All language subtitles for Robert K. Merton

Today is May 15th, 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 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 article that

you wrote in this collection

called The Legacy of Anomie

Theory, you write at

considerable length and detail

about the role of

micro-environments on the

shaping of people's thinking,

the ways they define problems,

how they go about them, and so on.

Specifically, by

micro-environments, we mean the

context of teachers and

students and fellow students

and so on, whom we deal with

in face-to-face interaction and

how it shapes our thought.

You deal with this subject

mostly in relationship to the

development of Anomy Theory,

which the founding document

was, I think, 1937?

38.

38.

38.

In dealing with the elaboration of Anomie Theory,

the contributions that students

made to its further

elaboration and so on.

I don't recall

that there is any discussion

of that nature

of that nature

about the paper itself.

about the paper itself.

The first rather brief document

Which later took a life on its own.
And grew, and grew, and grew...

I've wondered about that...

Do you have any reflections on
the way your own encounters with teachers

and students and so on... or whatever

Bore upon the initial formulation

of this rather powerful idea.

I have a very distinct recollection

Which I think is in part confirmed

here and there by documentary materials

I wasn't fully aware of it at the time.
This is in retrospect.

It all started for me in the early 1930s

when I was a graduate student at Harvard

and became interested in what was

emerging as a functional orientation in sociological thought.

Largely derrivative from the functional work of
Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski in anthropolgy
and deriving ultimately in my opinion from Durkheim.

And so when I finished my

own studies, formal studies as

a graduate student, I wanted

to develop a formal exposition

of what functional analysis

amounted to.

And in the event, I 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 a

microenvironment to begin with.

I don't know whether the year

that you were in the course

in which I presented that, do

you recall whether I dealt

with the social structure anomie?

Oh yes, I first encountered

it during that course, 1939.

And that's why I distinguish

between what I call oral

publication, which as the term

suggests, means thinking it

aloud in the presence of some

audience, and printed publication.

Publication, by the way, you

may think that's an oxymoron.

Aural publication seems to

clash as a notion, but of

course it doesn't.

Publication means to make

public, and you can do it in

any number of ways, including

the current one, which is

auto publication going on at

this very moment.

So how did that end up in

SSNA, in my opinion, the following way?

I developed something I called

a paradigm of functional analysis.

Now this was a quarter

century or so before Tom

Kuhn's structure of scientific

revolutions gave a very

special and powerful meaning

to the notion of paradigm.

I had a more 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 in doing that, I became

powerfully impressed by the

way in which functional

analysis had centered on

functions, on the positive

consequences of structures and

of 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 dysfunctions, the

negative consequences for the

structure and for classes of

individuals within the

structure of anything that was

being explored.

And so it was, when I

presented some ideas on

bureaucracy, I focused on the

dysfunctions of bureaucracy,

whereas Max Weber, who of

course created the tradition

of working bureaucracy, had

only centered on positive functions.

And when I came to think of

social conformity, I said, but

what about social deviation,

deviant behavior?

And again, it was on what

seems to be dysfunctional.

But I soon concluded that

that wasn't the interesting

problem, as you know.

The problem was what makes

for deviant behavior, and

particularly for differential

rates of deviant behavior,

among various parts of the 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, I think, by

feudal societies, for example,

where most people are poor,

where discrepancies in wealth

are enormous,

and where deviance may be on

a very small scale.

And I remember, if I may

harken back to my own first

impressions when I first read

Social Structure and Annamie.

You make that point there.

And to my mind, the principle

meaning or intent, perhaps, of

that essay was to talk about

differences amongst systems,

sort of cross-cultural,

comparative sociology of deviance.

And I thought, wow, this is great.

But it's my impression that

the theory has seldom been

used that way.

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 on 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 twenty years or so,

I simply put the comparative

analysis to one side, just as

you declared it.

For what reasons?

Simply because my style is

not that of a comparativist.

It is rather an effort to

focus on the internal workings

of a society and move in

that direction.

But the original paper starts

with the comparative mode,

just as you've outlined it.

I think that's an interesting,

to me, an interesting example

of a very widespread

phenomenon in the history of science.

Namely, the emergence of ideas

that are carried a certain

distance, and then are lost

in view, and then are rediscovered,

often independently,

independently and developed.

In fact, two of my

colleagues, Harriet Zuckerman,

a sociologist, and Joshua

Lederberg, a Nobel laureate biologist,

have jointly published a paper

called Post-Mature Discoveries

to refer to that phenomenon.

Namely, a discovery that could

have been made.

There were no obstacles to

it, no technical obstacles.

The time is right.

No, it is.

The time is right is a

cheap, meaningless, superficial

evasion of the problem.

It's discarding the problem too 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've said it all for me.

My style of work was not comparativist.

I was led to think of a

comparative context.

If I hadn't, it wouldn't have

led me to the focus on

American society as distinctive.

And the anomaly, the paradox,

the irony was here is the

American dream that in its

own way inadvertently

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 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.

To my mind, SSNA put this

discussion now in the

framework of, quote, strain theory.

Okay.

I think it was Travis Hershey

who first used the expression

to characterize a whole class

of theories.

More recently, Agnew has been

talking about general strain theory.

And these two contexts of use

are very, very different.

With respect to Agnew's work,

and his rather considerable, I

guess, following, I was

wondering what thoughts you

might have regarding the

placement of social structure

in anomie as an instance of

something called strain theory.

I can elaborate on the

question, but I won't prepare for it.

No.

It would help me enormously,

Al, if you were to take a

minute or so to give your

understanding of the two kinds

of strain theory.

Not because I am publicly

announcing my ignorance.

I just finished the foreword

to a forthcoming book called

The Future of Anomie Theory,

edited by Nikos Pazsas and

Robert Agnew.

In that volume, which I read

with some care, there was a

great deal about strain

theory, just as there is in

the recent volume, The Legacy

of Anomie Theory.

But I think for our

conversation, it would help me

enormously if you'd give a

succinct summary of what you

take to be these two versions

of strain theory, and then

I'll try to respond.

Particularly if I can-

Wait, you say two versions?

You mean Hershey and Agnew?

Yeah.

Well, I thought I was going

to get to ask the questions

today after all these years.

Well, Hershey identifies a

whole class of theories that

purport to explain deviance as

a consequence of something

aberrational, something wrong,

something that's gone wrong somewhere.

Theories that are built on

the premise that conformity is

more or less natural because

man is a social being.

And so you explain deviance

by finding psychological or

other kinds of deprivations

and problems and so on.

And so you would be a strain

theorist, I would be a strain

theorist, and this is in

contrast to the notion that

deviance comes more or less

naturally to people.

Who has to be accounted for

is conformity.

Agnew, and incidentally, I

have the feeling that when

Hershey uses the term, there's

something pejorative about it.

Oh, no question.

Because it's clear where he stands.

Well, no question.

Well, no question.

When Agnew uses the term,

strain theory, he accepts

social anomie theory as

legitimate and powerful and

deserving of high respect.

But he said there are, at

the center of anomie theory,

is a notion of strain, a

tenant upon disjunction between

goals and means and so on,

so people feel strained.

And deviance is one way of

resolving the strain or

dealing with it.

And he said, well, there are

lots 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.

Then, an or me theory, in

which strain is a function of

a particular structural

situation, becomes one instance

amongst many.

And it was really mainly to

your thoughts about that, that

my question was directed.

Well, I think I showed

unaccustomed wisdom in asking

you to summarize it, because

I couldn't have done it with

such finesse.

Just a word or two about

Travis Hershey.

I think you captured the

essential argument.

And the reason I don't find

it compelling or leading to

any modification, let alone

rejection, of social structure

and anomie thought,

is that it is essentially an

evaluated but judgmental remark

that why do you make these assumptions.

But the assumption is not there.

The imputed assumption is not

in social structure and anomie at all.

That is to say, the modal

response in social structure

and anomie four-fold table,

the very first one, is conformity.

That's right.

And that is not assumed to

be necessarily a psychological

attribute again,

but because social systems

provide debate, the reward

systems, the reward and

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 further.

With regard to Viagno, again,

where I think you capture

both the core of his argument

precisely, I agree with that.

I agree with the core of his argument.

And the only departure that I

would propose from what he is

suggesting is that social

structure and anomie is not

that special a case, not that

delimited a case.

And let me try to elucidate that.

You may recall, well, I've

been saying every five or ten

years in print over a 50 or

60 year period.

Now, look, fellows, it's all

in the original statement and

in the subsequent paradigmatic

essays on anomie theory that

I've put forward from time to time.

It is all there.

Namely, the theory is 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 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 opportunities to find

a mate, and that was one of

the earliest applications I gave.

When you have different

distributions of men and

women, what we used to call

boys and girls,

in a local community, you are

influencing the opportunity

structure of finding a suitable mate.

They are not only the numbers

of the two genders, the two

sexes, but their class

distribution and a whole set

of such problems.

And so Peter Blau has been

developing that over the past

20 or 30 years, that

implication of opportunity

structure theory.

So my only difference with

Robert Agnew is he, I think,

is understandably focused on

deviant behavior.

But SSNA is not confined to

phenomena of deviance.

That was its source. That was

its focus.

But it is an effort to deal

with differential access to

differing opportunity structures.

Now, we are at a point now,

Al, I feel, where we need a

seminar for at least a

semester or a year or so

to explore the question

you've introduced.

But I think it's important

that you got it on the

records, I would say, on this

aural record.

There have been papers on the

application or applicability of

anomie theory, opportunity

structure theory, to

white-collar crime.

More specifically, the crimes

and the deviance 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 this raises some questions

about the fit or the

relevance of a notion like

opportunities, anomie, the whole

thing, to explaining the

behavior of organizations.

And I think especially the

problem of organizations.

Can they legitimately be

treated as entities, as

actors, or just a lot of

people or whatever?

Well, the focus there, it's a

correlative, of course.

It's quite recent development

as a correlative to both

anomie theory and to

Sutherland's differential

association theory.

I say it's a correlative

because, as you know, I am

so delighted you were

introduced as my student,

because for decades I have said,

well, that's been lost sight

of since most historians of

social science would say that Albert K.

Cohen was Sutherland's student.

Well, I think we can share you.

Anyway, back to your-

that's a digression.

And some of us tend to

digress variably, and I belong

in that category.

Sutherland really introduced a

minor revolution of thought

when he introduced the very

term and concept of white-collar crime.

And that meant that you no

longer could assume that the

official crime statistics, for

example, as gathered up by the FBI-

and that's a long story we

can't go into here- may give

a somewhat misleading notion

of the distribution of

deviant behavior.

Now, with this new focus on

deviant behavior of

organizations rather than of

individuals in certain social

positions, combines

organizational analysis and

deviant behavior analysis.

I think that in the large

degree, SSNA theory can in

part be applied to those

phenomena of organizational deviance.

If you think about the reward

system of organizations,

they're rewarded for growth.

They are rewarded for as

growth as registered, let's

say, in the stock price.

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 is a goal definition of

how have you been doing

recently, which puts enormous

pressure on those occupants of

the positions who are-

those occupants of positions

in organizations that are

responsible or judge

responsible for the outcome.

So you do have, so to say,

a shared, a collective concern

with getting on with it and

some fraction of the response

to that will lead to the

kinds of organizational

misbehavior that has now

become so familiar.

I don't think that it is

simply historically contingent,

as I've just 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

organizational analysis and the

structure of anomie theory.

Now, the last talk is due to

your time before the

opportunity to be continued on

in the morning.

The time has been, it's been

developed for a while, so you

can see something in the morning.

You're following the morning,

but you're waiting for, but

you're the kind of the morning today.