Synergy
Humanistic sociology explores the space between self and other where both self and other are created. It is here that the frontier of love appears: as the boundary moves back and forth from self to the other. This boundary is constantly changing and collapsing. It is in sharing this flow that love is discovered.
Love appears as if by magic: a spirit which shows up when we share the space; it is a spirit that plays between our lives. Perhaps a muse or perhaps a creation of the pooling of human power, it moves from one to the other, belonging to neither. A mystery: shared by both; and whence it comes, and where it goes, we do not know. The mystery moves from shore to shore. We know the experience, but how do we build a world in keeping with this experience? So many ways of framing the conversation drives love from our midst. Love is not a product of science.
It is by invitation only. How do we develop social structures and social arrangements which encourage and facilitate the invitation? Our theories tend to become plots for our lives: how do we develop a manner of speaking that does not violate the fullness of love? How do we create conditions where love can come into play? Precisely, how do we court the muse? Humanistic psychology arrives at this point and stops with the answer of pluralism. Each individual is separate; there can be no canopy which does not reduce the human spirit. Each individual perspective is distinct. We must respect the distance and not try to move beyond it.
I am I and You are You. If by chance we find each other, It's beautiful If not, it can't be helped (Perls, 1969, p. 1).
I am I and You are You. We move back and forth. Sometimes love happens to us. If not, we move on. To attempt more brings us to reducing and negating the human. I am I and You are You -- and never the twain shall meet; except sometimes, by chance. The conclusion is that there is no way to deal with love and humanism except to recognize the fundamental pluralism of persons.
It was the genius of Ruth Benedict who provided us with a way out of this dilemma. With one stroke, she simultaneously solved two major philosophical questions that have been outstanding for nearly two thousand years: she gives us a cornerstone for humanistic sociology and theoretical way through the maze of perspectivism.
Benedict devoted her entire career arguing for the anthropological stance of cultural relativity. Cultural relativity was both foundation for anthropological and banner of its academic credibility. Ruth Benedict's lifework was to institute cultural relativity firmly within the profession of anthropology. Only in her later years did she begin talking publicly about another concept. This concept had been haunting her for years because at first glance it seemed to undermine the core stance of cultural relativity. And yet it was not the opposite of cultural relativity, but the first concept that emerges when we move beyond scientific neutrality. The concept she introduced was synergy.
She provided the social disciplines a way of finally moving within the structures of the ancient "good" vs. ''Truth" debate. Of her concept, Maslow (1962) wrote:
From this point of view, a society or a culture can be either growth-fostering or growth-inhibiting. . . . This makes theoretically possible a comparative sociology, transcending and including cultural relativity. The 'better' culture gratifies all basic human needs and permits self-actualization. The 'poorer' cultures do not p. 211).
Benedict found a way of talking of values -- of "better" -- without negating a scientific framework. The armchair anthropologist and the zealous missionary had approached primitive cultures wielding values like a sword. Cultural relativity demanded that anthropologists take the time to understand what a value meant to the actor involved and to appreciate how the act integrated into the cultural way of life and rendition of meaning. In her travels and studies, though, Benedict found one thought that she simply could not deny some cultures -- some ways of life -- from any human standpoint, seemed preferable to others. Some cultures seemed to make life miserable for all of those involved. Other cultures made social arrangements such that the person was promoted to joy and fulfillment. These cultures appeared "objectively" to be "better" if we take into account that a society functions for the human actors in its system. Culture is not just a self-perpetuating end-in-itself, but a way of life for a given number of people. Benedict found herself forced to conclude that in some cultures life was -- and she was not comfortable with the word -- "good."
Benedict had studied the relation between individual character types and the social arrangements in which they lived. In some cultures, acts undertaken for the individual good also created a mutual good for others. In other systems, personal advancement could only be achieved at "the expense of others." In the former instances, personality types shared values similar to he values all systems of universal ethics recommend. In the later cases, individuals were greedy, selfish, and often paranoid. Benedict postulated and offered evidence that the component that accounted for this was the degree of convergence between the individual good and the good of others. This collaboration of group and individual good she called synergy. Synergy, the old term used in medicine and theology to mean combined action...greater than the sum of their separate actions" (Benedict, 1970, p. 321).
In the synergistic social arrangement, the person comes out larger social relationships. In the non-synergistic arrangement, the person is reduced for the sake of these relationships. The synergistic society manages to promote the individual. The non-synergistic society must deplete the person in order to create its system of meaning.
Actually, Benedict was not the first to bring the concept of synergy into sociological and anthropological circles. She was re-introducing the term at a particularly crucial juncture. Although she thought she was borrowing the concept from medicine and theology, these disciplines had originally borrowed the concept from sociology. The early sociologist Lester Frank Ward (1907) had used the word synergy to mean a creative synthesis. For Ward, it was the integrative principle of all social evolution.
Creative synthesis is a principle of far-reaching application. All the products of natural genesis involve appropriate principles . . . Here is a principle, operating in every department of nature and at every stage of evolution, which is conservative, creative, and constructive . . . I have at last fixed upon the word synergy as the term best adapted to express its twofold character of energy and mutuality, or the systematic and organic working together of the antithetical forces of nature . . . Synergy is a synthesis of work, or synthetic work, and this is what is everywhere taking place (Ward, 1907, p. 170). [Italics Original]
Creative synthesis thus brings together seemingly diverse elements, arriving at an arrangement for mutual advantage. The influence of Hegel's ''dialectic" must be noticed here. There is also a correlation with Bergson's later theories of social evolution. If synergy is a better arrangement, then people will aspire to such arrangements if given the proper cultural context. To Ward, synergy is "the balancing of forces" (Chugerman, 199, p. 151).
The human race began as an undifferentiated group, the horde containing all the elements of the most developed society. At length, a process of integration began, according to the principle by which all organization takes place, i.e., synergy (Ward, 1907, p. 203).
Everything in nature goes through the stages of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis -- conflict, assimilation, decay, and rebirth. Taking the two words synthesis and energy, he coined the word synergy to denote the universal teamwork of natural forces . . . To describe the use of synergy by the human mind, Ward borrowed the term creative synthesis from Wundt (Chugerman, 1965, p. 104). [Italics Original]
To Ward, synergy is the process that advances human evolution. It is likely, however, that the world filtered through modern medicine before it reached Ruth Benedict's ear. In medicine, synergy means substances that when acting together produce a result greater than the sum of their individual actions. The textbook example is the interaction between codeine and aspirin. Taken together, they enhance each other and produce d result greater than could have been predicted by simply adding together their individual actions. There is an interaction bonus so that 1 + 1 = more than 2. The sum of their combined action is greater than the sum of their individual actions.
Benedict dealt with synergy in terms of cultural arrangements but the application of the concept can be applied to smaller social arrangements. Indeed, if we apply the concept to interpersonal relations, it supplies an accurate operational definition of love.
Benedict's only published insights on synergy involved the relation between the macro-societal and the individual; however, they throw a light on the problem of relation and the conceptualization of love. She had sought for years to develop, as Harris (1970) put it, a concept that could organize anthropological data around humanistic values.
Benedict had spent her life destroying ethnocentrism. To bridge the topic of "the good" culture meant to open oneself to charges of value-bias. Benedict's lectures at Bryn Mawr on synergy never were published in original form. The only copy was lost when Maslow became convinced that he was a poor custodian because the elderly Benedict would outlive him. He sent the manuscript back to her -- shortly before her final heart attack. The synergy papers never turned up (Harris, 1970).
It remained for Maslow to later publish excerpts that had been hand transcribed by another professor (Benedict, 1970). We only have scattered hints of the fullness of her views: the reproduced parts from the original lectures and recollections from various private conversations. Why she did not publish them in her lifetime will probably remain a mystery. As Harris (1970) noted, one could certainly understand her hesitancy, for she had come upon the concept that emerges after cultural relativity; the concept that surpasses scientific neutrality. She probably knew that in her time she would be misunderstood.
Maybe she was afraid. Among the professionals of anthropology, anything but neutral categories might have been attacked as 'unscientific' -- the sin of sins . . . . When she died in 1948 from overworking a damaged heart, she had still not done the book beyond Patterns, the one committing herself to a notion of social good and evil . . . (Harris, 1970, p. 51).
Such fear would have been justified. The new weapon at hand was the dream of a science of man, to be as pure and objective as physics. Unproved moral assertions looked like ethnocentric evil, but cultural relativism looked like a scientific ethic (Harris, 1970, p. 51).
Her work as an anthropologist had been interpreted as proof of cultural relativity; however, this was missing the crucial insight that she felt she was discovering. As Harris (1970) told the story: . Benedict was deeply distressed by this interpretation of her work. To Maslow . . . she confessed an unstylish doubt about relativism . . . She showed him the huge sheets of newsprint on which she was listing the cultural characteristics of eight primitive peoples. She had them divided in two groups. When she talked of the first four -- the Dobu, the Chukehee, the Ojibwa, and the Kwakiutl -- her lean frame would shudder. When she talked of the others -- the Zuni, the Arapesh, the Dakota and one of the Eskimo groups -- her cameo face came alive with pleasure. She was hunting for concepts that would explain her inner sense of what made a culture 'nice.'
In the end, Benedict came up with the concept of synergy . . . . The deeply humanistic idea of synergy sounded sentimental and unscientific, of course, and Benedict never risked publishing it in professional journals . . . . The beauty of synergy haunted Maslow for years . . . . It offered anthropology a chance to build a humanistic study of comparative culture, to escape narrow scientism . . . . Maslow believes that synergy offers the first viable, post Marxian theory of the good society (pp. 51-52).
With science no longer the sacred calf that it was in Benedict's time, we can now explore her insights. They must be pieced together from the sketchy lectures reprinted by Maslow and from Maslow's (1971) own writings.
Benedict wrote:
In a study of personality and culture, therefore, we have to ask, is there any sociological condition common to all these typical social structures that correlates with character types? . . . Is there any sociological condition that correlates with strong aggression and any that correlate with low aggression? . . . From all comparative material the conclusion that emerges is that societies where non-aggression is conspicuous have social orders in which the individual by the same act and at the same time serves his own advantage and that of the group. The problem is one of social engineering and depends upon how large the areas of mutual advantage are in any society. Non-aggression occurs not because people are unselfish and pursue social obligations above personal desire, but when social arrangements makes these two identical (Maslow, 1971, p. 40).
The synergetic culture equates the 'individual good" with the "societal good." Such a social arrangement enhances the functioning of a culture: creating a lifestyle or culture ethos enhances those social arrangements that we call "good."
When social arrangements equate individual good and societal good, life appears to be full, joyful, and -- we must conclude -- good. When social arrangements make life a zero-sum game, one can only succeed at the expense of others. In such cultures, life is fearful, aggressive, and generally not as good.
Some cultures nourish the person: People are apt to wait patiently for his growth in wisdom and discretion. The whole course of his experience has inculcated in him a faith in the rewards of acting with his fellows. He sees life as an area of mutual advantage where by joint activity he attains his own personal desires . . . . Our theories of human nature must be wide enough to include the kind of behavior that occurs in such sociological settings (Benedict, 1970, p. 55).
Other cultures define the situation differently. Just as the cultures whose arrangements emphasize synergy become self-fulfilling prophecies, so cultures that conceive of life as a competitive struggle enact such a world. In many ways, synergy is a matter of definition of the situation. We set a tone and create d world around it. If we conceive of self too narrowly, then mutual enhancement is apt to go unnoticed as a crucial aspect of self. We create instead a battleground of self vs. other and self vs. group.
Benedict's argument was such cultural arrangements are always unsuccessful. When self is subverted to a meaningless conformity to society, polluting side-effects are the result. If society serves self, then self serves society and we create a synergistic culture. The "Good" society furthers the lives of the persons in that society. Otherwise, one cannot help but ask: then who is the society for? The answer to that question invariably appears as crime, violence, anomie, unhappiness, and a less than satisfying life.
Benedict wrote that the conditions of aggression appear the same everywhere.
I believe we are misled by mere scale and too easily believe that we are faced by a condition civilizations have not met everywhere. I believe we are misled by mere scale and too easily believe that we are faced by a condition civilizations have not met before. Small-scale or large, the fundamental condition of peace is federation for mutual advantage (Benedict, 1970, p. 55).
Other cultures have felt similar strains. This is true even if we apply it to the Second World War when she wrote:
The state may seek its own advantage at the expense of its citizens . . . . we are wrong to think dictators are a new invention. Some African states have dictators who could give pointers to Hitler . . . (Benedict, 1970, p. 74).
From the micro to the macro level of society, the balancing of the individual and societal good predicts the movement to synergy; it is a commitment to a creative possibility. Synergy is, first of all, a commitment. Only then does synergy become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In this way, synergy is much like the "Prisoner's Dilemma" game. It requires a commitment to see the process through. This type of commitment seems to occur by realizing the interrelation of self with other; people transcend narrow self-interest to mutual advantage only by understanding the larger parameters of the situation.
In Unselfishness: The Role of the Vicarious Affects in Moral Philosophy and Social Theory, Rescher (1975) showed how the small group experimental game, the "Prisoner's Dilemma," relates to synergy. In a mock setting, two people are both accused of committing a crime together. The experimenter seeks to get them to "confess." If both subjects ''confess," they are immediately "executed.'' If only one of the prisoners confesses, then both are still executed. The only way out of the experimental dilemma is if both prisoners refuse to inform on the other. Then. eventually, they will both be set free. (I am grateful to Or. Arthur Warmoth of the Sonoma State University Humanistic Psychology department for this insight.)
It is obvious that action in such a dilemma for individual advantage will not necessarily make the right choice unless one understands the higher order parameters of the situation. Only by understanding the nature of the situation -- that the fates of self and other are intertwined -- is there a way out. Synergy is a similar process. It requires greater understanding of the interrelation between self and other. In order to achieve synergy, there must be a commitment to synergy itself.
Both self and other must be committed to the process and understand it is the only available option. If self is reified and viewed as separate from other, the individual might seek advantage by making the other expendable. It the individual good is placed in preference to the societal good, then the societal arrangements on which the person depends may fail. If the societal good is given eminent domain over the person, then society is not for the people who live in it. Society will pay the price in crime, aggression, alienation, and general malfunctioning.
This was Fromm's insight on intimacy. If we do not have two full integrities, then it is impossible for the individual to experience love. The only practical and available way of achieving d relationship of love is for the individual to allow fullness of both self and other to exist. Any negation of either self or other prohibits an exploration of love. The only way out is a commitment to synergy.
Love is not a product of self. It is not just an attitude with which one faces the world. Such attitudes are like moods: they come and go; and without response, they soon dissipate. Love is not the gift of other -- crucial as other is to the process. If self just goes along for the ride, then other will soon recognize the burden for what it is. Love demands a meeting of self and other. Love is a mutual commitment and invitation to create in love. It is a commitment to synergy: a commitment to forego other ways of relationship and hold out for synergy until the prison walls crumble at our feet.
It is only be recognition of the existential dilemma between self and other that the individual can be convinced to commit to synergy. Self cannot obtain what it wants through any other process. Forcing and the scientific power will simply never bring us the heart's desire. Love demands both a self and other, because love takes place between "I" and "you." If other is simply an enlarged appendage of self, there is no place that love can occur. Love requires a space in which to enter: it is an exploration of the mystery of boundary between "I" and "You." No other strategy will suffice. It is either commitment to synergy or to something less than love. There are many games self and other can play: power, status, trading, dependence . . . . Only by moving past the prison of aloneness of both self and other is love and freedom possible. Synergy is a commitment that both hold out for love and not pull out of the process for more expedient rewards.
This is the dilemma of self; it is also the dilemma of the societal good versus individual good. Expedient granting of eminent domain to one or the other simply will not work in the long run. Synergy's prime condition is a commitment to more. It is a small wonder that when love fails, one feels they have been condemned to death. Love is "social": it requires two (or more) to do its miracle.
Sociological Theories of Relationship
If we outline the ways that people can relate, several possibilities emerge. Sociology has analyzed several of these possibilities under its major schools of thought. The prime types of relationship have been amply studied with one exception. That exception is love and synergy. Such relationships are gaps in sociological understanding. Traditionally, sociology has articulated three different possibilities. One possibility is to simply put the relationship above self. "We" definitions are given eminent domain over "I" definitions. The relationship is given priority over the participants. The preservation and functioning of the society -- the societal good -- is seen as more important than the individual. We too readily compromises self for the sake of relation. Examples of such arrangements abound: from business relations at the office to intimate dyads that compromise integrity for union. This pattern of social arrangement has been amply explored and articulated by the sociological perspective of functionalism.
Functionalism begins with the biological analogy that the body is more than just a composite of organs and bones. Society is thus ''greater than the sum of its parts." However, functionalism is not synergy; it quickly forgets individual elements and moves exclusively to consider society as all important. The whole individual is reduced to a "role" in society.
By reducing people to roles for the sake of relationship, functionalism afford us not synergy but its opposite. Jessie Bernard (1972. p. 42) speaks of the way a woman "dwindles" into being a wife. Adjustments are certainly necessary in marriage, but there is a sense that the person is too quickly "dwindled" into the role. Personhood is lopped-off; self is reduced to a role-like version: a wife , a mother, etc. We forget that the relationship is to enhance the person; it becomes all too easy to whittle the human down to size to fit ourselves to a preconceived idea of relationship. This functionist relationship of persons as role-players is one of the typical ways of relating in society; it sacrifices the individual for the group. The individual is viewed secondary to the needs of society. This is a symbiotic possibility, but it is not synergy.
Another possible way of relating one person to another is through domination and exploitation. This social arrangement pattern has been analyzed in sociology by Conflict Theory; it is the symbiosis of masochism and sadism. It is simply the possibility of getting hat one wants not by creativity but by simple force. It foregoes the possibility of true intimacy for the expediency of a power game. Here 1 + 1 = less than 2. In fact, 1 + 1 = 1: the one who wins.
The third approach to relationship that sociology has explored is separate individuals who trade interpersonal rewards and punishments, and goods and services; this is the sociology of exchange theory. At first glance, the notion of reciprocity might be mistaken for synergy. But as Fromm has argued in the final pages of The Art of Loving, synergy is vastly different from the idea of fair exchange: "The practice of love must begin with recognizing the difference between fairness and love" (Fromm, 1956, p. 109).
This is an interesting statement to conclude his important work upon: "The practice of love must begin with recognizing the difference between fairness and love."
The fundamental assumption of exchange theory somehow usually goes unnoticed; it premises separate individuals who exchange across their boundaries. Separateness is never overcome; we have a perpetual society of strangers. In exchange theory, self is never transcended by a "we," but remains intact and separated.
Exchange arrangements never explore the creative possibility of giving. The idea that giving -- which should be a cost -- is a creative act that actually enhances the giver makes little sense in exchange theory unless it is viewed as an investment or altruistic mechanism for enhancing self-esteem. Love implies a different form of relation. In love, self and other do not remain separate entities who merely trade interpersonal products.
In exchange theory literature, the notion of the "free gift" is negated. From this perspective, people are always doing things for what they can get in return. Yet from an intimacy perspective, one might well define love as a free gift. Exchange trades involve constantly keeping score: a rational calculus of costs vs. benefits that must be periodically audited. The norm of reciprocity maintains that "if I give to you, then you must give to me." It is a trading obligation. Yet one might conceive of another process (karma?) where a person gives and things just come back on their own accord. Value among intimates tends to come to the top; among strangers, we must be constantly street-wise.
Georg Simmel had the habit of illustrating a point with precisely the right example. In asking what are the effects on a relationship when it is converted to a calculus of units of exchange, he is inquired into the nature of money. Money is a method of keeping score: of balancing rewards with costs. The example he used to illustrate the effects of keeping score clearly showed the quantum leap between an intimacy perspective and an exchange perspective. His example is the difference between an intimate relationship and prostitution. In prostitution, intimacy-is structured within the parameters of exchange. Love is a product and one is given a bill at the door. One never transcends the calculus of separateness.
Exchange never deals with the question of meaning. A fair exchange never approaches the fundamental need to transcend individual separateness; trading never gives us security or the intimacy of merging boundaries. The exchange perspective may give an accurate picture of when a relationship is not working -- when persons are withdrawing from relation to become separate individuals. But it can never give understanding of the nature and dynamics of intimacy. Intimacy is not economic. We devised those systems for strangers.
Synergy or love is the fourth possible way of creating social relationship. This possibility has remained unexplored in sociology and forms the new ground for a humanistic sociology. The dynamics of magical synthesis have not been articulated. It is now possible to begin to speak meaningfully about synergy. How is it facilitated? What prevents its occurrence? What prerequisites encourage it? How do we move from "I" to "We" without losing one or the other?
We have seen that the normal sociologically articulated types of interaction foreshadow the possibility of love and synergy: the idea of 1 + 1 = more than 2 is circumscribed. In functionalism, "I" and ''you" are lost to a "We." In the arrangements described by conflict theory, a "We" is gained only by "I" dominating "You" or "You" dominating "I". There is no "I" and "You,'' but only an enlarged "I" or "You" that pretends to be "We." In exchange theory, a "We" never happens; it is only a code word for a mutually satisfying trade. "I" and "You" remain distinct. "We" is not explored.
Synergy and its Pretenders
Laissez-faire Approaches. Most attempts at sociological theory quickly obscure self to a partial aspect in trying to reach too soon for a larger conceptual reality. Humanistic psychology seeks to ensure the fundamental aspects of synergy -- self and other -- remain intact; and ensure that love is possible. Although love does not allow one to force its emergence, there is a very real sense that one can prevent it from occurring. Most sociological theories structure love in a way that there is not sufficient space in which it can occur. Humanistic psychology declares society the culprit and develops its own theory of sociology that is equivalent to "laissez faire."
It is unfortunate that most of the literature on synergy has followed Maslow's approach. Maslow's idea of enacting synergy was largely one of laissez faire and pluralism. In opening up existing social structures that prevent synergy, humanistic approaches have emphasized anarchistic, non-structuring arrangements in hopes it will facilitate synergy.
There is certainly a need for freedom if synergy is to occur. There is certainly the need to provide space within social structures and arrangements for a creative synthesis to happen. Pluralism is central to understanding self and other -- but more is needed. We must open up destructive social structures, yet we must provide new social forms or pluralism simply degenerates into non-freedom. We must create, re-think, and articulate social forms that facilitate the person. Simply foregoing destructive forms will not be enough.
Maslow's (1971) approach emphasized the mistake that most of humanistic psychology (and psychology in general) make in relation to the sociological. We cannot just blame society. We cannot cast the romantic, free person against a dialectic of the chained person in society. For society is what we do: it is a re-enactment that involves our participation. If we should take the most extreme and adventurous mystics, romantics, and artists and give then a new kingdom, we would not have escaped from the social and its problems: they would re-create society in a day.
Society means expectations, norms, and values. Society means trying to re-create what matters; it means a method toward a purpose. We cannot give up goals, planning, and thinking. Society means self-conscious action. It is our reflection upon now and envisioning the future that creates the social.
It was "random, blundering acts" that William Graham Sumner set against the social. It is the spontaneous, creative act that humanistic psychology sets against society. But we must realize that what humanistic psychology values is not the self (as it would claim), but the "I" in George Herbert Mead's sense. The "I" is the creative, spontaneous aspect of self. The times when I feel it is "I" who is doing. The "I" is alive. It is what we call the human. But the "I" can also reflect upon itself and in doing so casts itself in the role of object: to the realm of "me." It is this "me" that is sociological. The "I" cannot be permanently separated from the "me." Such is the fallacy of humanistic psychology. Finding a way of looking at "me" that allows "I": this is the task of humanistic sociology.
We could recast this argument in different terms. We could talk about reification: how do we make a statement or emphasize a value without in turn setting in motion a social process that ceases to see? Or we could speak of institutionalization: how do we generate a means on without turning it into method and technique that demand rules for its operation? We could use Bergson's distinction: how do we follow an aspiration of the heart without converting it into social pressure when it is not working?
We must retain the social and realize this is where are arguments must come to grips with life. We cannot successfully embrace the creative and spontaneous while abdicating the social. Laissez-faire approaches to synergy will not work.
In fact, after the initial shot-in-the-arm. they contain an underlying authoritarianism and conservatism. If we simply relegate synergy to a social process, then it will appear by chance, but its occurrence is no more likely than chance. Group process itself contains a "cooling-out" mechanism that humanistic psychology has seemingly failed to notice. We are left with functionalism and its pseudo-synergy. The group pressure toward conformity. The issue is how to create full human beings within society. Only then can synergy happen.
Agreement and Compromise.
Synergy cannot be achieved through compromise. If consensus arises through an actual change of mind, synergy might at times appear to be similar to agreement. However, it is much different. If two individuals both compromise, then it is unlikely that 1 + 1 will equal more than 2 because both persons have been reduced. Synergy is a pooled knowledge involving a bonus.
Dreikurs (1946) offers insight into the humanistic power of influence and process of synergy
. . improvement cannot be accomplished without acceptance . . . Acceptance is not identical with agreement. If we accepted only when we fully approved, there would remain very little for us to accept . . . . Acceptance includes more than concord. It is the expression of a positive attitude towards something or someone, regardless of existing shortcomings and deficiencies. Our ability to influence requiresa friendly and understanding attitude (p. 104). Synergy is something different than compromise. And it doesn't always necessarily mean agreement. On might compare synergy with cooper-ation, but perhaps a better word would be to call it an interplay. Perhaps much of the literature that functionalism has embraced as cooperation might be separated and better understood as synergy.
Functionalism: Synergy as a Norm. In many ways, functionalism is the metaphor that life is a party. It is business as usual. Everyone tries to cooperate. The obligation is to "have a good time." But we must ask in a very real sense: to what can synergy be a norm? If we are obligated to have a good time; if we are obligated to cooperate, have we not somewhat lessened synergy to compromise? Does 1 + 1 = more than 2 or have we not made it into 1-1/2 or 1-1/4, or less? Functionalism uses many metaphors that would remind us of synergy; yet, we need only take a few criticisms of conflict theorists seriously to see functionalism means reduction of the human: synergy by prescription; or synergy fitted to a predetermined mold can hardly be synergy. This is a plight that all attempts at humanistic sociology must be interfaced with. When we describe an ideal relationship, it has a tendency to be translated into a norm. As Krishna noted, even Max Weber's ideal-type construct tends to become an ideal in the hands of the layman. When we postulate an ideal relationship, the role-player can manipulate toward it. This is also the problem of Mead's "I" and "me."
If we reflect upon Mead's distinction, we note the "I" is the spontaneous, the alive, the creative, the active part of self. It is not reflective, but actively moving. It feels alive. It is when self feels empowered by life. This "I" part of self is precisely the component of self that is valued by humanistic psychology. In fact, often it seems humanistic psychology mistakes the total self for only the "I."
The ''me," on the other hand is the reflective part of self -- it treats self as object: picturing what happened to ''me." When one reflects upon "I" that turns it into a "me." The role player is the "me." The most glorious parts of the past and most promising parts of the future slip away when translated as "me's." It is the "I" that we crave.
Here is the problem of reification, of institutionalization, and society in a nutshell: the problem of the ''I" and the "me." It is nowhere more apparent than when we conceive of synergy. One + One = more than Two implies that "I" + another "I" = more than Two. A "me" plus another "me" would probably equal less than Two. In fact, does not synergy mean that both persons in a relationship experience themselves predominately as "I"'s?
If we translate synergy to norm as functionalism does, then it is obligated. We can strive toward a commitment and an ideal. But is synergy enforceable as a norm? Role theory has something to say here. Often roles are defined as a series of rights and obligations. One person's right is another person's obligation and vice versa. Synergy cannot be a right and an obligation in such a sense because we're. not talking about a zero-sum game. I can get a right only at the expense of your obligation. Synergy means more for both.
Functionalism's mandated cooperation destroys synergy. Individual creativity is eroded by such a group process. Synergy can't be required or it only parodies itself; it loses its creative force.
One can also allude here to Goffman's dramaturgy which has often been called a microfunctionalism. Goffman spoke of a standard social process that is very similar to what has been termed synergy. It is the ritual of "saving face." "Saving face" is commitment on the part of both participants that both will "come out ahead." It is on one level a commitment to synergy; yet, as a social process, it becomes a norm and loses much of its power. "Saving face" is more often a ritual than true synergistic process. But normatively, it appears at least verbally to do a very good job of translating synergy to a norm. An etiquette embracing a true commitment to "saving face" could actually create viable synergistic options.
However, it must be concluded that it is the process of institutionalizing synergy into a norm often goes awry. Synergy can not be turned into a norm subject to the typical dynamics of social control. Here we may have a way of weaving B. F. Skinner's odd statement that "love is the use of positive reinforcement" into the fabric of humanism. However, if such a conception is taken seriously, it totally changes the idea of what "control" is. Authentic rewards are opportunities; they are inviting; they are creative alternatives and meaningful interactions. They resemble the humanistic power. It is here that one might begin to re-vision society and what it would look like without obligation, social pressure, and the rest of negative re-inforcement. A positive social control would be a series of invitations to synergy. Synergy cannot be forced as a norm can be -- it cannot be required. It takes two or more in freedom for its commitment; the key to synergy is a commitment to this value. In some ways, it seems that a full commitment to freedom is all that is necessary for synergy to do its magic.
Synergy provides us with an operational definition of love and a strategy we can explore. The primary ingredient appears to be that we will fully commit ourselves to synergy as opposed to withdrawing into other games and expediencies. But other dynamics need to be explored and articulated: we need to separate out the differences between synergy and cooperation; we need to explore the conditions and societal arrangements that make synergy likely; and we need to understand how we can restructure society around humanistic values.
Humanistic psychology has taken the first step: the prerequisite to synergy is the fully functioning person. We cannot diminish the person and achieve a synergetic society. Beyond this initial understanding lies new articulations and explorations.
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