World sociology would lose in the comprehensiveness of its perspective and the variety of its approaches to social reality if the American standardization of a professionalized discipline continued its ascendancy. European sociology needs to resist this trend just as Europe inevitably has to resist the McDonaldization of its culture as a whole in order to preserve diversity for itself and for the world. (Munch 1991: 329). It is only in the transatlantic context of comparisons and relationships that the idea of a "European" identity can gain credence at all. (Scaff 1994: 219, 217)