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Academic Expectations for Professional Immortality: A Study of Legitimation

It would seem to be a cultural theme in America that we justify our lives by asking ourselves whether or not our having lived "made a dif ference." We mean by this a positive, lasting difference to other in dividuals, the community, and, among those of us with more grandiose hopes, the society and even mankind. I suspect that the degree of concern with such matters varies directly with one's position in the stratification system: the higher the position the more the constraint to justify one's existence. In any case, we do know that in America people in higher ranking occupations, particularly the professions, rarely, except facetiously, justify the pursuit of their occupations with the "it's a living" response. Professional persons in general, including scholars and scien tists, see their contributions in more altruistic terms. My former colleagues on the production line in an automobile factory did not see themselves as producing a means of transportation essential to the overall operation and survival of a complex, modern social system, nor is it likely that garbage men are particularly motivated by ecological con siderations. It may be that academic persons, among professionals, and par ticularly sociologists among academics, are prone to exaggerate their contributions to the larger social system, both present and future. Not only do we, like academic people in general have stronger motives to