religion
Talcott Parsons was an important American sociologist whose theories about the nature and structure of organizations played an important role in the development of 20th century sociology. Parsons was a functionalist. According to functionalist theories, society is regarded as effectively a type of organism in which each part (organization) serves some purpose or function. Society as a whole tends towards being self-regulating and self-organizing as people independently work towards the fulfillment of shared goals. His functionalist ideas have generated a large amount of critical literature, with opposition existing in just about every theoretical camp. Complaints have included that it is ahistorical, untestable, biased in favor of the status quo, etc. During the 1960s, Marxists and members of the New Left regarded him as their chief enemy in terms of theory and as little more than an apologist for capitalism.