Robert K. Merton — Transcript

Interview with Dr. Robert K. Merton on the development and impact of anomie theory and its sociological context.

Key Takeaways

Anomie theory originated from Merton's functionalist perspective and focus on social dysfunctions.
Microenvironments play a crucial role in shaping sociological thought and theory development.
The theory was initially comparative but became focused on American society due to Merton's research style.
The American Dream paradoxically contributes to deviance due to unequal access to opportunities.
Scientific ideas can be rediscovered after being overlooked, as seen with anomie theory's comparative aspect.

Summary

Interview conducted by Albert Cohen at John Jay College on May 15, 1997.
Dr. Merton discusses the origins of anomie theory during his graduate studies at Harvard in the 1930s.
Focus on the role of microenvironments, such as teacher-student interactions, in shaping sociological ideas.
Explanation of functional analysis and the introduction of dysfunctions as a concept in sociology.
Merton contrasts his views on bureaucracy and deviance with those of Max Weber.
The original 1938 paper 'Social Structure and Anomie' was first presented in lectures before publication.
Discussion on the comparative cross-cultural aspect of anomie theory, which Merton later set aside.
Merton reflects on the American context of anomie theory, particularly the paradox of the American Dream.
Emphasis on differential access to opportunities across class, ethnic, and gender structures.
Mention of the phenomenon of 'postmature discoveries' in science, where ideas are rediscovered after initial neglect.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Today is May 15, 1997. I'm speaking to you from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We are very pleased on this day to have an interview with Dr. Robert Merton conducted by a former student, Albert Cohen. It is very much worth noting that

Speaker A

this will be the first interview on oral history that Dr. Merton has granted, and we are extremely pleased to have him and Dr. Cohen this day. Thank you. Go ahead, Robert. In your, uh, the, uh, article that you wrote in this

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collection called The Legacy of Anomie Theory, yes, you write at considerable length and detail about the role of microenvironments on the shaping of people's thinking, the ways they define problems, how they go about them, and so on. Specifically, by

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microenvironments we mean the context of teachers and students and fellow students and so on when we deal with face-to-face interaction and how that shapes our thought. Uh, you deal with this subject mostly in relationship to the

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development of anomie theory, which the original, the founding document was, I think, 1937 SSNA 38 38, uh, the, uh, in dealing with the elaboration of anomie theory, uh, the contributions that students made to its further elaboration, and so on. I don't recall

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that there is any discussion of that nature about the initial formulation of the paper itself, the first rather brief document called Social Structure and Anomie, which later on took on a life of its own and grew and grew and

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grew. But, uh, I, and I've wondered about that. How do you, do you have any reflections on the way in which your own encounters with teachers and students, so on, or whatever, bore upon the initial formulation of this rather powerful idea?

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Oh, I have a very, very distinct, uh, recollection, which I think is in part confirmed here and there by documentary materials. Uh, I wasn't fully aware of it at the time. This is in retrospect. It all started for me in the

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early 1930s when I was a graduate student at, uh, Harvard and, uh, became interested in what was emerging as a functional orientation in sociological thought, largely derivative from the functional work of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski in anthropology and

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deriving my opinion ultimately from Durkheim. And so, uh, when I finished my own studies, formal studies as a graduate student, I, uh, wanted to develop a formal exposition of what functional analysis amounted to, and in the event I

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did. And as was to be the case for the rest of my academic life, I developed it in lectures to students to begin with. So there was the, uh, microenvironment to begin with. Uh, I don't know whether the year that

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you were in the course in which I presented that, do you recall whether, uh, I dealt with Social Structure and Anomie? And

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oh yes, I first encountered it during that course, 1939, and that's why I have distinguished between what I call AO

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publication, which, as the term suggests, means thinking allowed in the presence of some audience, and printed publication. Publication, by the way, uh, you may think that's an oxymoron. AO publication seems to clash as a notion, but of course it doesn't. Puara means to

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make public, and you can do it in any number of ways, including the current one, which is oral publication going on at this very moment. So, uh, how did that end up in SSNA? In my opinion, the following way: I

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developed something I called a paradigm of functional analysis. Now, this was a quarter century or so before Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions gave a very special and powerful meaning to the notion of paradigm. I had a, a, a more

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limited notion, namely a formal statement of the underlying assumptions, the fundamental concepts, the problematics, and the mode in which this kind of analysis would take course. And doing that, I became powerfully impressed by the way in which functional

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analysis had centered on functions, on the positive consequences of structures and of agent actors operating within social structures. And so I turned to the correlative notion of dysfunctions, the notion I took from medicine and biology, and started to look at the

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dysfunctions, the negative consequences for the structure and for individual classes of individuals within the structure of anything that was being explored. And so it was, uh, when I presented, uh, some ideas on bureaucracy, I focused on the dysfunctions of

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bureaucracy, whereas Marx Weber, who of course created the tradition of work in bureaucracy, had only, uh, centered on positive function. Uh, when I came to, uh, think of social conformity, I said, but what about social deviation, deviant behavior? And again, it

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was on what seems to be dysfunctional, but I assumed, concluded that that wasn't the interesting problem. As you know, the problem was what makes for, what makes for deviant behavior, and particularly for differential rates of deviant behavior among various parts of the

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population. So that's the most general theoretical context of how SSNA appeared in the lectures at first and then found print in 1938. You mentioned, uh, I think, like feudal societies, for example, where most people are poor, where discrepancies in wealth are

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enormous, uh, and where deviance may be on a very small scale. And I remember, if I may hearken back to my own first impressions when I first read Social Structure and Anomie, you make that point there. And to my

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mind, the principal meaning or intent, perhaps, of that essay was to talk about differences amongst systems. Yeah, sort of cross-cultural comparative sociology of deviance. And I thought, wow, this is great. Uh, but it's my impression that the theory has seldom been used that way.

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Most people think of it as a theory of deviance in the United States. There's no question, Al, that you've pinpointed an aspect of the original formulation which is central to the original formulation, and secondly that it was never followed up either by me or

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in any substantial scale by others. If you go back to the various editions of SSNA, and there have been about five over a period of, uh, 20 years or so, uh, I, I simply put the comparative analysis to one side just as you declared.

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For what reasons? Simply because, uh, my style is not that of a comparativist. It is an effort to focus on the, what shall I say, the internal workings of a society and move in that direction. But the original paper starts

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with the comparative mode just as you've outlined it. And it's an interesting, uh, to me an interesting example of a very, uh, very widespread phenomenon in the history of science, namely, uh, the emergence of ideas that are carried a certain distance and then

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are lost and viewed and then are rediscovered often independently, independently, and developed. In fact, uh, two of my colleagues, Harriet Zuckerman, the sociologist, and Joshua Lerner and Noel, a biologist, have jointly published a paper called Postmature Discoveries to refer to that

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phenomenon, namely a discovery that could have been made. There were no obstacles to it, no technical obstacles. Time was ripe? No, it is time is ripe is a cheap, meaningless, uh, superficial evasion of the problem. It's, it's discarding the problem too

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easily. You have to identify in what respects the time was not right, but I won't get into that. At any rate, in my case, you, you've said it all for me. Uh, my style of work was not comparativist. I

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was led to think of the comparative context. If I hadn't, it wouldn't have led me to the focus of anomie on American society as distinctive. And the anomaly, the paradox, the irony was here is the American dream that, in its own way, inadvertently

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contributes to high rates of deviant behavior when coupled with a social structure, class structure, I repeat, ethnic structure, gender structure that makes for differential access to the opportunity structure, the changing opportunities not only for economic success. I

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want to emphasize that. To my mind, SSNA deals with access to all sorts of opportunities: making friendships, entering into different social and cultural systems. Put this discussion now in the framework of quote String Theory. Okay, uh, the, I think it was Travis Hershey who

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uh, first used the expression to characterize a whole class of theories more recently. Uh, AGU has been talking about

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I elaborate on the question but I won't it would help me enormously Al if you were to take a minute or so to give your your understanding of the two kinds of strength Theory not because I am publicly announcing my ignorance I just

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finished the forward to a forthcoming book called the future of adimy theory edited by nipus and Robert agnu in the in that volume which I read with some care there's a great deal about strength Theory just as there is in the recent

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volume the legacy of animy theory but it would I think for our conversation would help me enormously if you'd give a a succinct summary of what you take to be these two versions of strin theory and then I'll try to

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[Music] respond you mean Hershey and agnu or uh I thought I was going to get to ask the questions today after all these years uh well Hershey uh identifies a whole class of theories um that uh purport to uh

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explain the Deviant as a consequence of something aberrational something wrong something that's gone wrong somewhere that U theories that are built on the premise that Conformity is more or less natural because man is a social being and uh so you explain deviants by uh uh

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finding psychological or other kinds of deprivations and problems and so on um and so you would be a strin theorist I would be a strin theorist and um they uh is in contrast to the notion that devian comes more or less naturally

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to people what has to be accounted for is Conformity uh agnu uh and inant I have the feeling that when Hershey uses the term there's something pejorative about it it's clear where he stands well no question the U

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when agno uses the term strin theory he uh he he accepts uh as social anomy theory as as legitimate and powerful and uh and deserving of high respect but he he said there are at the center of of uh

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anim theory is a notion of strain the no attendant upon disjunction right between gods and and so on so people feel strained and devian is one way of resolving the strain or dealing with it and he said well there are lots

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of other kinds of strain that people can experience growing out of all kinds of socially structured circumstances and otherwise and he wants to investigate those across the board uh then anom theory in which strain is a function of

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a particular structural situation becomes one instance amongst many uh and it was really mainly to your thoughts about that that my question was directed well I I I think I showed unaccustomed wisdom in asking you to summarize it because I couldn't have

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done it with such a finesse um just a word or two about Travis Hershey I think you captured the essential argument and uh the reason I don't find it compelling or leading to any modification let alone rejection of social structure an anomy thought is

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that it is essentially a a an evaluated but judgmental remark that uh I why do you make these assumptions but the assumption is not there the imputed assumption is not in social structure Anatomy at all that is to say the most

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the modal response in social structure and thaty four-fold table the very first one is Conformity that's right and that is not assume to be necessarily a psychological attribute again but because social systems provide the bait the reward systems the reward and

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Punishment systems to make for conformity so his premise which he imputes to me is one that has no place in the original argument so that's so much for Hershey if he were here I'm sure the conversation would go

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further uh with regard to the agu again where I think you capture both the core of his uh argument precisely I agree with that I agree with the core of his argument uh and uh the only departure that I would propose

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from what he is suggesting is that social structure Anatomy is not that special a case not that delimited a case and let me try to elucidate that you may recall well as I've been saying every five or 10 years

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in print over a 50 or 60 year per 60e period now uh look fellows it's all in the original statement and in the subsequent uh paradigmatic essays on anomy theory that I've put forward from time to time it is all there namely the theory is

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not introduced to account only for deviant Behavior with regard to economic success it is much more General than that the very notion of opportunity structure once it was introduced namely as changes in the distribution and character of opportunities in the course

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of time which has its own problematics that I don't go into what produces those changes in Opportunity structure but those don't refer only to economic matters we have opportunity to find a mate and that was one of the

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earliest uh applications I gave when you have different distributions of men and women what we used to call boys and girls uh in a local community you are influencing the opportunity structure finding a suitable mate they are not

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only the numbers of the two genders the two Sexes but their class distribution and a whole set of such problems and so Peter black has been developing that over the past 20 or 30 years that implication of opportunity Structure

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Theory so my only difference with Robert agnu is he I think is understandably focused on Deviant Behavior but ssna is not confined uh confined to phenomena of deviant that's been that was its source that was its focus but it is an effort

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to deal with differential access to differing opportunity structures now uh we're at a point now Al I feel where we need a a seminar for at least a semester or a year or so to explore the question you've introduced but I think it's

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important that you got it on on the record so say on this AAL record there have been papers on the application or applicability of uh anom Theory opportunity Structure Theory to uh white collar crime more specifically the the crimes and the

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devian of organizations but I would say collectivities when I say collectivities I'm emphasizing the fact that these organizations are socially treated as actors that do things and uh this raises some questions about the fit or the relevance of a notion

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like opportunities anom me the whole the whole thing to explaining the behavior of organizations and I think especially the problem of our organizations can they legit legitimately be treated as entities as actors or just a lot of people or

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whatever well the focus there it's it's a correlative of course it's quite recent development is a correlative to both anime Theory and to southerland's differential association theory I say it's a correlative because as you know I am so delighted you were introduced as

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my student because for decades I have said well that's been lost sight of since uh most historians of social science would say that Albert K Cohen was southerland's student well I think we can share you anyway back to your

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that's a digression and the some of us tend to digress uh in variably and I'm Bel in that uh category uh Southern really introduced a minor revolution of thought when he introduced the very term and concept of white C

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crime and that meant that you no longer could uh assume that official crime statistics for example as gathered up by the FBI and that's a long story we can't go into to here uh may give a somewhat misleading notion of the distribution of

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deviant Behavior now with this new focus on Deviant behavior of organizations rather than of individuals in certain social uh positions uh combines organizational analysis and deviant Theory deviant Behavior Analysis uh I think uh that in large degree ssna

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Theory can can in part be applied to those phenomena of organizational deviant if you think about the reward system in of organizations they they're rewarded for growth they are rewarded for as growth as registered let's say in the stock

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price they the individuals who man the organization in turn are being judged within the reward system over the short run as we know now if you think about that there's a gold definition of how have you been doing recently which puts

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enormous pressure on those occupants of the positions who are uh those occup an of positions in organizations that are responsible or judged responsible for the outcome so you you do have so to say a shared a collective concern with

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getting on with it and some fraction of the response to that will lead to the kinds of organizational misbehavior that has now become uh so familiar I don't think that uh it is simp uh historically contingent as I've just

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indicated because some of those same pressures probably existed earlier but you can see how there is a formal resemblance between the shape of such analys the shape of such organizational analysis and the structure of anim Theory for

Topics:Robert K. Mertonanomie theoryfunctional analysissocial devianceAmerican Dreamsociologymicroenvironmentsbureaucracysocial structureoral history interview

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the significance of microenvironments in Merton's theory?

Microenvironments, such as interactions between teachers and students, shape how people define problems and think, influencing the development of sociological theories like anomie.

How did Merton's concept of dysfunction differ from previous sociological views?

Merton introduced the idea of dysfunctions, focusing on the negative consequences of social structures, whereas earlier sociologists like Max Weber emphasized only positive functions.

Why did Merton focus anomie theory primarily on American society?

Although the original formulation was comparative, Merton's research style favored focusing on internal workings of society, leading him to emphasize the American context and its unique social structure.

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