Bannister, Robert C.

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Swarthmore College Works History Faculty Works History 12-1-2000 Review Of "Social Control And Public Intellect: The Legacy Of Edward A. Ross" By S. H. McMahon Robert C. Bannister Swarthmore College This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history  Part of the History Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Robert C. Bannister. (2000). "Review Of "Social Control And Public Intellect: The Legacy Of Edward A. Ross" By S. H. McMahon". Isis. Volume 91, Issue 4. 825-826. DOI: 10.1086/385016 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/208  The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis.http://www.jstor.orgReview Author(s): Robert C. Bannister Review by: Robert C. Bannister Source:   Isis, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Dec., 2000), pp. 825-826Published by:  on behalf of  The University of Chicago Press The History of Science SocietyStable URL:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/236891Accessed: 11-06-2015 14:44 UTCYour use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jspJSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:44:44 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsBOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 91: 4 (2000) chotomy is flimsy. Weidman alleges that the is- sue at the heart of the disagreement between Lashley and Pavlov was whether humans were improvable creatures. The allegation has little or no substance. Weidman says that Lashley's stance against the improvability of mental func- tion derived from his argument that the brain op- erated as a whole and thus "all of its neurons were involved in all its reactions, and so it had literally no room for improvement" (p. 77), but there is no record of Lashley having made that argument. His principles of equipotentiality and mass action are incorrectly stated; the errors in the description of equipotentiality-"all parts of the brain are equally capable of carrying out all functions" (p. 52)-are especially egregious, as are the persistent characterizations of Lashley's position as a belief in "an equipotential brain" (e.g., p. 53) or in "whole-brain functioning" (p. 15). In short, Weidman's social constructivist account either ignores relevant data or shapes them to fit the theory. The result is a perspective in which one can have little confidence. DARRYL BRUCE Sean H. McMahon. Social Control and Public Intellect: The Legacy of Edward A. Ross. xiv + 199 pp., frontis., app., bibls., index. New Bruns- wick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999. $34.95. Once a popular and influential sociologist, Ed- ward A. Ross (1866-1951) is the sort of white male many contemporary academics would pre- fer not to see resurrected. Inordinately proud of his height and long, narrow head, he gloried in his professional triumphs no less than his Nordic ancestry. "It simply amazes me," he wrote his foster mother, "to see how wonderfully success- ful I am" (p. 11). Recent immigrants, in contrast, were "beaten men of beaten breeds" (p. 110). It is thus with some courage that Sean Mc- Mahon attempts a sympathetic portrait of Ross as "modernist," "public intellectual," and source of the "social control" paradigm that shaped American sociology. Writing intellectual history rather than biography, McMahon organizes his study around five stages of Ross's career: his social activism in the 1890s, which cost him his position at Stanford; his role in the creation of a sociological canon oriented toward psychology; his contribution to the progressive creed of na- tional efficiency; his popular books on "race sui- cide" and his world travels; and his legacy in historical and sociological writing. Although claiming to have used "numerous new sources" (p. 79), McMahon draws primarily on the Ross and Richard T. Ely Papers and on readily accessible published materials. Chal- lenges to earlier studies, including Julius Wein- berg's Edward Alsworth Ross and the Sociology of Progressivism (Madison: State Historical So- ciety of Wisconsin, 1972), are relatively minor and not entirely convincing. McMahon attributes Ross's sympathy for farmers and workers, for example, not to psychological needs but, more straightforwardly, to his rural upbringing. His dismissal at Stanford was the result neither of a personality clash with Mrs. Stanford nor of larger forces threatening academic freedom but of Ross's deliberate violation of an agreement not to take partisan positions outside his area of expertise. Turning public controversy to profes- sional advantage, Ross timed his resignation to coincide with the publication of Social Control (1901). Although McMahon offers some suggestive insights, murky conceptualizations and exagger- ated claims mar his overall treatment of Ross's thought and influence. Ross's technocratic view of science may arguably be termed "modernist," although it bears no resemblance to the "aes- thetic modernism" with which the term is con- ventionally associated (see Dorothy Ross, ed., Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences, 1870-1930 [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1994]). Ignoring the nuances of the word and concept, McMahon reduces modern- ism to a "quest for usable truths" (p. 5) and a "belief in the power of the self" to effect change (p. 75), conflating it with a generalized "prag- matism." McMahon fails to define the term "public intellectual," leaving his reader wonder- ing how Ross differs from a long line of tenured academic radicals and popularizers. Although Ross popularized the term "social control," many others also focused on the problem of so- cialization, including Charles Horton Cooley, whose rival conception of socialization McMa- hon does not discuss. And by what measure was Wisconsin's sociology department, where Ross taught after 1906, the "largest" (p. 80) in the United States? Maladroit prose compounds the factual and conceptual problems. Social forces are "omniscient" (presumably "powerful" is in- tended); the "favorableness of Social Control" is the phrase McMahon uses to describe that book's positive reception (pp. 33, 57). McMahon deserves credit for working through Ross's quirks and prejudices to recover his substantial contribution to academic sociol- ogy and to public discourse. But he is neutral to a fault regarding Ross's sometimes vicious eth- 825 This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:44:44 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsBOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 91: 4 (2000) nic stereotyping. Indeed, at times author and sub- ject seem almost to merge-for example, in a matter-of-fact statement that new immigrants "displayed distinct physical differences [and] learned English much more slowly or not at all" (p. 108). One closes this book feeling that a gen- erous-spirited, intellectually ambitious young scholar deserved more rigorous editing. ROBERT C. BANNISTER Mickey C. Smith. A Social History of the Minor Tranquilizers: The Quest for Small Comfort in the Age of Anxiety. vii + 265 pp., illus., figs., tables, bibl., index. 1985. New York/London: Pharmaceutical Products Press, 1991. $19.95 (paper). From the time the "minor tranquilizers" (e.g., Librium, Valium, Xanax) were introduced, in the 1950s, and up to the mid 1980s, they were one of the most heavily prescribed classes of drugs in America. Unlike antibiotics or other wonder drugs used to treat physiological disease, the seemingly innocuous tranquilizers could be, and were, used to treat a wide range of somatic and psychological problems. This practice raised many medical, ethical, social, and regulatory questions, and Mickey Smith's well-written his- tory follows the "therapeutic life cycle" of the minor tranquilizers and the ways in which those questions were addressed. Therapeutic innova- tion, as Smith shows, is not just scientific dis- covery; it is deeply embedded in medical and social contexts. Smith begins by discussing the difficulties in- herent in defining and diagnosing anxiety (the primary indication for prescribing tranquilizers). Is anxiety a disease? Are its origins psycholog- ical or organic? How can we measure it or the effects of treatment on it? Should various "prob- lems of living" be treated by physicians at all? He follows this discussion with a short section on the discovery of the first minor tranquilizers, then goes on to consider patterns of prescribing and use. The huge commercial success of the drugs prompted early criticism, along with in- quiries into why so many physicians prescribed them. What roles, for example, did efficacy, safety, pharmaceutical promotion, patient re- quests, and gender stereotyping play in these de- cisions? Smith also looks at the utilization stud- ies, many conducted during the 1970s, to assess whether those millions of prescriptions reflected legitimate treatment or "the doping of America." A later chapter explores in more detail the medi- cal literature on tranquilizers and the possible effects of drug advertising on prescribing. In Chapter 5 Smith examines media coverage of tranquilizers from 1955 to 1980. The popular press at first touted minor tranquilizers as mira- cle drugs that were also "fun," labeling them "Happiness Pills," "Emotional Aspirin," and (my own favorite) "Don't-Give-A-Damn Pills." But a number of writers also worried about the consequences of widespread habitual use of tran- quilizers. Some objected to the drugs on moral grounds, others worried about addiction, and still others criticized tranquilizers as "social control" devices. By the 1970s journalists had begun to decry our "overmedicated" society and to vilify physicians and drug manufacturers for encour- aging the practices that created it. Smith looks at some of these social criticisms in more detail several chapters later. Tranquilizers also attracted legislative scru- tiny from the late 1950s on. In the book's final and longest chapter Smith chronicles the con- gressional hearings focused on minor tranquil- izers and shows just how difficult it is to balance the interests of medicine, the public, and the drug industry. Tranquilizer manufacturers were re- peatedly accused of false or misleading advertis- ing that suggested (implicitly or explicitly) un- proven uses for the drugs and played down possible adverse effects, including addiction. The hearings, with expert witnesses and scien- tific evidence marshaled on both sides, illustrate above all that traditional medical science was of- ten incapable of justifying treatment decisions or proving the efficacy of the tranquilizers. Throughout his book, Smith provides a mas- terly survey of medical, sociological, and pop- ular literature and summarizes key findings in tables and graphs. His history would be a more effective work, however, if it were better orga- nized. The chapters, some only slightly revised from previously published articles, often repeat the same material, and related discussions may appear several chapters apart. This disjointed- ness is especially marked in Smith's treatment of physicians' prescribing practices. More anal- ysis would also be welcome. Smith concludes that the history of minor tranquilizers provides us with a good case study of the cultural lag phe- nomenon (in which technology outruns society's ability to deal with it); he hopes we may be able to learn from it as more such drugs are discov- ered and marketed (e.g., Prozac). He could, how- ever, have set his conclusions in the broader con- text of the histories of other licit and illicit psychoactive drugs, again using the concept of the therapeutic life cycle. Nonetheless, Smith's 826 This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:44:44 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review Of  Social Control And Public Intellect: The Legacy Of Edward A. Ross  By S. H. McMahon

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Review Of Social Control And Public Intellect: The Legacy Of Edward A. Ross By S. H. McMahon

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