This paper consists of two parts. The first part is a translation of Parsons' lecture "A Sociologist's View of Contemporary American Society, " given to the Department of Sociology at Kyoto University on December 5, 1978. The second part is my discussion on the place of the pattern of "collegial association" and the "professions" in his sociology, two of strongly emphasized ideas in the lecture. His conception of the collegial association grew primarily out of his criticism of M. Weber's view of "universally proceeding bureaucratization in all dimensions of social life." Already in 1928-29 Parsons showed his departure from the Weberian pessimistic prediction. He gradually made clear the reasons for this dissent, in coping with the methodological problem in his earlier works (analytical realism as a critical comment on Weber's theory of ideal types), then pursuing the study of the professions in modern society, and at the last stage conceptualizing the pattern of collegial association. He recognizes, as well as Weber, that bureaucratic organization can be counterbalanced by other dimensions of social life, but he goes further beyond Weber's perspective in that he admits the possibility of combination of the collegial pattern and the bureaucratic pattern in the very inside of bureaucracy. His interest in the significance of the professions as a private and nonprofit sector of social activities in modern society can be traced back to his criticism of the dichotomous scheme, capitalism versus socialism, in his student days. It is well known that the study of the professions performed an important role in the development of his theory. But I point out that in the criticism of the dichotomous scheme he not only refers to its insufficiency for an analysis of society, but he also expresses his denial to commit himself to either side of the scheme. So he devoted himself in his whole life to one of the professions, which did not figure in the scheme. The concept of "profession" stands where his theoretical and moral concern intersects each other. Parsons formulates the dominant American value pattern as "instrumental activism, " to which he also seems to commit himself in some sense. This pattern comes from the Protestant pattern Weber called "inner-worldly ascetism." He presents a theory of socialization to explain the problem of how the pattern is internalized on the personality system level in the situation where religious faith cannot be counted on. His theory of socialization has, however, a feature similar to religious belief, since he assumes that one's ultimate value or ultimate goal comes from outside of his personality system. This way of thinking is in opposition to the Weberian assertion of "self-decisionism" in his discussion of Kulturmenschen. The theory of socialization accompanied with that of common-value integration enables Parsons to distinguish his position from the Weberian polytheist view of the plurality of incompatible values. And it seems to give him a theoretical ground of his commitment to "instrumental activism."