The branches are so crooked you cannot cut them up in any way that makes sense.” Hui Tzu said to Chuang, “I have a big tree, the kind they call a “stinktree.” The trunk is so distorted, so full of knots, no one can get a straight plank out of it. It reminds me of Thomas Merton’s interpretation of Chuang Tzu’s parable of “The Useless Tree.” Here the Taoist is in dialog with a noted logician, friend and intellectual rival, Hui Tzu. I don’t fault the student here, but rather, the whole context in which we operate, one in which the views and findings of sociology are undervalued, especially as impractical, particularly by psychology. They really aren’t the same because in equity theory, relationships seek balance, but in exchange theory, doing someone a favor creates an imbalance of power, which establishes reciprocity. Later, however, as the discussion revolved around exchange theory, and the possible advantage of doing someone a favor, she suggested that social psych had ready the concept of equity. I tried not to take this as a comment upon the subject matter I dearly love, namely, that sociology is impractical. Last week I was making small talk with a student about another class in which I had seen her taking a test.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |