CHAPTER I

THE "CHANGE THE WORLD" CONVERSATION

Sociology originated in the "change the world" conversation of Comte (1842) and Marx (1848). Comte (1842, 1848), concerned with the abuses of the French Revolution, was interested in finding more stable ways of making social change. He sought the formation of an enlightened body of knowledge that would discover the true laws of society and then institute government that would rule according to such dynamics. Marx (1846, 1848) approached social change directly. He is one of the few sociologists who repeatedly uses the word "love" in his writings(1844). His quest was to make a world in keeping with a vision of love: to somehow bring this love out into the world, and to have it make a difference to everyday life. We may not agree with his specific and their application, but we cannot ignore the importance of his views: how to "change the world?" -- how to bring love into it in more ways.

The "behavioral" disciplines emerged at a time when a long line of philosophers, culminating in Hegel, reached precisely the same conclusion: that we needed to climb out of the armchair of social philosophy and into action. The conclusion was that even scientists were not merely describing the world, they were creating it. Therefore, we must move past philosophy and into making the world as it ought to be. As Marx has summarized, the philosophers have described the world; it is up to us to transform it.

Weber (1946) also acknowledged the change the world" focus or the discipline. In his ''On Science as a Vocation,'' he contended that the question of ''who am I?" always takes place in the context of the question "what do I want to do?" Description and exploration of identity are tied to and initiated by the question of action. The conversation itself was one from which individual actors would come and go: develop strategies, experience "eureka’s," and return to pool their wisdom. Conversations on strategies for living are always highly personal, but the broader context for any such conversation is: how do we change the world? Sociology is born in such a quest. However, while holding out the "promise of sociology," twentieth century sociologists have shied away from such an awesome responsibility. Historically, sociology has used the umbrella of science to help shoulder the burden and has claimed the legitimacy of scientific status. A direct moral intervention into the world seemed too-all encompassing. Yet, somehow the focus of the old "change the world" conversation never quite dies. From time to time, cries and challenges emerge. They appear in the promise of sociology: among the young, entering the field eager for the quest, and with the old upon retirement, pointing to the vision once again. Research from the 1960’s showed that the counterculture movement on college campuses was largely a movement of aspiring sociology students (Lipset, 1965). The number of professors who have kept the dream alive as they approached retirement is perhaps too great to mention. From time to time, the torch has not just passed from old to young with mainstream Sociology circumvented: sometimes, the idea has re-surfaced in the normal mid-life business of sociology: Lynd (1939), after doing what might be regarded as the classic participant-observation study, found himself asking, but Knowledge for What? After collecting voluminous amounts of data and information, Lynd returned to ask: but what are we doing? Mills (1959) challenged sociology to imagine an action-oriented sociology. He invited us past a control-happy sociology into the hard work of envisioning a society based on freedom. Becker (1968) has asked pointedly: Whose side are we on? Gouldner (1970) viewed the crisis of sociology as a question of whom sociology serves: do sociologists really want to be the hand-maidens of government? More recently, we found Sanford (1981), who worked on the classic Adorno studies of authoritarianism, posing the same questions to the field.

The historical occurrence of the popularity of Goffman's dramaturgy (Brissett and Edgley, 1974) might well has been linked to the abuses of sociology under Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." Sociology had been granted a free hand in re-designing society. It responded with the functionalism of Parsons (1951) and the abstracted empiricism of the Lazarsfelds (1955), or worse. Dramaturgy represented a retreat from both scientific legitimacy and the responsibility for changing the world, to a stance of just describing. It desired to formulate a slow-motion journalism which would be content with just "watching." While correcting the abuses of scientific sociology, dramaturgy retreated from the traditional sociological quest of action. While some sociologists may be content to merely observe, it is doubtful that this will be a popular approach that will rally many to the field. There is a latent hope that caused people to gravitate to sociology in the first place. There will always be people asking the questions and involved in the movement to create a better world. Classically, this conversation has always been the proper domain of sociology. It is this conversation that I have followed others in terming "humanistic sociology."

A few sociologists have spoken formally of the possibility of a "humanistic sociology' that would depart from existing theoretical approaches. Berger and Luckman (1966) in The Social Construction of Reality, proposed a humanistic approach which would stress "man as man." Glass and Staude (1972) compiled the theoretical ground which might provide the starting point for a humanistic sociology. Lee (1973) argued that the best sociology has always been humanistic and that the paradigm included the works of Cooley, Thomas, Sorokin, and Mills.

In many ways, the promise of sociology and the "change the world" conversation is a dream. But it is a dream that constantly penetrates the field and its very effort. This theme can be found as an unaccentuated thread connecting seemingly diverse perspectives. Time and time again, while not actually formalized, the dream and the "change the world" conversation are repeated.

Becker (1971, p. x), after a thorough review of the literature in the social disciplines, summarized: "The science of man is, historically and by its very nature, a utopian science."

Humanistic sociology returns to the "change the world" conversation and questions of ''the Good," love, values, and shaping the world. One is not far afield to conceive of sociology humanistically -- in fact, it has always been a latent undertone of the field.

The Beginnings of Humanistic Sociology

Historically, there are two basic foundations for humanistic sociology: the reaction within sociology against d value-free, scientific sociology, and the counterculture movement to create alternative social forms.

The formal development of a humanistic approach to sociology centered on a reaction against value-free, scientific sociology. Many sociologists (Mills, 1959; Horowitz, 1964; Phillips, 1971; Lee, 1973) had problems with neutral methods and the very idea of a classified expertise on living. At the same time, the credibility of the scientific bandwagon under which sociology had originally sought indulgence had developed clear philosophical problems. People had begun to ask if we really wanted to model sociology after physics. Remember that Comte had even wanted at one time to call the field "social physics." But now even physics was developing epistemological problems. As Carpenter (1970) noted, modern physics reads like native myths, where each experience defines its own time and space. The work of Meyerson (02), Poincare (1952), Kuhn (1964), and Heisenberg (1977), among others, has shown that scientific laws are legislated like any other laws. Modern physics no longer appears to know what is going on. The world no longer confirms their theories; what they had thought was happening, was not. Newtonian physics is used when it works. Einstein's physics is used when it works, but neither paradigm can be used to account for much of what the other predicts (Hampden-Turner, 1970).

The physicist was not discovering a world, but selectively shaping a world to a certain image. This was the conclusion which shocked Galileo centuries earlier. Galileo's work on primary and second properties of matter reads strangely like Goffman's (1974) Frame Analysis. Primary properties snow us where to focus: the height and depth, i.e., what the frame looks like. Secondary properties discuss what we see within the frame. This carries over into Einstein's physics: the clear implication is that we are making choices, not just discovering what is there.

The work of Butterfield (1957), Polanyi (1958), Kuhn (1964), and Feyerbend (1970) showed that the intuitive has played a far greater role in science than has been previously recognized. At its best, science has always included art and exploration.

All of this has served to collapse the scientific canopy for doing sociology. However, this does not mean that we are forced back into social philosophy. What it does mean is that we are in a totally new dimension. We are back with the question of creating the world -- the old "change the world" conversation with all its subtle nuances, potential abuses, and complexities.

Curiously, at the same time that science as a system or meaning was being criticized, it had become firmly established in the world at large. Their ways of life were being dissipated. Anthropologists said that primitive cultures were rapidly being wiped from the face of the earth. By the end of the twentieth century, it was predicted that they would be gone. Within cultures, and between countries, differences crumbled under a scientific world view. Science had become reality.

Yet, it was at this time that the idea of a counterculture emerged. This was to become the second foundation of the movement toward a humanistic sociology. As cultural diversity becomes flattened into one culture under a scientific-technological imperative, the idea of a counterculture becomes imperative. The visible counterculture movement may have gone the way of a fad, but the very real structural problems which fostered it remain.

In part, the counterculture movement in America in the late sixties and early seventies was a movement "sponsored" for and by sociology. Studies reveal that large percentages of those involved were in the field of sociology (Hampton-Turner, 1970). There were very real institutional connections between the counterculture and sociology, and with the newly developing humanistic psychology. It was an effort to envision a new world. It was a challenge to create new social forms and alternatives: an effort to move past growing up absurd in the lonely crowd and deal with the real alienating structural problems of technological society.

We had become estranged from community and from self. Psychology from Horney (1937) on had come to recognize that mental health depended upon the social context. The society which we had created on the basis of science had somehow deserted the needs of the person. Alienation and anomie had become commonplace in the modern world. New sources and ways of society seemed paramount if the human was to develop and grow. The movement to create alternative cultural forms--to build a counterculture within the vast scientific culture--became the task of humanistic sociology.

In many ways, it must be recognized that science is Western culture. It is the decision-making processes: the systems of rational rules which we term bureaucracy and our whole way of thinking about the world. The counterculture revealed, and perhaps telegraphed, a potential major paradigm shift.

While the reaction to value-free science developed a suitable epistemology for humanistic sociology and a departure from science, the counterculture sought to explore and develop new possibilities much as the artist might.

This movement to treating life as art is not new, but it has typically been encased within the scientific canopy. The idea that sociology is an art is not new to sociological literature, either. Probably the traditional statement of such a conception is Nesbit's(1962) article "Sociology as an Art form." However, what Nesbit is really talking about is not so much sociology as art, but the role of the intuitive in hypothesis formation. Otherwise, his is a traditional scientific process.

We will, perhaps, have to return all the way to Comte (1842) to gain a view of Art framing Science instead of the other way around. It is only recently that a contemporary option has emerged. For a full-blown version of sociology as art, we must turn to the work of an

anthropologist, Carpenter (1970). Carpenter did not really state his thesis in tight structural forms. Instead he strung lines through time and space much as an artist might do, but within his work can be found the beginnings of a humanistic sociology. Originally trained as an anthropologist in such diverse settings as the South Pacific, South America, and Alaska of the American Eskimo, Carpenter has emerged on the contemporary scene to lend a fresh eye to

our changing patterns. The vision he has woven is a golden bough for the sociologist wishing to conceive of sociology as an art.

Technology, Carpenter claimed, has circumscribed both culture and science rendering their original purposes obsolete. From this junkyard of resources, every person is forced to create their own world. All cultures have bended to the technological imperative. However, we have not been left with just the directionlessness of anomie, but an opportunity to create our own lives and environments. Personhood, and the destruction of cultural systems of meaning, demands that we all function as artists.

Roszak (1969) originally coined the term "counterculture" in a book entitled The Makings of a Counterculture: Technological Society and Its Youthful Opposition. Much of the work concerned the inadequacy of science as a basis for culture. Yet in this formal treatment is found a direction and a suggestion: the person as artist must find and develop new forms which enhance and further personal enrichment.

Carpenter's monumental work appeared about the same time, but it moves past a critique of science into an exploration of doing the art; of framing a conversation which moves past technological society and develops countercultural forms. Carpenter's (1970) book, They Became What They Beheld, may well be a summary of the crucial sociological insight. We become what we behold: we shape our environments and, thereafter, they shape us. If we wish to shape the world as artists, then we must become literate with our media, for these are our resources.

Media -- the McLuhan (1960) term -- refers not just to the popular conception of technological media, but to the social constructions of humans. Media are "extensions of person" -- the attempt to enlarge upon the world of the senses. McLuhan originally co-authored an earlier version of They Became What They Beheld and compiled a reader with Carpenter on communications. However, it was Carpenter who brought the full implications of the McLuhan view to sociology. It is a framework for doing sociology as art.

The similarity between the idea of ''media" and Simmel'; (1950) conception of "social forms" must be recognized. Carpenter's work is a continuation of formalism which places it directly in the sociological tradition. Media are social forms. For Simmel, sociology was the study of social forms. For Carpenter, it is the understanding of the grammar and application of media. It is in this consciousness that we must construct our lives. As cultural traditions become de-classified and secularized, they become available to the artist as resources for constructing a new mythos. This is the task that both Becker 1971 and Jung (1964) saw as the new work of the behavioral disciplines. Such is the work of the sociologist as artist.

Perhaps, the artistic vision cannot be articulated in scientific terms. Love and the magical may be academically illegitimate precisely because they do not lend themselves to scientific analysis. Columbus' maps were vague and sketchy, stated Carpenter (1970, n.p.), but they showed the right continent. If we opt for the wrong kind of conversation we may never get to the New World.

We must ask what kinds of conceptions are the most useful for the sociologist as artist. An artistic theory does not need to fulfill the criteria of science because it is designed for a different purpose. An artistic conception may require a different type of conversation than the clear and full statement of science. As Carpenter (1970, n.p.) noted: "Clear speaking is generally obsolete thinking . . The problem with full statement is that it does not involve: it is addressed to the consumer, not the co-producer."

Simmel's formalism was so radical because it retreated from an epistemological base. No longer seeking the source of life, it dealt with the resources that e use in shaping life. Such a strategy is by no means unheard of in sociology. It is similar to the tack taken by Parsons (1951) in formulating an ideal functionalism. It represents a utopian split with philosophy into the business of shaping the world.

When Roszak (1979, 1980) was asked what became of the counterculture movement, he claimed that it succeeded: that it became enfranchised in a historically new normative ethic of personhood. For the first time, self-exploration became a legitimate rhetoric of motive (YanKelovich, 1981).

Roszak was both right and wrong. The counterculture was routinized into American society by emphasizing the psychological and neglecting the sociological. The psychological focus on personal fulfillment became a part of American cultural mythos, but the movement to find alternative forms of society was negated. Perhaps it was a large chunk of the problem to bite off at one time. Yet, the structural problems which foster individual discontent remain. By institutionalizing only the psychological aspects, the routinized counterculture led to abuses of self-indulgence and the over-concern with self that led to a characterization as narcissism (Lasch, 1978).

Yet, psychology seems from time to time to recognize the need for a companion humanistic sociology. Several recent Humanistic Psychology conventions have focused upon the issue of community. Even Jungian psychologists (Hillman 1975 -- whose emphasis on dreams would apparently be the farthest from a sociological connection -- have talked about the need for meaningful rituals. A leading social researcher has predicted that the self-fulfillment movement will give rise to the quest for community (Yankelovich, 1981). An old question emerges: How do we re-vision society?

In psychology, a "humanistic psychology" has been institutionalized following the work of Fromm (1947, 1956), Maslow (1954, 1966, 1968), Rogers (1961, !977), and May (1969, 1975). Their work would suggest the possibility of a companion humanistic sociology focusing on the social context and interaction of persons. The writings of historian Roszak (1969, 1972) provided an insightful departure from scientific sociology. Becker's (1964, 1968) review of sociology, anthropology, and psychology also formed a basis for humanistic sociology.

Through the counterculture movement, sociology once again returned to the "change the world" conversation and questions of "The Good," love, values, and the shaping of the world. The quest for alternative social forms was a natural bridge between sociology and the world -- although one that traditional sociology had not prepared itself to meet.

Perhaps the counterculture offered a preview and a re-ordering of the directions that sociology might take. The questions for a humanistic sociology and sociology as art seem to have been pinpointed by the counterculture: How do we create social forms which empower people? How do we create society for people instead of people for society? Our social constructions should function for the human -- not mold the human to some other purpose. This is the meaning of humanism as applied to sociology.

Social reality is quite different from physical reality. The task of the social disciplines is quite different from the scientific fact-finding mission. The social disciplines seek to create a new world: entering the realm of value and what "ought to be."

The Social Creation of Reality

Social reality is organized along the lines of the self-fulfilling prophecy and the definition of the situation (Thomas and Thomas, 1928; Merton, 198). As Berger and Luckman (1966) have shown, social reality is constructed. Knowledge and belief are thus intimately connected with the actual construction of a reality. We create a world which mirrors our definitions of the situation. Society tends to be almost a "mass hypnosis" enacting those definitions as self-fulfilling prophecies.

The extent of this process must not be underestimated because it is the key sociological and anthropological insight. As Krishna (1971) argued, this is the central difference between social and physical realities: belief, values, and wishes are fundamental components of social reality. If the world could be reduced to objective consciousness, then there would be no need for psychology or sociology. If the world could be reduced to wishes, then all would be mind and the territory of psychology. The fact that the world is both necessitates a sociological approach to understanding it. Culture itself is a description which we learn to see: a self-fulfilling prophecy which becomes reality.

Science functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy which has become the basis of our culture. It has been an overwhelming success: scientific definitions of the situation and humanity have been implemented. Humanistic sociology would seek another definition of the situation and propose the accumulation of knowledge of a different type of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Defining Human nature: The human form seems to be almost infinitely variable. Humanistic psychology has sought to treat human nature as a self-fulfilling prophecy and visualize toward the human potential.

Ortega y Gassett (1941) wrote that science could do no other than search for human nature: treating people as things like other scientific things. Yet, "Man is no thing, but a drama . . . . Man, in a word, has no nature; what he has is . . . history" (p. 200). [Italics Original]

Humanistic psychology sees to move beyond the past and into the present. From the present, it visualizes new possibilities for the human nature. It attempts to create a new self-fulfilling prophecy embracing 'the Good" and other humanistic values.

Humanistic psychology is an exercise in personal power: the self-creation of one's own life, reality, and meaning. In such can be found both its beauty and its naiveté: reality is not created merely by individual charisma, but is socially created by the interaction of actors. A humanistic sociology is thus needed to further articulate and implement the work begun by humanistic psychology.

The Limits of Self-fulfilling Prophecies

To create a self-fulfilling prophecy is by nature d heroic strategy. Efforts to make the "good" will always be interfaced ith the problems of the Jungian "shadow" (Jung, 1964) and the critique of humanism which Becker (1975j characterized as "he escape from evil." The romantic quest must adequately deal with the full implications of these theorists if it is no merely to foster the seeds of its own undoing.

In many ways, the "change the world" conversation approaches absurdity. If we interface psychology with sociology, we encounter the psychological concept of ''projection.'' The concept of projection (Jung, 1964) maintains that in order to escape from personal problems, a person 'projects" these problems onto the world. Instead of changing one's self, a person distances his/her defects onto other people and attempts to change them accordingly. Under such a conception the "change the world" conversation could be seen as a neurotic attempt not to deal with self.

It is no doubt true that many of even the greatest social theorists were guilty of such a ploy. It is said that Marx's wife and children were starving while he sat in an ivory tower writing of love for the masses. Sadly, such examples have often been the rule rather than the exception.

At the same time, we cannot discount the "change the world" conversation as merely psychological projection. Psychology cannot be reduced to sociology, nor can sociology be reduced to psychology. Each discipline in its very approach obscures part of what the other is trying to say. What we have is a double-bind with which the "change the world" conversation will be forever interlaced.

Evil in the world has been generated by the very attempt to do good. People have sought the good by escaping from evil: we define the evildoers and seek to eliminate them. Unfortunately, we do not have to return in history as far as the Crusades to find plentiful examples of such efforts.

Jungian psychologists refer to such phenomena as the "shadow side" of personality (Jung, 1964). There will always be some evil cast by the shadows of any good light that we may shine. Sociologists have dealt with this under the conception of "manifest" and "latent" functions. However, the notion of the "shadow" probably has more profound implications.

The 'shadow side" of our personalities tends to be hidden from ourselves. We do not see our most drastic faults, but instead project them onto others. Although such is a fool's game, given our inability to achieve total psychological insight, it is a fool's game to which we all are heir.

Even though they have often been translated to such a conclusion, Becker's "escape from evil' thesis and Jung's idea of the 'shadow' do not mean that we need to abandon all efforts at social change. What they do mean is that we need to be more aware of the consequences of our social change strategies and less naive about our motives in formulating them.

Our motive in formulating a "change the world" conversation is often heroic. It is an effort to which we return, despite its ambiguities and despite what is often the feebleness of our effort. We must realize that we cannot change the world once and for all. We cannot save people. But we can make the world better. We can help people.

If we seek to become literate with what is possible, we can strive to make the world better -- to see our lives clearly and apply our effort where it will help. This is the task to which sociology since its initial conception has aspired to. Humanistic sociology returns directly to this focus.

Yet in reformulating the old "change the world" effort, perhaps, we need to recognize the problems which are inherent in heroism itself. Perhaps we need a different paradigm (than that of the hero) for viewing social change. Perhaps heroism as a strategy has led us into science and the search for scientific techniques in a sort of "back door" fashion.

Another possibility emerges for organizing or conceptions of social change. The old conception of the magician as opposed to the hero offers us another way of approaching the problem. The ancient conception of magic emphasizes "relatedness" (Roszak, 1975). This is similar to Fromm's (1956) and others' conception of love as "overcoming separateness. (Tillich, Jourard)" Perhaps, the magician and the lover offer a very real strategy for doing sociology and re-entering the "change the world" conversation. And although this paradigm may not be fully articulated in our lifetime, it offers a very real possibility for our lives. If we were to reduce humanism to a few words, those words could easily be the recovery of love and the magical.

The Humanistic Vision

Humanistic sociology would strive to bring values right through the "front door" of the discipline and envision society in such a way as to make a better self-fulfilling prophecy.

This brings us to the question sociologists and psychologists alike have habitually tried to avoid: "what is human nature?" It is here that humanists have usually been undone by the shadow side. However, we cannot avoid the question and must give at least a tentative orientation.

I would suggest that we could do a lot worse than follow the work of Fromm (1947, 1968). Fromm (1968 p. 96) suggested we begin our "science" with the value "that it is desirable that a living system should grow and produce the maximum of virtue and intrinsic harmony." The central value of humans would be "to become what we potentially are" (1947, p. 163).

Humanistic psychology following the direction of Fromm, Maslow (1954, 1962), Rogers (1961, 1977, and others sought to explore the human potential. Human nature may not be any more than a matter of potential: not a matter of "being," but a process that is "becoming." It is a departure from "what is" to what ''might be." Human nature seems to be extremely variable if we view the various forms and expressions that human experience has taken. Indeed, we may concur with Fromm (1968) who follows Walt Whitman in saying that "I contain multitudes." Or Goethe's comment that "I can conceive of no act so horrible that I cannot imagine myself to be the author.''

Self is not contained, but has many faces. Human experience may vary, but we see a thread of possibilities from the best to the worse. Indeed, we recognize a familiarity in all the experiences. Once we understand the situation, we may see how we might have behaved similarly in the same situation.

This imagining and understanding of the other is perhaps a natural bridge between the disciplines of psychology and sociology. Cooley (1909) called the "imagining of the other" sympathetic introspection and recommended it as the proper method for sociology. Mills (1959) in the Sociological Imagination asked us to see the common threads that connect the problems in our lives. Laing (1964) addressed he extent to which, as the song says, "there but for fortune go I.'' The human possibility seems exceedingly variable. We can cross and connect with other lives, seeing how we might be living those lives.

Humanistic psychology expands upon this idea to as us to envision what we might become: the self-actualized self of Maslow; the self- realization of Rogers; the alive person of Fromm. These are ideal types. They set the direction that this truly variable form -- humanity -- could possibly take. They are not so much realities that can be grasped as they are potentialities that are possible.

All of this has lent an air of "make-believe" and unreality to humanistic psychology: an aura of illegitimacy which does not seem quite credible in traditional academic circles. But as the philosopher and author Hesse (1969) noted:

. . . although in a certain sense and for light-minded persons, non-existent things can be more easily and irresponsibly represented in words than existing things, for the serious and conscientious historian, it is just the reverse. Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and the possibility of being born (Foreword).

Truly credible scholarship keeps the human possibility alive and furthers its direction. To record "what is" is not enough. We must report that "what is' suggests alternatives-and possibilities that could be followed. In some ways, the "change the world" conversation will always be a dream. But it can also be a real movement in that direction. How we propose to move in this direction (towards "the Good," love, and the magical) is crucial, for it determines all that follows. We must become literate with the grammar of social change strategies, avoid the pitfalls that have traditionally befallen such efforts, and develop viable new alternatives and social forms that enhance the humanistic vision.

Key Concepts in Humanistic Sociology

Love

If we are going to conceive of sociology humanistically, then we must focus upon life-enhancing social processes rather than reductionistic ones. The foundation of the humanistic vision is the experience and the power that has been called love. Indeed, love is the core of humanistic value. If we follow love seriously, a different conception of sociology emerges. Love provides a dialectic paradigm to the scientific paradigm and contains the basis for a different conceptualization of knowledge. A love paradigm could provide the basis for a new self-fulfilling prophecy and new cultural system. Love is not objective but involved. It is not detached, but emphasizes respect and honesty. Love is not premised on doubt and testing, but is based on belief, trust, and faith: love is always a risk. Love is not a product of science, but is by invitation only: while science is based on prediction and control, love courts, it invites, and influences, but does not force. Where science is experimental, love is an exploration in reality. It does not flourish in mock or artificial settings, but only when one opens with full commitment. Finally, while science seeks a value-free approach, love is the very heart of meaning. Love is the active component in the creation of meaning.

A love paradigm gives us a reasonable basis for a departure from the scientific paradigm. In addition to a different epistemology, the two paradigms involve different conceptions of power. The scientific power emphasizes force, prediction, and control; it is analogous to social power which forces one to do something against one's will. The humanistic version of power derives from Nietzsche's "will to power." It is the actualizing power of being. It invites, courts, influences, but does not control. This idea of "power as being' has been used by Maslow, Fromm, Rogers, and Roszak and predicates the basis of humanistic psychology.

Yet sociology has neglected the subject of love. Sociology makes an introductory case for love but only to prove the need for social contact and community (i.e., society). It then moves off without ever returning to understand the process.

Love and human contact are shown to be essential for nurturing and even longevity; but all of this is used merely to make an argument for "proving" the need for society. Studies of attic children and hospitalism show that children either do not grow properly or die without human intimacy. Other studies show that significant relationships and involvement with others actually influence how long a person will live. The key element in these studies is not socialization and social interaction (as might be assumed from an examination of how these studies are used in introductory books). The key element is love and human intimacy. Strangely, love itself remains still largely illegitimate as a topic for serious consideration in the traditional academic circles of sociology. Yet, it might be argued that love is the fundamental reason people desire social interaction in the first place: that love is the key sociological term, and that the quest for love is the fundamental human motivation (Bergson, 1935; Fromm, 1956). Love is "messy." It does not neatly fit our pre-arranged methods borrowed from science and classical philosophy. But if we are truly interested in human processes, we cannot afford to quickly forget love after the first chapter never to return.

It appears that every major sociological perspective has a dialectic within the field (e.g., functionalism-conflict theory, symbolic interactionism-formalism). The exception is exchange theory. I believe that the development of an intimacy perspective would provide for the appropriate counterbalancing of the exchange metaphor. An intimacy perspective might well serve to integrate our insights on community, primary groups, love, and the whole nature of intimacy.

What should be obvious about the exchange metaphor has been obscured by its very transparency: it premises separate individuals. We have never explored clearly what the "we" dimensions are. What occurs in the process we call "sharing?" What happens when the definition of the situation moves past one of scarcity to a feeling of abundance?

In exchange theory, we have followed Gouldner (1973) in maintaining the universalness of the "norm of reciprocity." However, what of the idea of a "free gift?" Classical exchange theory would deny the possibility of a free gift, while an intimacy perspective would maintain that love is a free gift. Gouldner (1973 has modified his perspective to include a "norm of benevolence". How do reciprocity and charity interact?

Trust is also a phenomenon which collapses self-interest into "we" definitions. Recent research has shown its application into even institutional settings (Gibb, 1978). Sociology may have barely scratched the surface in examining the ability of trust to "transcend the very nature of what is."

Homans' exchange theory contained a "liking" postulate which may correspond to trust. Homans (1974) maintained that positive interaction creates liking and friendships. Such liking facilitates further interaction and institutional dynamics. Peter Drucker (1974) defined profit not as money but as the "lubricant" which makes an organization maintain itself. Friendships, liking, and trust represent not luxuries, but essential components of organizational interaction. These dimensions are an exception to strict exchange theory and contain the possibility of moving away and weaving an intimacy perspective. Exchange theory stems from the application of economic metaphors to social life. An intimacy perspective would investigate different modes of survival. Artists for example, have always survived with a different manner of commitment than advised by the traditional economy. Perhaps, in the past, it has been mainly artists who have created their own lives. With personhood becoming a norm, the artist offers clues not only to our own personal fulfillment but for the conceptualization of society.

Certainly, one of the reasons why an intimacy perspective has not been articulated, aside from the fact that it forces us to deal with values and emotions, is that it places us squarely in the realm of having to deal with religion as a social theory. It forces us to confront Jesus as social theorist. It makes us face Buddha as psychologist. Sociologists have not wanted to have their religions evaluated as policy. An intimacy perspective causes us to de-secularize the world and bring the things which matter most into our theories and work as sociologists.

An intimacy perspective also invites us to explore the difference between "self" and "other" which we have used so precariously to seek a truce with psychology over discipline boundaries. Intimacy means not only intimacy with others, but ultimately, intimacy with self and with environment. Intimacy is a way of knowing. It represents a different approach than the autopsy table of science. Instead of analysis and dissection, love is "knowing something in its integrity" (Fromm, 1956, pp. 24-26). This respectful way of knowledge may be the very essence of what a humanistic effort means.

Synergy

If we are going to conceive of sociology humanistically, then we must focus upon social processes which are life-enhancing rather than reductionistic. In what types of social arrangements are persons fuller; in what types of relationships are humans reduced to something smaller? Synergy is the idea that the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts: that combined action is greater than the run of individual actions.

In some types of relationships, combined action actually produces a sum which is less than individual actions: manipulation, power dominated relationships, relationships of role-like efficiency. In such cases one might well argue that the person would be better off left alone by society. Yet, there is another possibility: a person being promoted by combined action: of coming to society by synergy.

Synergy means that 1 + 1 = more than 2. Society is more than just the sum of its parts -- individuals are more together than alone. Despite the fact that we have not used the term "synergy," we nave always "advertised" the necessity of "society" by this concept. We have argued as sociologists that society cannot be reduced to individual actors. Psychological reductionism does not explain the "magic'' which can occur from interaction and literally produce something that is more than the sum of its parts. Indeed, we have defined society as "more than the sum of its parts" (Parsons, 1951; Weber, 1946; Durkheim, 1950; Comte, 1907). Yet we do not understand this process by which the person is made more by society. This process is synergy. Sociologists have staked their claim to a discipline upon synergy without ever marveling about how the process occurs in the first place. The study of synergy should be a central focus for a humanistic sociology. It is in such a process that we find social forms which create society for people rather than reducing people to social forms. The term synergy was originally introduced to the behavioral disciplines by Benedict (1970; Mead, 1959). At the time of her writing, she was greatly concerned that her examination of synergy might be seen as undermining the core anthropological stance of cultural relativity (Maslow, 1971). Still, she could not avoid reaching the conclusion that some cultures produced paranoid individuals who might well be better left alone by society; while in other cultures, life was found to be abundant and individuals seemed to be promoted to synergy. Some social arrangements appeared to be ''factually" better when viewed from any human standpoint.

Ruth Benedict's concern with cultural relativity is understandable. She had stumbled upon the first concept which emerges when we move past value neutrality and relativity as the supreme goal. She termed the magical process synergy.

It is interesting to note that a young graduate student of Benedict's (1971) was so impressed with her insights on synergy that he made a career out of identifying and studying people who reminded him of Ruth Benedict -- whose interaction with other people encouraged and created a synergistic involvement. His name was Abraham Maslow. He called people like Ruth Benedict "self-actualized." Synergy thus got smuggled into psychology through the back door as it were and sociology has still not gotten around to exploring the implications of Benedict's argument: the creation of social arrangements and forms which encourage synergy as a societal process. The self-actualization of a psychological viewpoint is incomplete without a companion sociology which focuses upon synergy.

Re-visioning Society

Sociology is precisely in the business of re-visioning society (Hillman, 1975). Whorf (1956) concluded his study of the nature of language by saying that if science is going to survive the impending darkness, we must find new ways of talking about the world -- a new language. The way we envision the world tends then to become the world. Humanistic sociology must find new ways of talking about the world which do not reduce human beings to lesser, impersonal versions. This was C. Wright Mills' (1959) concern in the Sociological Imagination. He spoke of developing theories which do not whittle us into smaller "cheerful robot" versions of humanity. How do we create a society which allows and enhances freedom and exploration -- those values which have been called personhood. Mills foresaw the very difficult problem of democracy in all its precariousness: the idea of freedom within society is indeed a paradox. How do we create a society which is capable of providing individual freedom, not reducing the individual to societal demands, and still have society? Again, we confront the idea of synergy. Synergy is not an avant-garde idea or a luxury. It is crucial to the institutional fabric of a society which |values democracy. Sociology must work to re-vision society in new ways.

Humanistic sociology takes a value stance. It strives for the sociologist to bring his/her values to work through the front door. As Kenneth Boulding (1977) stated, the question for the behavioral disciplines is simply "what is better, and how do we get there?" Asking the right question is crucial. If we neglect to properly frame our exploration, we will not move in the direction of discovering an answer; nor will we recognize the answer should we stumble upon it. Our first step is crucial: it frames our task and predicts all that is to come. If we begin with the fact-finding mission of science and truth, we may never get around to "better" and questions of values. What is important? How do we create meaning? Our beginning steps towards a humanistic sociology can be outlined now. The first concept which emerges after we leave behind the relative perspectivism of a neutral science is the idea of synergy -- that there is such a thing as a "good" culture (Benedict 1970). Next, we find the myth-making function: Becker (1971) re-visions toward a culture which is an effective hero system and Jung (1964) sought the re-vitalization and creation of meaningful rituals. Subsequently, we may turn to Erich Fromm's (1947, 1956, 1968) idea of embracing values which are life enhancing. As Becker noted (1971, p. 152): ". . . the brilliant work of Erich Fromm is the best synthesis . . . to emerge in our epoch, and it is this we shall have to build."

Finally, in our haste to develop a science, we have abandoned our folklore, etiquette, and ethical traditions. We must now search them for clues for envisioning society while retaining the mystical view of humanity. We have abandoned values and approaches which explore meaning. We need now to traverse such sacred ground. Sociology -- humanistic sociology -- must bring the whole of our knowledge of life to bear upon the task of living. To do such we must explore the limits that science has imposed on our thinking: the nature of our socially created reality and the human possibilities; and follow the efforts of the lovers, magicians, artists, and mystics to create a better world.

It is an old quest. Starry-eyed youths enter the field eager for the romance of changing the world. As we grow to maturity, we put aside the grandeur and begin the day-to-day task of living. But some of the old dreams remain. The questions and the desire will not go away. We can put the dream to sleep, but we cannot close its eyes. As people retire, we find them once again challenging youth with the same old hope. We cannot hold out the promise of sociology just at the beginning and the end of careers. The real mid-life crisis that nags us in our sleep and comes bursting through as we turn back to the world from peak experience is: how do we return the old question to the mainstream of the field? How do we build upon meaning, values, and the quest for better -- the ''change the world" conversation -- and make it the work of sociology?

No generation will "solve" the questions of the "change the world" conversation. We are far too mortal for that. Most of the truths we know are actually rather existential in nature. We live with our confusing realities and frailties. Yet we strive to make life somehow better: somehow more happy. We stand on the earth. We know that we are living and dying. Our imagination reaches to the stars. It is here that we must build with the dream in mind.