THIS is a continuation from a previous introductory post, the objective here is to briefly review Derek Layder’s critique of Elias and then, in a future post, his noting of Margaret Archer’s neglect of a domain level analysis of size i.e. level of analysis as sociological category. Layder makes the point that Elias, a proponent of process analysis, blurs differences between both objective structure (which has no relative independence apart from individuals) and meaningful intentional acts (individuals are part of chains of interdependence). There is no real objective/subjective dualism, at most the objective conditions, or figurations, arise out of the “processes and structures of interweaving, the figurations formed by the actions of interdependent people” e.g. the rules of a dance sequence may be independent of individuals performing a given dance act but not of acting individuals proper, as if it is some form of abstract mental phenomena. In other words, structures are reducibly performative acts of current individuals, in society, and have no independence apart from these same actors, to quote Elias “… yet on another on another level of awareness one may know perfectly well that societies are composed of individuals, and that individuals can only possess specifically human characteristics such as their abilities to speak, think and live, in and through relationships with other people -”in society”"
As objective conditions and acting individuals are not conceptualised as irreducible, Layder (1986) argues we are left with the following irrevocable conceptual errors – quotes are direct from Layder (1986):
- “Thus Elias’s usage stands in stark contrast to the idea of interdependencies, for example, in an interactionist context, where the processual relationism is both cause and consequence of interactional emergents which are articulated through the meaning conferring, interpretive skills of intentional, self-reflexive social actors. This is the great strength of the phenomenological and interactionist schools; their concern with the nature and consequences of intentional social action. Whilst he often covers himself by making nominal reference to intentions, in actuality Elias is concerned with people only from the point of view of their being links in chains of interdependence. The only things that could be said to ‘act’ are the never shifting balances of power between people.”
- The notion of the reproduction of social relations as a theoretical problem – “In this respect Elias’s position leads to a strange conception of social ontology which suggests that whilst change and process are ubiquitous and ever present in figurations of individuals, there are no relatively enduring external structures whose rates of change and mechanisms of change are relatively independent of these figurations … In short, Elias provides no reason to accept that all aspects of social reality change at the same rate, and for the same reasons as figurational changes”
Regarding the first point, the implication being “the ‘person’ as an individual with a unique psychobiography and self-identity is submerged in social process virtually without trace” After all, with no barriers or distinctions between the social world and the individual, lest we reify/reduce individuals to core psychological and cognitive states, the relative endurance of cognitive conditions (e.g. consider the examples psychosis, autism etc.), we will not be able to adequately consider the influence, among many influences, of the cognitive neurosciences and how they give for a unique individual mediation and intersection “with the dynamics of particular situations and the influence of wider social contexts to determine a person’s behaviour” (Layder 2005: 148). Further, interactionist approaches, though confirming and affirming causal powers to the acting individual, as “are articulated through the meaning conferring, interpretive skills of intentional, self-reflexive social actors”, are prone to acknowledging these powers as derivative of an already social identity. Thus the filter is reduced to an utterly socialised self – the dynamics of the situation rely on the common stock of conceptual interpretive schemes. Thus the importance of drawing the lines between the inner world and its external environment is twofold:
- In the reflexive mediation and interpretation of this world, that can only be processed through an individual consciousness i.e. motivation & intentionality (Dewey’s reflex arc);
- An a-social cognitive framework that is not a mere derivative of its sociality but irreducible and relatively independent of any intersubjectivity. I will argue in a future post that this pre-disposition, while not reflexive awareness proper, influences a unique reflexive capacity or aboutness i.e. we can only have a mind with a prior social self but this mind is not exclusively formed (as Mead would argue) in reference to an objective ‘Me’. For example, Mead states “That is, it is only as the individual finds himself acting with reference to himself as he acts towards others, that he becomes a subject to himself rather than an object, and only as he is affected by his own social conduct in the manner in which he is affected by that of others, that he becomes an object to his own social conduct. The differences in our memory presentations of the “I” and the “me” are those of the memory images of the initiated social conduct and those of the sensory responses thereto.” However, between images of initiated social conduct and the sensory response thereto are filtering, irreducible and relationally emergent mechanisms – these affect how meaning is perceived. An encompassing explanatory power requires that we take this into account (why do people behave as they do in social situations cannot be reduced or made an epiphenomenon of sociality), as an influencing factor on the dynamics of the situation and the influence of wider social context. Again, this will be further investigated in a future post on domain level analysis.
Second, and this follows directly from above – the interplay between individual and objective condition (or figurations of interdependence). Can we conceptualise social products and their emergence, over time and subsequent reproduction (morphostasis), as reducible to those acting them in social life? We have facts about the act, performance and rules but nothing about why they appear as they do (agentic mediation) or why they exist in that form (objective structure, including possession of power and privilege – Elias conceptualises power in terms of relational power ratios but not as quantity of relatively enduring structures of power, that are static and relatively independent of the incumbent occupiers of roles e.g. teacher and student). As there is no distinction we lose the explanatory powers of “interpretive skills of intentional, self-reflexive social actors.” (e.g. in individualist approaches) or the idea of social structure as relatively autonomous, pre-existent of current performers and causally efficacious. If there is no interplay, as there is no distinction, it follows we cannot adequately explain both the mediation of structure and the figuring of structure upon this mediation. Hence we can make two points that are neglected (1) continued emergence in terms of reproduction and hence its temporal pre-existence; (2) Its future tense emergence in terms of transformation. Thus Layder makes the insightful point that Elias was caught up in a sophisticated form of empiricism i.e. the simultaneously of present figurations (the observable phenomena that is process) but without the historicity of emergence that requires the recognition of underlying mechanisms of a stratified conception of both objective sociality and its mediating agency.
In the next post, I wish to consider the situation as mediating, rather than the internal conversation as reflexivity, as stated by Archer. I believe a consideration of mediation through the situation will open analysis to a much more richer terrain and considers the nature of face-to-face encounters and both lower and higher levels of embodied sociality. A level analysis complements this approach and this is something I wish to move to next…
Further Reading:
