Chapter
8
Social
Semantics
To breathe is to judge.
Albert
Camus
To
choose is to refuse.
André
Gide
When you stand before
the
bathroom mirror in the morning, what do you do? The question, of
course, begs
qualification, for it depends on who you are, where you are and when it
is.
These factors limit your choices. If you are a Western man in the
mid-twentieth
century, you will probably brush your teeth, shower and shave. It is
unlikely
that you would think of painting a red dot in the middle of your
forehead as
the Indians do, or of painting white and carmine lines on each cheek as
the New
Guinean tribes do, or of shaving your head except for one plait of hair
to be
braided on the top, as the Kozaks of the Don used to do. If you did any
of
these latter things, each customary and normal in its respective
society, then
walked into your neighborhood or place of work, you might well be
resented,
ridiculed or even rejected. Indeed, this was the experience of the
long-haired
youths in the 1960 's who were doing what their forefathers had
"normally" done at the turn of the century and many are "normally"
doing in the seventies.
Conformity to social
norms
creeps into your bedroom and bathroom. While such norms may seem
irrelevant to
the concerns of the political scientist, they are actually some of the
indicators of social continuity and change. When in the 1960's the
young man
grew his hair and faced his crew-cut father, he was trying to express
his
rejection of the established norms. On the other hand, those who have
taught in
the United States in recent years have witnessed the metamorphosis of
classroom
composition from the early short-haired, "straight"-looking guys and
girls to the long-haired bead-wearers and then to "stylized"
long-haired bead-wearers. So, as our young man who has chosen to grow
his hair
long steps out of the bathroom and into his daily occupations, he may
be
considered (depending on what he has done to himself, in which epoch,
and who
observes him) as deviant, eccentric, extravagant, courageous, radical,
rebel,
or simply part of the young crowd. If he was an early, determined
hippie,
beatnik, existentialist, or whatever the youth rebellion is called at
the time
and place, choosing his life-style by intellectual and moral conviction
rather
than by herd instinct, he may have been not only a rebel against the
established order, but perhaps also an inspirer and innovator; he may
even have
had leadership qualities and been hailed
as a hero by those who wanted to revolt but didn't dare. To the
supporters of the established order, however, he was deviant and
revolutionary. The history of mankind
is full of such figures.[1]
However, when a social
movement
spreads, although it may not be the all-prevailing pattern, adherence
to its
norms may no longer be viewed as heroic. For example, the revolt of our
young
man against his parents' values may, in fact, be a sign of conformity
to the
prevailing culture of his own generation. Yet this conformity and
revolt are
more complex than to be simply the results of the prevalence of one
value-forming agency (the peer group in this case) over another (the
family).
We should examine the case in the light of the preceding chapters,
taking into
account human drives, group dynamics, values, norms and, in particular,
man's
potentials for elaborating symbolic systems. In other words, the total
environment will not be complete if we overlook the "self," without
which the total environment makes no sense.
I.
Choice
On the basis of our
earlier
discussions, we may take one factor about the "self"--the
individual--as a given, and that is that man, not endowed with the
instinctive
blueprint for behavior which many other species possess, has more
latitude to
choose. We do not need to argue here on the metaphysical level whether
or not
man has free will.[2] It is evident that he needs to use his brain
to meet his lack of instinctive social order and semantic
communication. In
doing so, as we have seen, his organism plays a part in receiving,
interpreting
and transmitting symbols, which contribute to the very being of social
life and
which do share, no matter how minimally, in shaping the social complex.
For, as
we saw in our discussion of symbols and norms, the very biological and
environmental differences among people even of the same culture,
causing each
to interpret differently a common set of standards, lead to variation
and
gradually to change of those standards and norms.
Even in a primeval
group, where
the strictness and the encompassing character of values and norms leave
the
individual little choice, providing the nearest situation to total
conformity,
a discrepancy will exist between the group's abstraction of values and
norms
and the organism's processing of the symbols. There, where nearly the
whole of
the individual's life experience is identified by and merged into the
being of
the group, and where conflicting beliefs, myths and ideologies and
competing
value-forming agencies have not developed, only minute individual
deviations
from established norms can find their way into the slow pace of group
evolution. Not that primeval man intrinsically lacks the ability to
choose, but
that he is presented with unequivocal situations where his mind is
clear as to
what he should choose, to the extent that the alternative virtually
does not
exist. Thus, not only is his capacity to choose conditioned, but also
his
perception of possibilities is limited. While his life experience is
identified
with that of the group, it should not imply that he is not free to
interact
with his total environment. Anthropologists have observed that in many
primeval
groups strict norms apply to essential areas of social interaction and
behavior
and beyond them the group member is free to do as he pleases. This
freedom
applies not only in his interaction with the natural environment, but
also in
those areas of social intercourse where the group has not imposed
strict
behavioral patterns, extending to such delicate domains as certain
aspects of
sexual relations.[3]
However,
where the primeval group has set a rule, deviation is synonymous with
abnormality.[4]
The individual's
choice-making
potentials can be and are controlled to different degrees by social
circumstances on the one hand and by personal interests, temperaments
and
inclinations on the other. In the monolithic, closed world of the
primeval
group, deviation from the norms has little chance of altering the set
patterns.
For noncomformist behavior to be tolerated and have a chance to
proliferate,
the group should have potentials for change which could result from
complex
factors developing within the total environment, whether due to
external
influences or to internal social fermentations and dynamics. For
example, the
exposure of many isolated primeval groups to Western encroachments
provided
circumstances for group members to choose among alternatives and set
the pace
and direction for change.[5]
Social interaction
with the
individual's choice-making potentials can have different natures. As of
the
moment he leaves the isolated, monolithic, primeval situation (which,
incidentally, applies to very few human societies today), man is faced
with
choice in the complexities of variegated values and social norms. This,
however, does not mean that because he has the possibilities of choice,
he
makes choices. For one thing, he may not be conscious of his
possibilities--a
situation which the prevailing social order may capitalize upon. Many
regimes,
old and new, have based their practices on the motto, "ignorance is
bliss." They may, through indoctrination, misinformation or no
information, try to create situations akin to the isolated, primeval,
monolithic group. For another thing, following the path of least
friction and
avoiding the tensions of decision-making are prevalent behavioral
patterns.
Choice may amount to confusion and anomie.[6]
On the other hand,
some social
systems, such as those prevailing in Western societies, emphasize the
diversity, personal choice, thought and initiative of their members as
essential for prosperity, growth and vigor. This does not imply, of
course,
that such societies leave the individual a 360-degree latitude of
choice, for
that would create problems of disintegration for the group, as we
discussed in
Chapter Four. The problem that arises is to see how the different
degrees of
social flexibility (providing choices, yet keeping them within a
certain angle
of control) combine with the choice-making potentials of the group
members. If
many people are inclined to follow the path of least friction within
the social
flux, others prefer to use their dynamic potentials. We hinted of them
at the
beginning of our discussion of the group in Chapter Four. Their number
and
attitude will, of course, depend on the circumstances which may sharpen
or
appease the individual's drive for taking positions and making choices.
Here,
then, we are considering the interaction of these variables, namely the
individual choice-making potentials, the rigidity/flexibility of the
social
order permitting the realization of such potentials, and the particular
circumstances which may be caused either by the interaction of the
first two
variables or by penetrations from outside, like the primeval group's
exposure
to complicated alien cultures mentioned earlier.
It may be useful to
underline
here the differences between the conformity within the primeval group
and that
which may be imposed by a ruling strata in a complex society carrying
the germs
of social, economic, political, normative and cultural heterogeneity.
The
first, in its isolation and cohesion, is a total sharing of beliefs,
behavior
and ignorance. In the second, the presence of the social suppressive
mechanism
is in itself proof of contradictions. And with its intimations of
forbidden
fruit, the suppressed item is also a source of curiosity for the
members of
society--at least for some, and that is enough to initiate change. The
medieval
Christian church forbade usury. But usury was not hypothetical.
Eventually the
Christians succumbed to it, and it transformed Christian society. If
books are
censored, it implies that they might be read. As we saw earlier, no
matter how
rigid or fluid the social flux, it will, in its heterogeneity, present
contradictions and alternatives to its members. Once the process of
creative
thought has been initiated, its regimentation becomes difficult. The U.
S.
military-industrial complex would have liked atomic scientists like
Oppenheimer
simply to build the atom bomb and leave the policy for its production
and use
to them. The Soviets want Sakharovs and Medvedevs to restrict the use
of their
intelligence to physics and biology and not to meddle in politics. But
it does
not work that way.[7]
The members of the
society do
not choose their attitudes and behavior on any simple basis, such as
the
directives of social ruling strata or the strict pattern of
socialization. A
member of society has an inner, personal view conditioning his choice
and
therefore his attitudes, behavior and actions. Depending on who is
observing
whom, the observer may feel, for example, that the noncomformity of his
subject
to a particular social norm is not in the subject's rational interest.
Whether
man is rational or not has long been debated. It is a fact, however,
that man
does not always behave rationally-for one reason, because there are no
universal rules for rationality. Rationality is relative, not only for
different people in different places but also within the same
individual at
different times and under different circumstances. As Pascal said, "Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne
connait pas
" (the heart has its
reasons which reason does not know).
The man who has not conformed rationally according to the material
rules of his
society may have had an affectional reason for behaving as he did, or
his
nonconformity may have been motivated by a drive for change: change for
the
sake of change. For, like the sensory perceptions, which can be dulled
by
continuous and monotonous exposures and which need variation and
excitement,
social situations may cease to present objective validity to those who
are in
them. The notion that the grass is greener on the other side of the
fence has
an optic validity because of the angle of vision (Fig. 8.01).
Fig.
8.01
The faults of one's
own
environment are closer for scrutiny. The individual may want to take
his
distance to see better. And in the process of change, he may or may not
find
anything better. This may correspond to the basic drives for excitement
and
challenge and the search for the unknown discussed in Chapter Two. The
motivation for change, however, may be counterbalanced by the drive for
security and the fear of the unknown, which dictate conformity.
II.
Temperaments and Valuational Congruity/Incongruity
In considering the
individual's
use of his choice-making potentials, then, we need to consider his
personality.
Whether he opts for the security of conformity or aspires to change
depends not
only on his socialization, but also on his personal temperament and his
inner
point of view regarding the prevailing social norms and values.
The
Adventurer and the Conserver
Personality types have
been
subjects of study from antiquity to modern laboratory research.
Unfortunately,
these studies, whether made over twenty years of psychiatric
observation like
those presented by Jung,[8] or based on empirical tests and interviews
such as the F-scale, the Rorschach inkblot, TAT or MMPI,[9]
while of scientific significance, have not always reached concordance
to permit
general patterns of observation within broad social and political
contexts.[10] For our political analysis we would rather
derive our model of personality types from certain indices of political
behavior.
In reference to
political
attitudes, distinction is often made between liberals and conservatives.[11] These terms, however, in their political
connotations, do not indicate constant policy orientations. The
liberals of the
nineteenth century in Great Britain were those who advocated the least
governmental interference in social and economic domains; they upheld
the
principle of laissez-faire, laissez-passer.
The mid-twentieth century liberals of the United States find that if
you laissez-faire and laissez-passer
you let do and let go--without government control,
there will be much social injustice. Thus, they favor government
regulation of
social and economic affairs. Yet if the government's grip in a given
country
became too tight, the liberals would be those who would propose the
liberalization of control and greater individual freedom. While these
positions
have obvious contradictions, they do share a dynamic characteristic
which we
could probably best define by the term adventurer--not
in its popular usage, but in its original connotation and derivation
from the
Latin ad venire: toward what comes; a
forward-looking and dynamic attitude. The adventurer is inclined to
give an
unknown future a try. The term "adventurer" will permit us to
distinguish between liberal attitudes and inclinations and liberal
political
positions. For example, when the lower class is more "liberal," it is
on economic matters such as welfare state measures, social security,
graduated
income tax and the like, which are motivated by the particular
interests of the
lower class and which really constitute a conservative attitude,
motivated by
the drive for security. On the other hand, the "liberalism" of the
upper classes, when it exists, is more directed towards civil liberties
issues
or internationalism[12]
and, as we shall see, qualifies more for our adventurer definition.
Similarly, we will use
the term
conserver as the opposite attitude,
derived from the Latin com servare:
to guard; the tendency to hold to what is, rather than to what could be.[13] By using the terms "adventurer"
and "conserves," we can free ourselves from stereotyped political
connotations and value judgments and also broaden our inquiry. It will
also be
easier for us to see that there are no "liberal" and
"conservative" individuals, but that liberal and conservative, or
adventurer and conserver, can cohabit within the same individual and
evolve in
different degrees, at different times and under different circumstances.
Looking back into the
history
of mankind, we can trace the evolution of different peoples who were at
times,
in their collectivity, on the move towards what was to
come--adventurers in a
sense--and the same people at other times (or other people) who became
mentally
and physically sedentary, settling down and guarding what they had.
Here we are
obviously not talking about liberalism and conservatism in modern
political
terms. The Aryan tribes who invaded India or the hordes of Genghis Khan
were
adventurers but not necessarily "liberal." They may have had
conservative traditions within their group structures, while the walled
settlements of Mesopotamia or Greece may have contained liberal social
structures.
The adventurer on the move takes certain risks different from those of
the
conserver. The adventurer, while more free of possessions, accepts a
certain
amount of unpredictability, while the conserver, holding on to what he
has,
needs to build, figuratively and concretely, defensive walls around his
possessions, and must accept a certain degree of responsibility.
Staying at this
elementary
level of analysis but continuing the dynamics of the process, we will
reach a
point where the adventurer and the conserver conflict. Eventually, the
adventurer will strike the conserver's wall, which is both an obstacle
to the
adventurer's free movement and at the same time a source of attraction.
It
attracts him because what he is looking for is stored behind the
conserver's
walls. To illustrate the process on a grand scale, we may cite the
walled
cities from antiquity and the middle ages up to quite recently. On a
still
larger scale, as societies with territorial governments and legal and
institutional controls emerged, they created frontiers, natural and
defensive,
and indeed built walls against the adventurer tribes threatening their
conserver societies. The Romans and Persians, often at war with each
other,
nevertheless made mutual arrangements to maintain their Caucasian
defense
lines, the Caspian Gate, against the invading barbarians. And of course
the
most illustrative of all walls is the Great Wall of China, still
standing
today.
Now, to apply our
model within
the walls, we have to consider that if there are walls, there is
trespassing.
Had there been no trespassing, or at least the likelihood of it, there
would
have been no need for walls. In overrunning the walls, the adventurers
dislocate the conservers, who may find themselves in the place of or
among the
former. Thus, people with adventurous or conservative inclinations may
find
themselves, by the force of events, on the other side or playing the
other
role. The Visigoths did not just plunder Rome and then go away, nor did
the
Mongolian tribes do so to China. Once they got behind the walls--stone
walls,
social walls, status walls-they often settled down, then had to
conserve their
possessions. As Clemenceau once said, if you want to make people
conservative,
give them something to conserve. There are thus walls within walls and
spaces
to roam in between.
As with all the other
dimensions of our study so far, we are again faced with an intricate
complex.
The adventurer/conserver patterns of behavior, in their coexistence,
become
relative, depending on whether the individual is, or rather feels and
finds
himself in the open or behind the wall. And this will be different at
different
times for the same individual. In his position as one or the other he
may feel
comfortable or uncomfortable, depending on whether his situation
corresponds to
his temperament. The coexistence of adventurer/conserver patterns of
behavior
within the social context and within the individual also implies the
coexistence of interests, values and norms appertaining more to one
than to the
other. One may surmise that saving and prudence are conserver virtues,
while
generosity and courage are adventurer qualities. Chivalry, tournaments
and
duels were adventurous acts, and although at the same time they were
intended
to affirm and conserve certain positions and statuses, they
nevertheless
belonged to more adventurous temperaments. As the bourgeoisie crept in
(before
it finally took over), standards of adventurers and conservers evolved.
The
bourgeois who had achieved power within the still prevailing
aristocratic
culture, although he perhaps had no liking to do so, may have had to
engage in
a duel to affirm his honorability. Eventually, however, the bourgeois
mentality
and temperament got rid of the adventurous standards of chivalry.
As pointed out
earlier, the
adventurer/conserver complex is the reality of human nature because it
corresponds to man's basic drives: the adventurer tendency
corresponding to the
drives for challenge, excitement, game and the search for the unknown;
the conserver
tendency corresponding to the need for security and the fear of the
unknown.
Thus, while the adventurer of one type may be brought into line with
more
conservative patterns of behavior (in the general conserver sense), the
adventurous grain is never totally suppressed. Rather, when the
adventurer of
one type is brought into line, his adventurer tendencies find new and
modified
outlets. The social flux does usually provide outlets for adventurous
inclinations and, by developing traditional patterns, recognizes their
worth.
From the traditional culture of China to medieval Europe, the young
were to
travel, as the journeyman did, face adventure and gain experience. In
modern
times there are those who take greater risks in business and those who
leave secure
positions or spend their fortune for political power and challenge. On
another
level, there are those who drive sports cars, sky dive, challenge the
ski
slopes or sail the distant waves.
In the course of
social
evolution one or the other tendency may become preponderant,
contributing to
the rigidity or looseness of social structures. When the walls of
conservatism
close in, less and less room will remain for adventurism, and social
norms and
mores will tend towards rigidity. The symbolic outlets such as
dangerous sports
do not always replace and fulfill social frustrations. The social
evolution
towards the conserver's viewpoint may not always mean more and more
members of
society have possessions (material, situational, etc.) to conserve, but
also that
sometimes the conservers may come to control those more inclined for
such as
the older generation's control of the social institutions, or the
control of
the state's coercive and law-enforcing machinery by an exploitative and
conservative class, keeping in check the dispossessed who would
otherwise have
revolted. The likelihood that the conserver may gain strength over the
adventurer arises from the conserver's tendency to accumulate, with the
advantages that a cumulative economy over a subsistence economy
entails. The
conserver must also develop long-term interests in the investment of
his labor
and reaping of its fruits with accompanying associational structures
and
clannish attitudes. However, these conserver attitudes will differ from
the
clannish tendencies of the adventurer, whose arrangements will reflect
the
dynamism of his struggle for survival.[14]
The conserver's
potentials for
social preponderance may also result from his missionary approach. To
reduce
the adventurer's unpredictability, the conserver is inclined to make
him settle
down--whether by raising a family, taking a job or surrounding himself
with
possessions and property. While the conserver, by his temperament, may
find
comfort and fulfillment in such responsibilities, the adventurer may
consider
them cumbersome and uncomfortable, and will conform to them only under
social
pressure. This social pressure can be enhanced by the inflexibility,
tenacity
and narrowness of toleration which the conserver elements may develop
by
entrenchment and by rooting themselves in tradition. As they dig in,
their
angle of vision narrows; and as it narrows, it becomes tenacious. The
process
was discussed under the orienting properties of values in Chapter Four.
The
conserver does not always defend his stand because he is conscious of
his
interests in guarding his material or situational possessions, but
because of
his system of values.
The adventurer, by not
digging
in and not growing roots, may have a wider angle of vision and be more
mobile--but he is also movable and susceptible of being moved into
confining
walls, which, at the physical extreme, may be prison walls. But such
confinement is not the most detrimental to the adventurer temperament.
More
confining for him is mental regimentation. The man who keeps his mind
free is
the real threat to the conserver. Let us quote Thoreau:
I have
paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this
account, for
one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or
three
feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron
grating which
strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness
of that
institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and
bones, to be
locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this
was the
best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of
my
services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between
me and
my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break
through
before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment
feel
confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I
felt as if
I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know
how to
treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat
and in
every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief
desire was
to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smite to
see how
industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed
them out
again without Let or hindrance, and they were really all that was
dangerous.[15]
Man's potential for
imagination
is unique--at least we think it is. Of all the animals, man is the only
one who
reaches out for the universe. Men can dream of conquering the world and
then, at
times, set out to do it. Most are cut to size by social pressure; some
manage
to realize part of their dream. A few, like Alexander, Luther, Patrick
Henry,
Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Einstein or Mao Tse-Tung, cut loose and
make
historical splashes.
Anti-norms
But even where the
walls of
conservatism encroach on the mind, the adventurous grain does not die
altogether. Through the ages, man's yearning for expansion -- of
himself and his
possibilities, against the repressive mold of environment and
society--has been
the subject of speculation and study. The dyad of conserver and
adventurer has
taken different forms in different cultures: from the domain of the
gods -- Siva
and Vishnu -- to modern psychoanalysis. Hasn't most everyone felt at
times like
breathing the universe into his lungs? Or carolling until he heard his
voice
echo from infinity? Like bursting and integrating into the universe, or
squeezing the universe into himself, feeling weightless and free from
the
forces of gravity? Similarly, in the social context, hasn't he at times
hated
authority, whether that of parents, teachers or professional and
political
superiors; envied those who were in a better position than himself by
wealth,
status or other traits? Or detested responsibility, wishing he could be
free as
a bird from his social burdens? But then he may have realized that if
he acted
upon these feelings, he might lose the social benefits of his position.
The
conserver in him has then overcome the adventurer spirit, which is
suppressed
by stronger drives for security and authority -- yet a grain of
adventure
remains.
In the social context,
beyond
the act of nonconformity, dissent and revolution, the adventurous germ
may take
the form of abstract symbols, which we may call anti-norms.[16] They are the secret, envious approval and
joy the member of society may feel, depending on his social situation,
on
hearing about an act defying the established norms. It is the
admiration for
Robin Hood, who, after all, legally speaking, was a thief. The hero is
not
always a valorous soldier, a savior of people in distress, or a
crime-fighter.
There are also anti-norm heroes who simply do things against the
established
order which many wish they could do, but don't have the guts. Anti-norm
feelings are manifest in symbolic attitudes and expressions and may be
unconscious and seemingly innocuous within the normal social flux.
Their
potency becomes apparent in times of crisis. The policeman is
frequently called
"cop" or "fuzz" -- an unfriendly or pejorative appellation
which is a relatively harmless demonstration of anti-norm feelings
under normal
circumstances. In times of crisis--when one group becomes
temperamentally
opposed to another, as in an urban riot -- by the bitter taste its
utterance
leaves in the mouth of the excited man, the anti-norm jargon may
contribute to
the sharpening of attitudes and flare-ups of social conflicts.
The anti-norm is the
hidden
dimension paired with norms in the dyad of man: his need to experience
cold in
order to understand heat, his need to juxtapose justice and power in
order to
appreciate them, his relative understanding of right and wrong and of
good and
bad--in short, the contradictions of his existence, life and death,
being and
nothingness. By the same token, the dyad conditions his propensity to
identify
with some and not others. It is an understanding with a radius, short
or long,
but ever limited, which makes him feel and belong. Biologically and
psychoanalytically, it manifests itself in every aspect of a life
experience,
from the choice and appreciation of food to the change of humor and
attitude.
Socially and politically, the anti-norm is only an undeclared dimension
of what
otherwise can become open contrast and tension, leading to conflict
within the
individual and among individuals with different temperaments, interests
and
values.
False
Values
So, even if the
individual may,
in the social context, seem to follow the normative pattern, he does
not
necessarily wholeheartedly believe in it.[17] Moving
one step further into the
individual's inner conception and perception of the prevailing social
values
and norms and his adherence to them, we may find different levels of
conscious
or unconscious acceptance of those values and norms and conformity to
them.
Strict conformity to the norms, even if the individual fully believes
in them,
is not a reality of social life nor of the individual's life
experience. The
coexistence of will and reason within man makes the Kantian categorical
imperative an unattainable ideal:[18]
reason may say one thing, but man may will another. Just because the
individual
can reason that for the sake of harmony and togetherness everyone
should carry
out his responsibilities, he will not necessarily always carry out his
own.
As we progress in our
discussion of social semantics and the self, new light is thrown from a
different angle on the normative system. Minute and multifarious as
they are,
the will/reason constellations and individuals' conceptions,
perceptions and
interactions with their total environment do converge to give texture
and
reality to the value system, which otherwise would be an abstraction.
No matter
how unique each life experience may be, it has to fall into the pattern
of
man's species-specifics. That is why, in Chapter Two, we discussed
man's basic
drives, out of whose interaction with the environment unique life
experiences
merge and converge to give a society its texture and characteristics.
But does
each individual's life experience necessarily and totally converge and
merge
into what the society upholds as abstract values?
Social norms, while
processed
by the organism, are juxtaposed to the basic drives--conditioned as
they may be
by norms. As long as there are no conflicts, the ego's satisfaction and
norms'
validity coexist in harmony and support each other: when honesty is a
recognized value of a society, the member of that society believes in
honesty,
is honest and not tempted to be dishonest, then everything is in
harmony. But
then he may be tempted. He will resist or succumb. His honesty may have
a
price. Patriotism is a value nearly universally upheld. But when, for
example,
an international monetary crisis arises and there is fear of
devaluation, money
flows out of the country, sent abroad by "honest patriots" to avoid
loss. Of course, the degree of concordance between the abstract values
and the
reality of social behavior varies in different societies and under
different
circumstances. It all depends how well the group's cohesive
indoctrination
functions. There are societies where most of the members would be proud
to wear
a uniform and risk their lives on the battlefield for a posthumous
medal. There
are others where the soldier would cling to the outgoing helicopter or
truck to
get out of fighting. (This should not be confused with conscientious
objection,
in which the refusal to fight corresponds to the value upheld.)
Adaptation and
conformity to public morality differ, depending on the society's degree
of
flexibility and the life experiences and expectations of the individual
members.
The discrepancy
between
abstract values and their chances of actual fulfillment by the members
of
society can be conscious or unconscious. The individual may believe he
is
honest or patriotic but surprise himself by acting otherwise in a
critical
situation. Or he may be conscious of the fact that under stress he
would not
conform to the prevailing social norms. In both cases, the abstract
values
claimed by the social order have become relative and under certain
circumstances may turn out to be false
values.[19] The relativity of valuational reality and
falsehood can create cognitive dissonance[20]
within the individual if he realizes that he is not what he thought he
was, or
it may disrupt interpersonal expectations and create social friction
and
conflict when the assumption by an observer, interlocutor or partner
that an
individual's behavior or action has been motivated by a certain value
proves
false. The individual has an "inner substance" which "integrates
his personality and holds him together" (including consciousness of the
fact that if faced with a certain degree of danger he might run away)
and an
"outer shell" which adapts to the social norms, but does not
constitute an essential part of him.[21]
For purposes of
political
analysis, the concordance of abstract values and their real chances of
social
actualization should be, complemented by the degree of social
consciousness or
unconsciousness about the existence of false values. The policy-maker
can
better estimate his potentials if he knows not only how patriotic his
fellow
countrymen "are," but how patriotic they will act, under what
circumstances and for how long.
Image
and Role
There is, then, a
multivariate
interaction between the individual's inner point of view, the social
environment, and the social valuational abstractions. Within this
interaction
the individual's image and role evolve. The interaction carries within
itself
the discrepancies of the different variables, which influence and in
the long
run modify each other. Not only does the individual perceive and
conceive of
his environment in his own unique way, but he also thinks of himself in
terms
of what he thinks others think of him. A man's image is not only
different for
different people, but may be different at different times for
himself--and for
the others --depending on the circumstances and his experience (or lack
of it).
As we said, he may surprise himself as courageous or cowardly in actual
confrontation with danger, whereas he had thought or "dreamt" of
himself as otherwise. In his assessment of himself in relation to his
environment, he may make value judgments that could shape the nature of
his
relationship with his environment and his role within it.
A schematic
presentation of
variables may look as follows:
|
|
According
to Alter |
Social
Semantic
Abstracts |
According
to Ego |
|
Potentiality |
What Alter
thinks Ego's potentials are |
What Ego's potentials
are (according to abstract social criteria and which may not be known
to Alter yet—or ever) |
What Ego thinks his
potentials are |
|
Actuality |
What Alter thinks ego
is—Alter’s image of ego in his role--and whether Alter thinks Ego is
above or below is real potentials |
What Ego is according
to social abstractions as a statistical figure: age, profession, sex,
wealth, IQ, etc. |
What Ego thinks he is:
the role he thinks he is expected to play and does play |
|
Eventuality |
What Alter thinks –in
the light of his own interests –Ego should become: should he be given
more possibilities to realize his potentials or should he be frustrated |
What Ego can be – hypothetical future possibilities for Ego |
What Ego thinks he
should be – on the basis of his own potentials and role – his ambitiond
and expectations |
What
Ego eventually becomes
Different according to each of the above criteria
Starting
a new cycle
In our schema we call
the
individual member of the society "Ego" and the ambient social sector
with which he interacts "Alter." Between the two, we have added
another dimension designated as the social semantic abstract. The
latter is the
evaluation of Ego according to what are supposed to be the standards of
the
total environment, whether material or valuational: distinctions of
sex, age or
wealth, or the ideal "goodness" and "badness." The valuational
dimension is the prevailing normative system whose semantics for Alter
and Ego
are conditioned by their inner viewpoints, including their anti-norms
and false
values. For example, generosity may be a virtue according to social
semantic
abstractions. But it is a qualified virtue. If Ego misinterprets it, he
may
become too generous and be taken advantage of by Alter, or not generous
enough
and be considered a miser.[22] Or he may be generous or not according to
social semantic abstracts, but may not be known so to Alter. The
abstract
existence of Ego's qualities (Column 2) has been distinguished from the
evaluative process of his social environment (Column 1) because, while
Ego may
potentially have all the prerequisites for social success, he may not
find an
outlet for them in his particular setting and may not find
opportunities to
exploit them. We know only of the geniuses who became recognized; many
may have
come and gone without ever being discovered. Combining the various
columns, we
may come up with the following questions:
--What are Ego's
potentials in
relation to his environment? Is he strong, are his neurons alert and
intact, is
he big or small? At a different level, is he wealthy, does he have savoir-faire, charm and charisma? In
evaluating Ego's potentials we have already become subjective, because
the
potentials we have enumerated are those of value in our own social
environment.
Maybe Ego lives within a society where those with blond hair can claim
certain
privileges. If so, then to the list of his potentials we should add
whether he
has blond hair.
--What does Ego think
his
potentials are? They change in time and space, in confrontation with
new
situations and after each experience. What we are considering here is
beyond
the immediate means/ends calculations and extends to Ego's mental
abstracts and
his subjective evaluations. Does he have an inferiority complex or a
superiority complex? Does he think he is more intelligent or stronger
than he
"really" is? Does he think he can do a better job than his boss, or
does he stand in awe and admiration of his boss's intelligence and
capabilities, believing he can never surpass him? Does he think he can
become
the president of the republic or the dictator of the land, or does he
feel
lucky to be in his present position because he is not really up to the
task?
--What is Ego in his
actuality?
This is positional, changing in time and space, and can be analyzed
only
fractionally and for given circumstances. It is probably the likeliest
situation where, materially, Alter's point of view, social semantic
abstracts
and Ego's point of view may coincide. Ego is a postman or a banker, is
married
and has three children--so will he attest, and so will his neighbors
and peers.
From here on, however, even within the few indicators mentioned, Ego's
conception and perception of his image and role will not correspond to
a
mechanically calculable social standard. He may find his job below his
potentials, and he may in "reality" have those potentials. Thus, he
may discharge his professional responsibilities with self-confidence
and little
effort--which may or may not be observed by Alter--expecting
opportunities more
commensurate with his potentials, which may or may not present
themselves. He
may, because he thinks he has greater potentials, take his present
responsibilities lightly and give an impression of deficiency to Alter.
Or,
thinking he is not up to the demands of his profession, he may devote a
disproportionately greater amount of his time to meet the requirements
of the
role he believes he is expected to play professionally--presenting the
image of
a hard-working person to Alter--but in doing so he may, for example,
neglect
his wife and the education of his children.
Each of these
situations (and
we have simplified something much more complex) carries different
degrees of
satisfaction and frustration. What Ego thinks he should be--according
to his
inner viewpoint developed through his understanding of social semantic
abstracts and by processing his interaction with Alter whose ideas of
Ego's
possibilities may differ from what Ego wants to be--will demand further
interaction with Alter on its way to becoming.[23]
The Ego/Alter
interaction
(adjustment/maladjustment) will be psychological, socio-psychological,
social
and political. Psychologically,
When
the real world and the motives of the subject [Ego] are at odds,
behavior is
first designed to bring the real world into line with the motives. But
when
this is impossible, for external or internal reasons, the discrepancy
(or
dissonance, as it is nor called) can be reduced by appropriate changes
in the
perception of reality.[24]
The degree to which
Ego can
change the perception of reality is, of course, limited. Beyond a
certain
degree of nonobservance of the norms within the social context, he will
be
treated as pathologically abnormal. So, socio-psychologically speaking,
Ego
will have to face the realities of his environment and choose to
conform with,
adapt to, or revolt against its norms. In passing, it is indicative
that the
established order does sometimes label rebellion against the norms as
pathological abnormality: Ezra Pound in the United States, and scores
of
dissidents in the U. S. S. R.[25]
III.
Reference Groups
While an individual's
inner
viewpoint about his image and role has temperamental and psychological
bases,
the dissonances arising from Ego's interaction with his social
environment can
also be scrutinized on the basis of broader terms of reference.
Age,
Sex and Race
We noted that in the
social
evolutionary process, the conserver's point of view is more likely to
be
preponderant. In a way, it flourishes on favorable grounds in a society
because
it usually corresponds to the evolution of the individual's temperament
as he
ages. While there are adventurer and conserver types in general, within
the
individual, as he grows older, the adventurer temperaments of
adolescence and
youth tend to cede to more conservative moods of maturity, caused by a
combination of body chemistry and social conditioning. It is a truism
that the
young are more prone to adventure than the old.[26] As Bismarck put it, if a man at twenty is
not a socialist (socialism was an adventure in his time), he has no
heart; if
he is not conservative at forty, he has no head! Things have changed
since
Bismarck, but the statement is revealing. Whether the young have more
imagination than the old is open to question. But the young, not
tempered by
limitative personal experiences, can give freer range to their
imaginations,
ideas and ideals. Youthful energy may thus give exterior social signs
of the
imagination or ideals not in tune with the established normative
patterns. Or
that energy may simply be expressed by braving the institutions: the
sense of
self-assertion which has to go against the norms (anti-norm) in order
to feel,
find and realize itself.[27] The individual in search of ego identity may
do something because he has been told not to do it, or not do it
because he has
been told to do it.
Traditionally, the
older
generation in power imposes rules of conduct and social norms which
harness
young energy for social purposes. By subjecting social recognition to
social
conformity, by restricting sexual relations and subordinating them to
certain
family patterns (different in different societies), the old try to keep
the
young in line. The need for recognition
on the part of the young will then enhance performance
for approval. The maturing individual will want to be "constructive"
according to the social norms and will thus orient his activities
(those
directed towards satisfying his physiological drives as well as those
for
domination or challenge and game) towards socially approved areas and
the
development of achievement drives.[28] The success of this evolutionary process is,
of course, relative. It depends on the evolution of the total
environment in
time and space, and on the composition of the society.
The generation gap,
although a
biological fact, becomes acute in the modern context. In traditional
cultures
where the pace of change was slow and the experiences gained during the
lifetime accumulated and remained valid for application to unchanging
social,
economic, cultural, political, occupational and other premises, respect
and
authority for the older generation and a conservative social attitude
could be
maintained. Furthermore, the young were introduced into adulthood and
adult
responsibilities much earlier than in the modern societies, where they
are left
out of active life by longer periods of schooling. New inventions and
innovations, themselves causes and consequences of modernity, can
accentuate
the generation gap. Some of the experiences of the old can soon become
obsolete
in a fast-moving modern society. Outside influences, towards which the
younger
generation is generally more open, can further invigorate adventurer
temperaments.
In a society where,
due to
modernization or other factors, the age group proportions change--such
as the
population increase in the developing countries due to better medical
conditions, or that in Europe and the United States after World War
II--a
greater number of the younger generation will have an impact on the
social
evolutionary process. Also, the improvement in health and nutrition
accompanying modernization results in longer life expectancy and can
contribute
to greater generation gap consciousness.
The generation gap is
not, of
course, the only distinctive feature of conservers and adventurers, but
it
plays a significant role within the social flux. In general, the
younger
generation, seeing its ideals as workable, tries to run beyond the
social flux,
while the older generation, more conservative, slows it down. This does
not
imply just a social dynamism of the young toward material progress and
social
achievement in a traditionally stagnant society. At times it may be
manifested
in youth's impatience with a system where, as in the U. S. A. of the
1960 's
and early 1970's, the rules of aggressive enterprise contined to be
upheld by a
majority of the middle-class, middle-aged population, while the ideals
of the
young called for a relaxation of the rat race of progress and more
soul-searching and reflective attitudes.[29] While
the commotion created by the youth
movements may not correspond to social realities and may create social
disruption, even those young ideals with valid grounds will not easily
be
absorbed or understood by the older generation. Man does not always
change when
the need for change comes. His adaptability to new conditions is
limited as he
ages. The human brain is a computer whose memory cannot be totally
wiped out
and refilled. And so the social flux moves along, carrying within
itself the
ebb and flow of the generation gap.
*
* *
The sex gap is unique
in that
it is based on continuous biological dependence and union of the two
categories, a factor which through the ages has obscured social and
political
confrontations along sex lines.[30] The
biological necessity for the combination
of the sexes and procreation has, in most societies, developed social
patterns
where one of the sexes heads the generally recognized social cell--the
family--and hence claims a status above the other. Anthropological
studies have
found some isolated societies where men and women have shared equal
status;
historically, there have also been matriarchal societies where women
have
played substantial social roles; but the overwhelming majority of human
cultures have discriminated in favor of men in so far as political
responsibilities are concerned. Women have traditionally been subjected
to
men's rule from ancient China to modern Europe. It may well have been
that once
the male's superior physical attributes, essential in the days of wild
beasts
and primeval groups, were established, his privileged status was
perpetuated.
Another consideration may have been the female's biological handicaps
of
menstruation and pregnancy, which required protection, and also her
sense of
belonging which developed conserver dispositions through the experience
of
child-bearing, delivery and child-care.[31] The
female's subjection to the male is
nevertheless qualified. The role of women as social and economic actors
and
factors has often been underestimated because of their lesser political
status.
In the inevitable complementarity of the sexes, while, because of
physical and
muscular strength men may have had the better of women and imposed on
them a
subordinate political status, women have been able to influence and
control men
through the intimate and affectional dimensions which only they, as
mothers and
mates, could provide. These natural faculties of women have remained
their
compensation throughout the centuries of male political, economic and
social
domination, carrying with them certain elements of security and
satisfaction,
combined with hardship and sacrifice.
The advent of
technology and
modern science has, however, disrupted the ageless pattern of relations
and the
social, political and economic positions of the sexes. The male's
muscular
strength has been, to a large extent, replaced by mechanical devices,
which at
the same time have liberated women from many of their traditional
chores. The
male is challenged by the suffragettes, Tampax, the pill and Women's
Lib.
Women's gain of political and social consciousness has brought about a
confrontation between the sexes which is now in process. In its
evolution, this
confrontation may have consequences beyond the redistribution of tasks
and
responsibilities at the social, political and economic levels. The
relationship
of the sexes has biological foundations on which men and women build
their
psychological identities. It may well be that the individual will be
able to
readjust his or her psychic balance and adapt it to the new sex
relationships
as women further assert their social role as equal, independent and
sovereign
partners of men. But it is still too early to tell what the
psychological,
social and political ramifications of this movement will be. We are too
conditioned by our present, inculcated patterns of behavior which
regulate our
psyches and glandular secretions to be able to assess the behaviors of
men and
women of the age of equality. We do know, however, that many of the
moral and
ethical norms which have hitherto regulated sexual relations and
behavior will
become obsolete. Where the woman will no longer look at man as her
provider and
protector and the man will no longer have claims of property on woman,
not only
new social arrangements but also new psychological attitudes can
develop so
that in mutual respect, men, while losing their pretensions of
superiority,
will not lose their virility, and women, while gaining social status,
will not
lose their femininity.[32]
*
*
*
For thousands of
years, in
different cultures at different times, men of certain birth, blood
and/or race
have been held to be, beyond other qualities, more daring, adventurous
and
innovative than others. To mention a few, at one time the Romans, the
Greeks,
the Persians and the Chinese were the superior, virile adventurers;
then the
Visigoths, the Arabs, the Turks and the Mongols. Each later settled
down to conserve
what it had procured and claimed supremacy, first on the basis of its
adventurous reputation, then its superior culture. In the recent past
the white
man has made that claim over the black and the yellow by virtue of his
aggressiveness and his innovative aptitudes. That races exist is a
biological
fact, in the sense that some human groups are generally slimmer or
stockier,
darker or lighter, or share a particular feature. That certain races
have
played markedly superior roles at different times is also a historical
fact.
But this latter fact--the time factor--reduces the validity of
intrinsic
biological explanations for racial characteristics and stratification.[33]
Does the Jewish man
correspond
to the stereotyped cowardly race (in which even he himself in many ways
believed up to World War II) or to the tough Israeli soldier of today?
Is the
black man the "superstitious, lazy and happy-go-lucky" stereotype
held by American college students of the 1930's,[34]
or the militant civil rights fighter of the 1960's? Racial
characteristics do
not seem to be constants; they change according to times, places and
circumstances. They do, however, provide for the creation and
justification of
social gaps. Because race is a biological fact, the individual sees
himself and
others in the light of its prevailing stereotypes and reacts positively
or
negatively towards them.
Of course, the racial
factor is
only one variable among many others. Sometimes, because of particular
circumstances, its role is magnified, as was the case of the Jews and
Germans,
and as is the case of whites and blacks in the United States. At other
times it
is diluted in other biological and social considerations.[35] The racial gap overlaps man's biological and
social dimensions and, like age and sex, gains importance for our
analysis when
it becomes a factor for social and political stratifications and
discriminations.[36] We have, therefore, scattered its discussion
throughout the book as an ingredient of social dynamics, including it
notably
in our examination of class structure later in this chapter.
Intelligence
and Education
Intelligence and
education play
a pivotal role between the more biological and the more social
reference
factors. The individual should not only be given the opportunity
socially to
receive education, but is also expected to have the capacity to benefit
from
it. Here again, the debate has been controversial as to whether men are
born
equal in so far as intelligence is concerned and are handicapped by
socialization, or whether there are inherent intelligence differences
among
individuals. So far, the biological arguments have not been conclusive
because
of the nature of the subject--man--who cannot be analyzed without his
social
dimensions. The fact remains that there are intelligence differences
among
different individuals.[37] The differences arise, however, in the
process of learning and reacting to social stimuli, and no matter what
the
"innate" intelligence, the social factors play the decisive role in
tapping it through education and experience.[38] And
education and experience are provided by
the other factors we have been and will be discussing: For example,
experience
comes with age and with exposure to the total environment; and
education and
its quality, even in the most advanced countries, depend on other
social
factors such as wealth, status or class.
While intelligence as
an
individual attribute can be recognized, it does not provide a socially
discernible and standardized criterion. Education, on the other hand,
relies on
the transmission of knowledge through the symbolic system and thus
provides
formal patterns of measurement. In traditional societies, the intelligent farmer or laborer was still
just a farmer or a laborer, but the man who had sat at the feet of the
master
and learned the Vedas or the Koran, or passed the Chinese Civil Service
Examinations, was the educated man. In modern times it is the special
training
and the college degree which, to a large extent, distinguish the
educated from
the uneducated. While there is reason to believe that the intelligent
get
educated,[39]
there
nevertheless seems to exist a disproportionate social attitude,
especially
among the uneducated, to mistake education for intelligence and, still
more
irrelevant, for wisdom. Another area of confusion is the overlapping of
educational background and intellectualism. Raw intelligence is not
enough to
qualify one as an intellectual.[40] Generally
speaking, the intellectual is an
"educated" man because he seeks to learn. But an educated man is not
necessarily an intellectual. Intellectualism implies the bent to
ponder. An
educated man may simply be one with a great deal of training, which he
uses
functionally for his skill and profession, with little inclination for
intellectual inquiry.
In terms of intellect,
there
are those who, beyond intellectualism, have reached the wisdom of
knowing that
they do not know, and there are the pseudo-intellectuals who, without
good
judgment, join the bandwagon and populate the ranks of
the intelligentsia. While these are broad typologies,
their characteristics may be present in one and the same individual
under
different circumstances. Everyone, unless he is a megalomaniac, at
times knows
and at other times knows that he
does not know.
In each society we
find some standards
for recognizing the educated and the uneducated, the intellectual and
the
common man, contributing to the formation of both self- and social
image. The
educational and the intellectual criteria, however, make sense only in
combination with other social factors. For example, reverting to our
adventurer/conserver model, among the educated, depending on their age,
status
and other factors, we may find some more conservers and others more
adventurers. A study of creativity and exploratory drives found people
in the
unconventional occupations such as "adventurers, inventors and
writers" significantly more creative than those in conventional
occupations such as "lawyers, doctors and professors."[41]
Similar studies have demonstrated that, politically speaking,
intellectualism,
inclined to question, opens perspectives conducive to
"liberal"--adventurer-attitudes, while educated professionals, who
attain social status by their learned skills, tend towards
"conservative"--conserver--attitudes.[42]
As for those who,
according to
prevailing criteria, do not qualify as "educated" and
"intellectual," we should realize that their adventurer/conserver
pattern of behavior depends on a complex of intermingling social
factors, which
will lead us to our later discussion of wealth, status and class
indicators.
Taking for a moment education alone, we may find that those who lack
educational sophistication (often the lot of the lower classes) have
limited
perspectives for change and lean towards conserver attitudes. In this
they tend
to grow anti-intellectual and suspicious of those who advocate
adventure into
an unknown future.[43] They fear rather than seek the unknown. The
Russian nineteenth-century intellectuals were not favorably received by
the
Muziks, whom they went to convert to their revolutionary ideas in their
villages. Lack of education, however, is only one of the social
factors. When
the underprivileged becomes conscious of lacks and their consequences,
he may
throw himself open to the adventure of revolution and a hypothetical
future. In
doing so, if he does not gain enough experience to widen his
perspective, he
may merely be used as an instrument and find himself again relegated to
the
lower strata of society. In the words of James Madison, "Knowledge will
always govern ignorance and those who want to govern themselves must
arm
themselves with this power."
So the undereducated
may come
into conflict with the "educated" either because the
latter is an adventurer and is rocking the
boat, or because his education is due to other factors such as wealth,
status
and class, which the lower class wants. Of course, the consciousness of
the
undereducated of his lacks indicate exposure to some education and the
use of
his intellect. Even in the extreme of the eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century
colonial South of the United States, where laws were enacted against
teaching
the blacks to read and write,[44]
there were those who taught, and there were those who learned and
eventually
changed the social pattern. Education and intelligence are, then,
assets for
the individual to evaluate his social situation and participate in the
social
evolution or revolution.
Status, Wealth and
Class
As our discussion in
the
foregoing section developed, we were no longer talking strictly about
education
in the formal sense, but also about the social, economic and political
dynamics
that bring about status, wealth and class distinctions. These factors
have
served to establish a social hierarchy as long as man has been a
political
animal. The combinations of status, wealth and class with age, sex,
race,
intelligence and education as reference points for identification,
provide for
social order, buttressed by corresponding value systems. Marx and
Engels, by
fitting this complex of social dynamics and fermentations into a model
of class
struggle--in which the history of mankind could be reduced basically to
the
antagonism between an exploitive ruling class holding the means of
production
and an exploited class surviving by its labor alone--brought to light
the
underlying conflicting interest patterns within society. Further
developments
showed that their model was more directly geared to explaining social
dynamics
during acute crises (revolutionary periods) when interests and their
underlying
values polarized for confrontation. Indeed, in these periods, while the
struggle may have been ignited essentially by the interests of a
particular
class, the two fronts face each other in the name of the oppressed and
the
oppressor. But each side is composed of different classes. The
revolutionaries
of the French Revolution included bourgeois, farmer, worker,
intellectual and
aristocrat. So did the Russians and the Chinese. This happens, as we
shall see
shortly, when the social structures lose their flexibility and do not
provide
an evolutionary process permitting interaction, transaction and
interpenetration among the different social strata.[45]
In an evolutionary
social
process, the individual, while identifying himself by certain
standards,
whether of property or income, occupation, education, official
position, title,
association, birth, ethnic group or life-style, does not necessarily
feel
antagonistic towards those identifying with other standards. When the
value
system--or the constellation of interacting value systems--functions
adequately, the individual finds symbiotic justification for social
differentiations and stratifications. We do not imply that there are no
resentments among classes, but that the social semantics do not
necessarily
lend themselves to misunderstandings which would mobilize classes
against each
other. There are, then, depending on the structure of the society and
its
evolution, different degrees of class consciousness, class structures,
and
class conflict in different societies.[46] In
general, the more a society is
heterogeneous and dynamic, the more variations in its class structure,[47]
and the fewer its entrenched class struggles.
A flexible, modern
society, by
the very nature of its structure (and for its own development),
provides for
transclass mobility which, in some areas, may be more fictitious than
real.[48] But if transclass mobility is a recognized
premise of the prevailing value system and is supported by some social
indices
of occurrence, it reduces social confrontations along class lines.
Where the
lower class working man sees the possibility to better his lot through
the
system, he is unlikely to band with others to overthrow it. He may band
with
them to bargain, but it is unlikely that in that situation he would
revolt.
Mobility, of course, goes both upwards and downwards. The mobility that
permits
transclass fluidity is expansive, as has generally been witnessed in
the
industrialized countries.[49] A compressive mobility that pushes
downwards, as in a period of economic depression, may rigidify classes
by
defensive attitudes creating social conflicts.
Possibilities of
transclass
mobility will attenuate class border lines. This
attenuation will
depend on the traditional structures a
society may have had and on the accessibility or nonaccessibility of
the upper
classes. In the United States, for example, with practically no
hereditary
blood nobility, the distinction of the upper class has been based
mainly on
wealth--the capacity to make it and hold it. Even the few aristocrats
who
settled in colonial Virginia and Maryland had to put their hands to
work and
cease to be "gentlemen" by the British definition (that is, men who
did not have to work for a living). Furthermore, in the United States,
the
social and environmental dynamics kept the making of fortunes rolling
and, in
the process, changing hands. First there were fortunes made from
tobacco, rice,
cotton, indigo, shipping and manufacturing, mainly on the East Coast.
Then, as
the westward and southward drives continued, new wealth was made by new
adventurers: midwestern cattle-raising, Pittsburgh steel, cross-country
railroads, Minnesota flour mills, Chicago meat-packing, San Francisco
shipping,
Texas oil, Detroit car-manufacturing, California movie-making, and
finally the
electronics industry.
The builders of these
empires
were the upper crust of the financial world that shaped the American
society.
But their class, according to the country's value system, was not a
sacred
caste. It was there for anybody who really aspired to it and who had
the
commensurate determination and personal qualities to join. Those who
reached it
distinguished themselves as "society." The texture of
"society" changed, first slowly, then faster. In the process it
adopted new criteria for distinction. The old style had certain
standards of
respectability and continuity--both for making fortunes and for keeping
them.
Ward McAllister, who listed the elite "Four Hundred" in 1888,
considered that it would take three generations to make a gentleman out
of an American.
Things have changed since then. The "society" found that fortune
could buy more than respectability and that there was more to life than
fortune. The contemporary "society" or the "jet set," as
they are called, have become more a class of celebrities whose fame may
be due
to wealth or to jobs considered glamorous: movie stars, artists,
fashion
designers, models, champions of certain sports, journalists and authors.
However, a closer look
at this
shifting upper class in the United States reveals the basic criterion
for the
modern industrial society's class distinctions. It is a variation on
the theme
of material fortune: achievement and success. The measure of
achievement in the
heyday of capitalism was capital. As the saying went, money was not
happiness,
but it could buy good substitutes for it. As the focus on fortune
increased, so
did the number of substitutes for happiness. Among them was the success
of
those who achieved not by fortune but by talent. The well-to-do and the
talented have made contact through success, and the current has gone
both ways.
While many in the established financial upper class have moved towards
replacing some of the substitutes with "real" things, the talented
have moved towards making fortunes through their talents. After all,
the secure
criterion for belonging to the upper social strata is still money.
Nevertheless, there has been a discernible movement, mainly within the
upper
levels of society, for fulfillment through a "meaningful" life-style
rather than a class distinction by fortune.[50]
This trend, however,
is
perceptible only among people with greater sophistication, education
and social
awareness, who are generally found among the upper classes. For the
main bulk
of the American middle and lower classes, the criterion is still
material
achievement, and the average American ranks people on the basis of
property and
income.[51] Thus some American college professors,
believing they have found a "meaningful" occupation, may consider
themselves (and be considered by the higher classes) part of the upper
social
strata because of their sophistication and life-style, yet they may be
considered by the middle class as part of the middle class because of
their
income.
The lower class of
American
society has also been largely a shifting class. New migrations and
territorial
mobility, as cause and consequence of the social and economic dynamics,
have
contributed to this process. While the principal criterion of their
classification is basically economic, other indices such as education
and occupation
overlap class distinctions. There is also the particular case of the
blacks,
Indians, Mexican Americans and Orientals in the United States--a case
with more
racial overtones than class characteristics. But the racial question
gains
social and political significance when used to analyze lower class
psychology.
The upward move needs certain minimum assets which, when lacking as in
the
lower classes, make the individual class-bound. The individual tries to
compensate for his inability to move up by keeping those considered
below him
down, thus creating for himself a source of psychological satisfaction.
This
phenomenon explains why the American lower classes have generally been
more
hostile to racial integration.[52]
In considering class
structure
and transclass mobility in other industrialized, free-enterprise
societies,
namely Western Europe and Japan, we have to take into account their
traditional
past. The social and economic expansion resulting from capitalist and
industrial revolution in these countries was accompanied by the
inevitable
transclass mobility.[53] But it did not dilute class distinctions as
much as it has in the United States. Western European and Japanese
modernity
has been built atop social structures rooted in traditional cultures.
The slow
pace characteristic of traditional patterns permits the consolidation
of
long-lasting social positions and statuses passed from one generation
to
another.[54] While these patterns evolve with time and
circumstances, they nevertheless provide for class distinctions.
Heredity,
under these conditions, not only provides for the passage of fortune,
but
accompanies deep-rooted modes of behavior, life-style and social and
class
consciousness. It is significant, for example, to note a perceptible
difference
in the degree of emphasis placed on heredity in European studies of
class
structure compared to those made in the United States. Surely, Warner's
study, Social Class in America, points out that
the road to success is shorter for the children of the upper class, but
he
considers the situation from the vista of material achievement and sees
heredity as only one of many handicaps for the lower classes. Duverger,
treating the same subject in European terms, looks at achievement from
the
vantage point of heredity, which he seems to present as the overriding
handicap
of the lower classes. Compare Warner's statement: "It is common
knowledge
that the sons and daughters of the Gold Coasts, the Main Lines, and
Park
Avenues of America are more likely to receive recognition for their
efforts
than the children of the slums,"[55]
with that of Duverger: "The hereditary transmission of privileges or
inequalities is the fundamental basis of the class concept."[56]
Class patterns in
different
European countries, of course, are not alike. But in their general
outline they
do reflect a broad common consciousness. Where the American talks about
income
brackets, the European talks about classes. It is as if the individual
in
Europe needs a social classification to replace the traditional estates
of the
past. Aristocracy has lost most (and in some places all) of its formal
privileges, but an aristocratic title still evokes a certain social
status. The
middle class identifies itself as bourgeoisie--with gradations,
including a
"high bourgeoisie" which in many aspects resembles the American upper
upper class. While the European high bourgeoisie has been attributed
greater
"sophistication" than its American homologue, it has used the same
measuring rod of wealth. And above all, in the European context the
workman is
generally conscious of his place and interests within the society as a
member
of the proletariat class.[57] These patterns of class consciousness in
Europe, as distinct from those of the United States, can explain, for
example,
the more class-oriented political parties in Europe as compared to the
United
States.
Our discussion of the
influence
of traditional patterns on class structures in the industrialized
countries
leads us to the question of class structures in the traditional
societies in
general, and permits us to note here the contrast between the dynamism
of
modern societies, enhancing transclass mobility, and the traditional
patterns
that provided either orderly and established rules for passage from one
class
to another, such as the traditional Chinese culture,[58]
or the frozen and rigid class--or rather caste-systems such as the one
in
India. The social flux can evolve as long as the prevailing class and
caste
system meets the requirement of the social dynamics. A society's value
system
should help justify each member's place within the social strata. For
centuries, the Indian caste system adequately met the social needs of
classification by inculcating the population with conservative
attitudes
towards the social order, and by Sanskritization of the adventurers who
poured
in every now and then, such as the Rajputs, by accommodating them
within the
social strata, making them want to conserve their position.
The evolutionary
continuity of
a social flux depends on the concordance of its rate of change with the
value
system which upholds its social stratification.[59] In a slow-moving traditional society, the
class system may approach caste rigidity, supported by the prevailing
value
system; and the individual, identifying with his lot, may not question
status
and privilege discrepancies. In an industrial, mobile society, the
value system
should uphold transclass mobility, satisfying the individual that while
there
are social strata, in the context of social dynamics and fermentations
he is
not class bound. The myth of the self-made man was that the
enterprising young
man should begin at the bottom of the scale and work his way up, as
Andrew
Carnegie suggested. This latter social semantic somehow implies that
if, in a
society with opportunities for advancement, one does not progress, it
is one’s
own fault. The relativity of this statement is obvious. We have seen
that
neither will the individual easily accept this condemnation (and even
if his
failure is his own fault, he will, in order to balance his psyche, try
to find
a scapegoat), nor does a society, with all its inequalities of birth,
education, wealth and status, offer unhandicapped opportunities to all.
If the social flux
runs
smoothly enough to reconcile these discrepancies, the evolutionary
process may
continue. But when the social semantics grow dissonant and individuals
find
themselves at odds with their status in the social classification, they
will
grow discontent. When discontent generalizes, the social change moves
from an evolutionary
towards a revolutionary process. The attitude of the members of the
society
towards their class structure thus follows the pattern of their
behavior
towards the whole of the normative system. Class structure is, in the
end, a
manifestation of the normative system, and the individual's attitude
towards it
may oscillate within the range of
conformity--consent--indifference/apathy--dissent--conflict--and
revolution.
The revolutionary stage should, of course, be considered in the light
of the
social fermentations and dynamics so far discussed, and not simply as
an
outcome of class antagonisms. In a dynamic situation, the excessively
rigid
attitude of any of the antagonists in the distinctive patterns
discussed as
group references can contribute to social upheavals. In a stagnant or
slow-moving traditional situation, of course, the discrepancy may be
accepted,
not perceived, or remain a chafing friction.
It is noteworthy that
consciousness of the discrepancy needs contiguity
and familiarity. To revolt against
the privileged, the underprivileged must first know about the
privileges of the
privileged. As Marx puts it, "A house may be large or small; as long as
the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social
requirements
for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace,
and the
little house shrinks into a hut."[60] Of
course, consciousness of the lower
classes about the discrepancy may be hindered where the rights and
privileges
of the upper class are rendered impermeable by the value system and the
likelihood of intermingling among the classes is reduced. Not many
Hindu
untouchables had occasion to see what was going on in the Maharaja's
palace.
The other imperative, familiarity, is more crucial. It is when the
privilege no
longer seems exclusive and the class barriers are blurred that
consciousness
about the discrepancies is sharpened. When the likelihood of transclass
mobility grows and upper/middle/ lower class distinctions are further
broken
down into intermediary stages, those in different classes develop
ambivalent
yet more open attitudes towards other classes. They are ambivalent
because the
individual may be personally inclined toward more rigid class
distinctions, but
under social pressure may adopt more conciliatory social attitudes. The
interpenetration and intercourse among classes will then create
familiarity of
the members of each class with the standards, privileges and
life-styles of the
contiguous classes, reducing the sacredness of class boundaries.
The individual's
awareness and
militancy in different classes and categories is, of course, relative
and not
uniform. The lower class, the most oppressed, may, for reasons already
discussed, be the least inclined towards adventurous undertakings. As
Lipset and
Linz say, "Those who have nothing to lose but their chains may be too
closely chained, psychologically, to the desperation of their lot to
generalize
their predicament, to face the consequences of a malcontent position,
or
otherwise add to their suffering by striving for social change."[61] It is rather those who have already been
exposed to some mobility, who have developed the taste for change and
critical
choice-making and are frustrated because they do not find the pace or
direction
of the social evolution correct according to their interests or values,
that
will eventually draw the underprivileged (but conservative) classes
into the
adventure of social conflict and revolution. Their success in doing so
will
depend on the nature of the prevailing social patterns, the ideologies
or myths
they advance, and the methods they choose; and the outcome will depend
on the
stage of the social evolutionary process. In Russia many revolutionary
activities had failed prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. In Germany and
Italy
the National Socialist and Fascist movements respectively succeeded
because the
evolutionary process in those countries had reached the point of
disruption and
the radical left was not well enough organized to meet the challenge.
The
political events in May, 1968, in France, spearheaded by young
intellectuals
and students, was only partly followed by the working class; and as the
subsequent elections showed, it brought about some changes but did not
disrupt
the overall social order because there were no real grounds for an
all-out
revolutionary movement. The social conflicts of the 1960's and 70's in
the U.
S. A. also, while creating upheavals of national magnitude, did not
disrupt the
basic American social and political pattern because the evolutionary
process
has been functional. The American social structure and political
culture have
so far been flexible and accommodating toward the shocks of racial,
generational and economic gaps.
IV.
From Conformity to Revolt
Whether the
society-continues
an evolutionary trend or takes a revolutionary turn depends, then, not
only on
the discontent of a few but on the social structures and circumstances,
which
shape the viewpoint of the many. But the many is composed of
individuals, and
in the last analysis, whether the individual uses his choice-making
potentials
to go along with the prevailing social flux or to go against it--or to
join
those who go with or against it-will depend on how well the social
semantics
accords with his temperament, as discussed in the past pages. We have
already
considered how symbols by which men communicate are subject to
variations as
they are transmitted within the social context. The variations, of
course,
result not only from differences in the physiological structure of the
receiving
and transmitting organs, but also from psychological and social
predispositions. While human beings look alike, the combination and
sequence of
their exposures to their total environment make the life experience of
each
unique. I do not know whether my interlocutor's organism registers the
same
shape, volume, color, movement, sound or smell as mine does for what we
conventionally call "cow"; and I do not even know what the word
evokes in him. It all depends on his past experience, interests,
temperament,
mood and inclination. My cow is a different cow for a farmer, a feedlot
manager, a painter, a gourmet, a child who has been kicked by one or a
child
who has milked one. So cowl is not cow2.[62]
The discrepancy
between the
inner representation of phenomena within each individual influences his
choice
and has social consequences. To kill or not to kill the cow, that may
be the
question. There is no question for the feedlot operator or the Hindu
Brahmin.
One kills the cow, the other does not. As you can see, we are not
talking about
the same cow. The cows of the feedlot operator and those of the Brahmin
are
cows of different interests and values. But in the context of social
reality,
choices are not always so clear-cut and easy to explain. Within a
culture, adherence
to social norms is not uniform. As we discussed earlier, those whose
interests
correspond to the prevailing values willingly adhere to them and try to
persuade others to do so too. Those who do not benefit from them may
try to
change them. The value judgment is, of course, more complex than pure
material
calculations. "If I feel that my satisfaction is reduced by somebody
else's poverty (or, for that matter, by somebody else's wealth), then I
am
injured in precisely the same sense as if my purchasing power were
reduced."[63]
This quotation from
Arrow
points out that conformity and nonconformity to the prevailing norms
are not
always distinguishable along easily and materially detectable lines.
You may
be rich and yet uneasy about another's poverty, or you may be wealthy
and
jealous of another's wealth for affectional reasons. The man whose
interest
fits the prevailing norms may not conform to them as strictly as he
"should." Nor does the individual who does not benefit from the
system always have revolutionary attitudes concomitant with the degree
of his
disadvantage. Because of particular life experiences, expectations and
statuses, some individuals may over-react to the impact of the social
normative
system. Thus, for example, the intellectual may be better off because
the
prevailing normative system favors his stratum, yet he may become a
militant
revolutionary, while a member of the working class, whom the system
does not
advantage, may nevertheless uphold the system. There may be gradations
in individual
attitudes towards the social value system, ranging from conformity to
revolt,
not always corresponding to social status and privileges.
In our analysis of the
conformity/revolt spectrum, we should take into account the subjective
expectations of the members of society: to what extent is the
individual
satisfied or frustrated within the social flux? And by satisfaction we
do not
necessarily mean security because some members of society may desire
variety
and change, the absence of which may contribute to their frustration,
boredom
and dissatisfaction. The possibilities for security and change within a
social
flux, no matter how streamlined, do not guarantee the satisfaction of
all the
members of the society because of their different temperaments,
inclinations
and particularly their expectations, based on their unique life
experiences.
Conformity
and Consent
Individuals conform to
the
established norms for different reasons. We have already discussed the
different socio-psychological patterns which can be conducive to
conformity.
Adherence to the norms can be due to Ego's "objective" calculations
that the established norms are in his interest--for his security and
well-being. His "objective" calculation may result from persuasion
that conformity is in his interest or from an orientation produced by
indoctrination and the consequent shrinkage of Ego's conceptual and
perceptual
angles--in short, his ignorance about other alternatives. Our
distinction here
between persuasion and indoctrination is based on the amount of
reasoning or
passive acceptance they involve--persuasion implying that the subject
is won
over by appeals to his reasoning process; indoctrination that he is
passive and
impressed by the flood of information. These take place through the
value-crystallization processes and the intervention of the
value-forming
agencies covered in our earlier chapters.[64] In
some instances the individual's
passionate conformity may be aroused by intoxication, i.e., by
indoctrination
with an emotional charge, such as haranguing propaganda, employed
particularly
in times of crisis. Conformity may be due to coercive overtones: Ego
conforms
because of the fear of sanction. This sanction need not be legal, but
simply
group pressure, which may not, for that matter, present any outward
threat
except the danger of rejection by the group. The individual conforms to
group
norms for want of recognition. Succumbing to group pressure may also be
interpreted as the individual's herd reflex, reflecting man's tendency
to accept
group norms.[65]
These
factors and those that follow obviously do not operate in isolation,
but
overlap.
Acquiescence
and Apathy
So far, whether due to
"objective" considerations, persuasion, indoctrination, intoxication
or herd reflex, Ego's behavior runs along the conformity-consent
pattern.
Further along the spectrum, Ego may acquiesce. When his application for
a job
is rejected, he may say to himself, "I am a failure," and he may
blame himself on the basis of certain established norms, attributing
his
failure to his own deficiencies. In judging himself by the standards of
the
prevailing normative system he in fact accepts them. By accepting a set
of
norms according to which he fails, he internalizes his frustrations.
Together
with acquiescence in which failure resulting from the normative
standards turns
inward and infects the individual, he can develop apathy and
indifference and
abide by the norms because they constitute the path of least friction;
they
keep him out of trouble and away from the coercive machinery of the
normative
system.[66]
But then he may also
stop and
think and conclude that his failure is due to certain norms which do
not
correspond to his idea of fair play
and equity. For example, he may find that the criteria for recruitment,
selection
or election favor one class over
another. He may be of the black race
undergoing tests tailored for white values and aptitudes. She may be of
the
female sex and have to abide by men's
rules. He may be young (or old) and face an age
limit. He may find himself handicapped because of lack of wealth
and property, as were the voters in England and the United
States. Or he may see himself hindered by lack of education,
as the blacks were in the South of the United States. He
may find that the current social norms demand connections or a certain birth or status for success. Then,
instead of saying, "I am a
failure," he may say, "The system is prejudiced, biased and
unfair."
Dissent
and Civil Disobedience
Moving toward more
active
stands, he may resent or dissent within the framework of the system. In
doing
so, as opposed to the individual who internalizes his frustrations, the
dissenter externalizes his disagreement with the normative system.
There is, of
course, no clear-cut, either/or situation. Most individuals both
internalize
and externalize their social frustrations.
Between dissent and
revolt,
externalization of discontent involves different degrees of political
activism
with different philosophical and normative implications. Dissent does
not
always imply an outright violent drive to overthrow the prevailing
system. The
dissenter may aim at compromise or turn to nonviolent and passive civil
disobedience, like the Gandhian Satyagraha.
But from here on he is slipping to the other side of the fence as far
as the
prevailing normative system is concerned, and as his alienation from
that
system grows, he feels more and more the impact and confrontation of
the legal
machinery which, as noted in our discussion of norms in Chapter Six,
discourages those whose deviations from the prevailing normative system
may
endanger the social structure.
The nature of an
individual's
nonobservance of the moral, ethical and legal norms needs emphasis, as
it will
help our understanding of civil disobedience. Deviations from moral and
ethical
norms, we noticed, may be more fluid and lack strictly prescribed
sanctions.
But in matters of law, the distinction between the legal and the
illegal is
supposed to be well-defined. It is not a matter of nonconformity; one breaks the law and is punished
accordingly. The decision on whether one has disobeyed a law or not, as
it is
implied in statutory and civil laws, is supposed to be a fact-finding
process,
not a value judgment. Even in common law, where judgments based on
custom,
precedent and the wisdom of judge and jury are at the same time
fact-finding
and law-making processes, common standards (in the sense of being
common
knowledge) are to be respected. The fundamental principle of ignorantia juris neminem excusat
(ignorance of the law excuses no one) implies the existence of a legal
norm,
carrying sanctions, prior to the repressible act.[67] But seldom are legal norms--statutory, civil
or common--free from value judgments, and usually they are inspired by
moral
values and social ethics.
The individual members
of the
society may have different attitudes and views on the legal norms and
their
valuational bases. The professional burglar does not break the law
because he
disagrees with the moral principle of "Thou shalt not steal." He is,
in a way, accepting the rules and playing the game. If he finds the
laws not
harsh enough to dissuade him, or if he gets away with it, it is too bad
for
society. If he is caught, it is too bad for him. He may be dissuaded
from
continuing, or he may just try harder next time not to get caught. This
corresponds to Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous theory: "If you want to
know
the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares
only for
the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict,
not as a
good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or
outside
of it, in the vague sanctions of conscience."[68]
If the law is
efficacious, the
overwhelming majority of the society will not break it. The mass man
abides by
the law not so much because he is consistently conscious of its
existence,
aware of its sanctions and morally and ethically in favor of it, but
because
law-breaking is not likely to be his social and/or mental
predisposition. The
"normal" man does not walk in the streets wishing he could kick, kill
or rob other people, restraining himself only because he is aware and
afraid of
the legal consequences. When the law is efficacious, it is probably
because it
corresponds to the moral and ethical norms by which the subjects of law
have
been socialized, rather than because it is based on purely coercive
machinery.
Only if law is based on pure coercion does it imply that the mass man
is
conscious of the law's existence and, if it were not for the coercive
machinery
behind it, would not abide by it--as may happen, for example, in times
of alien
military occupation. Under
"normal" circumstances, it is not so much that the individual abides
by the law because it is efficacious, but that the law is efficacious
because
the individual abides by it.[69]
Obedience to the law
is,
therefore, the more formally prescribed dimension of social behavior.
The man
who, by his moral convictions, observations of social ethics,
self-interest,
need for group recognition and tendency to follow the path of least
friction,
conforms generally to the prevailing normative system does not come
into
conflict with the legal coercive machinery. Our model, although not
necessarily
modal, is the mass man, and the more the society is inhabited by his
species,
the greater the social consensus. Our man pays his taxes and rent on
time and
moves on when the police officer tells him to. Not that he is a robot
of
conformity. There will be many norms to which he will conform more or
less
closely. But within their broad confines, he will probably die without
having
spent a night in a jail. By that criterion he is a law-abiding citizen.
He is
the ingredient of the majority which, by its sheer weight and size,
keeps the
social flux on course. This is the majority against whose tyranny de
Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill and Thoreau warned us, not only because
it
creates social pressure for conformity to the moral and ethical norms,
but
because it allows the tyranny of the law. De Tocqueville, analyzing
American
democracy, asks:
If an
individual or a party is wronged [by the majority] in the United
States, to
whom can he turn for redress? Not to the public opinion, because the
public
opinion constitutes the majority; not to the legislature, because it
represents
the majority and implicitly obeys it; not to the executive power, which
is
appointed by the majority, and a passive tool in its hands .... The
jury is the
majority invested with the right to hear judicial cases; and in certain
states
even the judges are elected by the majority.[70]
The question leads us,
beyond
the "bad man" who plays cops and robbers and the individual who finds
it convenient to conform to and thus perpetuate the laws, to the
individual who
does not find certain laws justified on questions of principle rather
than on
questions of convenience. What is he to do? Should he submit to the law
or
disobey it? The question has been examined from Socrates to Thoreau and
beyond.
It raises a complex of other problems such as the legitimacy of
authority, the
law-making process and the participation of the governed in that
process, and
even the general character of the government.[71] We
will attend to these problems later. For
now, however, let us emphasize the particular aspect of individuals'
negative
attitudes towards a legal norm. Nonconformity may stretch from
indifference to
dissent and thence to conflict and revolt. In the realm of legal norms,
some of
these stages will not significantly differ from those of moral and
ethical
norms. An individual may be indifferent to a law which does not provide
equal
pay for equal work by a woman. He may be indifferent to a law which
disenfranchises the blacks. The individual in question may, for that
matter, be
the woman or the black, yet indifferent to her or his own unfavorable
situation.
Dissent from a legal
norm,
although implying a more distinguishable action than dissent from moral
and
ethical norms, may still not constitute an illegal act, as is the case
with a
poster parade, voluntary boycott or refusal to accept government
employment.[72] When, however, an individual chooses to
break the law to express his objection--whether he breaks the law to
which he
objects directly or another law as an indirect manifestation of his
objection
(like not paying taxes that would be spent on wars to which he does not
subscribe)--he is engaging in civil disobedience, which is distinct
from
criminal disobedience. Civil disobedience is a systematic, deliberate
and
public illegal act, manifesting basic disapproval and defiance of a law
or policy
of the established authority. The public nature of this defiance is a
particular characteristic of civil disobedience. To illustrate, the
difference
is between the individual who sneaks into the missile site, is caught
and is
then suspected of espionage, theft, or vandalism, and the person who
announces
his intention to go to the site and brandish a poster denouncing
governmental
policy. In order to qualify as civil disobedience, the manifestation of
disapproval should have some moral and ethical premises. No matter how
much the
act does, in fact, directly and materially benefit the civil
disobedient, it
should be based on some plausible conviction or principle. As Zinn puts
it, it
should constitute a "deliberate violation of law for a vital social
purpose."[73] A man who hampers the work on a government
site to help his business cannot claim civil disobedience.[74] This possible extreme shows that there are
different degrees of conscientiousness on the part of those who engage
in civil
disobedience. There is civil disobedience rooted in interests, and
there is
that generated by values. The danger of this categorization is that
what some
may consider justified disobedience against unreasonable and unjust
laws, those
on the establishment side may label interested opportunism or
impractical
idealism.
This raises the
question of the
criteria for civil disobedience. Can individuals sharing a democratic
and
pluralistic system where (at least theoretically, according to the
society's
constitution) through debate, persuasion and free elections the
authoritative
apparatus can be won over, resort to civil disobedience? What if after
every
debate, persuasion and free election, the same class, race, sex or
religious
group is left out of the authoritative apparatus? Even if that
apparatus
represents the majority and the Rousseauean general will, should the
minority
perpetually submit to laws and policies it finds unjust? Should the
opposers of
a law or policy resort to civil disobedience to avert the likelihood of
a fait accompli when in certain cases a
time factor is involved, and waiting for a constitutional change may
make it
too late to override the effects of that law or policy?
It is paradoxical
that, as a
general rule, where the system lends itself to civil disobedience, the
possibilities for changing the objectionable laws through due process
are
greater. The more democratic and flexible the political culture, the
more the
possibilities for demonstrating dissent and disobedience, but also for
influencing the law and policy-making process. When a group has a
justifiable
point to put across and the society at large has a reasonable level of
tolerance and openness, the likelihood of passing the message along and
winning
support is greater, as was the case with racial desegregation in the
United
States. Of course, too much tolerance and social openness may result in
slackness and permissiveness, breeding factionalism and favoring
disintegration. But as a general rule, the more billy clubs appear in
defense
of law and order, the more the regime becomes autocratic, the less
chance there
is of open dissent and civil disobedience, and also the less likelihood
that
those being suppressed will be given a chance to win over the
establishment
through due process of law. The growing suppressive process in a polity
is
symptomatic of growing irreconcilable positions. This does not imply,
however,
that the more civil disobedience is possible, the less it is justified.
In a
democratic setting, civil disobedience may indeed bring public
attention to a
problem whose oversight or complacency to it would otherwise endanger
the
future of the democratic process and deteriorate the social cohesion.[75]
As the conflict
becomes more
acute, civil disobedience, which may have begun nonviolently (unless it
is
overwhelming in magnitude, like the Gandhian movement in India), will
become
hard to maintain against suppression. Continued, determined and
effective
suppression of resistance may then discourage disobedience and make the
individual submissive, reverting to apathetic conformity. But if
resistance
continues in the face of oppression, it often turns into violent
action. We are
thus moving from civil disobedience to revolt. While the civil
disobedient and
the revolutionary may share many characteristics, they may differ in
the degree
of change they advocate and the techniques they are willing to employ.
Whether
one is more inclined to partial and gradual reforms or to the total
overthrow
of the system depends on the degree of irreconcilability that exists,
the means
for bringing about the desired change, and the temperaments and
patterns of
militancy.
Revolt:
Radical and Reactionary Extremism
In our earlier list of
charges
of suspicion against the man who had sneaked into a missile site, we
purposely
left out the possible charge of sabotage, which could clearly have been
a
violent but secret gesture of dissent. True, the civil disobedient may
also
become involved in sabotage to press his point. But openly carrying a
protest
poster and covertly placing a time bomb on highly guarded premises
require
different predispositions. When the individual reaches the point of
revolt, he
is alienated from the prevailing normative system. Indeed, what he
preaches is
not compatible with the prevailing normative system; i.e., it is not
upheld by
what Marsiglio of Padua called the
weightier part of the society (whether it be the majority in number
or some
other criterion of power), for otherwise a revolution would not be
necessary
and the evolutionary process would suffice to right what is wrong.[76]
The revolutionary must
then
envisage, for the advancement of his viewpoint, the possibility of
resorting to
extreme violence against the prevailing normative system--hence the
appellation
"extremists" for those who preach revolution. The extreme of
discontent is also extreme in that it concerns the basic values of the
prevailing social norms. However, whether the extremist is against the
basic
values and the prevailing social
norms, or whether he is for the basic
values (as he interprets them) but against the prevailing social norms
(as he
sees them practiced) makes all the difference. The first will be on the
radical
left, the second on the reactionary (fascist) right.
The radical on the
left attacks
mainly the basic values of the society. In the Western world, for
example, he
maintains that free enterprise and capitalism permit the exploitation
of man by
man, that material progress and excessive industrialization are
detrimental to
human dignity and handicap spiritual growth.[77] He
maintains that if the majority of the
people go along with the system, it is because they are duped by those
with an
interest in perpetuating it and imposing it on the masses; that if the
people
could be made aware, could be educated to see the flaws of the system's
basic
premises, they would overthrow it and bring about a new order. It would
be an
order of social justice which would expropriate, by social
arrangements,
private means of production and stop exploitation of the masses of
laborers. But
the problem of the radical left is that the system will not let it
inform the
masses and open their eyes--hence the impossibility of its winning a
majority
through democratic processes, and therefore the need for revolution.
The extremist on the
right, on
the other hand, mostly claims support on the basis of what he holds to
be the
society's basic values, from which the society has deviated and to
which, for
its own salvation, it should return. Hence the appelation
"reactionary" for the extreme right. The reactionary wants to revive
past values--which he glorifies--and to purify the society. He claims
the
traditional heritage on the basis of his own interpretation. The
extreme right,
the reactionaries, are also referred to as fascists (the term being
used not in
direct reference to Italian Fascists, but as a general definition of
reactionaries--probably because the Italian Fascists claimed a return
to the
glory and authority of ancient Rome).[78] The
fascist attacks, then, not the basic
social values as he sees them but the prevailing social norms which
have
betrayed the basic values. He feels that since corruption has
generalized and
the masses have gone astray, in order to cure the evil he must resort
to
revolution to seize power, awaken the people and lead them to the right
path.
Examples of these attitudes are to be found in such movements as German
Nazism,
Italian Fascism, the Spanish Falange or the American John Birch Society.[79]
While, from the point
of view
of methods, the radical leftist and the fascist reactionary may look
alike
because both advocate militant and revolutionary action, from the
philosophical
point of view, they are indeed opposite.[80]
At the intellectual and philosophical level, they appeal generally to
individuals of different backgrounds and temperaments. The radical
leftist must
be able to make rational abstractions, because if he is to discard the
basic
premises of the prevailing system he should conceptualize what is to
come.
Thus, he needs a broad vision, some degree of education and
sophistication of
analysis --in short, a more ideological approach. In that sense he is
an
adventurer, open to a future experiment which he considers better than
what is.
However, the radical leftist, if he wants to succeed in revolutionizing
the
social complex, cannot only philosophize but has to appeal to the
masses, and
in doing so has to present concrete goals, making them understandable
for the
common man. Depending on the level of education of the masses, the
concretion
of the ideology will take different forms. At a higher level of
education and
sophistication, the radical may present the case of social justice and
basic
arguments about welfare and proper use of national industrial
resources. At a
lower level he has to promise down-to-earth advantages. Lenin offered
the
Russian peasants bread, peace (because war with the Germans was
devastating
their homes and causing famine) and land. He did not harangue them on
the
Marxian theory of surplus-value.[81]
The extreme rightist
may have
an easier job presenting his values to the masses because he preaches a
return
to the beliefs and myths from which the prevailing normative practices
have
deviated. Beliefs and myths, as we saw in Chapter Five, appeal to the
affectional dimensions. At the same time, they are more familiar and
less
complicated than abstract and rational ideologies. By their affectional
dimension and the familiarity of their abstract premises, the doctrines
of the
extreme rightist may have potentials of appeal to different strata of
the
society. But the extremist on the right (the fascist), if he wants to
materialize his revolution, like the radical on the left, cannot remain
within
the abstractions of myths and beliefs. He must also offer concrete
objectives
to his audience. Again depending on the level of education and
sophistication
of the masses, he may have to offer law and order or a revival of
national
virtues and unity to the middle and upper classes, and bread and jobs
to the
lower classes--as did Hitler and Mussolini.
For the radical or
fascist
movements to succeed, a number of variables must concord. If the
radicals or
the fascists are to get the support of the masses once they start their
revolution, and if the masses are to be receptive to revolutionary
promises for
social justice, law and order, or bread, land and jobs, the masses must
have
reached the point of longing for these things. Or, if the masses are
not ready
for militancy, the social structure must have reached a degree of
underintegration to permit the extremist movement to take over and
maintain its
power by force. In any event, if an extremist doctrine is to pass the
stage of
diatribe and turn into a movement, it should be composed not only of
the
doctrinaire, but also of the indoctrinated.
While the terms
"radical" and "fascist" are more or less identified with
certain contemporary movements with totalitarian inclinations (like the
Communists and Socialists for the radicals, or the National Socialists
and
Falange for the reactionaries), their basic connotations can be applied
within
any historical epoch. Thus, for example, the American revolutionaries
of the
1770's were radicals in that they were attacking the very roots of the
political association of the colonies with the King and the Crown of
Great
Britain. Or the Monarchists during the French Revolution were
reactionaries
because they wanted to revert to the Ancien
Régime.
For the sake of
comparison of
the different brands of extremism, we have developed our analysis
beyond the
individual attitudes and into the social goals, impacts and methods of
the
radical left and reactionary right. In doing so we have already
ventured into a
treatment of the material examined in this chapter in the light of the
theme
which we will pick up in the next. Indeed, the revolt of given
individuals
against the prevailing norms does not necessarily imply the collapse of
the
system, nor does it always rally supporters. The rebellious act may
have bigger
or smaller, long- or short-term impacts. Not all passionate calls for
revolt
bear such fruit as Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me
death," in 1775. It took some forty years for Rousseau's Discours
sur l'inégalite (1754) to shake
the foundations of the system it criticized.
The social flux has a
direction, so to speak, determined in different degrees by and for its
components and reflecting general patterns among them, yet it does not
necessarily correspond to their particular personalities and
rationales. In a
simple analogy and limited time context, it is like a ship on the high
seas sailing
a given course. Looking at it from above, we may see many people on it
moving
in different directions. They may be sailors going about their various
tasks,
helping to steer the ship on its course. Or they may be passengers on
deck,
enjoying or submitting to the ship's motion. If the travelers wanted to
change
the direction of the ship, they could not do so simply by walking in
the
direction counter to the ship's course. Once they reached the rails, if
they
wanted to continue their opposite direction, they would have to jump
into the
sea. This also holds true for those who, by running forward, might hope
to make
the ship go faster. The only effective way to change the course of the
ship is
either to influence those who hold the helm or to take it over. Of
course, if
those in favor of change could influence the holders of the helm by
threatening
to jump overboard, they might make certain movements to pressure the
helmsmen.
In this case their movements would have validity because they would be
based
not on the absurd belief that their physical motions could change the
course of
the ship, but on the assumption that those in control might feel a
responsibility for them and give in to their views. The alternative, of
course,
is that they might also be thrown overboard or into the brig by the
ship's
authorities.
A ship on the high
seas,
however, is a weak metaphor for the social flux. The social flux is a
continuum
including not only the ship but also its route and its interaction with
the
waves, the wind and other continua, currents and environmental
conditions. Let
us take a glimpse at this total picture, and start the next chapter by
looking
at what in the metaphor envelops the ship as it floats: the total
environment
in which the social flux flows.
*
*
*
At this stage, before
we
proceed to the next chapter, we must clarify one crucial point of
terminology.
It concerns the use of the term "flux," which the reader will
encounter more frequently as we proceed with our study. I must confess
that
when I was choosing a title for this book I debated between the "The
Socio-Political Complex" and "The Socio-Political Flux." I
finally chose "complex" because its contradistinction with
"system" was more obvious (see the Preface). But the
"complex" without the "flux" gets us nowhere. Flux provides
the complex with a temporal dimension, while complex gives plasticity
to flux.
Without exaggerating the parallel, complex and flux reflect the two
propositions of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The examination of
a
socio-political complex in its statics can give us a graphic
presentation but
may make us lose sight of its evolutionary process, while following the
flux--the evolutionary process of which a complex is a segment-may
handicap the
understanding of particular complex structures. It is consciousness of
the two
that can give us a conceptual intuition of their relativity and a total
understanding of the socio-political phenomena in time and space.