Abstract
Although many sociologists have written about the development of the sociological perspective, known as “interactionism,” two relatively important questions for understanding its emergence remain scarcely examined. (1) Why did George Herbert Mead become known as its progenitor rather than Robert E. Park ? (2) Why did “radical interactionism,” which was inspired by Park, fail to appear on the sociological landscape until the first decade of the 21st century, almost a century after the appearance of the “symbolic interactionism” that Mead inspired? To oversimplify, Mead became anointed as the progenitor of interactionism instead of Park primarily because Herbert Blumer proved to be a far more effective champion of Mead’s thought than Everett Hughes proved to be of Park’s ideas in sociology. Blumer’s greater effectiveness in performing this role was primarily due to a stronger desire to carry the banner for a new sociological perspective, more personal charisma and verbal adroitness, and much closer connection to Chicago School of Sociology during its golden era than Hughes had. Thus, the delayed emergence of a radical interactionism based on Park’s work cannot be attributed solely to the failure of Park and his heir apparent, Hughes, to fully grasp the radical implications of Park’s work. Even if these implications of Park’s work had been crystal clear to Hughes, however, it is highly doubtful that he would have ever considered promoting a radical version of interactionism. His lack of lack of desire to carry the banner for a sociological perspective, absence of personal charisma and verbal adroitness, as well as his want of closer ties to the original Chicago school of sociology, not to mention tepid liberalism, would have made him a very unlikely figure in American sociology to play this historic role.
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Notes
Of course, it could be hypothesized that Park was not made the progenitor of interactionism because he was recognized as more closely aligned with Georg Simmel’s school of formalism than with Dewey and Mead’s school of pragmatism. Most interactionists, including Blumer (1969a, 1969b, 1962, 1969a: 78, 1954a, 1969a: 150), however, recognize Park as an important contributor to and notable member of the sociological school of interactionism, which is allegedly based on the work of the Chicago school of pragmatism, although not the progentor of it. It should also not be overlooked that Park took several courses from both John Dewey at the University of Michigan and William James later at Harvard before he met Simmel. Despite that Mead and Park were in different academic departments, they were colleagues for over 15 years at the University of Chicago where Park occasionally sat in on Mead’s classes. More importantly for our present concerns, Park was no fan of any type of formalism. In fact, this was the main reason that he decided to leave Harvard and to finish his graduate studies in Germany, where incidentally, his doctoral dissertation was done under the supervision of Wilhelm Windelband, not Simmel. It is also why upon his return to America, he decided to work as secretary and publicity director for Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute instead of pursuing an academic career as philosophy professor (See: Athens 2016). Thus, upon scrutiny of the facts, this hypothesis fails to stand-up.
I was able to glean all the information provided in the above paragraph about Blumer’s days at the University of Missouri from reviewing the Savitar, the university’s yearbook, 1921, (pp. 83, 173, 319) and 1922 (pp.83, 193, 249, 283).
I obtained the information about Blumer’s professional football career from database.Football.com.
Faris’ letter to Mead, dated May 4, 1931, Courtesy of University Chicago Library, Special Collections Center, George Herbert Mead Collection, Box #11.
I drew this conclusion from Blumer’s graduate transcript, courtesy of University of Chicago’s registrar and University of Chicago’s official catalogues/course schedules from 1923 to 1926 (University Publications, LD 909), courtesy of Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library.
This information was also obtained from Blumer’s graduate transcript, courtesy of University of Chicago’s registrar.
The information about the progression of Blumer’s career and publications at the University of Chicago came from a copy of his resume that he gave me at my request in 1975.
As far as Blumer’s teaching reputation at the University of Chicago is concerned, Howard Becker, who did graduate studies at Chicago after World II, reported: “We all admired Herb’s lectures, which were elegant and forceful, models of careful reasoning and argumentation.” This quote came from an e-mail that Becker sent to me on January 24, 2014 at 11:51 p.m. On the basis of the four courses that I took from Blumer at Berkeley, I would second Becker’s opinion on this matter. The only thing that I would add is that it was obvious that Blumer, who served as the “closer” on 1922 University of Missouri debating squad took great pride in his oratory skills.
During the advanced social psychology course that Blumer taught at Berkeley, I (Athens 1987:6–7, 1993b) witnessed a humorous exchange between him and a student regarding whether dogs could think and talk. While making his well-known distinction between “symbolic” and “non-symbolic” interaction and taking his usual great pains to explain why the use of significant symbols is limited to humans, a student protested that her dog, which was much smarter than most canines, could not only talk, but also could dream. Blumer responded that her dog was not really talking or dreaming, but only signaling and exhibiting nervous reflexes while he slept and, therefore, was only engaging in non-symbolic rather symbolic interaction. The student, however, insisted she was certain that her dog both talked and had dreams. Becoming somewhat exasperated by her insistence, Blumer asked, “Well, what does your dog dream about?” She replied, “I don’t know—that is something which I have always wondered about.” With a slight grin on his face, Blumer retorted, “Since you claim your dog can talk, why don’t you ask him?”
I determined this fact from my review of information supplied in the University of Chicago’s catalogues/course schedules from 1923 to 1952 University Publications (LD 909). Courtesy of Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library, University Publications.
During the latter part of his career, Miller (1973b) also used the term “symbolic interaction” to describe Mead’s social thought.
I also based this point on my review of the University of Chicago’s official catalogues/ course schedules from 1923 to 1952 (University Publications, LD 909), courtesy of Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library.
Letter written by Herbert Blumer to Fred Matthews dated December 13, 1963. Courtesy of Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library, Robert E. Park Collection, Box #18.
I based this conclusion on Blumer’s graduate transcript and University of Chicago’s official catalogues/course schedules from 1923 to 1926 (University Publications, LD 909). Courtesy of Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library.
Report written by Everett Hughes on University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology dated 1953. Courtesy of Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library, Robert E. Park Collection, Box #11.
I also took this quote also came from an e-mail that Becker sent to me on January 24, 2014 at 3:30 p.m. We got into a spirited exchange that lasted for several days over whether the Neo-Chicagoans had real, first-hand knowledge of rather than merely passing acquaintanceship with the original Chicagoan’s work. Unsurprisingly, while he defended the latter position, I took the first one. If the works of the original Chicago school members, including Mead, and what the later neo-Chicagoans wrote about the key ideas of their predecessors are meticulously compared, then many inconsistencies will be found (see for example, Athens 2005, 2015). Of course, this belies the long propagated belief by Neo-Chicagoans (and even later-day Chicagoans) that they were somehow privy to insider knowledge about the ideas of the faculty who comprised the original Chicago school.
Howard Becker (1998:11) criticized Blumer by remarking: “But once you’ve accepted the idea that our usual social science imagery is lacking something, what do you do? … How do we improve it? I suffered, with other students, the difficulties that came from seeing the problem but no solution. Blumer let us down here… He never pursued this line of thought to the point of providing specific remedies.” In fact, Blumer (1969a:39–47; see also Athens 2010) did provide some specific remedies to solve this problem, although he probably did not mention them in this particular course, which was on social psychology. Beginning in 1941, Blumer regularly taught “Methodology and Logic of Social Research” at Chicago, which, according to Becker (1/24/2014), he never took. I discovered that Blumer taught this course from reviewing information supplied in the University of Chicago’s catalogues/course schedules from 1923 to 1952 (University Publications, LD 909) which the Special Collections Center, University of Chicago Library kindly granted me access.
It should come as no surprise that Park did not perceive the radicalness of his still unfinished frame of reference. He was too busy extending the ideas that comprised this frame of reference by applying them to different social contexts to be overly concerned with how it systematically differed from emerging perspectives in the pre-World War II American sociology. Despite this fact, he did keep a close tabs on Mead’s developing thought, which Park defintely tried to improve on (Athens 2016).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the editor, Lawrence Nichols, for his invaluable suggestions for improving my paper. My heart-felt gratitude is also extended to Professor Vessela Misheva for inviting me to deliver an earlier version of this paper, titled “The Nature and Genesis of Radical Interactionism” at the 4th Annual Conference of the European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction held at Uppsala University on August 28–30, 2013. The ESSI also taped and placed all the plenary addresses, including mine, on its website.
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Athens, L. The Belated Appearance of “Radical Interactionism” on the American Sociological Stage: the Rise of G.H.Mead and Fall of Robert Park. Am Soc 48, 23–47 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-016-9317-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-016-9317-x