Part II, which includes chapters 7 through 11, focuses on two interrelated themes that characterize the late phase of Parsons's work: progressive evolution and the societal community. Beginning in the mid-1960s the process of evolution-both in its societal and cultural aspects-was given primary of place by Parsons in further explaining social differentiation and integration-but also, and more fundamentally, in dealing with the problem of social change. For Parsons, evolutionary development, with crucial cultural innovations taking place in the "seed-bed" societies of Israel and classical Greece, had culminated in modern society, which in the Western context brought about the industrial, democratic and education revolutions, and in the American context led to the development of an "institutionalized individualism" reinforced by the core value of "instrumental activism." Both of these latter concepts are given extensive treatment in Parsons's last book, the posthumously published American Society. Of special significance in this work is the notion of the societal community-particularly of the American variety-that Parsons contends contributes to internal integration though citizenship and the normatively defined obligations that citizenship engenders. In short, Part II demonstrates the importance that Parsons gave to modern civil society in general as well as to the exceptional status that he attributed to American society in particular.
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