Re: Functionalist Dilemma

Phil Graham (pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au)
Sun, 14 Mar 1999 23:04:02 +1000

Thanks for the summary, Jay.

At 23:47 12-03-99 -0500, Jay wrote:
>As others have noted, "functionalism" has acquired rather different and
>even contradictory meanings in different disciplinary and national
>traditions in the human sciences.

For me, the discussion of various aspects of functionalism reminds me that
I started theorising (reading/thinking/writing) in earnest to overcome
paradigmatic strictures (among other things). At one time, the rankling
sound of the words "paradigm incompatible" would send me crazy. Not because
I can't appreciate the subtle aspects of coherent thought and the
underpinning assumptions upon which such thought rests, but moreso because
of the intellectual bigotry that appears to flow from slotting particular
people's work (past and present) into particular neat paradigms.

Often, it appears to me that people who say "x theorist is a y, therefore
you can't mix their useful bits with theory z" (where y = functionalist,
radicalist, this or that deterministic, post- this or that, interpretivist,
positivist - as if we all weren't at one time or another in a given
argument one or the other or all twent-seven) haven't even read much of the
material they've neatly classified. It's like they've just been taught to
take a position and so they do.

This is not directed at anyone on this list or anyone in particular at all.
It's more like me thinking out loud and sharing my own past and present
frustrations.

I'm still trying to break free of the strictures of paradigmatic bigotry
(including my own) in an effort to understand society more clearly. Perhaps
in another 100 years ... Stuck inside here, it's hard to see back in.

Somebody pass the really big mirror, please, and turn on the very bright
lights. ... On second thought ... perhaps that would be too terrifying.

Phil

Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
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Mr Gibbon?" - The Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon upon the publication
of "Decline and Fall".
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