PARTISAN REVIEW
393
sons continues, "the most important issue seems
[!]
to me to be the
maintenance of the procedural norms that are so essential to the im–
plementation of cognitive values." But the procedural norms
deter–
mine
the cognitive values to be implemented. (How many prominent
American sociologists are still operating under the assumption that
methods of investigation are ideologically neutral?). At any rate, Par–
sons makes it crystal clear that the aim of sociology is to preserve
its procedures, and this is what you will find the writers in
Con–
frontationand Students in Revolt
tirelessly engaged in doing. (I
make an exception of a few studies of foreign student movements in
the latter book - although certainly not the one on China. The
events of May 1968 in France, for example, clearly do more than
excite
A.
Belden Fields's procedural glands.) The norms are occa–
sionally made explicit, and then we find a familiar and, at first glance,
unobjectionable ideological stance: having chosen to pursue truth dis–
passionately, the sociologists are objective, critical and skeptical; they
admire expertise because truth is complex and therefore often diffi–
cult for nonexperts to find; and they need an atmosphere of tolerant,
quiet debate ("open inquiry") in which to conduct their research.
What are some of the results of research outlined in the seven
hundred pages of these two books? Much hard work in the field
tells us that: the natural sciences contribute fewer student activists
than the social sciences and the humanities; the Berkeley rebellion
occurred in conditions where students led privileged lives; activists
tend to come from middle-class families; the vulnerability of a uni–
versity to demonstrations depends more on students' backgrounds
than on the university environment itself; transfer students contribute
disproportionately to the protesters' ranks. Lipset gets my prize for
the most revealing conclusion: "In general, then, one should learn
to expect a sharp increase in student activism in a society where, for
a variety of reasons, accepted political and social values are being
questioned,
in
times particularly when events are testing the viability
of a regime and policy failures seem to question the legitimacy of
social and economic arrangements and institutions."
Now except for this last quotation, which I can't help feeling
contains information available without the aid of research, I certainly
don't
mind
learning that student activists tend to come from middle–
class backgrounds, etc. (Such information can also be extremely use-
