Auguste Comte and herbert spencer put forward the most basic principle of functionalism: social and biological organisms are similar in many ways. This concept contains three main points:
First, the structure of society and biological organisms is the same. Animals are composed of cells, tissues and organs; Similarly, a society consists of groups, classes and social environment.
Second, like biological organisms, a society must meet its basic needs if it wants to continue. For example, a society must be able to obtain food and natural resources from its surroundings and distribute them to its members.
Third, similar to the various parts that make up biological organisms, all parts of the social system also need to play a coordinating role to maintain the benign operation of society. Influenced by Italian sociologist Pareto, Spencer and his followers insist that any system will naturally tend to be balanced or stable, and at the same time, all parts of society have played a certain role in social stability. Therefore, from the perspective of functionalism, society is a complex system composed of various parts, which meet the overall demand of maintaining social stability functionally.
Later some scholars absorbed the basic idea of functionalist that "society is similar to biological organism" and refined and supplemented it. Durkheim is usually regarded as the founder of contemporary functionalism. He believes that society is a special organism, regulated by the consensus of moral values. Functionalism is also the main theoretical viewpoint held by the founders of British cultural anthropology.
In the United States, Talcott Parsons was the leader who developed functionalism into a comprehensive and systematic sociological analysis theory. He believes that a society can only play its role if it meets four basic needs, that is, it can maintain its order and stability (Parsons,1951; Parsons and Smelser, 1956). These four basic needs, sometimes called functional needs, are: obtaining goals, adapting to the environment, integrating different parts of society into a whole, and controlling deviant behavior. Parsons especially emphasizes the satisfaction of social integration function and requires social members to accept and abide by the common values of society. He believes that it is these common values that "stick" society together. If too many people refuse to accept these values, social stability will collapse
Robert merton (1968) improved Parsons' functionalism theory and made it more conducive to empirical research. His theory begins with the analysis of a specific unit in the social structure. Early theorists usually explain the existence of a social component in terms of its role in maintaining the whole, so it is difficult to explain why some units do harm to society. They think that as long as there is a unit in the social structure, it will certainly play a role in maintaining the whole. However, Merton pointed out that not all components in the social system play an active role. When a unit in the social structure prevents the needs of the whole society or its components from being met, it is dysfunctional.
Religion is playing an active role when it unites members of society; When the army protects a society from harm, it is also positive; When a political machine integrates immigrants into society by providing information about government and social services, it also plays an active role. However, when religions provoke political disputes in Northern Ireland and other regions (Darby, Dodge and Hepburn, 1990), when the military exhausts the resources of more urgent social needs such as medical and educational institutions, and when a political machine lives on corruption, they play a counter-function.
It should also be pointed out that the functions played by social structure units are not limited to "formal" or expected functions. In addition to the functions that have been realized or obvious, a social structure unit also has potential functions that are not realized or unexpected. For example, an obvious function of a university is to educate young people and lay a foundation for undertaking professional work in the future. One of the potential functions of universities is to exclude a part of the population from the labor market, thus alleviating the pressure in economic life.
Functionalism has been criticized on many issues, mainly because the social view it reflects is conservative in nature. Functionalism does not seem to leave much room for those who disagree with these social values and try to change them, because it emphasizes shared values and regards society as composed of parts that work together for the overall interests. Critics accuse functionalism of largely ignoring social dissatisfaction and social conflicts. Functionalism relies so much on order, stability and consensus that it may even misinterpret the true nature of society. Critics point out that, unlike organisms, all parts of society do not always cooperate for the overall benefit. Some components of society are in conflict; The profits of some parts are at the expense of the interests of others.
The most severe criticism of functionalism comes from a school called conflict theorists. They think that the functionalist view may be very useful in studying a stable society. But in today's world, society is changing rapidly, and conflict is not an exception but a law.