Review: Text, Structure, and Action in Cultural Sociology: A Commentary on "Positive

Objectivity" in Wuthnow and Archer

Reviewed Work(s): Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory by Margaret
Archer; Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis by Robert Wuthnow
Review by: Eric Rambo and Elaine Chan
Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 19, No. 5 (Oct., 1990), pp. 635-648
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657566
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Review essay

Text, structure, and action in cultural sociology

A commentary on "positive objectivity" in Wuthnow

and Archer

A discussion of Margaret Archer, Culture and Agency: The Place of

Culture in Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988); and Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations
in CulturalAnalysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

ERIC RAMBO AND ELAINE CHAN

University of California, Los Angeles

Two recent books, Robert Wuthnow's Meaning and Moral O

Margaret Archer's Culture and Agency, are part of a renewed int
culture within sociology. These books, with their unmistak
grammatic ambitions, are important efforts to influence the
cultural studies. Although Wuthnow and Archer have clear di
in their conception of culture and in the recommendations t
for the field, there are striking similarities in the ways they
some of the longstanding methodological and theoretical diff
cultural analysis. Each divides culture into text and meaning,
ing text as a universally objective domain of cultural struct
thereby protecting part of culture from the problem of mean
tecting the study of culture, that is, from the problem of s
"phenomenon" that is at the same time interior and collective. Wuth-
now turns toward "objective" discourse; Archer declares a domain of
pure ideas. In either case, however, this strategy is a trap for cultural
sociology. They do not offer any resolution to the problem of meaning,
only an illusionary foreshortening of the analytical issues involved. The
consequence is a cultural sociology that cannot specify the structures of
culture, that threatens to reduce cultural analysis to an analysis of inter-
ests or social movements, and that is unable to account for important
elements of social action. We should take a close look at these pro-
grams - which really represent a general type of response - and remind
ourselves of certain core issues they neglect. In so doing we come to see

Theory and Society 19: 635-648, 1990.

? 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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636

three separate aspects of culture that require attention: text, culture-

structure, and the intermediating actions of interpretation and inten-
tion.

Wuthnow and Archer share with all programmatic visions a keen

awareness of their field's shortcomings. Both are dismayed by the
absence of any strong core of conceptual agreement. Archer says that
culture has, "the weakest analytical development of any key concept in
sociology..." (1). Wuthnow says, "Culture remains, by many indica-
tions, vaguely conceptualized, vaguely approached methodologically,
and vaguely associated with value judgements and other sorts of ob-
server bias" (5-6). Wuthnow's and Archer's books accomplish many
things for cultural sociology, but above all they address the founda-
tional issue of how to conceive culture. It is only necessary to list again
some of the difficulties involved here: the problem of subjectivity, the
problem of context, the methodological problem of interpretation, the
ontological problem of a collective and ideal reality. Familiar as all of
this might be, there is still no clear and solid ground within this con-
ceptual bog, no platform from which to make "true" assertions about
culture. Wuthnow and Archer each want to build such a platform.

Wuthnow is critical of traditions in cultural sociology that equate cul-

ture with meaning. He calls this the "subjective approach." Here, cul-
ture is understood to be made up of the beliefs and attitudes people
hold about the world surrounding them. "The problem of meaning is
central in this approach: culture consists of meanings, it represents the
individual's interpretations of reality; and it supplies meaning to the
individual in the sense of an integrative or affirming worldview" (11).
Wuthnow says that subjectivism brings an inescapable individualism to
cultural sociology; subjectivity is essentially private and particularistic.
Hence it is impossible to make generalizations about meaning, or even
know which meanings exist in any particular place and time. Moreover,
there is no way to verify "insight," no way to establish the truth-value of
meaning interpretation. It is futile, then, to collect any form of data
whatsoever for the purpose of interpreting their meaning. No method
can give access to this internal experience.

For this reason, Wuthnow wants to move beyond the problem of mean-
ing. "[T]he problem of meaning may well be more of a curse than a
blessing in cultural analysis. When we set out to study it, the available
evidence generally makes it elusive. If we claim to have extracted some-
thing about it, we have probably claimed too much. When we think we

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have studied it, we have probably turned anyway to an examination of

the relations among cultural elements" (64). Subjectivism has led pre-
vious traditions of cultural sociology to an analytical impasse. As a
result the field has either evaded the problem by reducing culture to
social structure, or it has pursued essentially unavailable knowledge.

Wuthnow advocates a "poststructuralist" approach to culture, which,

he says, focuses on codes. Codes are systematic patterns of relation and
symbolic boundaries among cultural "elements": symbols, speech acts,
utterances, gestures, etc. Looking only at the arrangement of symbols,
the code is considered to be autonomous of meaning, which can there-
fore drop out of the analysis altogether. Symbols are considered not
because they have meaning, but instead are viewed as objective facts,
sufficient in their own right for consideration. "In the poststructuralist
approaches ... symbols are taken, as it were, more literally. Rather than
being objects or utterances that stand for something else, they are sim-
ply objects or utterances. Supposedly they communicate, because they
exist, but the essential question has less to do with what they communi-
cate than with how they communicate. The thrust of investigation,
therefore, focuses on the arrangement of symbols and their relations to
one another, not primarily their meanings" (53, our emphasis). The
concrete objectivity of discourse provides the basis for an empirically
grounded study of culture. Culture-minus-meaning is no longer inter-
nal, no longer subjective. Now it is external, objective, factual. Culture
is real talk; culture is concrete symbolic objects; culture is physical
gestures. The ideal elements are completely replaced with elements
that can be directly experienced. This is a kind of positive objectivity, a
universal objectivity, that departs from another conception of objectivi-
ty as shared understanding.

To enact his program, Wuthnow redefines all aspects of culture, re-

placing meaning with objective elements of discursive behavior. Cul-
ture itself becomes "the symbolic expressive aspect of behavior" (4).
Symbols are "cultural elements that express boundaries" (69). The
"cultural elements," here, refer to objective discourse. Ritual is "a set of
symbolic acts" (99). Ideology is "a set of utterances (verbal or written)"
(145). All of these definitions are calculated to avoid references to
subjectivity.

Wuthnow is only able to move beyond meaning because he ignores the

problem of linking the "text" of discourse with the structure of sym-
bolic relationships - the "culture-structure" - to which they refer. His

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"poststructuralism" sets up a one-to-one relationship between them,

with two implications following: discovering culture-structure is made
to seem totally unproblematic, and culture-structure appears to deter-
mine discourse directly. But the interposition of interpretation and
intention between objective signs and culture-structure makes figuring
out what the structure is vastly more complicated. Without imputing
these actions, however, there is no way to support the claim that the
structure found is the structure present.

In grounding his cultural analysis on discourse Wuthnow seems to con-

fuse the evidence of culture-structure - the discourse, texts, or speech
acts - with the structure itself. Cultural studies have always relied on
empirical evidence to support their assertions - the thick description of
Geertz, the rich historical data of Sewell or Hunt, the elaborate de-
coding of myth by L6vy-Strauss or Eco. The problem is not in finding
the evidence of culture-structure, but in finding the culture-structure of
the evidence.

The reason Wuthnow can maintain his poststructuralist position is that

his references to internalized culture-structure are always only passing
references. He makes no direct claims about specific cultural contents
or commitments, nor does he analyze the "subtle and implicit mes-
sages" of culture that he sometimes mentions. Nowhere does Wuthnow
make the content of a code the central focus of analysis - not in his dis-
cussion of economic morality, nor of political ritual, nor of ideology.
He never does because he assumes that the code is objectively observa-
ble in discourse itself. He could not, even if he wanted to, lest he be-
come entangled in problems of meaning. In fact, when Wuthnow makes
references to a code, he simply presupposes that its meaning has been
properly "observed." However, instead of the assumed one-to-one rela-
tionship between the code and behavior that divests his analysis of
meaning, there really is a series of intermediate processes: (1) internal-
izing the code, (2) committing to it, and (3) structuring intentions in
conformity with it. All of these are internal events that Wuthnow's one-
to-one relationship ignores, supposing there is no openness or indeter-
minacy in the processes. This sets up a cultural determinism over
action that renders the individual a "cultural construction" in a simplis-
tic sense of the term that completely precludes agency.

To see that Wuthnow has underestimated the problem of specifying

culture-structure, we only have to look at his discussion of ideology.
For Wuthnow, ideologies are not beliefs, because these cannot be

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observed directly. He defines ideologies as objective utterances or

other gestures: "Ideologies are sets of statements that actually exist,
now or in the past" (147). Of course, put this way, the problem of de-
fining ideology is in defining the "set," that is, in determining the basis
for saying that a particular objective statement is part of a given ideol-
ogy. If that can be done, there seems to be no reason to limit ideology
to statements that have already been made, as Wuthnow wants to do so
that he can avoid meaning. Once the structure of an ideology is estab-
lished, unuttered statements can also be categorized. In fact, it would
be impossible to categorize actual statements without a classification
scheme that could also discriminate between possible statements. The
"set," we must say, is a set of intentions as well as symbols.

But Wuthnow's confusion of structure and text shows up again when he

says, "Given ten minutes, ten sophomores can usually come up with ten
new ideologies with no trouble at all. Nor is it unrealistic to point out
that, with recent advances in computer simulated artificial intelligence
programs, nearly an infinite number of new ideologies could be gen-
erated simply as permutations of existing words and statements" (146).
It is not apparent, in this, whether ideology is a structure or simply the
statements themselves. Wuthnow clearly wants to say that there is no
difference, but this again raises the question: How do we know what
ideology a particular utterance belongs to? The question is important
because Wuthnow spends a great deal of effort in his book on a theory
about principles of "selection" among different ideologies. He cannot
move on to this question until he has settled the problem of saying what
one ideology is.

Let us give an example of what we have in mind. Because Wuthnow

makes no distinction whatsoever between the utterance and the ideol-

ogy, we could say that the statements 1: "Power to the working man
and 2: "All power to labor," are essentially two different ideologies
They are undoubtedly different utterances, objectively they are dif-
ferent gestures, but can we automatically conclude that they are differ-
ent ideologies? This question highlights the central problem of relatin
utterances and structures. This problem can only be solved by makin
reference to internal elements, that is, by asking what people intend by
their utterances. For example, the first of our sample ideologies may
rule out women from the revolutionary appeal, while the second one
may not. One cannot tell from the words alone. To solve this interpr
tive problem we need more utterances, to be sure; we need a more
complete view of the structure. Wuthnow seems to think that som

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imaginary sum total of utterances would completely objectify the struc-

ture. But the utterances by themselves do not resolve the difficulty
unless they are taken to be evidence of something internal. Suppose we
continue to collect utterances and hear 3: "Power to the working man so
he can support his wife and family." We now have more data, but our
problem is in no way solved. Is this the same as either of the above
utterances, or are there now three ideologies? The fact that the same
person said "1" and "3" would indicate a single ideology, perhaps, but
this is only because we assume that the person carried the same inten-
tion to convey meaning from the first to the last. The words in "3" make
the exclusion of women concrete, and indeed by objectifying exclusion
they give it further force. But the point is that there is also an implied
internalized understanding about women and a structure of intention
to exclude them, and these are integral to the structuring principle of
the third "ideology." If this interpretation and intention are also present
in either of the other two, then we can say that the ideologies are the
same. Otherwise we have reason to say they are different. The ideologi-
cal structuring principle can generate a great many different utterances.
If this "ideological structuring principle" was a wholly idiosyncratic
feature, the product of a unique experience of the world, we would
indeed be left with the kind of subjectivity problem that Wuthnow
wants to avoid. Certainly there will be idiosyncratic elements. But not
only do we have to be willing to say that culture-structure constrains
subjectivity, we have to be ready to say how it constrains subjectivity.
Looking back at our example, then, to understand ideology as a struc-
ture we have to consider text and intention.

Interpretations and intentions represent two actions-in-relation-to-the-

code that are essential parts of a cultural analysis because they are
essential for specifying culture-structure. They cannot be ignored, as
Wuthnow proposes, or held separate from the analysis of structure, as
we will see that Archer wants to do. Defining a situation and then con-
structing a plan constitute an action relationship that mediates between
structure and discourse - in hermeneutical terms, which relates the
parts and wholes of culture. What makes this orientation to structure
important is the role of culture in explaining "events." Culture-structure
can be analytically isolated from meaning at relatively high levels of
abstraction, but to explain concrete occurrences in the world, the code
has to be represented with reference to the way people experience the
code. Otherwise action is portrayed as a crude caricature.

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 641

Turning now to Archer's book, we focus on her notion of "analytical

dualism," a distinction she draws between the "Cultural System" and
"Socio-Cultural interaction." This is a distinction between the com-
ponents of culture and the causal agents within a culture, between the
"parts" and the "people." Her inspiration for this is Lockwood's con-
gruent distinction between social structures and social actors. The first
half of Archer's book is devoted to showing that the failures of cultural
analysis result from "conflating" culture-structure and agency: either
"downwards" by ideal determinists, "upwards" by interest theorists, or
"centrally" by arguing for the impossibility of abstracting structure and
agency at all. Not every "part," however, which would typically be in-
cluded in the culture-structure is included within Archer's Cultural Sys-
tem. Rather, this is limited to the subset of cultural "intelligibilia" which
form propositions; that is, only to statements that assert truth or falsity,
to which a universal logic of contradiction or consistency can be
applied. Everything that cannot be understood propositionally is part
of Socio-Cultural interaction. This includes many diverse things: inter-
ests and sentiments of solidarity and power seem to be the main com-
ponents when Archer is actually using the concepts, but in her defini-
tional statements myths, "mysteries," symbols, "hidden persuaders,"
tastes, and in general meanings also fall into this category. Archer
wants to deny that any of these "intelligibilia" are true structures. They
are all interactional and to conceive of them structurally is a form of
downwards conflation.

The reason for this position is as much methodological as it is theoreti-

cal. Archer accepts Karl Popper's notion of "world three" knowledge, a
domain of existence for ideas that is independent of human concep-
tion. Quoting Popper, she divides culture into "the world of thought-
processes, and the world of the products of thought-processes" (105).
(This exactly mirrors Wuthnow's distinction between meaning and dis-
course.) The universality of logic - in particular the logic of contradic-
tion - is what gives Archer her claim to an analytical grasp of culture.
Here is her platform of positive objectivity, and she goes to great
lengths to justify the footing: it is always and everywhere true that
proposition "Not A" is a contradiction of "A." This logic is unaffected
by situational context so it is outside of the problem of cultural rela-
tivism, outside the problem of meaning. It is interpretationally fixed.
Taking one of Archer's own examples, the proposition within Christi-
anity that humans should subjugate their natures to higher spiritual
laws contradicts the Graeco-Latin ideal of human harmony with
nature. This contradiction is invariant, observable to all, regardless of

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their own cultural vantage. Here we see that logic, for Archer, plays the
same role as the material objectivity of gestures plays for Wuthnow.

From the proper abstraction of culture - her analytical dualism -

emerges Archer's platform of universal logic. Then, with this frame-
work established, she moves on to what she calls the "morphogenic
cycle." This is designed to capture the dynamic relationships between
and within her dual categories, and explain stasis and change in culture.
There are four separate steps, and Archer devotes a chapter to each.
There is 1) a structure of logical relationships within the Cultural Sys-
tem, which 2) either constrains or facilitates Socio-Cultural interaction.
There are also 3) analytically independent causal relations of power
and solidarity between social agents, which then 4) modify the logical
relations of the Cultural System. So the Cultural System exercises cau-
sal force on Socio-Cultural interaction, which in turn produces an ela-
boration of the Cultural System.

There is nothing revolutionary here, but Archer does a good job of

pursuing the many ramifications of "morphogenesis." She discusses, for
example, the ways that contradictions in the Cultural System are dealt
with when both of the conflicting ideas are well rooted in the culture
and neither can simply be abandoned. In this case various reinterpre-
tations are undertaken or concepts are stretched. Or, "complementary"
elements within the Cultural System may constrain agency. This inter-
play of contradiction and complementarity is Archer's main interest in
the Cultural System itself. She gets great service out of this concern, but
it is also one of the limitations of her approach, to be discussed below.

One of the most interesting discussions is Archer's exploration of

Socio-Cultural interaction, where social agents who have differential
commitments to the Cultural Systems use cultural power to defend
their interests. For instance, if the Cultural System is less fully inte-
grated than the system of Socio-Cultural interaction - i.e. if there are
lots of propositional contradictions but a fair degree of social solidarity
- cultural power may be brought to bear to disguise, suppress, or avert
attention from the contradictions, or at least inconvenient portions of
them. If the Socio-Cultural system is also poorly integrated - i.e., low
solidarity among interest groups - there will be schisms, migrations, the
development of pluralism, etc. Her next chapter looks at the impact of
Socio-Cultural interaction on the evolution of the Cultural System. As
rival agents elaborate and protect their ideal commitments we see the

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development of two new cultural formations: competitive contradic-

tions and contingent complimentaries.

We cannot recapture here the complexity of Archer's analysis of mor-

phogenesis. There is much of value in her discussion. But the "analyti-
cal dualism" she posits is flawed. She cannot maintain the propositional
purity of her ideal domain, and she cannot contain everything else of
cultural significance within her domain of agency.

Archer rests her analysis on the existence of universal contradictions

and complementarities, a world of "textual ideas" that is separate from
"people's meanings" (136). First, consider contradictions: Is it true that
proposition "A" directly confronts "Not A"? Given the proposition
"The cow is in the corn," we can see the possibility of a contradiction
quite clearly - "The cow is not in the corn"' - but this contradiction is
in relation to immediate events. Cultural analysis is not terribly inter-
ested in particular raids of cows on the corn. It might be interested in
the significance of the cow being in the corn, what sense people make
of it; for example, is it a bad omen or a sign of farmer dereliction? But
these are general structures of meaning that derive from the concrete
events. Cultural analysis is very interested in omens and dereliction. It
is this domain of significance that makes culture more than just a pas-
sive reflection of external reality, makes it into a world of meaning.
Within this domain, isn't it the case that proposition "A" confronts
proposition "B," leaving the equivalence of "B" and "Not A" a matter of
interpretation, confusion, anxiety, conflict? Nothing absolute or univer-
sal links them. What statement 'A" proposes is open to question - open
to question by everyone, analysts of culture no less than social actors.
Archer presumes that from a platform of detached observation the
ideal content of a proposition can be seen as given, fixed, and singular;
not achieved, shifting, and multiple. Even "The cow is in the corn" is
only propositionally fixed to the extent that we can point to the refer-
ence of the assertion: we can gesture toward the cornfield. Its fixity
depends on agreement about cows, corn, what it is to be "in" the corn
(In the kernels? In the ears?): that there is only one way for "the cow" to
be "in" "the corn." It is the use of a propositional utterance that is sim-
ple, regular, and agreed upon; the underlying ideas are not universally
fixed.

If contradiction cannot specify structure, neither can complementarity.

Archer thinks that two ideas "going together" can be a coercive necessi-

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644

ty; she speaks of 'A" "ineluctably" evoking "B." To support her analytical
dualism this has to be a logical connection between propositions, not
simply a conventional connection between two logically independent
ideas. We can imagine such universal complementarity in syllogistic
triples of propositions, but certainly not in pairs of them. Are there
really very many logical syllogisms in culture? Even if there are, the
coerciveness of syllogistic logic depends on the way each of the propo-
sitional terms is intended. Again, we cannot understand the content of
a proposition unless we can understand how it is used. This "centrally
conflates" the Cultural System with Socio-Cultural interaction. Archer
says that her dualism is only analytical, not real, but the duality cannot
be maintained in any case. In saying what the cultural structure is, we
have to make reference to the agency of actors, to their intentions and
interpretations. Before we worry too much about conflating categories,
we should be sure that the categories are useful ones.

Unlike Wuthnow, who wants to dispense with meaning, Archer wants

to put it into a separate category and build a whole analysis around its
relation to cultural structure. This is better, but what does Archer mean
by meaning? By limiting the Cultural System to propositions, Socio-
Cultural interaction has to contain everything that is not a proposition,
and as we have already implied, this overburdens the category. The way
she uses it, however, Archer primarily conceives of Socio-Cultural
interaction as a domain of interests and group solidarity. Nothing else
in the nature of meaning gets any attention, nothing about symbols or
interpretations. In a revealing passage Archer says that, "the key to
explaining independent Socio-Cultural variations lies in how the social
(or sectional) distribution of interests and power actually gel with the
situational logic of the Cultural System (or subsystem) at any given
time" (188). Later, Archer admits that social structural elements in-
trude into her discussion of Socio-Cultural interaction, claiming this as
a boon, a point of interpenetration between culture and social struc-
ture. But because her discussion of Socio-Cultural interaction is almost
completely devoid of anything but machinations of interest and power,
and the Cultural System is limited to logical relations among proposi-
tions, so much else is left out that there seems to be a strong likelihood
of cultural agency - in Archer's sense, "meaning" - actually being re-
duced to social structure. There is simply nothing else that can struc-
ture interpretations and intentions. Archer explicitly denies this intent,
but we do not see any way around it.

Her dualism implies that the ends of action - i.e., interests - are either

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 645

wholly unstructured in a meaningful collective sense, or are somehow

structured as propositions. Neither position can fully grasp the reality
of style or taste, for example, a structure of resemblances and meta-
phors that is largely gestured without being spoken. Being wedded to
the notion that only propositions are structural, Archer cannot treat
symbols as a code unless she first converts them into propositions.
Values are another way of conceiving ends. These can, in a way, be
propositions: "Freedom is good." But the propositional form, except
when expressed this baldly and universally, is a reading, an interpreta-
tion of specific assertions, in order to show commitment and approba-
tion. Archer speaks of extending the propositional register as far as
possible by translating assertions into a propositional form. Here the
similarity to Wuthnow's specification problem becomes especially
clear; we can only know what propositional form an assertion should
take - what its structure is - by imputing something about its use, about
the interpretations and intentions of its users.

The main problem in Archer's program, then, is the way it treats mean-
ing. For all her efforts to separate analytically structure and agency, she
barely seems to notice that there is an interpretive/intentional gap
between structure (system) and text. She glosses over this problem by
limiting her conception of structure to propositions. But she never fully
appreciates the extent to which any proposition is itself "open" to inter-
pretation, specified only by readings of the symbolic structure. This
aspect of collective culture-structure "supports" propositions, and
makes it possible to assert content for them.

In contrast with the programs of Wuthnow and Archer, other recent

discussions have been less objectivist in their conception of culture-
structure. This keeps open the possibility of specifying structure and
maintains the contingent aspect of culture that both depends upon and
necessitates interpretation. Ann Swidler ("Culture in Action: Symbols
and Strategies," American Sociological Review, 51 [1986], 273-286),
for example, thinks of culture as a system of "strategies of action," or
"tools" in a cultural "toolkit." Her central concern is the supposition
that ultimate ends - or indeed ends at all - guide action. She wants to
replace the mechanistic "unit act" model of the culture-action relation-
ship with a more organic one, so she replaces the notion of culture as a
structure of values with the notion of culture as a repertory structure.
Swidler does not have a clear conception of texts - her critique is em-
pirical, not primarily methodological. Her model integrates culture-
structure and action within the process of selecting the appropriate

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646

strategy for the situation. It is questionable whether action can really be

divorced from the notion of ends; we think ends are an essential ele-
ment of cultural structure under any circumstances, although the con-
struction of intentions by the analyst has to consider the clarity with
which ends are conceived - the phenomenological character of ends -
and this is certainly a difficult matter. But to leave ends aside - replaced
by habit, for example - disposes the analysis to the kind of one-to-one
relationship between structure and text (i.e., discourse behavior) that
we were critical of in Wuthnow; or else ends become random. Either
action is too automatic or too unconstrained. If the interpretive prob-
lem of selecting cultural means were further elaborated than Swidler
does, the role of ends - actor's and other's - would become clearer.
Still, Swidler does not do what Wuthnow and Archer attempt to do,
and set up a positively objective structure of strategies. She is still work-
ing well within the interpretive framework.

Bourdieu's "habitus" (Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of

Taste; "On Interest and the Relative Autonomy of Symbolic Power: A
Rejoinder to Some Objections," Working Papers and Proceedings of the
Center for Psychological Studies, Number 20, 1988) bears some resem-
blance to Swidler's "strategies of action," in that he, too, tries to undo
simple and mechanistic conceptions of the way culture is experienced,
and consequently of the way it influences action. The emphasis, though,
is more on the system of cultural signs than in Swidler's model. Habitus
is 1) a "structured and structuring structure" - a symbolic struc-
ture, we would say - that 2) generates the perceptions and practices
that form 3) lifestyles. Here is the rough equivalent of our categories:
first structure, then action, then text. Habitus itself is not conceived as a
positively objective structure; Bourdieu is sensitive to the problem of
specifying structure, however sketchy his own specification is. But
Bourdieu's strong interest in power relations and other structural forces
in society influences him to see habitus arising from "objectively
classifiable conditions of existence," and to relate culture-structure to
group interests. Here is a threat to the autonomy of culture, a tendency
to reduce cultural structure to instrumental interest. Bourdieu denies
that his concern with power subordinates his notion of habitus to ra-
tional calculation. Nevertheless, conditions of power - the pursuit and
maintenance of power - remain as the most fully articulated condition-
ing force on habitus. What we want to emphasize here, however, is
Bourdieu's resistance to any full separation of structure and action.
Whether or not he overemphasizes intentionality and a particular end
of action - i.e., power - his framework contains the basic elements that

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permit both specification of culture-structure and an appreciation of

the contingent character of culture. These are both necessary for a
clear understanding of meaning.

Cultural sociology cannot evade the problem of meaning because no

platform of cultural structure has a positive objectivity. The problem of
interpretation pervades culture. This becomes clear once again if some
of the considerations of hermeneutics are reintroduced into the discus-
sion. Archer dismisses hermeneutical methodology as an "artistic"
form of downwards conflation, not rigorous enough for building posi-
tive knowledge. For his part, Wuthnow says he takes hermeneutics for
granted and wants to push beyond its concerns. Yet the hermeneutical
circle challenges both authors' programs because it posits that the "ana-
lytically separable" aspects of culture cannot be understood in analyti-
cal separation: they define one another.

The central problem of hermeneutics is a concern for the parts and

wholes of culture. The parts are the discursive behaviors forming a
"text" or set of propositions: words, utterances, or gestures that have a
sheer physical presence. But what the words say cannot have this mate-
rial objectivity. Meaning also depends upon the hermeneutical whole.
Out of this relationship comes the hermeneutical circle: we need the
parts to determine the whole, but without some preconception of the
whole, we cannot know the significance of parts. This is the pattern of
relationships among parts, what we are calling the culture-structure. In
relation to a given text, meaning is the "said"; to the culture at large it is
the "sayable."

There is not a one-to-one connection between the parts and wholes of

culture. Parts indicate different possible wholes; different patterns can
be seen in the objective elements. The text does not simply reveal cul-
ture-structure automatically, it does not speak for itself. After all, the
parts are ambiguous; some parts are superfluous; some parts are con-
tradictory. To be seen, structure requires inputs of human effort: data
analysis, a reading, interpretation. This is true for analysts of culture
and equally true for social actors. And finally, the reading of a text
always constructs a plausible intention to convey meaning, it posits an
effort to turn structure into text. So, mediating between the words and
the "said," the words and the "sayable," are both interpretations and
intentions, two essentially subjective actions.

Text, structure, and action, then, are the three elements of culture.

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648

Together they constitute meaning; culture is meaning. Wuthnow and

Archer each set up a platform of objective structure by short-circuiting
the human effort involved in linking parts and wholes. Each eliminates
the "meaning work" of reading a text or proposition, the "meaning
work" of intending a text or proposition. But neither can say what the
content of culture is without referring to this work.

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