Gouldner doesn't ask about rationality. He's talking (and so is Carrol) about methodological dualism. The social scientist (or social commentator) assumes everyone else is shaped by social forces (e.g., Jim Devine's joking comment that the reason why women have large breasts all the time, as opp. to other mammals was that human males had a fascination with breasts and thus selected mates on the basis of breast size).
I poked a stick at Jim, asking him if that's what motivated him to marry his wife. Of course not, he said, but that doesn't matter, what matters is the behavior of _most_ men. While Jim picked at my use of the word "base" offlist, it's a red herring. In fact, Jim, like 99.9% of U.S. hetmen will sy that, while they like breasts (or asses, legs, etc.), they didn't marry their wives solely because of some physical trait or even partly because of some physical trait.
Gouldner's comments are about social scientists who exempt themselves from structural analysis. Everyone else's actions can be analyzed according to such an analysis, but the social scientist doesn't subject his own work or life to the same sort of analysis.
Carrol's comments were directed at that aspect of the Gouldner quote:
"> "sociologists keep two sets of books, one for the study of 'laymen' and
> another when he thinks about himself....the sociologist believes himself
> capable of making hundreds of purely rational decisions....he thinks of
> these as free technical decisions and of himself as acting in autonomous
> conformity with technical standards, rather than as a creature molded by
> social structure and culture."
How this has anything to do with learning, reading books, knowledge, experience, travel, etc. is beyond me.
I thought Carrol was talking about the tendency to talk about everyone else as irrational, while the social commentator seems to exempt himself == without ever asking _why_ the social commentator is exempt.
I used to ask that question all the time -- I especially asked it of Carrol, wondering who all here had sprung from the head of Zeus.
You know, one isn't born a leftist. Leftists are made. Thus, when we complain about people not "getting it" we are expecting them to have picked up all the knowledge that we have, without ever asking how it is our lives are unique, asking how we got here, and not forgetting our roots.
It's like a computer geek explaining how to do something and talking completely over your head -- because she forgot how it was when she was just starting out. Or the linux heads expecting everyone to run linux boxen, ignoring the fact that most people do other things for their job and enjoy other hobbies, unlike the linux head who typically works with computers or whose hobby is linux boxen.
The whole rationality/irrationality thing is silly. You can still be a methodological dualist, whether yousay people are rational or irrational. When people act irrationality, in the way Doug describes, their actions are _still_ amenable to social analysis. And the social analysts can still fancy herself above it all, sitting on Archimedes point, unscathed by the vagaries of u.s. culture, the capitalist consumption juggernaut, dysfunctional families, mindless suburbania, etc. etc.
Kelley