Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work by Michael P. FarrellReview by: Randall CollinsSocial Forces, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Sep., 2004), pp. 433-436Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3598250 .

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Book Reviews /433 Book Reviews /433

After laying out the theory, Turner spends the rest of the book exploring the ways in which these macrodynamic forces lead to the origin and evolution of social institutions. He traces their development thorough various types of societies, from hunter-gatherer to postindustrial. The analyses are complex, yet accessible, and shed considerable light on how seemingly unrelated processes can work together to create and alter the fundamental fabric of society. The wealth of previous research that the author mobilizes to make his case is quite impressive.

Despite these strengths, however, the book contains some weaknesses that at least partially undermine the book's goals. Foremost among these lies in the author's attempt to move from "functional requisites" to "forces." While this shift sounds promising, the language of the arguments often belies the functional requisites lurking just below the surface. For example, the description of the "force" of production begins: "In order to survive biologically, humans must gather resources from the environment and convert them into usable commodities that sustain life." This sounds a lot like a functional requisite. Sometimes Turner's desire to use the new language results in awkward sentences, for example: "Regulation generated selection for polity and law as a means to coordinate and control the larger population." Isn't this the same thing as saying "larger populations need to be regulated, so polity and law develop"? Functional requisites appear to be alive and well.

For some brave readers, however, this will not be a problem. Those who have overcome their anti-Parsons indoctrination (by reading him, perhaps) will find that this book has a lot to offer our understanding of macrosociology. Turner's main contribution is that he allows functional requisites to vary in importance with environmental and social factors. This is indeed a vast improvement over "vulgar functionalism." His analysis of the importance of population dynamics in institutional evolution is also an important contribution. Moreover, many of his propositions are actually testable - which is always an unexpected pleasure in theoretical work. In short, though this is by no means a perfect book, it is a worthy effort both to revive institutional analysis and to put scientific macrosociology on a solid footing. Despite its flaws, it deserves to be read, understood, and argued with.

Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work. By Michael P. Farrell. University of Chicago Press, 2001. 324 pp. Cloth, 45.00; paper, $27.50.

Reviewer: RANDALL COLLINS, University of Pennsylvania

Collaborative Circles is an important advance in the sociology of creativity. Farrell develops his theory by comparing the histories of a number of

After laying out the theory, Turner spends the rest of the book exploring the ways in which these macrodynamic forces lead to the origin and evolution of social institutions. He traces their development thorough various types of societies, from hunter-gatherer to postindustrial. The analyses are complex, yet accessible, and shed considerable light on how seemingly unrelated processes can work together to create and alter the fundamental fabric of society. The wealth of previous research that the author mobilizes to make his case is quite impressive.

Despite these strengths, however, the book contains some weaknesses that at least partially undermine the book's goals. Foremost among these lies in the author's attempt to move from "functional requisites" to "forces." While this shift sounds promising, the language of the arguments often belies the functional requisites lurking just below the surface. For example, the description of the "force" of production begins: "In order to survive biologically, humans must gather resources from the environment and convert them into usable commodities that sustain life." This sounds a lot like a functional requisite. Sometimes Turner's desire to use the new language results in awkward sentences, for example: "Regulation generated selection for polity and law as a means to coordinate and control the larger population." Isn't this the same thing as saying "larger populations need to be regulated, so polity and law develop"? Functional requisites appear to be alive and well.

For some brave readers, however, this will not be a problem. Those who have overcome their anti-Parsons indoctrination (by reading him, perhaps) will find that this book has a lot to offer our understanding of macrosociology. Turner's main contribution is that he allows functional requisites to vary in importance with environmental and social factors. This is indeed a vast improvement over "vulgar functionalism." His analysis of the importance of population dynamics in institutional evolution is also an important contribution. Moreover, many of his propositions are actually testable - which is always an unexpected pleasure in theoretical work. In short, though this is by no means a perfect book, it is a worthy effort both to revive institutional analysis and to put scientific macrosociology on a solid footing. Despite its flaws, it deserves to be read, understood, and argued with.

Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work. By Michael P. Farrell. University of Chicago Press, 2001. 324 pp. Cloth, 45.00; paper, $27.50.

Reviewer: RANDALL COLLINS, University of Pennsylvania

Collaborative Circles is an important advance in the sociology of creativity. Farrell develops his theory by comparing the histories of a number of

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.21 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 13:25:15 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

434 / Social Forces 83:1, September 2004

collaborative groups, chiefly in art and literature, but also Sigmund Freud's early collaborations and the originators of the American women's movement. Such groups typically have three to five members, rarely more than seven or eight. Farrell argues that the group's lifetime, usually about 10 to 15 years, goes through seven stages:

(1) Formation occurs when a number of individuals of similar cultural resources and in an early career stage gather in a "magnet place," often intro- duced to each other by a gatekeeper, who acts as the center of a radial net- work. (2) Rebellion occurs against established authority; the group is negative before it becomes positive. Roles appear within the group: a charismatic leader, narcissistic and energetic, who is idealized by the others; a tyrant figure out- side the group, vilified by their attacks; a "lightning rod" who epitomizes the

group's rebellion by expressing anger, both against outsiders and by conveying criticism from outside into the group. (3) The quest stage is a period of nego- tiating a new vision through intense group discussions. Here appear "bound- ary marker" roles, members who become criticized either for being too con- servative and selling out, or too radical and endangering the group by going too far. By comparison with these boundary markers, the group establishes its own central identity.

(4) Creative work now is done, following the group's program; most fruitfully, this is done by splitting into smaller collaborative pairs who paint or write side by side, correspond or discuss intensively; each gives the other emotional support and provides confidential criticism so that creative possibilities may be thrown open without inhibition. (5) In the collective action stage, the group acts together to present its work to the public: by staging painting exhibitions, editing a journal, or in the case of a social movement, holding public meetings. Now a central group role becomes that of the executive leader who manages practical activities. (6) In the separation stage, the group breaks apart; members individuate, establishing distinctive identities and styles, acquiring emotional maturity and losing the need for dependence; as some become publicly recognized, quarrels occur over individual credits; the practical exigencies of collective action, too, put additional strains on the group. (7) Years later, the group may reassemble for nostalgic reunion.

The seven stages are most fully represented in the French Impressionists. A number of stages (especially collective action and nostalgic reunion) are missing in other cases (e.g., the Oxford group of J.R.R.Tolkien and C.S. Lewis in the 1920s; Freud's collaborations with Joseph Breuer and with Wilhelm Fleiss in the 1890s; the Rye group around Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford in the early 1900s). In the case of the American women's rights movement, the collective action stage is there from the very beginning; indeed, the movement follows the classic path of breaking away from prior social movements (temperance and slavery abolition). Farrell intends his model to contribute to a general theory of group development. It is useful to compare

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Book Reviews /435

his findings to those of Mullins (Nicholas C. Mullins. Theories and Theory Groups in Contemporary American Sociology. Harper & Row, 1974) who studied "theory groups" in sociology, as well as the founders of molecular biology. Mullins

depicts four stages: (1) small-informal group forms around an intellectual leader, in the midst of routine science. (2) This is supplemented by an organizational leader who establishes a formal research and training center; an intellectual program is now publicized, and new members are attracted, up to around 40. (3) The network widens through students and adherents; the program turns into dogma and is enshrined in textbooks; communications become more formal, and the core network becomes surrounded by a cluster of followers, with a total of 20-100. (4) Routinization sets in with success, and special attention is no longer attracted. Mullins's second and third stages take, respectively, 4-14 years and 4-8 years, with the first and last stages indeterminate in length; the total life time of a theory group thus is similar to that of Farrell's groups. Scientific groups grow much larger than the literary/ artistic groups and, being more dependent upon research equipment and jobs, turn more formal and emphasize the role of the organizational/executive leader earlier. Farrell makes an especial contribution in bringing out the further differentiation of group roles besides the two types of leaders (boundary markers, lighting rod, peace-maker, etc.).

Farrell argues that a collaborative group appears because its recruits are marginal to a center of established leaders; it is because they are not prot,g,s that they are able to break away in new directions, as well as being able to interact fluidly as equals. My own data on creativity in networks of philosophers (Randall Collins. 1998. The Sociology of Philosophies. A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Harvard University Press, 1998) contradicts this theory; the most eminent philosophers throughout history have tended to be very close to the networks of previous eminent thinkers, so much so that the guiding principle is that the greatest concatenation of eminence through direct and indirect ties breeds the greatest amount of subsequent eminence. Zuckermen found the same thing among scientists, with Nobel Prize winners tending to be pupils of previous winners (Harriet Zuckerman. "Nobel Laureates in Science: Patterns of Productivity, Collaboration, and Authorship," 1967. American Sociological Review 32:391-403). Philosophers often have formed circles as well, ranging from ancient China to the Vienna Circle of the 1920s and 1930s, but such circles frequently have grown up around network connections back into previous lineages of eminence.

How to reconcile the two models? Is literary/artistic creativity more "horizontal" and marginal, while intellectual creativity is more "vertical" and hereditary? Marginality is not necessary for innovation; revolutions within the citadel are common in the intellectual world, as each new generation of prot,g,s recombines inherited cultural capital, negates some aspects of previous positions, and stakes out new lines of argument both against the old generation

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436 / Social Forces 83:1, September 2004

and against rival contemporaries. Contrary to a widespread myth propagated by artists themselves, a peripheral position condemns one to coming too late into the sophisticated center of the action; the most successful rebels are those who most quickly capitalize on the opportunities for new combinations that are visible at the center.

Farrell misses this, I think, because he focuses so closely on collaborators that he tends to leave out the larger intellectual networks. Why did Freud go on to fame, while his early collaborators Breuer and Fleiss ended in obscurity? In part, Freud comes from a superior network, combining the most eminent philosophy teachers in Vienna with the lineage of revolutionaries in physiology; he had richer network connections than his collaborators, who were more narrowly focused in psychiatry (see Collins 1998:690-93). Farrell also leaves

something of a blank on the side of the larger intellectual field (or in Bourdieu's terms, the field of cultural production). It is hard to tell who Farrell's groups are connected to farther out, and there is no way to check systematically whether they fit or escape from the pattern of eminence breeding eminence, because Farrell provides no measure of anyone's eminence. He gives a lot of attention, for example, to Donald Davidson in the group of fugitive poets, although he is apparently a rather minor poet compared to John Crowe Ransom and Alan Tate, and Davidson chiefly illustrates that the organizational leader of a literary group is usually not a successful literary creator. Similarly, the collaboration of Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford resulted in a much greater creative impact by the former; Ford at best was one of those secondary figures, like Friedrich Engels in relation to Karl Marx, who facilitate others while

staying in the shadows. These patterns would come out more clearly if we would go on to construct a measure of relative eminence in literary and artistic fields and to chart more widely the network connections among persons of different ranks.

All this is a matter of extending Farrell's work, putting it into a larger theoretical and empirical context. Since he is building on a tradition of research on group dynamics that goes back to Bales, Ted Mills, and others, Farrell focuses on the inner dynamics of the group. On his chosen ground, his analyses are illuminating and full of fascinating detail. Farrell's work makes a wonderful complement to larger network-oriented research on creativity. And in exploring the collaborative groups that launch social movements, he breaks new ground. Social movements operate in a different kind of attention space than intellectual and artistic movements, however; much research needs to be done to investigate what kinds of vertical and horizontal network connections operate here, providing the environment of alliances and rivalries in which movement circles form. Research is needed, too, comparing unsuccessful with successful groups. Farrell has crystallized a great deal of theoretical insight, and he opens the way for more.

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