View
218
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
8/10/2019 About Mechanic
1/5
Medical Sociology: A Selective View by David MechanicReview by: Peter K. ManningThe Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer, 1970), pp. 421-424Published by: Wileyon behalf of the Midwest Sociological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105360.
Accessed: 21/12/2014 21:46
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
WileyandMidwest Sociological Societyare collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to The Sociological Quarterly.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 201.255.225.28 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 21:46:13 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=msshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4105360?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4105360?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=msshttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black8/10/2019 About Mechanic
2/5
Book
Reviews
421
delinquency
mark
Hirschi as
an articu-
late
theorist of
genuine
promise.
His
comparison
of
strain
theories,
control
theories, and cultural deviance theories,
while
brief,
provides
an
impressive
frame
from
which
the
author
launches his
own
control
theory
and
subsequent
empirical
testing.
Control
theories,
he
asserts,
as-
sume
that
delinquent
acts
result when
an
individual's bond
to
society
is
weak
or
broken.
Four
elements of
this bond are
(a) attachment,
(b)
commitment,
(c)
involvement,
and
(d)
belief.
These
are
discussed
separately
and
in
relation to
one another.
Hirschi concludes his
the-
oretical
underpinning
with
the
following
statement:
In
the
end,
then,
control
theory
remains
what
it
has
always
been:
a
theory
in
which
deviation
is
not
prob-
lematic. The
question
'Why
do
they
do
it?'
is
simply
not the
question
the
theory
is
designed
to
answer.
The
question
is,
'Why
don't
we
do
it?'
There
is
much
evidence
that
we
would
if
we dared.
(2) A second value lies in Hirschi's
discussion
of
delinquency
definitions.
For
this
study,
he decided
that delin-
quency
would be defined
by
acts,
the
detection
of which
is
thought
to result
in
punishment
of the
person
committing
them
by agents
of
the
larger
society.
Clearly,
Hirschi
emphasizes
the act
rather than the
actor;
deeds rather
than
doers. His
contrast of official
delin-
quency
records with
self-reported
items
represents
no small contribution in it-
self.
Unfortunately,
this
particular
chap-
ter is
marred
by
a
confusing
presentation
of
his choice
of
an
index of
delinquency.
The
difficulty
is
not
so
much
the
measure
but a
clumsy
description
of its deriva-
tion from
the
earlier works of
Ivan
Nye
and
James
Short
plus
that
of
Robert
Dentler and
Lawrence
Monroe.
(Read-
ers who
plan
to
replicate
the work
are
advised to compare Hirschi's presenta-
tion
with
the
ASR
articles cited
on
pp.
54
and
55.)
(3)
Another value is in the
excel-
lence
of
the
empirical
study
itself
which
most
assuredly
will
stimulate
many
additional efforts by others. Hirschi's
data
on
attachment
to
parents,
at-
tachments to
the
school,
and
attach-
ment
to
peers
shed
exciting
new
light
on
these old work
horses of
delinquency
causation.
Valuable as
these
are,
per-
haps
an
even
more
important
contribu-
tion
lies
in
Hirschi's
testing
of
the Tech-
niques
of Neutralization
proposed
by
Gresham
Sykes
and
David
Matza
and
the
lower
class
focal concerns
suggested
by
Walter Miller.
(4)
The fourth
value is the
appen-
dix
which
provides,
among
other
things,
a
complete
set of
instruments.
These,
of
course,
are not
indepen-
dent of
one another.
Hirschi shows
him-
self
to
be
a
taskmaster
in
continuously
returning
to
his
theoretical
formulations
with
which he
integrates
the
whole.
A
book of
this
significance
should
invite the finest criticism. Surely the
strain
theorists
will
counterattack,
the
advocates of
cultural
deviance
theory
will
rejoin,
and
typologists
will
take
exception
to
points
and
positions.
In-
deed,
there is
much to
take
exception
to.
But Hirschi knows
this.
Accordingly,
he
is
very
often his
own best
critic.
Perhaps,
on
the trite
side,
this
re-
viewer
wondered
if much of this
book
were
written
prior
to
Delinquency
Re-
search.
While
a
publisher's
card
shows
a
publication
date of December
15,
1969,
the author's
preface
is dated
four-
teen months
earlier,
October,
1968,
and
relatively
few
references
are dated as
recently
as
1967.
This
is
less
a
commen-
tary
on
quality
and
more a
complaint
about
lag
between
conception
and
deliv-
ery.
The
loss
is ours.
JOSEPH
W. ROGERS
New Mexico
State
University
Medical
Sociology:
A
Selective
View.
By
DAVID
MECHANIC.
New
York:
The
Free
Press,
1968. 504
pp.
No
price
indicated.
MECHANIC
ivides
his selective
view
of
the
field
of
medical
sociology
into
three
parts
and
two
appendices.
In
the
first
part,
he demonstrates
the
many
This content downloaded from 201.255.225.28 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 21:46:13 PMAll use subject toJSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp8/10/2019 About Mechanic
3/5
8/10/2019 About Mechanic
4/5
8/10/2019 About Mechanic
5/5
424
THE SOCIOLOGICAL
QUARTERLY
and
in
medical
education.
The
bibliog-
raphy
is
excellent,
containing nearly
500
items.
However,
the
use of
the
bibliog-
raphy as a list of citations makes for a
great
deal
of
fumbling
to the
rear
of
the
book
and back
again.
The indexes
are
comprehensive
and there are
no
an-
noying typographical
errors.
PETER K. MANNING
Michigan
State
University
REFERENCES
Freidson,
E. and
B.
Rhea
1965
Knowledge
and
judgment
in
professional
evaluations.
Administrative
Science
Quarterly
10
(June):107-124.
1964
Physicians
in
large
medical
groups
Journal
of
Chronic
Diseases
17
(April):827-
836.
1963
Processes
of control in
a
company
of
equals.
Social
Problems
11
(Fall):119-131.
Goss,
M.
E.
W.
1961
Influence
and
authority
among
physicians
in
an
outpatient
clinic. American
Sociological
Review
26
(February)
:39-50.
Kutner,
L.
1962
The
illusion
of due
process
in
commitment
proceedings.
Northwestern
University
Law
Review
57
(September-October):383-399.
Scheff,
Thomas
1966
Becoming
Mentally
Ill.
Chicago:
Aldine.
Szasz,
Thomas
1968
Law,
Liberty
and
Psychiatry.
New
York: Collier Books.
The
Peter
Principle. By
LAWRENCE
.
PETER nd
RAYMOND
ULL.
New
York:
William Morrow &
Company,
Inc.,
1969. 179
pp.
$4.95.
PETER
and Hull
combine
sharp insight
and humor in
a
style
much
like
that of
C.
N.
Parkinson.
The
Peter
Principle
is
simply
stated: In
a
hierarchy every
employee
tends ro rise
to his level
of
incompetence (p. 25). Given sufficient
time
and
the
existence
of a
hierarchy
having
many
rather than few
ranks,
Peter's
Corollary
ollows:
In
time,
every
post
tends to be
occupied by
an
em-
ployee
who
is
incompetent
to
carry
out
its
duties
(p.
27).
Students of
large
organizations
have
long
noted
that
how-
ever low
morale
may
be
among
particip-
ants
in
a
given organization,
the
es-
sential work
still
gets
done. Peter and
Hull observe:
Work
is
accomplished
by
those
employees
who
have
not
yet
reached
their
level
of
incompetence
(p. 27).
A
major
problem
in
any large
organ-
ization
is
maintaining
open
lines
of
pro-
motion for
competence,
in
spite
of block-
ages
by
incompetence
at
any
given
level. Two
major strategies
are
widely
known:
percussive
sublimation,
and
lateral
arabesque.
A
case
of
percus-
sive sublimation
is one in which
the
victim
is moved
from
his
present posi-
tion of incompetence to one at a higher
rank.
Such
a move
is
designed
to
de-
ceive
people
outside the
organization.
Peter
and
Hull
quite
clearly
indicate
that success
here
requires
that
the
im-
mediate
super-ordinate
is
still
at
his
level
of
competence.
This
move saves a
poor
promotion policy,
supports
the morale
of
competent
others
still at lower
levels
in
the
organization,
and
above
all,
re-
duces
the
possibility
that the
victim will
take his critical
knowledge
with him and
become a
threat
from a
competitive
organization.
When
this
is
actually
done,
such
persons
are
viewed
as traitors.
Even
if
a
government
organization
has
no internal
competitors,
there are
other
governments
outside.
The
lateral
ara-
besque
is
applied
by
Peter
and Hull to
This content downloaded from 201.255.225.28 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 21:46:13 PMAll use subject toJSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspRecommended