[WS:] It certainly is, and I never advocated that. My own view on the subject is close to that of Giddens' structuration approach.
The whole problem with almost all social psychology and pretty much all of symbolic interactionism - except its feminist moments - is its presentation as an alternative to structural analysis rather than explorations of agency within organizational forms and and structural conditions... where agency is seen as negotiated in the context of orgs/structures and variably reproductive of those more materially abstract phenomena.
[WS:} It depends who is doing it and for what reasons, no? It is one thing to do it to steer sociological inquiry from delegitimating the status quo, and quite a different thing to do it to explore a narrow issue in depth. What irks me is the criticism that someone did not write his/her paper or book on a different subject, which borders on censorship. My own approach to texts written by others is that of intellectual bricolage - I take what I find useful and leave out everything else, and if I do not find what I need I look elsewhere. Textual analysis bores me.
It is my understanding, that it was the approach scholars would take until modern ages. They would borrow freely from texts written by others (especially antiquity) and mix it with their own interpretations and additions to produce a desired argument, and seldom bothers withe attribution of the borrowed material. Same for art and drama - I recall reading somewhere that Shakespeare's plays are basically collaborative effort (some written by Shakespeare some by others) because what mattered was the live performance not the written script. Attribution came to prominence only with the ascent of capitalism and its offshoot - intellectual property rights.
Wojtek