Walter F. Buckley Quotes (36 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 15; as cited in: Ronald J. Samuda (1998) Psychological Testing of American Minorities: Issues and Consequences. p. 47.

Walter F. Buckley Quotes

“In Deutsch's view, to say that a social system is in equilibrium implies that: 1) it will return to a particular state when disturbed; 2) the disturbance is coming from outside the system; 3) the greater the disturbance the greater the force with which the system will return to its original state; 4) the speed of the system's reaction to disturbance is somehow less relevant — a sort of friction, or blemish having no place in the "ideal" equilibrium; 5) no catastrophe can happen within the system.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 56.

“A synthetic approach where piecemeal analysis is not possible due to the intricate interrelationships of parts that cannot be treated out of context of the whole;”

Walter F. Buckley

Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)

“Adaptive system — whether on the biological, psychological, or sociocultural level — must manifest (1) some degree of "plasticity" and "irritability" vis-a-vis its environment such that it carries on a constant interchange with acting on and reacting to it; (2) some source or mechanism for variety, to act as a potential pool of adaptive variability to meet the problem of mapping new or more detailed variety and constraints in a changeable environment; (3) a set of selective criteria or mechanisms against which the "variety pool" may be sifted into those variations in the organization or system that more closely map the environment and those that do not; and (4) an arrangement for preserving and/or propagating these "successful" mappings.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 491.

“Social differentiation is a universal characteristic of human societies. Early human societies survived and became dominant among animal species because of their superior social organization — that is, their more elaborate division of labor and consequent close coordination of activities.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 4.

“Don't simply blame the individuals involved in policy decisions (although they must shoulder the moral and legal responsibilities); blame the sociocultural structure within which they are enmeshed. Search for the role pressures, the premiums and penalties that result from doing or not doing things in certain ways, the goals held out with associated carrots and sticks, and the tensions generated by the often incompatible demands of peers, family, sub- and super-ordinates, politicians, and national flag”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory, (1998), p. 256.

“Basic ingredients of the decision-making focus include, then: (1) a process approach; (2) a conception of tensions as inherent in the process; and (3), a renewed concern with the role and workings of man's enlarged cortex seen as a complex adaptive subsystem operating within an interaction matrix characterized by uncertainty, conflict, and other dissociative (as well as associative) processes underlying the structuring and restructuring of the larger psychosocial system.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 499.

“Historically, most societies have been heavily skewed in favor of the power pole, and most of history— especially modern history— can be seen as a struggle toward the authority pole, that is, toward the institutionalization of a process of informed, consensual self-determination of the whole, which we call "democracy."”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory, (1998), p. 186.

“A viewpoint that gets at the heart of sociology because it sees the sociocultural system in terms of information and communication nets;”

Walter F. Buckley

Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)

“That a system is open means, not simply that it engages in interchanges with the environment, but that this interchange is an essential factor underlying the system's viability, its reproductive ability or continuity, and its ability to change.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 50.

“[The equilibrium model describes systems] which, in moving to an equilibrium point, typically lose organization, and then tend to hold that minimum level within relatively narrow conditions of disturbance.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 40 as cited in: Jacquie L'Etang, Magda Pieczka (2006) Public Relations: Critical Debates and Contemporary Practice. p. 335.

“Status is dependent in the long run upon high class position — the maintenance of a prestigious style of life costs money — there is no necessary correspondence between them at any given time.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 48.

“# A common vocabulary unifying the several "behavioral" disciplines.”

Walter F. Buckley

Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)

“Only a modern systems approach promises to get the full complexity of the interacting phenomena - to see not only the causes acting on the phenomena under study, the possible consequences of the phenomena and the possible mutual interactions of some of these factors, but also to see the total emergent processes as a function of possible positive and/or negative feedbacks mediated by the selective decisions, or "choices," of the individuals and groups directly involved.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 79; As cited in Gregory A. Daneke (1999) Systemic choices: nonlinear dynamics and practical management http://books.google.nl/books?id=q_YbuU52ejUC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82. p. 82.

“The more recent concern with complex adaptive organization has led to the notion of contingency as the important key. Thus Wiener, while working in the field of communications and probability theory, became convinced 'that a significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 82 as cited in: Felix Geyer, Johannes van der Zouwen, (1994) " Norbert Wiener and the Social Sciences http://www.critcrim.org/redfeather/chaos/024Weiner.htm", Kybernetes, Vol. 23 Iss: 6/7, pp.46 - 61. Buckley is here referring to Norbert Wiener (1953) I am a Mathematician; The Later Life of a Prodigyan, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 322.

“The notion of system we are interested in may be described generally as a complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a network of interrelationships of various kinds, such that it constitutes a dynamic whole with emergent properties.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory, (1998), p. 35 as cited in: Kenneth D. Bailey (2006) A Typology of Emergence in Social Systems and Sociocybernetic Theory http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/congresos/DURBAN/papers/bailey.pdf.

“Morphogenesis will refer to those processes which tend to elaborate or change a system's given form, structure, or state.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 58.

“This book is intended as an exploratory sketch of a revolutionary scientific perspective and conceptual framework as it might be applied to sociocultural systems. This point of view and still developing framework, as interpreted here, stems from the General Systems Research movement and the now closely allied fields of Cybernetics and information or communication theory.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. vii.

“The modern systems view, which flowered during World War II (though building on principles in the wind much earlier), has already borne its first fruits and is in danger of a superficial acceptance into the corpus of sociology by way of the incorporation of some of its now common vocabulary.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. vii.

“# "An operationally definable, objective, non-anthropomorphic study of purposiveness, goal-seeking system behavior, symbolic cognitive processes, consciousness and self-awareness, and sociocultural emergence and dynamics in general.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 39 as cited in: Joyce Aschenbrenner, Lloyd R. Collins (1978) The Processes of Urbanism: A Multidisciplinary Approach http://books.google.nl/books?id=qC4hN9zpgI0C&pg=PA383. p. 383.

“A more viable model, one much more faithful to the kind of system that society is more and more recognized to be, is in process of developing out of, or is in keeping with, the modern systems perspective (which we use loosely here to refer to general systems research, cybernetics, information and communication theory, and related fields). Society, or the sociocultural system, is not, then, principally an equilibrium system or a homeostatic system, but what we shall simply refer to as a complex adaptive system.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Society as a complex adaptive system (1968), p. 490.

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), P. 186.

“"information" is not a substance or concrete entity but rather a relationship between sets or ensembles of structured variety.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 47.

“# The study of relations rather than "entities" with an emphasis on process and transition probabilities as the basis of a flexible structure of many degrees of freedom.”

Walter F. Buckley

Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)

“In essence, the process model typically views society as a complex, multifaceted, fluid interplay of widely varying degrees and intentions and intensities of association and dissociation. The "structure" is abstract construct, not something distinct from the ongoing interactive process but rather a temporary, accommodative representation of it at any one time.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 18 as cited in: D. Paul Johnson (2008) Contemporary Sociological Theory: An Integrated Multi-Level Approach. p. 472.

“There is a revolutionary scientific perspective (stemming) from the General Systems Research movement and (with a) wealth of principles, ideas and insights that have already brought higher degree of scientific order and understanding to many areas as of biology, psychology and some physical sciences… Modern systems research can provide the basic of a framework more capable of doing justice to the complexities and dynamic properties of the socio-cultural system.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. vii as cited in: cited in: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968) General System Theory. p. 7-8.

“A second dimension of stratification in modern societies is the status order. The term status as used in this study refers to the differentiation-of-prestige and deference among individuals and groups in society.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 46.

“A system is more than the sum of its parts.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 42.

“Openness is an essential factor underlying a system's viability, continuity, and its ability to change.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 50 as cited in: Roberta R. Greene (2011) Human Behavior Theory and Social Work Practice. p. 182.

“In modern science, in fact, let alone modern systems theory, cause disappears wherever you have a very complex system of interrelated elements.”

Walter F. Buckley

Walter F. Buckley (1970) in: Cry California. Vol 6. p. 28.

“A technique for treating large, complex organizations;”

Walter F. Buckley

Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)