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This article appears to have been hastily constructed and is in severe need of rewriting—or at the very least, an editor with a keen eye for detail.
It is not an undergrad essay. It is a hagiography of Parsons stanboy written by a retired prof of sociology who got his Phd between the 50s and 70s and is bitter that Parsons, although clearly the central figure in Post War US sociology from 50s to 70s is completely and totally ignored by the field today. Even in the lsit of people he influenced, there significance is not in applying or extending his theories, but for something else, often in disagreement with him. What empirical work came from AGIL that still stands up and g3ets referred to??? Parsons was a complete dead end.
The anti-Nazi stuff is there because he was in fact too close to that wing of the German Intelligentsia that stayed in Germany but didn't get suppressed by the Nazis. If you stayed and didn't get oppressed then the Nazis didn't view you as a threat. IF the Nazis didn't oppose you, you must have been VERY VERY conservative and right-wing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I have attempted to begin the editing process, but it would be nice if someone more familiar with Parsons' work would become involved.
the guy was a prick...that much i can tell about him......his work..never clearly understood... supported feminists ideas
I really feel no inclination and it's not my field, but I agree. Also, the publications should be in order of publishing, seems to me, with the most recent at the bottom and outdated or irrelevant pubs deleted.
On 8/5/06, I added some books to the reference list, gave a fuller account of his mode of functional analysis, including the AGIL scheme, and made some minor edits. I also deleted a few statements here and there that seemed out of place for this article. More clean-up may be useful. In particular, the pattern variable description is now very limited and needs expansion if this section is to be retained.
I removed this section because it has been vandalised:
"After a year as instructor of economics at Amherst, he joined Huddersfield as an instructor of scientology in 1910. In 1931, he moved to the Department of Sociology that had been created a year earlier by Pitirim Sorokin. He initially moved up in rank only slowly, but became extremely influential after the publication of some major works, such as 'support your bartender, helping ugly people get laid.' Parsons stayed at Huddersfield and became emeritus in 1973. He died in 1979 in a freak shark related accident in a Munich aquarium."
Parsons was the opposite of a feminist. He suggested that women could only provide emotional support and socialization to children and that they must in order for society to function stay out of the labor market and stay at home and raise children and be warm and loving. In contrast, it requires a penis, er a man, to go out into the labor market, and be instrumental and practical and rational. These affective and instrumental roles can never mix, never overlap, no one can be instrumental from say 9 to 5 and then come home and be affective. Men must be emotionally dead with children and women must be emotional and never instrumental. This was his grand theory of the structure and function of the family in 1955. Notably, 1955 was the low point for women's participation in the labor force for the 20th century, women were more active in 20s, went down during great depression, rose in the 1940s due to the war, collapsed in mass wave of sexist job discrimination late 1945-46, and didn't really start rising again until early 1960s. For a culturalist Parsons totally missed the modernization of the US culture across the 1960s and 70s, those changes in the real world were basically impossible, they were contrary to the structure and function of society. Functionalism is basically a tautology. For Parsons, and colleagues who followed him. If X exists in the mainstream of a culture, it therefore must be necessary for the smooth and orderly functioning of society. Society can not and does not change, it only continues to exist in the static status quo that exists. Parsons, Bales, Davis and Moore claimed that stratification of wealth and income was a matter of rewards to keep high skill labor in place doing those essential high skill labor tasks. This was not a partial theory of stratification explaining some high skill jobs and the premium they get in the labor market, not this was a general theory of stratification..... At a time when there were still open "quotas" limiting the number of Jews who could attend Harvard (where Parsons taught) at a given time, at a time when the US was still openly and legally an apartheid regime with 1st and 2nd class citizen status being upheld in the law, courts etc. Parsons was anti-feminist. and far from an anti-racist. His and other structural functionalists' scholarship was a matter of writing up alibis for whatever the mainstream status qou was in the late 1940s and early 1950s, period. This is why Parsons is irrelevant to social science today. It is an embarrassing case of dogma, and neither empirically viable or even an interesting set of ideas (like some philosophy).
One of my mentors alleges that Parsons' translations of Weber were flawed. As I am not fluent in German I cannot confirm or deny these charges? If there is merit to said accusations, however, they should be noted in the article. What does it say about Parsons and structural-functionalism if Parsons misinterpreted Weber (either intentionally or out of ignorance) and then went on to publish some of his key works according to his own falty translations. Again, however, I am not making such accusations but merely relaying them to fellow inquirers. Can someone who either (1) has read multiple translated versions of Weber, or (2) is fluent in German, comment on the validity of the Parsons translation? M. Frederick 08:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, they were flawed. I'll add this material now. The canonical flaw is Talcott's translation of the German word stahlhartes Gehäuse. Talcott translates as "steel cage", but a better translation is "steel cloak." Apparently, some prefer "shell hard as steel" but it's terribly unpoetic, and in all my years as a practicing sociologist the preferred phrase has always been "steel cloak". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:37E0:5FF0:7CE6:81FD:7175:7E22 ( talk) 12:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm really not sure why this page would attract vandalism, but it certainly has. See the following passage of the article, which I'm not sure what to do with (breakdancing and hip-hop rapping - apparently an insult for the vandal...?):
"Parsons contributed to the field of breakdancing and hip-hop rapping. He divided evolution into four subprocesses: 1) differentiation, which creates functional subsystems of the main system, as discussed above; 2) adaptation, where those systems evolve into more efficient versions; 3) inclusion of elements previously excluded from the given systems; and 4) generalization of values, increasing the legitimization of the ever-more complex system."
I've reverted to the version immediately before this strangely random vandalism. Fixifex 18:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
The article is itself an act of intellectual vandalism. It is really a hagiography of Parsons and not reflective at all of what contemporary sociology, or other social science thinks of Parsons or his structural functionalist theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I removed the following list of publications about the work of Parsons. Such a list has little added value here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 23:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
What was the source for the middle names? His family is unaware of any middle names, and the family genealogy does not list any middle names. (I'm his grandson, and his daughter is in the room as I type). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dauwhe ( talk • contribs) 23:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
User:Thorsten1 has recently removed the image of Talcott Parsons from his article, with the argument:
I think this is unacceptable. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 14:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
@Maria. Dreadfully unaesthetic is just a matter of taste, and is not a good reason. We can't just eliminate all expressionistic art. The missing source information is another thing, we do should look into. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 17:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
@Marcel, would you care to explain what exactly is "unacceptable" about removing an amateurish sketch which a) isn't similar to the person it's supposed to portray, b) is "dreadfully unaesthetic", as María put it, and c) is missing source information? Just so that I understand. -- Thorsten1 ( talk) 17:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC) PS: "We can't just eliminate all expressionistic art. " First, I don't think this sketch qualifies as Expressionism. Even if it did, the question is, do we need any such "expressionistic art" in a biography of a sociologist? You are right of course, that this is also a matter of taste. But including this silly work of "art" is as much a matter of taste as removing it, so "just a matter of taste" isn't a valid argument. -- Thorsten1 ( talk) 17:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be universal dislike for this "artist"'s work; it would seem that quite a few of those images are ridiculed and removed from the articles with assessments similar to Thorsten's: 1. " Is there a reason that a pathetic cartoonish looking picture is used instead of an photo that can be freely used or no picture at all?", 2. " The illustration for this article is hideous and looks like it was drawn by a nine year-old.", 3. " even nothing is better than this...", 4. " The article had a terribly ugly picture of Amitai Etzioni. The picture seems to have been drawn by one of the editors in Paint (software). I am interested in reasons as to why it should be included."... I can go on. María ( habla con migo) 21:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
@Jiuguang Wang. It's not a "free use photo", but a "Non-free / fair use media" you now have added as a replacement. The rules here are, as far as I know, that all "fair use media" should be replaced with "GNU Free Documentation license media", when even possible. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 17:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
After a discussion at the Visual Arts Project talk page, the concensus was against using a similar set of amateur(ish) images worked up from photos, on a combination of arguments - copyright concerns (re the original photo), aesthetics, authenticity, and conflict of interest. Similar arguments would apply here, I believe. Johnbod ( talk) 20:56, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following a new section about the history of the Parson family. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 14:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
References
If this section proves notable enough it should be a separate article. It is (as far as I know) not done in Wikipedia to add the family history in so much details. -- 14:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a little odd that here Parsons' primary accomplishment is stated as developing action theory, yet the article on that subject, including a long list of "Scholars of action theory," fails to include him. Lacking the relevant expertise myself, can someone explain the discrepancy? Sestibel ( talk) 07:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is really convoluted and impenetrable, almost to the extent you'd think it's trying to be. Obfuscation is not the aim of wikipedia or social science (well, except maybe for Derrida and Baudrillard...). We require flowing, economic prose, not a dumped undergraduate essay. Overall, there's a lot of decent information in here, but the implimentation is appalling. -- Tomsega ( talk) 19:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The description reads:
It would be interesting to know who the remaining depicted persons are.
Among the other participants of the conference on Max Weber in Heidelberg April 1964 of who I've read were Herbert Marcuse, Ernst Topitsch, Raymond Aron, Talcott Parsons, Reinhard Bendix and Benjamin Nelson (Sociologist.
My guess is that Talcott Parsons is the man on the left, covered halfway by Horkheimer, while Reinhard Bendix is the man talking with Habermas with his back to the camera, covered halfway by Adorno.
Does anyone know more? -- Schwalker ( talk) 16:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
The man on the left is definitely not Talcott Parsons, whom I saw more than once in person. Shotoffashovel ( talk) 16:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
This article is very long - at 159KB, it's well over the recommended maximum length for an article, making it difficult to read and edit. Are there any sections that could be split off into separate articles, per Summary style? Robofish ( talk) 12:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This article gives the sense that nobody has ever critiqued any of Parsons' work? Does anyone know of any critiques? Should a section on criticism be added? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.41.102.207 ( talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Parsons is an embarrassment to sociology today. His impact is nil, or negative. No one in the field under 50 even knows his theory anymore. I got my Phd in the 1990s and in our theory classes the Prof. spent 20 minutes talking about why he was wrong, we didn't even hvae to read the inpenetratable nonsense that the man wrote for the class. I'm a theory head and read it on my own, but it was not assigned reading in either my MA or Phd level theory classes. But from the 50s to 70s Parsons and his terrible theory were considered the center of the field of sociology. Notably, there is no body of either theory or research that claims him as a founding figure today. Structural Functional is considered an embarrasment, word salad and tautology alibi's for whatever the established status qou of the 1950s was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:19, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
Parsons' action theory can be characterized as an attempt to maintain the scientific rigour of positivism, while acknowledging the necessity of the "subjective dimension" of human action incorporated in hermeneutic types of sociological theories. It is cardinal in Parsons' general theoretical and methodological view that human action must be understood in conjunction with the motivational component of the human act. In this way social science must consider the question of ends, purpose and ideals in its analysis of human action
I mean, am i the only one thinks this is awfull ? also, theintor sucks; no way it is at the right level for a general encyclopedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.195.10.169 ( talk) 23:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
I describe the contribution of The Structure of Social Action to the meaning of instrumental action in Instrumental and value-rational action. I welcome comments. TBR-qed ( talk) 15:23, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
But Parsons contributed nothing of his own here, he is a Weber cover band - nothing added, nothing original, one of those cover bands that tries to exactly replicate the original, not a cover that changes the arrangement to bring something new and different to the songs. IF anything Parsons is a much worse writer than Weber was and Parsons thought constructing models of hollow abstract definitions was "theory building" instead what it really is - is semantic onanism. This is why literally no one of importance in the field today claims Parsons as an influence. They will claim Weber or Durkheim, but not Parsons, there is no there there in Parsons worth being influenced by. The book is just barely in the top 500! books in the area of SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY (which it is supposed to be Parsons Magnum Opus and major contribution to the field of Sociological THeory - and itis the 483 most popular book iin that area at Amazon. No one reads Parsons anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:30, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I came to this article for a quick refresher about what I should remember about Taclott Parsons from undergrad and I wasn't able to quickly glean that from the lead or the rest of the article, so I feel like something key is missing or that the wording needs to be adjusted, but I can't put my finger on it. Right now, the first paragraph says: "Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist who served on the faculty ofHarvard University from 1927 to 1973.
" If we were making notecards of prominent sociologists to study for the Soc 101 final, what would the other side of Talcott Parsons' notecard have said? It wouldn't have been that he was on the Harvard faculty. Maybe it would have said "Structural functionalism", but I'm doubting myself because of the way that's currently addressed in the lead, both the wording and its placement towards the end: "Although he was generally considered a major structuralist functionalist scholar, in an article late in life, Parsons explicitly wrote that the term "functional" or "structural functionalist" were inappropriate ways to describe the character of his theory.
" IMO the first paragraph should say something like:
But I'm not confident I remember what XYZ is. Any ideas? —PermStrump (talk) 20:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
You are correct. It was structural functionalist. The article is a worshipful hagiography written by a Parsons stanboy. The term structural functionalism is sparse in the article because it is so discredited, but it is/was Parson's major contribution to the field - a long winded, totally hollow abstraction of mutually influencing tautologies - that is the sum total of what SF is/was and is known as - hence no one uses Parsons today or cites him as an influence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:22, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
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This
level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
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This article appears to have been hastily constructed and is in severe need of rewriting—or at the very least, an editor with a keen eye for detail.
It is not an undergrad essay. It is a hagiography of Parsons stanboy written by a retired prof of sociology who got his Phd between the 50s and 70s and is bitter that Parsons, although clearly the central figure in Post War US sociology from 50s to 70s is completely and totally ignored by the field today. Even in the lsit of people he influenced, there significance is not in applying or extending his theories, but for something else, often in disagreement with him. What empirical work came from AGIL that still stands up and g3ets referred to??? Parsons was a complete dead end.
The anti-Nazi stuff is there because he was in fact too close to that wing of the German Intelligentsia that stayed in Germany but didn't get suppressed by the Nazis. If you stayed and didn't get oppressed then the Nazis didn't view you as a threat. IF the Nazis didn't oppose you, you must have been VERY VERY conservative and right-wing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I have attempted to begin the editing process, but it would be nice if someone more familiar with Parsons' work would become involved.
the guy was a prick...that much i can tell about him......his work..never clearly understood... supported feminists ideas
I really feel no inclination and it's not my field, but I agree. Also, the publications should be in order of publishing, seems to me, with the most recent at the bottom and outdated or irrelevant pubs deleted.
On 8/5/06, I added some books to the reference list, gave a fuller account of his mode of functional analysis, including the AGIL scheme, and made some minor edits. I also deleted a few statements here and there that seemed out of place for this article. More clean-up may be useful. In particular, the pattern variable description is now very limited and needs expansion if this section is to be retained.
I removed this section because it has been vandalised:
"After a year as instructor of economics at Amherst, he joined Huddersfield as an instructor of scientology in 1910. In 1931, he moved to the Department of Sociology that had been created a year earlier by Pitirim Sorokin. He initially moved up in rank only slowly, but became extremely influential after the publication of some major works, such as 'support your bartender, helping ugly people get laid.' Parsons stayed at Huddersfield and became emeritus in 1973. He died in 1979 in a freak shark related accident in a Munich aquarium."
Parsons was the opposite of a feminist. He suggested that women could only provide emotional support and socialization to children and that they must in order for society to function stay out of the labor market and stay at home and raise children and be warm and loving. In contrast, it requires a penis, er a man, to go out into the labor market, and be instrumental and practical and rational. These affective and instrumental roles can never mix, never overlap, no one can be instrumental from say 9 to 5 and then come home and be affective. Men must be emotionally dead with children and women must be emotional and never instrumental. This was his grand theory of the structure and function of the family in 1955. Notably, 1955 was the low point for women's participation in the labor force for the 20th century, women were more active in 20s, went down during great depression, rose in the 1940s due to the war, collapsed in mass wave of sexist job discrimination late 1945-46, and didn't really start rising again until early 1960s. For a culturalist Parsons totally missed the modernization of the US culture across the 1960s and 70s, those changes in the real world were basically impossible, they were contrary to the structure and function of society. Functionalism is basically a tautology. For Parsons, and colleagues who followed him. If X exists in the mainstream of a culture, it therefore must be necessary for the smooth and orderly functioning of society. Society can not and does not change, it only continues to exist in the static status quo that exists. Parsons, Bales, Davis and Moore claimed that stratification of wealth and income was a matter of rewards to keep high skill labor in place doing those essential high skill labor tasks. This was not a partial theory of stratification explaining some high skill jobs and the premium they get in the labor market, not this was a general theory of stratification..... At a time when there were still open "quotas" limiting the number of Jews who could attend Harvard (where Parsons taught) at a given time, at a time when the US was still openly and legally an apartheid regime with 1st and 2nd class citizen status being upheld in the law, courts etc. Parsons was anti-feminist. and far from an anti-racist. His and other structural functionalists' scholarship was a matter of writing up alibis for whatever the mainstream status qou was in the late 1940s and early 1950s, period. This is why Parsons is irrelevant to social science today. It is an embarrassing case of dogma, and neither empirically viable or even an interesting set of ideas (like some philosophy).
One of my mentors alleges that Parsons' translations of Weber were flawed. As I am not fluent in German I cannot confirm or deny these charges? If there is merit to said accusations, however, they should be noted in the article. What does it say about Parsons and structural-functionalism if Parsons misinterpreted Weber (either intentionally or out of ignorance) and then went on to publish some of his key works according to his own falty translations. Again, however, I am not making such accusations but merely relaying them to fellow inquirers. Can someone who either (1) has read multiple translated versions of Weber, or (2) is fluent in German, comment on the validity of the Parsons translation? M. Frederick 08:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, they were flawed. I'll add this material now. The canonical flaw is Talcott's translation of the German word stahlhartes Gehäuse. Talcott translates as "steel cage", but a better translation is "steel cloak." Apparently, some prefer "shell hard as steel" but it's terribly unpoetic, and in all my years as a practicing sociologist the preferred phrase has always been "steel cloak". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:37E0:5FF0:7CE6:81FD:7175:7E22 ( talk) 12:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm really not sure why this page would attract vandalism, but it certainly has. See the following passage of the article, which I'm not sure what to do with (breakdancing and hip-hop rapping - apparently an insult for the vandal...?):
"Parsons contributed to the field of breakdancing and hip-hop rapping. He divided evolution into four subprocesses: 1) differentiation, which creates functional subsystems of the main system, as discussed above; 2) adaptation, where those systems evolve into more efficient versions; 3) inclusion of elements previously excluded from the given systems; and 4) generalization of values, increasing the legitimization of the ever-more complex system."
I've reverted to the version immediately before this strangely random vandalism. Fixifex 18:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
The article is itself an act of intellectual vandalism. It is really a hagiography of Parsons and not reflective at all of what contemporary sociology, or other social science thinks of Parsons or his structural functionalist theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I removed the following list of publications about the work of Parsons. Such a list has little added value here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 23:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
What was the source for the middle names? His family is unaware of any middle names, and the family genealogy does not list any middle names. (I'm his grandson, and his daughter is in the room as I type). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dauwhe ( talk • contribs) 23:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
User:Thorsten1 has recently removed the image of Talcott Parsons from his article, with the argument:
I think this is unacceptable. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 14:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
@Maria. Dreadfully unaesthetic is just a matter of taste, and is not a good reason. We can't just eliminate all expressionistic art. The missing source information is another thing, we do should look into. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 17:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
@Marcel, would you care to explain what exactly is "unacceptable" about removing an amateurish sketch which a) isn't similar to the person it's supposed to portray, b) is "dreadfully unaesthetic", as María put it, and c) is missing source information? Just so that I understand. -- Thorsten1 ( talk) 17:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC) PS: "We can't just eliminate all expressionistic art. " First, I don't think this sketch qualifies as Expressionism. Even if it did, the question is, do we need any such "expressionistic art" in a biography of a sociologist? You are right of course, that this is also a matter of taste. But including this silly work of "art" is as much a matter of taste as removing it, so "just a matter of taste" isn't a valid argument. -- Thorsten1 ( talk) 17:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be universal dislike for this "artist"'s work; it would seem that quite a few of those images are ridiculed and removed from the articles with assessments similar to Thorsten's: 1. " Is there a reason that a pathetic cartoonish looking picture is used instead of an photo that can be freely used or no picture at all?", 2. " The illustration for this article is hideous and looks like it was drawn by a nine year-old.", 3. " even nothing is better than this...", 4. " The article had a terribly ugly picture of Amitai Etzioni. The picture seems to have been drawn by one of the editors in Paint (software). I am interested in reasons as to why it should be included."... I can go on. María ( habla con migo) 21:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
@Jiuguang Wang. It's not a "free use photo", but a "Non-free / fair use media" you now have added as a replacement. The rules here are, as far as I know, that all "fair use media" should be replaced with "GNU Free Documentation license media", when even possible. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 17:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
After a discussion at the Visual Arts Project talk page, the concensus was against using a similar set of amateur(ish) images worked up from photos, on a combination of arguments - copyright concerns (re the original photo), aesthetics, authenticity, and conflict of interest. Similar arguments would apply here, I believe. Johnbod ( talk) 20:56, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following a new section about the history of the Parson family. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 14:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
References
If this section proves notable enough it should be a separate article. It is (as far as I know) not done in Wikipedia to add the family history in so much details. -- 14:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a little odd that here Parsons' primary accomplishment is stated as developing action theory, yet the article on that subject, including a long list of "Scholars of action theory," fails to include him. Lacking the relevant expertise myself, can someone explain the discrepancy? Sestibel ( talk) 07:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is really convoluted and impenetrable, almost to the extent you'd think it's trying to be. Obfuscation is not the aim of wikipedia or social science (well, except maybe for Derrida and Baudrillard...). We require flowing, economic prose, not a dumped undergraduate essay. Overall, there's a lot of decent information in here, but the implimentation is appalling. -- Tomsega ( talk) 19:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The description reads:
It would be interesting to know who the remaining depicted persons are.
Among the other participants of the conference on Max Weber in Heidelberg April 1964 of who I've read were Herbert Marcuse, Ernst Topitsch, Raymond Aron, Talcott Parsons, Reinhard Bendix and Benjamin Nelson (Sociologist.
My guess is that Talcott Parsons is the man on the left, covered halfway by Horkheimer, while Reinhard Bendix is the man talking with Habermas with his back to the camera, covered halfway by Adorno.
Does anyone know more? -- Schwalker ( talk) 16:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
The man on the left is definitely not Talcott Parsons, whom I saw more than once in person. Shotoffashovel ( talk) 16:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
This article is very long - at 159KB, it's well over the recommended maximum length for an article, making it difficult to read and edit. Are there any sections that could be split off into separate articles, per Summary style? Robofish ( talk) 12:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This article gives the sense that nobody has ever critiqued any of Parsons' work? Does anyone know of any critiques? Should a section on criticism be added? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.41.102.207 ( talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Parsons is an embarrassment to sociology today. His impact is nil, or negative. No one in the field under 50 even knows his theory anymore. I got my Phd in the 1990s and in our theory classes the Prof. spent 20 minutes talking about why he was wrong, we didn't even hvae to read the inpenetratable nonsense that the man wrote for the class. I'm a theory head and read it on my own, but it was not assigned reading in either my MA or Phd level theory classes. But from the 50s to 70s Parsons and his terrible theory were considered the center of the field of sociology. Notably, there is no body of either theory or research that claims him as a founding figure today. Structural Functional is considered an embarrasment, word salad and tautology alibi's for whatever the established status qou of the 1950s was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:19, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
Parsons' action theory can be characterized as an attempt to maintain the scientific rigour of positivism, while acknowledging the necessity of the "subjective dimension" of human action incorporated in hermeneutic types of sociological theories. It is cardinal in Parsons' general theoretical and methodological view that human action must be understood in conjunction with the motivational component of the human act. In this way social science must consider the question of ends, purpose and ideals in its analysis of human action
I mean, am i the only one thinks this is awfull ? also, theintor sucks; no way it is at the right level for a general encyclopedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.195.10.169 ( talk) 23:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
I describe the contribution of The Structure of Social Action to the meaning of instrumental action in Instrumental and value-rational action. I welcome comments. TBR-qed ( talk) 15:23, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
But Parsons contributed nothing of his own here, he is a Weber cover band - nothing added, nothing original, one of those cover bands that tries to exactly replicate the original, not a cover that changes the arrangement to bring something new and different to the songs. IF anything Parsons is a much worse writer than Weber was and Parsons thought constructing models of hollow abstract definitions was "theory building" instead what it really is - is semantic onanism. This is why literally no one of importance in the field today claims Parsons as an influence. They will claim Weber or Durkheim, but not Parsons, there is no there there in Parsons worth being influenced by. The book is just barely in the top 500! books in the area of SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY (which it is supposed to be Parsons Magnum Opus and major contribution to the field of Sociological THeory - and itis the 483 most popular book iin that area at Amazon. No one reads Parsons anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:30, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I came to this article for a quick refresher about what I should remember about Taclott Parsons from undergrad and I wasn't able to quickly glean that from the lead or the rest of the article, so I feel like something key is missing or that the wording needs to be adjusted, but I can't put my finger on it. Right now, the first paragraph says: "Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist who served on the faculty ofHarvard University from 1927 to 1973.
" If we were making notecards of prominent sociologists to study for the Soc 101 final, what would the other side of Talcott Parsons' notecard have said? It wouldn't have been that he was on the Harvard faculty. Maybe it would have said "Structural functionalism", but I'm doubting myself because of the way that's currently addressed in the lead, both the wording and its placement towards the end: "Although he was generally considered a major structuralist functionalist scholar, in an article late in life, Parsons explicitly wrote that the term "functional" or "structural functionalist" were inappropriate ways to describe the character of his theory.
" IMO the first paragraph should say something like:
But I'm not confident I remember what XYZ is. Any ideas? —PermStrump (talk) 20:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
You are correct. It was structural functionalist. The article is a worshipful hagiography written by a Parsons stanboy. The term structural functionalism is sparse in the article because it is so discredited, but it is/was Parson's major contribution to the field - a long winded, totally hollow abstraction of mutually influencing tautologies - that is the sum total of what SF is/was and is known as - hence no one uses Parsons today or cites him as an influence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B ( talk) 06:22, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
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