Structures and This

People are people and they have individual needs. But society needs order so it can breathe and function. Talcott Parsons talks of functional prerequisites that society must provide if it is to function orderly. these are basic needs and requirements that need to be met if society is to  continue.
One is to provide goals for the members of society - money, work, qualifications. Government must provide the means to achieve these goals through schooling, employment etc. Society also has to provided an adequate standard of living for its members (Parsons called this Adaptation), it also has to provide harmony and integration, make people they feel part of a bigger picture, they belong to something. parsons completed this list with a word 'latency'. This meant that everyone needed to believe that society was being well looked after, maintained.

As I teach this virtually to students online, I wonder if Parsons's prerequisites are being held up as we venture under This. How are the structures in our society coping? parsons was a structuralist, he believed in top down societal management. So lets look at the government. This is a huge job for any government to manage. The goals are obvious - get through This. The Prime Minister has tried to use his election winning slogan Get This Done to little avail. He is now ill and his ministers are meeting with him virtually. But the goal remains, get through This. The strategy has ramped up, gently removing the right for free movement and consumption. This has proven difficult for them in a number of ways. As I've stated before ideologically they are not used to curbing liberties (unless you are an immigrant), especially economic ones. They have to decide what is a key worker, no longer the banker or hedge fund manager but now the NHS worker, the shelf stacker, the corner shop owner, the social worker, the probation officer, the police officer, the refuse collector, teachers, the list goes on. The list provides another difficulty for this government. These are the people they have been cutting or freezing the wages of since 2010 in a war on austerity. There are also huge concerns with the self employed and small business holders. Exactly the people this government would champion. To help maintain the goal we all share regardless of political beliefs there have been huge promises of financial aide. The sort of spending this government have won several elections opposing, in fact much more than even Labour's ambitious 2019 manifesto promised. This could be seen as adaption, and necessary to maintain society. the government has had to look at reality and it needs to maintain society as best as it can.

To reach the goals the government want to promote we look to education. Now mostly in a hiatus. Teachers trying to continue to educate, motivate and dare I say it inspire pupils and students at home. We do this without knowing the situation that our work reaches. Adaption may be necessary even if schools reopen in September, can we really expect GCSE and A level students to achieve the same as they would have if they'd had a term and a half on in school teaching? But our workforce needs these skilled workers. As I say adaption may be needed. There is a worry that children from lower income families may lack the tech that is required, may have poor wi fi or even none. There's also the problem that their parents may not know exactly what is needed to home educate. The Marxist Bordieu called this cultural capital. It may seem patronising and of course many working class parents will be strong home educators, but research shows that a barrier for learning for some pupils is that their parents cannot afford or know how to help with their education. I remember years ago in Coronation Street a deeply moving scene where Toyah Battersby was struggling with college work and her mother Janice broke down and said "I want to help you but I don't know how". i have heard this from many parents over the last twenty years. But teachers will continue as all workers will as we share the same goals. We all must adapt and play our part.

The summer brings many cultural and sporting events mostly cancelled. These would have been part of Parsons's harmony prerequisite (he called it Integration). The Euros, Wimbledon, Glastonbury, the Olympics have all been cancelled or postponed. Holidays are cancelled, gigs or parties all cancelled or moved to what looks like a really packed autumn. This is worrying in ways because these things and TV shows such as Love Island provide a focus point for people. calendars are set by them, they are things to look forward to, to talk about. if they are not there people might feel marginalised. However, the wireless of our modern globalised times is social media, pub quizes, gigs and chatrooms are ablaze keeping people connected. I miss my daily newspaper and  find the online version not as adequate. Older people are having there's delivered, again  by heroic corner shop workers. We are connected and the media in all its forms is helping with adaption. You could worry that the darker more conspiratorial side of the web full of plots and criticisms might be dangerous but I feel that Parsons would see this as keeping such people who need to make sense of This in their own way connected. It's only dangerous when it makes people feel they can have house parties (no virtual) or behave normally socially. Again the worry is what if you don't have this tech?

Religion is suffering, holy places largely empty. People praying at home. The media plays a role here too. I'm not religious but I listened to a church service on BBC R3 and the choir removed me to tears. DVDs and CDs are being delivered to isolated parishoners.

What of the cornerstone of our society? the first structure we experience? The family? The family is all important to realise goals, maintain harmony and help with integration. Many families are now compact units, spending time together. The worry is those family units which are not compact, those which are poor or abusive or simply malfunctioning. Parsons believed in resocialisation, if a family unit is broken other structures can help fix it - education etc. But what if these structures are closed. Some schools are still open to the vulnerable and children of key workers. But how do you operationalise these?

The government have these problems to solve. As well as managing the virus. They may not know it but they are working within the framework as provided by Parsons.

Observation: this morning I saw a neighbour talking to another from their upstairs windows, both gable windows.