ABSTRACT
Alvin W. Gouldner's optimistic view of human nature is seen in his abiding confidence in the rationality and truth-telling nature of reflexive social theory. Scientific Marxism, especially Vladimir I. Lenin's view of the necessity of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the revolution against capitalism, was also something which the mature Gouldner could not abide. Critical Marxism is pessimistic, according to Gouldner, because it posits that certain conditions in capitalist society are oppressive, as felt and experienced as a lived condition by real flesh-and-blood human beings. Marxism had the right idea about the unity of theory and practice, but was fatally flawed because it chose not to, deal with its own nightmares, its own contradictions, which led of course to some real world horrors in several cases where the theory was applied empirically. Gouldner's reflexive sociology was the theory that was supposed to salvage the flawed Marxian solution to the unity of theory and practice.
