Agency and Freedom in Neo-Functionalist Action

798 SOCIAL RESEARCH

materialism. Contrary to both th that all social facts are necessaril between sign and symbol, Sahlins their own internal logic and struct are to some extent arbitrary and c of social conditions. For instance, the binary structures of mind a interpreted to be a strategy to meanings of symbols in their inter the reduction of symbols to the lev and material content. However, for characterized by the existence o symbolic schema and the objective dimension of social action. One ca of multidimensionality applies to choice and social institutions.53 In spite of the difference of structuralist and neofunctional- ist formulations of multidimensionality, both theories are excessively deterministic. What is shared by both the structur- alist and neofunctionalist theories is the passive reduction of the individual to the cultural rules of the society. It should be noted that Sahlins's emphasis on the autonomy of culture from the realm of material structures is a statement at the level of social structures and does not pertain to the relation between the individual and social structures. For both functionalism and structuralism, the individual is ultimately an embodiment of social relations and social rules. Althusser's theory of ideology and subjectivity clearly formulates this theoretical premise. According to Althusser, human individuals are subject in the double sense of the term. They are in reality subject to the social conditions and culture of the society. In other words, humans are passive embodiments of social structures. However, in order to perform their roles effectively

59 Marshal Sahlins, Culture and Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976).

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