According to Lizardo (2016), the concept of culture, as it originated with Parsons, is one of the “foundational notions” of modern sociology, such that “the most basic theoretical debates in the discipline…now take place largely under the auspices of ‘cultural theory.’” Unfortunately, to the extent that contemporary conceptions of culture are traced to Parsons, contradictions in cultural theory are also blamed on his legacy: with cultural theorists turning to anthropology, semiotics, and philosophy for solutions. We argue instead that problems in cultural theory are not a consequence of Parsons’ legacy per se, but of a one-sided focus on his early work that ignores the interactionism of Parsons’ later position. The resulting emphasis on the symbolic side of Parsons’ legacy, as developed in anthropology by Geertz (Parsons’ PhD student, 1950–1956), to the exclusion of the social practice-oriented side developed in sociology by the later Parsons and Garfinkel (Parsons’ PhD student, 1946–1952), has left cultural theory in a state of incompleteness. We propose a rapprochement between Garfinkel’s interactionism, which treats the order properties of practices as interactional media of cooperation in the making of culture, and the prevailing symbolic approach, to reintegrate the two sides of Parsons’ conception of culture.

根据 Lizardo (2016) 的说法，起源于帕森斯的文化概念是现代社会学的“基本概念”之一，因此“该学科中最基本的理论辩论……现在主要是在“文化理论”。不幸的是，就当代文化概念可以追溯到帕森斯而言，文化理论中的矛盾也归咎于他的遗产：文化理论家转向人类学、符号学和哲学寻求解决方案。相反，我们认为文化理论中的问题不是帕森斯遗产本身的结果，而是片面地关注他的早期工作，忽视了帕森斯后来立场的互动主义。由此产生的对帕森斯遗产象征性方面的强调，正如格尔茨（帕森斯的博士生，1950-1956）在人类学中所发展的那样，由于排除了后来的帕森斯和加芬克尔（帕森斯的博士生，1946-1952 年）在社会学中发展的面向社会实践的一面，文化理论处于不完整的状态。我们提出了加芬克尔的互动主义之间的和解，它将实践的秩序属性视为互动的文化创作中的合作媒介，以及盛行的象征手法，重新整合帕森斯文化观念的两个方面。