Slow Day at the Office

I suppose this blogging thing requires vigilance. Today was a slow day: stocks plummeted, Obama produced little new, the Senate predictably said the public option would be out there, I taught two classes, and the baseball world took a deep breath in preparation for the World Series.

Moreover, I am personally digging deep into some work. I have been trying to balance two projects. The first is meant to convert my dissertation into a book, something much more challenging than I had anticipated. And the second is a much larger project that is looking to explain the Axial Age, and apply this general theory case-by-case. This is where I think I may lose some of you, because you might be more interested in my political ideas/harangues, as well as my other random thoughts. But, today, I am going to go sociological on your asses...sorry.

Here is the thing: how do I talk about institutions in a way that is accessible to a larger audience whilst staying true to my sociological audience? Colloquially, we use the word institutions do describe everything: the Presidency, Yale or Harvard university, the handshake, In 'N' Out Burgers, marriage, patriarchy, democracy, capitalism...You get the point. But, when considering this list or whatever else pops into your mind, what exactly is an institution? Clearly it is something enduring; something that we cannot imagine not existing. In sociology, unfortunately, we make the same mistake. But a science strives for precision in its concepts, otherwise it risks ambiguity and problems when seeking explanations. Some of my colleagues don't believe in definitions, or social science for that matter. Choosing to ignore social forces that are unalterable, they opt for critical theories that propose utopian societies that cannot exist because of the simple social forces that are unalterable! Moreover, the obfuscate their arguments with 50-cent and $1 words that make them appear really intelligent, but actually enhance the vagaries of their discourse. Thus, we come to the problem: what is an institution?

This is what I study, essentially: the evolution of human institutions from 10,000 years ago to today. Institutions can be defined as constellations of individual and corporate (group) actors organized around and by universal human concerns and their adaptive satisfaction. In other words, actors -- like people and groups -- become distributed in social space based on their relative access to resources like power, prestige, love, or wealth. An easy example: parents are "vertically" higher in status because of their relative access to important resources in relationship to children; each child, likely based on age criteria, are also distributed differently in social space. But this brief discussion could also be used to define a group like McDonald's, a family, or a Church. What distinguishes an institution is that it consists of a bunch of groups who are oriented towards satisfying some universal human concern. Six institutions appear ubiquitous: kinship, polity, religion, economy, education, and law.

Each institution historically is the physical and symbolic location of a particular concern: kinship-biological/cultural reproduction; polity-defense, resource management, and internal conflict resolution; religion-communication with the supranatural and the moral order; economy-subsistence, both production and distribution; education-knowledge and truth; and law-justice/conflict resolution. These are real institutions. They vary in terms of their autonomy, or how distinct the actors, resources, and rules are in relation to each other. In a hunter/gatherer society, some 10,000 years ago, there were no full-time political actors like a president or king; there were no full-time religious actors, though shamans occasionally existed part-time or as patrons for clients; and there were no lawyers, judges, or courts. As societies grow in size and density, so does the complexity of the society. Conflict resolution and justice, for example, become problematic when there are greater numbers of people, living in denser settlements, and they become ethnically, occupationally, socioeconomically, or religiously heterogeneous. As these concerns become more frequently expressed, legal actors become more distinct from other types of actors. In a modern society like the U.S., we have lawyers, doctors, clergy, politicians, CEOs, teachers/professors, students, mothers/fathers/children, and artists. Each one of these roles are distinct in behaviors, appropriate time and space for which these behaviors are expected or obligated, sanctions for misbehavior, and unique symbolic elements -- that is, doctors wear ________ whereas judges wear _______? The fact that all of you can answer that the same way means that these roles have symbolic meanings distinct from each other.

Am I boring you yet? I hope not, because you might be asking me who cares? Well, sociology first emerged to answer the big question: why do people make the decisions they make and set the goals they set? Or, why do some people choose line of action to achieve a goal whereas someone else may choose a different one? Institutions exist to channel our behavior. It limits the decisions we make, the goals we set, and the lines of action available to us. Someone who derives a lot of their self-worth from being a professor rather than a father/mother or citizen, is more likely to orient their attitudes and actions towards the educational institution. Which means they are going to seek out social circles where their professor identity is likely to be activated; they are likely to understand problems or perceive things through the lens of a professor, even when the problem or event falls outside of their jobs. Another example may help: a judge who derives the majority of their wealth, power, and prestige from their legal role is more likely to make legal decisions based on legal principles vis-a-vis a judge who is less committed. Does this play out in real life? Yes. In very high profile case recently which pitted the Dover (Pennsylvania) School System against some people who felt intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution, we saw an Evangelical judge act counter commonsense. Most people, liberals especially, would be inclined to assume he would rule in favor of his religious values; instead, in his ruling he acknowledged these values, but noted the legal principles precluding him from allowing intelligent design into the classroom. Sociologically, this is relevant because commonsense is often wrong. A theory of institutions allows us to better predict, as well as understand/explain, the behavior of individuals and groups more empirically...

I am done now.