A Blueprint for Inclusion: Talcott Parsons, the Societal Community and the Future of Universalistic Solidarities

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A Blueprint for Inclusion: Talcott Parsons, the Societal Community and the Future of Universalistic Solidarities Giuseppe Sciortino 1 Accepted: 22 October 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020

Abstract In the last decades of his life, Talcott Parsons was often indicted as conservative. More recently, his analyses of contemporary society have been perceived as obsolete. In the present paper, I argue that both these accounts are wrong. Parsons’s biographical and intellectual profile is clearly – and rather consistently – that of a New Deal liberal. His “ate” works, moreover, articulate an original view of the integrative processes in modern societies that is still both theoretically compelling and politically relevant. Parsons’s view of modernity has made possible the development of a sophisticated theory of societal pluralism, able to deal analytically with the astonishing variety of structural strains (and resources) arising from an increasingly diverse – in racial, religious, ethnic, sexual and moral terms - membership in contemporary societies. His sociological enthusiasm for inclusion has never been blind to the likelihood of backlashes and the strength of discontent such inclusion may bring. His work provides thus some important directions in the current storm. Keywords Talcott Parsons . Inclusion . Pluralism . Multiculturalism . Modernization

The great question […] is, I think, more empirical than theoretical. It concerns the balance among the alternative responses to value-innovation. […] Which is more important: (1) fundamentalist regression to more primitive levels, (2) schismatic revolutionary outcomes, which will tend to maximize conflicts, or (3) institutionalization of new levels of generality in value systems? Sociology has a grave responsibility to clarify the understanding of what is going on and of what lies at stake in the balance among these possibilities. (Parsons, 1969:472) * Giuseppe Sciortino [email protected]; https://orcid.org/0000–0002–7210–8016

1

Dipartimento di Sociologia e ricerca sociale, Università di Trento, Trento, Italy

The American Sociologist

Parsons’s work has suffered a peculiar fate. For quite a long time, his analyses of contemporary societies have been indicted as “conservative”. Many critics have claimed his complex theoretical framework was nothing but a jargon-laden smokescreen designed to mask the fundamental injustice of contemporary society. For decades, the claim that Parsons’s sociology was conservative – if not utterly reactionary – was taken as an undisputable fact. The figure of Talcott Parsons became so politically tainted that even accusing him of having been a Nazi-smuggler become feasible (Wiener, 1989; Wrong, 1996). If somebody tried to salvage something from such damnation, the choice would always fall on his early works. A popular tale told of a “young” Parsons whose ideas had not been yet spoiled by his later sins. The young Parsons was “voluntarist”, interested in social change, seriously concerned with the shortcomings of the capitalist order. The l