Merton’s chief contributions are 1) the distinction between "manifest" and "latent" functions, 2) the recognition that some social actions are "dysfunctional", and 3) his exploration of the nature of "deviance." Manifest functions are the ‘official’ purposes of a social existent, the example used being the Hopi Indian rain ceremony. Latent functions are the unintended consequences of the action that still tend to contribute to social adjustment. And, finally, Merton acknowledges that not all social actions contribute positively to the social fabric. Those that do not, that actively hinder social equilibrium are dysfunctional actions.
The Functional approach is valuable because it requires the viewer to examine consequences of social action, undercutting the tendency to view social phenomena on a superficial level. First, it inhibits the casual dismissal of purportedly ir-rational acts as simply superstitious or stupid. Second, manifest and latent functions allow a theoretically useful framework within which to view into the facets of social phenomena. Third, the functional perspective affords a more sophisticated ethical and moral standpoint from which to form judgments of observed actions; again it performs an inhibiting function, this time on the tendency to make moral judgments on superficially understood (i.e., manifest only) explanations for behaviour. And, fourth, it replaces naive moral judgment with informed ethical positions, ones that encompass the complicated latent functions that lie beneath the advertised manifest functions of so much in the social arena.
Merton’s best-known work concerns deviance, that is, violation of or conformity to the norms of the social unit. Merton recognizes five levels of relationship to the norms of the unit which vary according to the individual’s acceptance of either the Goals of the Society or its Means, or both, or Neither. For that relationship which fully accepts both, Merton applies the label Conformity. At the other end of the spectrum, those who deny both, Merton ascribes the label Retreatism. In between are those who accept the Goals but not the Means -- who he calls Innovators -- and those who accept the Means but not the Goals -- the Ritualists. Outside this framework lies Rebellion which is characterized by rejection of the society’s entire format and an active desire to replace it such that neither its Means nor its Goals will be relevant to the equation any longer.
For me, it is Merton’s stress on the necessity of examining social phenomena for their unintended consequences, for the "unadvertised" effects they produce, that is most striking. Those "latent" yet incredibly potent social forces account for a great deal of our social problems, yet the answers proposed for those problems all too frequently continue to ignore them, or exacerbate them further in seeking to avoid acknowledging them.
Suggested Works by/about Robert K. Merton:
Come to Ipse Dixit to see what I'm talking about today.
Fold Space Back To Signal-To-Noise.
Fold Space Back To House Atreides.
© The Society for More Creative Speech, 1996
C. Dodd Harris IV, President and CEO.
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Date Last Modified: 9 July 2000.
