Sociology: Understanding Merton through Examples

Introduction
Merton indicates that crime should not be treated as dysfunctional phenomena
Mertonian social theories help a lot to understand the dynamics of social change in India.
For Merton every individual lives in hope, ambition and believes that success is achievable in life.

Introduction

Merton argues that sociology should not be devoted to studying only the "functions" that the roles of sociologists require to develop an empirical understanding of the functional, dysfunctional, and nonfunctional relationships between different social institutions in a given society. Therefore, he categorically rejects the claim that there is a universal functional role of every institution in society. Rather, the object of sociology should be the analysis of function, dysfunction and non-function. For example, students go to university to pursue academic degrees. They leave university with their diplomas and then enter the world of work. Here, the function of the university is to provide manpower for the labor/service industry. But what is usually forgotten is that the university is also a place of political socialization - students vote in elections, participate in campaigns on various subjects. In turn, these help students grow in the national political system. This implicit functional role of the education system must therefore be taken into account. There are also a number of dysfunctional roles of the university, including when students do not choose their own course based on their choices. They are carried away by the pressure of the market. Your interest in a particular stream of knowledge is lost. Parenthood becomes a pathological experience for the child. This could lead children to become disillusioned and drop out of the education system. Thus, Merton points out that each institution can have functional, dysfunctional, overt and/or latent roles.

Merton indicates that crime should not be treated as dysfunctional phenomena

Merton emphasizes that crime should not be treated as a dysfunctional phenomenon. People generally adhere to culturally prescribed means to achieve their goals; but in many cases they are unable to achieve their goals. There is a big gap between commitment to culture and achieving goals. This dichotomy leads to the manifest function of criminality, so deviance is present in all societies and deviants themselves have functional, dysfunctional and non-functional roles to play. So if we consider deviance as an action, we should not conclude that deviance has positive or negative roles to play. Deviations must therefore be examined in as much detail as possible. Merton took American culture into account, saying that it encouraged hard work and individualism, and that by adhering to these values, citizens could become wealthy regardless of race, gender, and age. America sees itself as a performance-driven society. However, it can be seen that many people, although bound by prescribed cultural norms, are not all able to achieve their goals. As a result, a gap is created between the means and the ends, leading to an acceleration of divergences and conflicts in American society. Moreover, Merton argues that there are different classes of people. There are conformists who adhere to institutionalized norms, some of whom achieve the goal, and others who do not feel that their goals will ever be achieved. But Merton argues that when his goals aren't met, it's hard to say his behavior is normal. Ritualists mainly carry out their work continuously according to the rules of law, return to training, but are never able to achieve their goal in life.

They follow the rules systematically and ritually, but in the end nothing comes to hand and they end up poor, marginalized and disadvantaged. They too are deviant because they cannot establish a correspondence between the means and the end. There are the innovators, who mainly use new methods, avoid culturally predetermined means, place more value on goals, manipulate rules and laws. Drug charges, corrupt politicians are among those categories. They end up becoming famous by breaking rules and laws by giving them public space. The company gives them respect for their innovative ideas to achieve their goals. In the fourth category are retreatists who think that adherence to norms cannot lead them directly to the achievement of the goal, since the goal is almost unattainable. So you reject both the end and the means. They become drug addicts, hippies and lose faith in systems. In their place, they create a kind of new culture. Finally, there are those who believe that certain rules and norms should not be followed, so they accept some and reject others. In part, they achieve certain goals by introducing new rules. They are known as the Rebellions. So what Merton is trying to point out is that there is a gap between institutionalized prescribed norms and culturally engineered goals. This leads to the existence of deviance.

Mertonian social theories help a lot to understand the dynamics of social change in India.

Mertonian social theories are very useful in understanding the dynamics of social change in India. If you talk about the civil society movement, you can talk about the anti-corruption movement. It can be approached fundamentally through the sociology of Merton's deviation. There is a way to fight corruption by not looking at whether corruption is good or bad, but by asking the fundamental question why corruption persists in society. How does it meet people's needs in different ways? What are the different dimensions of corruption? Apart from corruption, there are different types of abnormal activities in India (criminality, human trafficking, child labor, debt bondage, poverty, etc.).

All of these issues are best explained by Merton's theory of deviation and social structure. Merton was not concerned with developing grand theories, but rather emphasized empirical facts based on synchronous data. According to Merton, theories should explain facts in a systematic way. Without theory, facts cannot have a systematic collection of ideas. Therefore, theory provides a general framework in light of which we can understand facts in an organized and systematic way. If we talk about the reference group theory mentioned above, can we understand how an individual organizes his daily life, how a group negotiates with another group, how a community fits into another community? We follow them in a distinctive way thinking that one day we will be able to put ourselves in their place.

As an example, we can think of Jawaharlal Nehru who launched a development program for India. He looked to the developed countries as a point of reference, retaining several reference groups, borrowing ideas from Soviet Russia and capitalist America and consolidating them according to the needs of the indigenous peoples of India. Nehru and Mahalanobis, in turn, brought out the idea of "mixed economy" as the root of India's development.

For Merton every individual lives in hope, ambition and believes that success is achievable in life.

For Merton, every individual lives in hope, in ambition and believes that success in life is achievable. Then the individual tries to find a group of individuals known for their excellence. Therefore, different groups of people serve as our different point of reference. Within a certain reference group there may also be several individuals. Without becoming a member, you follow the individual within that group. They systematically follow the behavior of this person in the hope that in the future, he will fit in with the group to which this person belonged. This is called anticipatory socialization. Even though Gandhi is dead, many people take Gandhi's philosophy as a point of reference. The young people put on the Gandhi kurta, slippers and a cap. This type of behavior may be the manifestation of a predictive form of socialization. It helps them to become a leader and a follower of Gandhi in the future. Similarly, many children mimic the behavior of their parents, which G.H. Mead has argued is a form of predictive socialization. Therefore, anticipatory socialization allows the individual to experience social mobility in order to effectively negotiate changes in position with future time.

Let's talk about the negative aspects of early socialization. For example, a person prone to addiction often justifies their addiction by insisting on the ability of the drug to produce experiences of transcendence, self-confidence, etc. This celebration of addicts often draws non-addicts into the addict gang. This is a negative reference group. Likewise, when it comes to economic success, few people are economically successful; but most of them broke the laws. They use various means to turn black money into white money and become extremely successful in life. However, those who strictly adhere to the rule of law will not succeed in life. When society celebrates the most successful people, conformists treat them as a benchmark. This causes them to deviate from the normal path. They started breaking the law and fighting for an easy path to success.

Thus, one criminal creates two other criminals, followed by many others. Merton therefore argued that reference groups exist in every society. They can be good professors, drug addicts, keepers of black money, good journalists and nationalist leaders. It is therefore important to know who you take as a reference point. You shape your behavior by taking them as a reference point. Defines his personality and determines his future course of experience. Because there are both positive and negative affinity groups, some become conformists and others become deviant. So, as students of sociology, should our primary goal be to understand how these reference groups create and shape personalities? When talking about the reference group, it should be remembered that there are also normative reference groups. Norms, values, habits of certain values \u200b\u200bare valued. We never want to be part of that target group, but we rate them as deserving.

For example, the Brahmins of traditional India bathed early in the morning and performed a variety of ritual performances, emphasizing the purity of the body. But there are many who may not be interested in becoming a Brahmin and following the same kind of practices and precepts. Therefore, non-violence, moral brotherhood and humanism are the norms propagated by Gandhiji. Many people follow these standards, but that doesn't mean they all become Gandhians. Without a Gandhian cap, putting on Kurta or participating in the nationalist movement, they accept and internalize this kind of Gandhian ideology. Comparative reference groups are also present in every society. In reality they are the great social activists. They took different people as a point of reference. They try to mimic their behavior and shape their personality accordingly. We can also have an important power of reference for understanding the dynamics of politics in contemporary India. In India, relatives of people in positions of power bask in the halo of their power. The closest relative authorizes himself with the power of the politician, he becomes the referring power. They exclaim 'my father is this and this, my uncle is this and this' to access more benefits. These are the problems Merton points out in his theory of the peer group. There is a comparative advantage that one member of one group finds in another group.

References

Merton, R.K. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press, 1949 (revised edition,1968)

On the Shoulders of Giants. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.1965.
Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays. New York: Free Press. 1976.

Sztompka, P. On Social Structure and Science (ed.). Chicago: CUP. 1996.