BOO KS
453
value analysis" is to be demonstrated. But this power is supposed to be
independent of what? Of the
materialistic
explanatory devices which,
for instance, according to Lipset, Messrs. Riesman and Whyte have used.
In a section called "The Inadequacy of a Materialistic Interpretation of
Change," Mr. Lipset levels this accusation against them: "theirs is a
purely materialist interpretation of social phenomena and is open to the
criticism to which such interpretations are susceptible." His own two
values, however, quite obviously are supposed
to
belong to the
Ueberbau
and are to be taken as "immaterial" in nature, and his effort is "to
present some of the evidence for my thesis that it is the basic value system,
as solidified in the early days of the new nation, which
can account
for
the kind of changes that have taken place in the American character
and in American institutions as these
faced the need to adjust to the
requirements
of an urban, industrial, and bureaucratic society." Twisted
and tortured as these arguments may seem, there is always room for still
further contortion; Lipset's concluding statement runs: "This chapter
essentially has urged that a materialistic interpretation of American
society sharply underestimates the extent to which basic national values,
once institutionalized,
give shape to the consequences
of technological
and economic change." What are "consequences," and what are "require–
ments?" Yet for all this Lipset remains truly convinced that he hasn't
dealt with anything but values. Even though at the end of his work he
admits that it "is necessarily subject to the sins of over-simplification and
exaggeration," he nonetheless continues:
Exaggeration is present because any effort to analyze the in–
fluence of only one set of factors, even if it is as important as
the national value system, tends to disregard many other vari–
ables which are
obviously necessary for the proper understanding
of the ,uariations involved.
For example,
important economic
variables
such as differences in past rates of economic growth ...
all of which may have an independent effect on the various
national patterns discussed, have
largely been ignored here,
partly because I have dealt with them in other works, but more
significantly because a major purpose of this book has been to
demonstrate the independent explanatory power of value analy–
sis, seen as the codification of historical experience. (Emphasis
mine) .
How is one to deal with such a combination of arrogance and humility,
of innocence and canny caution?
But it gets even worse. For Lipset provides all the evidence a
materialist of the kind he has in mind needs. In a section on "Establishing
