The first text is a journal article:
Nadel, S. F. (1953). Social control and self-regulation. Social Forces, 31(3), 265-273.
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"No one will quarrel with the assertion that social existence is controlled existence, for we all accept a certain basic assumption about human nature - namely, that without some constraint of individual leanings the coordination of action and regularity of conduct which turn a human aggregation into a society could not materialize. It is thus true to say that 'the focus of sociology and its perpetual problem - the relation of the social order and the individual being, the relation of the unit and the whole." (p. 265)
Clearly the author (affiliation: Australian National University) missed the McCarthy era (1950-1954, USA) and is excluding anyone who might believe in the "withering away" of government, which belief would seem to contradict the "we all accept..." aspect of this assertion. Or maybe he is assuming that his readers are not Marxists.
Be that as it may, I will join him in the belief that individuals generally need control, which the Bible seems to also affirm (cp. Rom. 2:12-16, where "controls" are the Law and conscience; Rom. 8:14, where the Holy Spirit is a "control" for Christians; Heb. 10:24 where fellow Christians are "controls" for each other).
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"The question arises where the control resides. Clearly, the social order as such already constrains or controls; institutions, mores, patterned relationships, and all the other constituents of social existence prescribe modes of thought and action and hence canalize and curb individual leanings." (p. 265)
From here the author goes on to discuss different views of what constitute "controls", which seem to range from society and its culture in general on the very all-encompassing end of the spectrum to the more narrow understanding that it refers only the regulatory aspects of culture. So, if I understand it correctly, the narrower view would not see the custom of taking one's shoes off upon entering a home as a "control" (although the broader view would see it as a "control"), but would see the mechanisms of enforcing that custom as being a "control." The author takes the latter view, the narrower one.
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Next the author discusses how importance being put on an action is in itself a control, and he notes that importance is identified by the actors as such and/or by other actions or individuals being dependent on the action. Then he goes on to give the example of how in primitive societies there is a low level of inventiveness because they've found ways that work, but when they see other options being used in others they are willing to adopt such practices, because they see that they work. So these people aren't willing to take risks to find something new on their own but if they see something else being done that does work they are willing to change. (These generalizations about "primitive peoples" are ones the author provides.) So the point is, then, that importance put on such actions is enough by itself to serve as a control for continuance of the prescribed actions.
Here I will stop and consider what implications, if any, this might have on the Vienna mission, as I experienced it. I think that it could well have direct implications, although I admit to not having read ahead in the text (at least not recently). I can see that the mission, once it settled on a way to do things, that is once all of the member missions had come to an agreement about them, a great importance was put on many of the things I saw and experienced in Vienna because of 1) the security concerns regarding working in communist countries and 2) the need to keep all the member missions happy. So the importance of these security features was great enough that the importance alone was enough to guarantee the continuance of them.
This, I think, could well be so if it weren't for the fact that, unlike most tribes, I think, there were periodic newcomers to the mission that didn't know of these things that had been decided on by the missions and which were seen as being so important. So there had to be a way to pass that on to the newcomers. Tribes, in contrast, would probably mostly just have to socialize children into cultural priorities and values. So, while "importance" could be enough of a control in general in the Vienna mission context, it doesn't account for how to pass that sense of "importance" on to newcomers, who, without that sense of "importance" would have no control if that were the only control in use.
So, in this way, "importance" as a control could only work with those who hold to the value embodied in the "importance" valuation, although it may well have played an important role in the socialized member's control repertoire in the mission.
When I came to Vienna my valuations were more along these lines:
1. Because of the nature of communist theory and also how it is applied in various contexts, it can be very difficult to practice one's faith where communism is the ruling political ideology.
2. Because of the nature of communist theory and also how it is applied in various contexts, missionaries need to be judicious in their activities in such contexts.
However, the mission would not have been satisfied with that and might have added something like this:
3. Because of the nature of communist theory and also how it is applied in various contexts, we have license to do whatever necessary to ensure we can carry out our work.
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"Any mode of behavior operating as a diacritical sign (i.e., a differentiating sign or symbol) is multivalent to a simple degree. Thus customs of dress, eating habits, style of residence or manners of speech, apart from attaining their intrinsic ends (protection of the body, satiation of hunger, shelter, communication), will often also indicate a person's social status, group or class membership, and generally his social relationship with others. The continuance of these indicative modes of behavior is thus reinforced by the importance of the state of affairs they indicate. Or, in terms of individual behavior, individuals will keep up a certain dialect, manner of dress, and so forth, in order to evince their status and group membership and, implicitly, to qualify for the benefits that go with them." (p. 268)
This is, I think rather important. That is, I was acting in Vienna in a way that I thought was appropriate for an Evangelical Christian missionary to act. And, while each mission undoubtedly has its own nuances and organizational cultural expectations, the mission I was with, that is the one I was on loan to at least, had significantly different ideas of how an Evangelical Christian missionary should act, or more specifically, how an Evangelical Christian mission to Eastern Europe working with them should act. And some of those mission-specific quirks had diacritical sign aspects to them. An anthropologist would have had a hay day, I'm sure, in studying them. However, I was not skilled in anthropological methods or even in the study of anthropology (other than that one class in crosscultural communications in my undergraduate studies, which included bits of anthropology).
The last sentence, however, is particularly important, I think: "...individuals will keep up [specific ways of doing things]... in order to evince their status and group membership and, implicitly, to qualify for the benefits that go with them." In an anthropological way, then, I would never really be a part of them unless I adhered to these appropriate diacritical sign ways of doing things, particularly the ways of communicating and relating to one another and outsiders.
If I may take liberties, I'd like to compare this to my experience of living in Siberia. I knew that there were different ways one could approach another culture, including, for example, rejection of it outright, assimilation or adjustment. I consciously decided that I didn't think it would realistically be possible for me to ever completely assimilate because I couldn't just erase all my prior years, identity and experiences, so I decided to adapt. That is, I would not necessarily try to do away with my past self, but augment it and adapt it to the new context, thus changing my past identity some but also letting my new experiences and context contribute to my identity. I never felt that this was a problem in my experiences in Siberia. The only thing that might have been a problem, especially at first, were my Christian values, but the Russian Christians would likewise have agreed with my stands on these moral issues, so it wasn't so much a Russian vs. American thing as a Russian unbeliever vs. American believer problem.
But returning to Austria, which is what I'm supposed to be talking about here, I think the only option the mission would have accepted would have been assimilation, and adaptation, which is what I was open to, was not acceptable and was tantamount, in their eyes, as rejection of their culture, because, as I've said before, they were a total institution, and as such total institutions are more or less all or nothing, not pick and choose. So by my adaptation approach was viewed by them as rejection and was treated as such. I needed to respond to them as the total institution they were.
However, that being said, I'm not sure in my case that even that would have been adequate, because I never did quite please them and the pesky business about my father's work. If this is true, then even assimilation would not have been adequate to please the mission, at least not please them enough to assure my continuance with them for years and years as a career missionary as I had hoped. Since I do not know for certain what would have pleased them, there is still the possibility that I couldn't have done anything to please them and the problem was not cultural at all, but political. But in any case, from the cultural standpoint I do know that adjustment was, in their eyes, not a satisfactory cultural adjustment orientation (meaning adjustment to their organizational culture).
The other thing though, was my membership in the secretary "subculture." I'm not so sure what to do with that one. The thing is that there was diversity among the secretaries in as much as they all had quite different responsibilities and personalities. So one would think that this might be a situation where diversity was accepted and it wouldn't be that "mission critical" for me to be different from them any more than they were all different from each other. So even though I felt confined by the mission's making them my reference group, my problems weren't really in that area as far as what happened between me and the mission. That is is, even if I did feel it confining, this wasn't what caused me problems with the mission, at least not directly.
What I mean is that the mission's being a total institution wasn't really role specific, meaning unique to secretaries. But it was my not identifying with the secretaries and wanting more of a hands-on people ministry that drove me to extracurricular free-time activities and involvements. In this, however, I was responding more to the work itself (which wasn't fulfilling to me) than to anything else.
There were certain secretarial norms, such as the relationships with one's boss's family and roles in group functions and the like, but those weren't at issue. I did these knowing more or less that this was the kind of thing secretaries might be expected to do, especially in that kind of context. But that didn't make it fulfilling to me, so that drove me elsewhere to find fulfillment.
In doing that, however, I wasn't breaking secretarial norms, I don't think. If I was breaking any norms it would have been the whole group's norms. But that's assuming there was a way I could have met those norms, and if there wasn't than there was something dad-related going on that meant no matter what I did I couldn't please the mission. Or at least I couldn't please the mission and be happy at the same time, because pleasing the mission would have, in that case, meant doing or being something that first and foremost wouldn't put my dad at risk, and my interests, gifts, knowledge and experience would only be relevant in as much as that consideration for my dad allowed it to be relevant.
So while there were sub-group norms at play here, I don't think they were the issue.
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I'm going to stop here for now, but there's more to come.
