FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS 257
undermines the " rationality activist model" it has conservative implications
and. thus is unacceptable. 53 It is a little difficult to understand
what the attackers propose. At least some of their arguments
sound quite similar to those the Church offered when deciding to
silence Galileo because his theories were felt to undermine the basis
of Christian morality. After all, if the kind of democratic polity described
by Almond is the best we can realistically expect to create,
then rejecting it because it does not conform to our wishes, is a
little like suggesting we repeal the law of gravity because it does
not permit men to walk on water. 54 Whatever the relation between
facts and values, no reasonable person will. continue to strive to
achieve a state of affairs which cannot be realized, especially if
Almond ' s theory is correct, and the attempt seems likely to lead to
greater evils than now exist.
Faced with Almond ' s analyses, then, a scholar with a serious
commitment to attaining as democratic a polity as possible, has but
two options. He may offer an alternative theory which is at least
as good as Almond ' s in terms of its explanatory power, and which
permits us to believe that full "rational" political participation can
be achieved by means of structural changes in the society. Alternately,
he may accept Almond ' s analysis and yet deny its implication,
by showing that so-called disruptive behavior promotes values which
are more important than " democratic stability." He may not,
without emulating the Church in one of its most ludicrous moments,
reject the analysis for its " moral " or political implications."
Bay and Walker, in the analyses I have been summarizing, attempt
both tasks. With regard to the first, however, they do little
but assert that the average man has potentially more competence
than Almond gives him credit for. Unfortunately their argument
remains on the level of assertion, and does not quite hit the mark
53 See Walker, and Bay, op. cit., among many others.
54
As Marx noted in attacking the German idealists. His point was that
there was little to be gained in attacking the existing system and calling for
socialism, unless one could develop a conceptual scheme and a theory which
demonstrated that a superior type of social order such as socialism could replace
existing social arrangements.
J5 See the insightful essay by Charles Taylor, " Neutrality in Political Science,"
in Peter Laslett and W. G. Runciman (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and
Society, third series (Oxford, 1967), pp. 25-57. Walker cites this article, but
it seems to me that he does not really understand its implications.