Theories of Social Structure

This being my first formal exposure to structuralism and post-structuralism, I find myself in a state of childlike wonder, newfound enlightenment, and outright bewilderment. With my background in the physical sciences, I naturally tend towards the propositions made by structuralism. But my natural skepticism towards claims of truth and my general distrust of authority, entice me towards a post-structuralist spirit. Here I’ll attempt to explain what I believe to be the central ideas of structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralism, and how and why they were developed.

Structuralism was a direct answer to humanism’s claims of existentialism and free agency and saw the individual as an “effect of impersonal forces” (Seidman, 1994). Perhaps originally influenced by Marx, Freud, Durkheim, Compte, and others, it proposed the existence of identifiable social structures that influence the conscious decisions of individuals. The most important promoters of the concept, however, were Saussure and Levi-Strauss who both sought to establish a near-empirical methodology or foundation for the social sciences (Seidman, 1994). Levi-Strauss hoped that structuralism might “play the same renovating role with respect to the social sciences that nuclear physics, for example, has played for the physical sciences” (Lévi-Strauss, 1958).

Structuralism, with its foundations in positivist thought, sought to accomplish this by first constructing or defining an object of study since, unlike the nuclear physicist, the social sciences did not have an ‘atom’ on which to objectively observe (Holm, 2013). The structuralists proposed that while humans can make conscious subjective decisions, they are influenced unconsciously by universal social structures (Holm, 2013). Thus, from this theoretical anti-humanist viewpoint, humans cannot be used to explain the social sciences but rather, the social sciences should be used to understand human consciousness (Holm, 2013).

Structuralism provided, not just linguistics, but the social sciences at large, a clear methodology. It presents the ability to uncover the underlying universal structure, and as such, understood the important influence of social structures or codes on the individual (Barthes, 1972). But, with the social unrest in 1968 France, Seidman points out that “the renewal of social activism and the experience of social life as fluid and changeable made structuralism, with its scientific formalism, seem irrelevant” (Seidman, 1994). Structuralism seemed incapable of coping with rapid social instability and change.

Semiotics, the study of language as a system of signs, was an important development in linguistics that helped demonstrate the explanatory utility of a structuralist philosophy. It too was developed by Saussure as there was a desire to systematize linguistics and use it to uncover the bonds or relationships that “existed between languages often separated geographically by great distances” (de Saussure, 1910). Furthermore, Saussure believed that “language plays such a considerable role in human societies, and is a factor of such importance both for the individual human being and human society”, that it holds the key to understanding social behaviour (de Saussure, 1910). Saussure was detailed in his explanation of language seen through semiotics. The first necessary assumption was that language has a discernible structure that can be studied and understood (de Saussure, 1910). Next is that language should be studied synchronically not diachronically since understanding how the underlying structure works is more important than understanding how the structure was formed over time (Saussure). According to Saussure, the langue must be studied first, only once the structures of the langue have been identified can parole be understood (de Saussure, 1910). Possibly the most important assertion of semiotics is that language is arbitrary and built on a system of differences (de Saussure, 1910).

To better understand this, let us imagine the situation in which language first arose during an exchange between two individuals. The first individual has two near-identical objects, one they will keep for themselves, and the other they will gift to the second individual. The first individual would like to know which of the two objects the second individual would prefer, however, for whatever reason, the act of simply pointing cannot suffice. The first object is held up and a sound is uttered, perhaps of an onomatopoeic nature. The second object is held up and the same sound is uttered. However, this provides no utility. The process starts again. The first object is held up and the same sound uttered. The second object is held up but this time, a different sound is uttered in order to differentiate between the two objects. While the first sound might resemble an inherent quality of the object, the sound assigned to the second object cannot resemble the same inherent quality since the objects appear the same. The sound assigned to the second object is uttered simply to differentiate it from the first. The second sound is intentionally different from the first for the explicit purpose of identifying what it is not. The second object is not the first object.

While semiotics and structuralism provided highly influential and convenient ways to pursue truth, the ensuing post-structuralist movement highlighted “the inherently unstable patterns of linguistic and therefore subjective and social order” (Seidman, 1994).

The social uprisings in the late 1960’s in France demanded a new way to examine societal structures and hierarchies that neither structuralism nor Marxism, with their limited scope, could satisfy (Seidman, 1994). In light of these societal changes in France, post-structuralism was influenced by the societal critiques of Derrida and later by Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Foucault (Seidman, 1994). Other than its antihumanistic perspective, post-structuralism shared little with structuralism (Seidman, 1994). Its deconstructive approach, incessant rebellion against authority, politics of hierarchy subversion, and its belief that meanings are based on differences but are not fixed, laid a fertile soil in which these thinkers could grow their ideas.

Lyotard I find to be particularly interesting, primarily because of his discussions of narratives. He contended that “in premodern societies, narrative types of knowledge prevailed” and that social order was more important than truth (Seidman, 1994). In contrast to that he proposed that modernity, especially modern science, “is characterized by an assault on narrative knowledge” (Seidman, 1994). This might explain the explicit push in the sciences towards ‘narrative story-telling’, a very common proposed method of communicating and winning over audiences to the gospel of science. While I hear this term ‘storytelling’ uttered by scientists at nauseum, I’m not convinced they even understand what they mean other that they feel desperate to legitimize their knowledge and themselves as knowledge-keepers. According to Lyotard, these narratives that modern science aims to perpetuate are in fact metanarratives which attempt to legitimize by creating a master narrative about its unique ability to uncover objective truths (Seidman, 1994). However, in the book Teaching the Nature of Science, Douglas Allchin points out the overlaying danger in teaching science students that the physical sciences have uncovered natural laws, symbols of universal truth, like Newton’s laws of motion since, as Einstein’s theory of relativity demonstrates, these laws are not universally true (2014).

Though complex in its propositions and highly sophisticated as a deconstructive tool, I feel that post-structuralism’s obsession over deconstructing hierarchies and eliminating oppression is lacking in its moral or practical justification. Why must these be deconstructed? What are the benefits of removing existing hierarchies, and for who? Might existing social structures and institutions be serving not just the interests of the few, but of many? What, if any, is the utopian vision?

References

Allchin, D. (2014). Teaching the Nature of Science: Perspectives & Resource. Science Education, 98(6), 1111–1113. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21131

Barthes, R. (1972). The structuralist activity. In Critical essays (pp. 213–220).

de Saussure, F. (1910). Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910-1911). In Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910-1911). Pergamon Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/c2009-0-01313-0

Holm, A. B. (2013). Philosophy of science : an introduction for future knowledge workers (Frederiksberg C (ed.)). Samfundslitteratur.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1958). Structural Anthropology Chapter II. In A. Lane (Ed.), Structural Anthropology. The Penguin Press. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/levistra.htm

Seidman, S. (1994). The French Poststructuralists. In Contested knowledge : social theory in the postmodern era (pp. 194–222). Blackwell.