kluckhohn's correct observation that actors without a consistent normative orientation "feel uncomfortably adrift in a capricious, chaotic world" (1951:399). In short, the logical consistency of a normative code must not be identified with the existence of a socially integrative consensus; to believe the contrary would be to commit a "fallacy of normative determinism" (Blake and Davis 1968:470–472).

The deficiency of Parsons's argument centers on one misleading deduction: from the fact that a symbolically meaningful code is grounded on a set of normative regulations that actors have to accept to communicate without friction and constant misunderstanding, he draws the logically untenable conclusion that actors cannot accept motivations and interests that are not normatively legitimized and supported (1951:327, 1953:39, 1961:980). "Parsons has turned Hobbes's error on its head, arguing that if actors engage in normative, noninstrumental action their activities must be complementary" (Alexander 1983:222, 1984:291). In Luhmann's words (1988:135), Parsons constantly confuses a symbolic "code" with the "programme," which may or may not be formulated by the help of this code.

Parsons's misleading theory of the allegedly integrative function of cultural codes helps to explain the relative one-sidedness of his theory of understanding. This theory seems to presuppose that it would suffice to interpret the actions and utterances of alter ego if ego recognizes that

alter ego, in order to make his or her own intentions plausible or understandable, uses the same symbols and accepts the same set of rules for their use as ego does (Parsons 1953:61), and that this recognition in turn would be enough to guarantee the appropriateness of the mutual reactions and interactions of ego and alter ego (1953:38). But such a thesis is clearly open to criticism on several points. First, understanding the intentions of another actor can serve at most as one necessary condition for the successful mutual assimilation of interests and gratification exchanges (Luchmann 1986a:176). Second, Parson's theory of intentional understanding, perhaps inspired by Weber's theory of motivational understanding, is much too simple to account for the actual variety of understanding processes. Parsons does not seem to see that intentions constitute only one field of understanding among others, and problems of theory may arise that his somewhat restricted theory is not equipped to handle.^[9] Nor has he kept pace with recent hermeneutic theories of understanding, which vigorously question whether a commonality of meaning between actors trying to understand the utterances of their fellow actors can realistically be presupposed at all (see Gadamer 1965). As Parsons constantly ignores such objections and qualifications, for reasons about which I can only speculate, they cannot, of course, persuade him to modify his thesis of the integrative function of a language code; consequently, even in his later work he retains the idea that a mutually understandable language should be regarded as the primary normative and constitutive element of an analytically distinct cultural system (1972:254, 1977:169, and 1961:971–976, where language is believed to be the "groundwork of culture"). We would be well advised to compensate for these deficiencies by seeking a much more elaborated theory of understanding.^[10]

There is one very general consequence to be drawn from Parsons's repeated, yet quite misleading, equation of cultural consistency with social integration: we need to take as seriously as possible the analytical autonomy of the cultural system from its neighboring systems (something Parsons frequently emphasized) and to deduce from this autonomous status of culture (as a purely symbolic system) that the cultural and the social systems not only are mutually irreducible systems but also reveal factual relations and connections that are much more complicated and complex than Parsons's theory admits. Parsons's assumption of an integrated synchronization of culture and social systems can thus be reduced to a somewhat improbable limiting case of a much more comprehensive theory.^[11]

Culture As an Energetic Subsystem

Although the theory of Talcott Parsons emphatically recommends the analytical separation of the cultural from the other subsystems of the general action system, he seems compelled in certain decisive passages to revoke his own hallowed theoretical standpoint. The reason for this revocation seems to be his belated insight that the cultural system cannot be regarded as a valid subsystem unless it is taken to be an acting system itself—a theoretical position that Parsons originally did not defend at all (1951:66, 1961:964, 1967:194, 1978:367n.).^[12] It is certainly true that this revision of his theoretical conception does not mean that Parsons wholly intends to discard the structural component of the cultural system (1961:964), that is, the symbolically codified generative formalism that serves to construct cultural objects. On the other hand, he wants to do justice to his insight that "the important patterns of culture . . . could not be created and/or maintained as available recourses for action unless there were processes of action primarily oriented to their creation and/or maintenance. These processes may be part of a 'society,' just as the life of an individual as personality may be; but analytically, the subsystem of action focused in this way should be distinguished from the social system as focused on interaction relationships" (1961:964). Thus the maintenance of a religious actional orientation by a church may be considered an interpenetration of the cultural and the social system, "but a church as such would be regarded as a collectivity with cultural primacy, i.e., as first a cultural 'system of action,' and second, a social system" (1961:964).

I am inclined to share Larry Brownstein's opinion that this passage is somewhat "obscure" (Brownstein 1982:108). It evidently says that the original distinction between the cultural and the social spheres should be maintained by continuously defining the cultural system through its symbolic and generative formalisms; as such, this cannot be regarded as an acting entity in any technical sense of Parsons's action terminology. But Parsons also tries to convince his readers that the cultural system does act by ensuring that those cultural objects that actors require for their orientation are actually constructed and maintained; he is thus suggesting that the original analytical distinction between culture and the social system can be blurred. But in view of Parsons's statements on cultural institutions (1951:52–53) and his conception of culture as a set of Idealfaktoren (1972:265), such an argument is quite inconclusive and in need of commentary. As I see it, the inconclusiveness of Parsons's theo-

retical position derives from the fact that he is combining two quite divergent lines of argument: on the one hand, Parsons intends to develop a valid analytical instrument that, with the help of the concept of a system, allows for the conceptualization of relations between analytically distinct theoretical elements of a general action scheme. On the other hand, such a system-theoretical explication of the concept of action should also be able to answer the question of how actions are "energized" and by what "forces" they are driven; without a valid answer to this question, there can be no hope of developing a genuinely dynamic theory of individual and collective action. Originally Parsons had found quite an acceptable solution to this problem in his theory of motivation, which was located exclusively within the framework of the personal and the social subsystems of the general action system. But these two lines of theoretical argument are rendered incompatible and even contradictory as soon as Parsons begins to strengthen his thesis that an appropriate conception of action depends on the presupposition that all subsystems of the general system should be able to act in a technical sense of the word (Brownstein 1982:74–114). For under no circumstances is it admissible to conceptualize the cultural system as an "energetic system," one which, in Parsons's theoretical strategy, would be a "motivational system." That is, the thesis that culture as a system of abstract symbolic entities and rules can energetically force actors to act in a certain way can hardly be regarded a fruitful contribution to the development of an acceptable theory of action.^[13] As Parsons evidently reserves the status of an energetic system for the personal and the social subsystems (of the general action scheme), I shall not try to defend his tendency to darken this essential theoretical assumption by taking back his analytical distinction between the cultural and the social systems. I would rather concede the irreparable logical deficiency of Parsons's theoretical construction of the general action system than relinquish the analytical gains that result from recognizing the analytical self-sufficiency of the cultural system.^[14]

There was a logical outcome to Parsons's tendency (culminating in Parsons and Platt 1973) to act against his original insights by interpreting the cultural system as an energetic, or acting, system. He tends to negate his initial theoretical position that the cultural system as such, that is, as a symbolically ordered system, obviously cannot of itself enter into active communication or exchange relationships with the other subsystems of the general action system. It also makes little sense for Parsons, in the same context, to assume that there might be "interchanges" between the different subsystems of the cultural system itself

(Parsons and Platt 1973:65), a slip that has been openly and rightly criticized by Jeffrey Alexander (1983:170–174, 176–183). Difficulties in understanding such a theoretical position are caused not only by the topology of the AGIL-schema, which does not allow the L-component to make representable connections with its neighboring systems, but also, and even more importantly, with itself;^[15] problems also arise when the cultural system, understood as a symbolically structured system, is taken to be an active one capable of entering into real interactions and interchanges with the other subsystems. It is hard to see how these interactions or interchanges can be understood in anything but a metaphorical sense (Alexander 1983:173–177). But Parsons evidently cannot, of course, accept such objections. By dropping the thesis that the cultural system could be regarded as an energetically acting system, his theoretical construction of a cybernetic control hierarchy would break down, along with the associated idea that the cultural system can actively steer the hierarchically subordinated neighboring systems; this would rob Parsons's theory of social order of an essential theoretical support.

Parsons's argument is persuasive only when he deals with cultural symbols and their codificational rules as resources, and thus as restrictions on action orientation that constrain an actor's scope for decision making (1951:33, 35–36, 1961:964, and elsewhere). Such a thesis is not dependent on the dubious idea that the cultural system has an energetic potential of its own. Unfortunately Parsons cannot accept such a restricted understanding of culture.

Thus Parsons's theory of culture can be regarded as a fruitful attempt to support a thesis that he had already formulated decades before, to the effect that "culture . . . is on the one hand the product of, and on the other hand a determinant of, systems of social interaction" (1951:87). As I have attempted to demonstrate, however, Parsons's solution has been reached only at the cost of theoretical and empirical validity.