> > There's another limitation to functional explanations, perhaps
>> _intrinsic_ to them but certainly in practice: its how
>> functional explanations seduce an observer into _only_ seeing
>> functions satisfied and order maintained. One of the
>> major complaints that has long been levelled against sociological
>> functionalism was its bias in favor of social order.
>
>That is I think a legitimate complaint against the structural
>functionalism of Durkheim or Malinowski or Parsons or even Merton
>but it doesn't necessarily discredit the utility of functional
>explanations per se in social science.
Functional explanations of one kind or another may be inescapable in capitalist modernity (which I think compels us to ceaselessly ask what X is for, since under capitalism each & every thing can become grist for the M-C-M' mill), for better and worse. Functional explanations even have a way of making a comeback in writings of critics of functionalism. I think Dennis has sought to explain working-class racism functionally, as in "racism has a function of maintaining relative economic & other advantages for 'white' workers within the framework of market competition, therefore they, consciously or unconsciously, promote racism." A functional explanation of working-class racism alone, however, has a problem explaining how some human beings became "white" & how various cliques of "white" workers became units for whose actions functions may be sought. Hence it makes sense to turn to Brenner, Carling, etc. who argue that "class struggle plays an essential role in social evolution because it is class struggle that acts as a generator for new variations," as you put it.
> > I think intentional-functional explanations have difficulties
>> accounting for these important phenomena (unless you attribute
> > intention to the World Capitalist Spirit or something like that in a
> > Hegelian fashion).
>
>Hegel did talk about what he called the "cunning of reason"
>which owed much to Adam Smith with his "invisible hand."
>Smith having argued in *The Wealth of Nations* that the
>free market could compel competing capitalists to act for
>the general good, when they were only intending to act in
>their own self-interests.
Though Justin says I am becoming a budding Analytical Marxist [!], having grown out of what he probably thinks of as a dialectoid infancy, I think Hegel's cunning of reason has a rational kernel worth preserving:
Hegel says in _The Philosophy of History_:
***** The special interest of passion is thus inseparable from the active development of a general principle: for it is from the special and determinate and from its negation, that the Universal results. Particularity contends with its like, and some loss is involved in the issue. It is not the general idea that is implicated in opposition and combat, and that is exposed to danger. It remains in the background, untouched and uninjured. This may be called the cunning of reason, -- that it sets the passions to work for itself, while that which develops its existence through such impulsion pays the penalty and suffers loss. For it is phenomenal being that is so treated, and of this, part is of no value, part is positive and real. The particular is for the most part of too trifling value as compared with the general: individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. The Idea pays the penalty of determinate existence and of corruptibility, not from itself, but from the passions of individuals. <http://www.ets.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hegel%20-%20Philosophy%20of%20History.htm> *****
The rational kernel here is that history is not a "social experiment" or "social engineering" & that individuals are compelled to go about our business of making history without quite knowing what fruits, if any, our actions bear. Historical meanings of our actions are grasped in hindsight. The owl of Minerva only flies at dusk.
Carrol wrote last month:
>Bertell Ollman writes:
>
>Many writers, of course, have interpreted these events as the demise not
>only of particular regimes and forms of social organization but of the
>Marxist world view to which, at least verbally, their leaders seemed so
>attached. Leaving aside such obviously important questions as whether
>and to what extent these regimes were socialist, let
>alone Marxist, I would just like to point out that the most striking
>feature of all the social explosions of the past few years -- and
>remarked upon by virtually every observer -- is just how unexpected they
>were. What existed before, however one evaluated it, was taken as given
>and unchanging; just as most people treat the situation that has emerged
>as a new given and equally unchanging. It is the same mistake that was
>made in 1789, again in 1848 and again in 1917. These revolutions, too,
>surprised almost everyone, and as soon as they happened almost everyone
>alive at the time thought -- wrongly -- that they were over.
> _Dialectical Investigations_, p. 3
>
>Now all those events were preceded by an immense amount of "organizing
>and education," but not one of those doing the "organizing and
>education" had the least idea of what they were organizing and educating
>for. If Doug was asking what we should be doing day by day (organizing
>and educating), the question was merely silly -- a way of substituting
>empty chatter for casual political chatter. If he was asking for a
>scenario of revolution, then it exhibits either serious historical
>ignorance or something very much like serious bad faith.
>
>One of the things that made Lenin great was his capacity to respond to
>total surprise -- a capacity which the dogmatist's demand for a scenario
>cripples.
>
>Carrol
I think Carrol put it very nicely. An interesting question is what makes the dogmatist fear "bad surprises" so to speak.
Yoshie