Psychoanalysis and the Social Structure

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Notes

Cf. Cannon, Walter B. and Higginson, George: The Wisdom of the Body. Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1939: Freud: The Ego and the Id. London: Hogarth Press, 1927; Parsons, Talcott: Essays in Sociological Theory. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1949, esp. Chaps. I & II.

Cf. Parsons, Talcott: The Motivation of Economic Activities. Op. cit., Chap. IX.

This excludes behavior which varies at random, relative to structural patterns, from being treated as sociologically significant.

In extreme instances, the history of social change has tended to be interpreted as the simple consequence of the collective ‘acting out’ of the emotional tensions observed in personalities.

In essence this is what Max Weber did on a high level in his construction of ideal types of motivation. Cf. Parsons, Talcott: Introduction to: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (Sec. 2) by Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.

Cf. Mead, Margaret: Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: William Morrow 8c Co., 1928, and Levy, M. J., Jr.: The Family Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949.

This is also true of the classical mechanics, e.g., celestial mechanics, terrestrial mechanics, and the kinetic theory of gases.