Chapter
3
Group
Fermentations
and
Dynamics
He who is unable to
live in society,
or who has no need
because he is
sufficient to himself,
must be either
a beast
or a god.
Aristotle
The raw material
provided in the last chapter can already
serve for building a model to explain some political structures. But at
this
stage the model would be rudimentary and, beyond generalizations of
culture-universal nature, would not explain the political varieties
which
result as different phenomena combine. For example, on one hand,
man's
drive for self-preservation and satisfaction of his physiological needs
and, on
the other, his search for challenge, combined with the domination drive
of some
and the submissiveness of others, may account for political hierarchy.
But with
only our present premises, it would be difficult to explain, for
instance,
political continuity and change, or the reason some human groups seem
to draw
inspiration from Mill for their political organization while others are
more
influenced by Hobbes. In other words, we need additional dimensions
beyond the
basic drives to explain the diversified political
behaviors, processes and institutions and to show reasons for their
differences
and similarities.
Discussing the drives
which qualify man as a political
animal, and looking at the phenomena from the individual's point of
view, we
noticed that the group is our basic term of reference for examining
man. Man's
association with his fellows. to satisfy his physiological,
psychological and
sociological needs can be conceived only within the group. Thus, for
the
additional dimensions we will look more closely at man in his elemental
context, the group.
I.
The Individual and
the Group
Indeed, keeping a
balanced view of the roles of both the
individual and the group is a constant problem in social and behavioral
studies. Through the ages and with quite diversified philosophies,
some,
including Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Marsilio of Padua, Sir
Thomas
More, Hobbes, Hegel and Bosanquet, to name a few, have maintained that
man
makes sense only in relation to the group. Others, as diversified as
Diogenes
or Seneca in ancient times and Locke, Kant, Bentham and Mill more
recently,
have seen the individual and his behavior as the gist of human
existence and
social life.
The position of each
of these thinkers and his respective
philosophy should obviously be examined in the context of his time and
environment, as should those of different contemporary schools. Thus,
for
example, while psychologists, such as those of the Gestalt school, have
moved
towards group theory in reaction to the Freudian emphasis on the
individual,
political scientists have tried to avoid the atomist liberalism of the
nineteenth century which emphasized individuals in their singularity in
opposition to the state as a political entity.
Moving also away from the prevailing structured, static and
institutional approach of their discipline, some twentieth-century
political
scientists came to consider the group the main dynamic entity which
both molds
the socialized individuals and structures the institutions.[2] These theoretical approaches fluctuate with
the times.[3] But in general, in a civilization where the
tendency towards specialization in knowledge and uniformity in outlook
seems to
be the trend, where the average individual is average because he is
diluted in
the masses, and where the motor
personality can hardly function individually but needs group
support, it is
only natural that the focus turn to the group.[4]
Yet, while the study
and analysis of groups, their
fermentations and dynamics will answer many questions, it may not
answer all of
them. It would be unrealistic to espouse total group theory for
political
analysis. The group is not an amorphous entity. It is made up of
components
which, in the last analysis, are individuals. In the words of Latham:
Groups
exist for the individuals
to whom they belong; by his membership in them the individual fulfills
personal
values and felt needs ....Recognition of the place and role of the
individual
in group associations avoids the error of supposing that political
processes
move by a blind voluntarism in a Schopenhaueresque world .... the whole
structure of society is associational; neither disjected nor congealed,
it is
not a multiplicity of discontinuous persons, nor yet a solid fusion of
dissolved components.[5]
Going further, we may
see individuals at times playing
roles which surpass group identification and influence the course of
action of
the group or of many groups. Some poets, philosophers, heroes and
leaders have
been lone riders, so to speak, remaining aloof from the group or using
groups
to ascend toward their ideals and goals. Sometimes they have become the
focus
of reference or of crystallization for groups which have gravitated
around them
without integrating them. The motor personality may influence the group
without
necessarily heading a movement. He may lead only in thought, without
the
charismatic and other qualities of a militant leader. Rousseau was
neither a
leader nor a hero, but what he said--in itself not a very practical
theory for
social organization--had great impact on the future course of France.
Marx was
another such motor personality.
Such associations may
occur only in certain periods of
the individual's lifetime and in certain circumstances of group life.
But the
point is that they can occur. Personalities like Caesar, Joan of Arc or
de
Gaulle did not exactly fit any particular group. In examining heroic
leadership, Hoffman says:
The
heroic leader is, with
reference to "routine authority", the outsider in two significant
ways. He tends to be a man who has not played the game, either because
he has
had little contact with the political arena (an indispensable quality
when the
crisis that brings him to power amounts to the collapse, and not merely
the
stalemate of the regular regime) or, if he has been in it, because he
has shown
impatience with the rituals and the rules.[6]
Of course, this kind
of personality does not descend
among the group out of the blue. He himself has obviously been
socialized. But
we mention the impact of such a personality on the group as an extreme
case of
the possible role of the group components. We are distinguishing
between the
individual's socialization and his group identification for social
action. Even
empirical studies and experiments directed at group pressure for
conformity
have had to distinguish between "naive" and "independent"
subjects.[7]
Those within the group
who are more instruments than
instrumental constitute, by conforming and behaving predictably, the
group's
identifiable texture. Some groups provide little possibility or room
for motor
personalities to blossom--such as folk societies, with their strict
structures
and limited environmental potentials, which we shall examine later. We
must
not, however, lose sight of the trees while looking at the forest. At
the
practical level of political science, after the analysis of group
dynamics, we
need to know the role and impact of the individuals making up the
group. Even
in its collectivity, the group, as Latham said, consists of components
which
define its character. The candidate who knows who the influential party
leaders
are, or the employer who knows which union workers to contact, can
better
influence the group with which he deals. And each group and its
components have
particular characteristics. A demagogue can use a mob but may be
considered a
nuisance if he starts haranguing the public at a movie theater. The
successful
political practitioner knows which group to use in what circumstances
and how
to use it. A Lenin or a Hitler can do to a crowd what only a few can.
And not
only do such men create an impact which lasts beyond the life of the
crowd, but
they manage to manipulate the crowd without being carried away by it.
II.
Group Association
The group's nature,
size, context, cohesion, duration and
environmental circumstances all shape its interaction with its
components.[8] At the minimum extreme of some of these
factors, the group may not show much groupness. The wearers of shoe
size 8,
those in the $20,000 annual income bracket, or those 35 years old have common characteristics but are not
always conscious of their groupness. For the political analyst,
however, they
may constitute a categorized group worthy of consideration.[9] Members of a categorized
group may seek each other out when circumstances make
them conscious of their common identity.
Consciousness of
groupness does not necessarily imply
proximity and vice versa. VFW members do not need a convention to react
in a
similar manner to an issue, while a movie audience may include members
of some
categorized groups who may not acknowledge each other. The movie
audience is an
aggregate whose individual components
are at the theater for a purpose independent of their coincidental
togetherness. Physical nearness, however, is the
particular characteristic of the aggregate which is felt by its
individual
components. An extreme illustration of it would be the panic felt if
fire broke
out in the theater. Without going to that extreme, we can say that the
reaction
of the members of the audience to what is being projected on the screen
can be
influenced by the aggregate around them. If the viewer watches the same
program
on TV alone without the surrounding charge
of the crowd, he may receive a different stimulus from the movie. We
distinguish two charges here: that of the group and that of the exposure to a program. The movie
watchers, whether at the theatre or at home, are categorized groups
because of
their exposure to a given program rather than who they are. True,
certain kinds
of people watch certain kinds of movies. But their common
characteristics
develop also because of their previous experiences. Those with higher
education
may watch scientific programs more than others because in college they
were
exposed to science. Beyond long lasting effects, exposure can produce
immediate
group dynamics. The classic case of Orson Welles' radio adaptation of
H. G.
Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds,
on October 30, 1938, over CBS was one occasion when the charge of
exposure was
so great that the radio listeners took to the streets.[10] The exposure to a particular stimulus thus
created a spontaneous group and the
charge of the two triggered a mob.
A mob can carry its
components away. It behaves as an
organism, acting and reacting as such. "It" breaks windows, while
many of its components as individuals, and maybe even the one who
hurled the
stone at the window, would not otherwise throw stones. A mob, while
behaving as
an organism, may not follow a set pattern organically--although it may,
in its
short-term existence, produce detectable patterns.[11] This fact makes a mob, under favorable
circumstances, vulnerable to manipulations which can organize it as a
tool for
a purpose--often political.
Examining the factors
so far elaborated we may find other
variations of group associations. Thus, the more an assembly of
individuals
gathered as a short-term group follows an organized pattern of behavior
for a
purpose, such as a picket of strikers or a demonstration for a
political issue,
the less it can be qualified as a mob. The extreme of such organization
is a
parading army. If the picket or demonstration turns into a mob, it is
that it
had the germs and characteristics of a mob. It must have been
inadequately
organized to cope with all possible circumstances, its declared purpose
must
have been only partially adhered to, and it must have been prone to
manipulation.
A short-term assembly
of individuals organized for a
particular purpose, whether a picket or a demonstration, should, in the
last
analysis, be considered as part and extension of a long-term constituted group which is organic--in
the sense that it is
organized--and not coincidental or spontaneous. The main characteristic
of an
organic group is consciousness of its groupness. An organic group may
be constituted, either through intentional
and voluntary association of
its members as are pressure groups, lobbies or humanitarian
foundations, or it
may be a circumstantial converging
association like a legislative body, where the members do not seek
each
other out but still end up in a constituted group. Further along the
line we
may identify organic groups like folk societies and primeval tribes,
which can
be labeled immanent in that they may
not have come together voluntarily. One is born in one's own family.
Group associations
imply different degrees of involvement
by the members and different attitudes and behaviors on their part
towards the
group and other group members. In sociology a distinction has been made
between
primary groups and secondary groups. The distinction is based on the
nature and
structure of the groups. The members of a primary group are closely
associated
in an intimate, face-to-face and durable environment. Cooley, who
developed the
idea of primary groups, conceived of them in the context of family,
playground
and neighborhood. Secondary groups are defined as larger, more
impersonal
social bodies with which. the individual establishes formal
relationships. Cooley
attributed to the primary group an ideal-molding character which "in
its
most general form... is that of a moral whole or community wherein
individual
minds are merged and the higher capacities of the members find total
and
adequate expression."[12] He recognized, however, that they did not
realize ideal conditions. He deplored .that "in our own life the
intimacy
of the neighborhood has been broken up by the growth of an intricate
mesh of
wider contacts which leaves us strangers to people who live in the same
house."[13] Kingsley Davis, who developed further the
concept of the primary group, also recognized that primary
relationships do not
exist in concrete forms and that in actual groups of a close and
intimate kind,
characteristics contrary to those attributed to primary groups may
exist. He
noted, for example, that:
Neighborhood
and family control
is very complete control, and the individual often wishes to escape it
by
getting into the anonymous and more impersonal life of a larger setting
such as
a big city. The truth is that such actual groups embody only
imperfectly the
primary relationship. They demand a great deal of loyalty and they have
an
element of status, of institutionalization, in them which makes them
something
less than spontaneous and free.[14]
In other words, the
types of relationships attributed to
primary groups are neither confined to, nor necessarily identifiable
with such
groups as family and neighborhood.
Indeed, within the
more impersonal and segmented
structure of what is sociologically termed a secondary
group, i.e., the complex industrial society where people
commit themselves to the larger group along the lines of the division
of labor
for achieving personal and social goals, smaller groups of . a
primary-group
nature may form. The worker in a factory, the secretary in a
bureaucratic
organization, and the salesman in a department store may soon find
themselves
incorporated into a group with the traits of a primary group. Further,
with
their superiors or subordinates they may develop relations beyond the
impersonal segmentation of a secondary group. In such circumstances the
specific characteristics of primary relationships may become relative.
With
greater need for solidarity and mutual affection, the required duration
of
intimate, face-to-face contact to establish primary relations may
become
considerably shorter than in the classic family situation.[15]
The classification of
groups into primary and secondary
leaves us with certain ambiguities. The characteristics attributed to
each category
do not necessarily coincide with it. In the interpersonal relations of
members
of different groups we may find both primary and secondary dimensions.
Yet for
our political analysis we need a clearer idea of the nature of these
relations.
Let us, therefore, devise a model based on the nature of the behavior
of the
group members and their inter-personal relations in different group
contexts,
rather than on the structure and nature of the groups. Obviously, some
behaviors and relations are likely to recur more in certain types of
groups
than in others. But our purpose is to take the nature of behavior and
interpersonal relations of group members as our subject--rather than to
treat
the group as the subject and the pattern of its members' behavior as
the object.
III.
Affectional and Functional Relations
In discussing groups
as primary and secondary, we noticed
that the interpersonal relations and attitudes of group members could
fall into
two general categories. Those relations such as love, sympathy,
empathy,
intimacy, resentment or hate which are based on feelings, sentiments,
emotions
and affections. In a sense, at least materially, they are nonrational.
And
those that are the more impersonal associations, which further specific
goals,
are largely functional in their social context (e.g., negotiating with
a
dealer, or doing a job for pay). From the
point of view of personal and/ or social ends, they have a
rationale. We
may thus conceive of a range of behavior from the emotional to the
rational. Of
course, for our political analysis we may draw more heavily on certain
sectors
of this spectrum.
Affectional
Relations
As we pointed out in
the last chapter, man's association
with his fellow men to satisfy his basic needs develops according to
physiological, psychological, and sociological dimensions which
interact in
varying degrees. Not only does man have natural tendencies to search
for
contact-comfort and to be gregarious, but one of his physiological
needs,
namely sex, calls for companionship. Mating, combined with the long
weaning and
rearing period of children, can cause group members to develop
relations which
cannot be directly explained by the rationales of material
satisfaction. One
may alienate or even kill one's mate in jealousy or parents may risk
their
lives to save their child. These we may call affectional
relations. By this term we imply a continuous pattern.
In other words, for our socio-political analysis we need not be
concerned with
sporadic "emotions." They belong more to psychological studies-that
is, emotional relations in their microcosmic dimension. For example,
one may
feel anger, disgust or even hatred toward his friend or parents in a
particular
situation, or may momentarily admire his enemy. As long as these
emotions
remain isolated, they may not change the general, long-term positive or
negative pattern of affectional relations. Short-term fluctuations of
emotions
and sentiments indeed influence and shape affectional relations, but
their
spontaneity and evanescence do not always reflect social phenomena; if they do, they become our concern.
As our examples imply,
affectional relations are not
meant only to connote positive affections but to cover all human
social-attitudinal dimensions not directly materially oriented, whether
positive
or negative. It is their omnipresent, nonrational intensity that
identifies
them as affectional. As we saw in the last chapter, both attachments
and
interpersonal tensions are stronger within the closer circle of
relations
because of the conflicting tendencies: 1) to draw one's satisfactions
from
those closely related, and 2) to want freedom from their confinement.
Functional
Relations
Relations within the
group for the satisfaction of
material needs can be identified as functional
relations. These, in our terminology, are social relations which,
while
more impersonal and businesslike, coexist with affectional relations
and, in
the last analysis, serve as a breeding ground for them. The term is
intended to
connote a set of arrangements which, although impersonal, are
interpersonal and
transactional. In their social context they do not go as far as the
extreme of
the individual's purely selfish state-of-nature
rationale for the direct satisfaction
of his material needs, nor do they reach the ideal
mechanical rationale for a "perfect social order"
which could abstract human nature and feelings. By way of illustration,
at the
extreme of state-of-nature rationale,
we may say that it would be rational on the part of a hungry individual
to grab
the bread displayed in the bakery and eat it without paying for it. But
if this
act, without being the norm, were repeated, we would revert to the
state of
nature where there would be no bread, no baker and no group. Or at the
extreme
of ideal mechanical rationale we may
conceive of a perfect order which could permanently supply vitamins,
proteins
and nutrients into the body, eradicating hunger from man's organism and
rendering him a rational robot without conscious dependence on his
fellow men,
programmed for ideal efficiency in his tasks without discriminatory
feelings.
If drawn to these extremes our term "functional relations," will lose
its reference to material social realities and arrangements in the
context of
present human social potentials. In this social context certain
functions must
be performed before the bread can reach the hungry man's mouth, and the
man
should be hungry in order that certain social functions be fulfilled.
For one
thing, the hungry man has to "pay" for the food, which means that,
like the baker who has baked the bread, he has to contribute his share
of work
to the society, thus fulfilling a function within the group. The Bible
says,
"if any would not work, neither should he eat," and the 1936 Soviet
Constitution said, "He who does not work, neither shall he eat!"[16]
Common
Grounds of Affectional and
Functional Relations
But functional
relations vary under different
circumstances. The baker may give the hungry man free bread because
they are
relatives or friends, or he may do so in the name of humanity. Here,
some
affectional elements influence the functional relations. Inversely, the
baker
may coldly calculate the hungry man's need for bread and make a demand
on him
which does not correspond to the group's standards for a baker, but
which does
contribute, in the baker's rationale, to his material satisfaction. In
this
situation the baker's functional behavior departs from the human
affectional
context and tends towards the state-of-nature
rationale of "every man for himself."
For purposes of
distinction, the terms
"affectional" and "functional" relations are better
identifiable when each approaches its non-social extreme: short-term
emotional
behavior on the affectional side, and either the state-of-nature or the
ideal
mechanical rationale on the functional side (see Fig. 3.01).
Fig.
3.01
While both the state
of nature rationale of the Hobbesian
pre-Leviathian type and the mechanical ideal rationale of the Huxleyan Brave New World type are placed on the
same side of our spectrum, they are themselves opposites. The first
implies
total lack of integration, the other total integration, denying any
personality
to the individual. On the whole, social life becomes intolerable as we
approach
the extreme of emotional fluctuations or the rationale of the state of
nature
or of mechanically perfect organization.[17] The
interpenetrating affectional and
functional relations in the middle of our spectrum cover the area where
group
life and social organization are possible. The emphasis on the
interpenetration
of the affectional and the functional relations shifts depending on the
particular needs of a given social organization. For example, love is
not
always coupled with parenthood. In 1935 Margaret Mead researched the
Mundugumor
people of New Guinea who displayed no parental love because material
abundance
reduced the need for such affectional relationships supporting
functional
interdependence.[18] On the other side of the same coin, Colin M.
Turnbull reports that the Ik people, deprived of the resources of their
nomadic
life in Uganda, led a near starvation subsistence which reduced their
affectional ties to the point that a mother was relieved if her child
was
carried away by a predator. Since no functional ties could be
developed,
affectional ties diminished.[19] The relationships among members of a nuclear
family--between wife and husband or parents and children--are not only
affectional, based on a community of feelings and sentiments, but also
subject
to social rules, whether traditional or institutional. At any level of
social
evolution--whether among the Trobriand Islanders or in an industrial
society--familial affectional ties are intertwined with such
relationships as
marriage and inheritance, regulated by functional norms. Similarly,
institutional arrangements of a functional nature bear the imprint of
man's
affectional tendencies. Affectional relationships develop among those
functionally in contact and related: the employer and the employee, the
superior and the subordinate, the producer and the consumer.[20]
Of course, with more
contact, affectional relationships
grow. Contact means not only the physical sharing of time and space,
but also
the possibility of communication and sharing of values and standards.
Thus, the
fewer similarities among those functionally in contact, the smaller the
affectional dimension of their relationship, approaching the mechanical
or
state-of-nature rationale. The relationship between officials of the
Egyptian
pharaohs and their slaves, the colonial administrators and the
indigenous
Coolies, the Nazis and their forced laborers were generally at the
functional
extreme, approaching the state-of-nature and mechanical rationales,
with little
room for the laborers' dignity in the masters' material calculations.
Inversely, common values and standards may impregnate functional
relationships
where physical, spatial and temporal contacts are minimal. Thus, at a
given
level of social development, independent of personal contacts, the
employer may
provide sick leave for his employee, whereas from a material rationale
he could
dismiss and replace him. In such a case affectional relations are
injected into
the functional, reflecting standards of social justice. We must hasten
to add,
however, that such cases of uncoerced affectional feelings seldom
arise. They
become generally accepted standards as a result of social conflicts and
struggles, which belong to the functional domain.
Extending our model,
we may also conceive of affectional
relations growing out of other kinds of closeness, such as feelings of
belonging to the same culture, ethnic group, race or religion. Such,
for
example, is the sense of solidarity between the Americans and
Australians based
on their presumed Anglo-Saxon background, as compared to the relations
between
Japan and the U.S.A. which, though more extensive, are at this stage
more
functional. The time factor should, of course, be borne in mind. The
nature of
these relations may well change over a long period of contact.
Similarly, distant
affectional and functional relations
may be more pronounced in different spheres and under different
circumstances.
The relationship of a North Dakota farmer with a Detroit auto worker is
indirectly functional as it concerns their professional roles within
the
American division of labor. But, as American citizens faced with an
international conflict, they may develop indirectly affectional
relations. For
example, without knowing him personally, one of them may learn of the
other as
a prisoner of war and emphathize with him. As our various
illustrations and
examples show, affectional and functional dimensions are present in
interpersonal relations, as well as in the feelings, attitudes and
behavior of
group members towards part of the group or the group as a whole. From
microgroup to macrogroup, we may speak of such affectional relations as
paternal love, friendship, comradeship, esprit
de corps, sympathy and, further, faith, belief and patriotism. The
latter
categories demonstrate the nonrational, affectional ties between group
members and
the group as a whole on the basis of abstract religious, ethnic or
territorial
identifications. We shall discuss these dimensions in more detail
later. On the
functional side, we can also lay out a range of institutions from the
microgroup to the macrogroup, from marriage, heritage, adoption and
other forms
of contracts, to all the social and political institutions, like
business,
industry, bureaucracy, church and state.
A further look at our
examples will reveal how
affectional relations justify functional structures, as love and
companionship
do for the institution of marriage, or faith does for the church.
Inversely,
functionally constituted institutions develop affectional dimensions,
such as
the professional solidarity and comradeship among small groups of
workers in an
industry or among soldiers in an army, or patriotic feelings in a state
as it
grows into nationhood. We may also notice briefly, at this stage, that
the
coexistence of affectional and functional relations and the
possibilities of converting
one into the other are instrumental in the political structure of the
group and
the society. This is the aspect of our model which directly interests
us and
calls for further inquiry into the political texture-of groups of
different
sizes and natures in time and space.
IV.
Size and Nature of Groups
In the.preceding pages
we referred to a variety of groups
within which we could detect different combinations of affectional and
functional relations. These combinations are both cause and effect of
the
group's characteristics. The study of these characteristics can shed
light on
the development and evolution of political behaviors, processes and
institutions permitting us to see whether human groups share common
denominators and general patterns which could be used for our study. Is
there
any similarity of social structure between the present-day tribes of
Australian Aborigines and the inhabitants of Helsinki? If there are
differences, how have they come about? After all, according to the
description Tacitus
gives of the Fenni, the ancestors of the population of Helsinki, their
social
and political system was not much more elaborate than that of the
present
Australian Aborigines; nor for that matter were those of other German
tribes as
compared to contemporary primeval tribes.[21] Indeed,
many parallels can be drawn between
the mores, rituals, laws, beliefs, traditions and social structures of
ancient
tribes, ancestors of modern industrialized urban men, and the still
existing or
recently extinct primeval men. Can we explain the evolution of some
groups and
the stagnation of others? Can we, despite the gaps, find common traits
which
will bring some understanding of social structures and political
behavior?
Different anthropological schools offer various theories but the
overall
picture of their approaches to the process of development in human
groups is as
yet not conclusive. Indeed, it would be unrealistic to try to establish
a set
of formulae of cultural regularities by which both the evolution of
Batavia
into present-day Holland and that of ancient Sumer into modern Iraq
could,
without exception, be mathematically explained.
Particular
conjunctures are of great significance in the
history of mankind, making universal generalizations difficult. People
of the
same stock in similar environments undergo different
sequences of events creating their unique historical patterns. The
prevalence of a given belief at a given time, the existence of a
certain leader
at a given conjuncture, the juxtaposition of neighboring factors in a
given
setting, exceptional natural bounties or calamities, to mention a few,
are
among possibilities which may make similar people in similar
environments look
different (not to speak of the difficulty in identifying "similar
people"
and "similar environments"). We will, then, without any pretentions
at elaborating universal formulae, try to see whether anthropological
and
sociological studies can provide us with some clues as to the nature of
human
groups which can aid us in our study of man's political behavior.[22]
The group, of course,
is not stagnant; thus, in order to
study man within his group we have to visualize its fermentations and
dynamics
in time and space. This qualification of man and his group is crucial
to
understanding political phenomena. Man in isolation or a group in
abstraction,
independent of spatial or temporal dimensions, will give us only
distorted
images. The political thinker and analyst need the behavioral continuum
within
the environment to make sense of observed phenomena. In that continuum,
to
paraphrase Hegel and Sartre, the past and the seed of the future are
present.
V.
Family and Kinship, Clan and Tribe
Researchers and
historians from Thucydides and Ssu-ma
Ch'ien[23]
to our modern anthropologists and sociologists seem to agree on the
clannish
and familial texture of early human groups and its extension into
modern times.
Even at our present social evolution, group members identify themselves
through
their lineage or kinship. In the primeval group the relationship
between the
social and political structures and clan and family ties is more
obvious and
easier to trace. We know from the historical accounts and
anthropological
studies that, for example, lineage and kinship serve as vehicles for
passage of
rights and status within the group.[24] We can
therefore gain insight by examining
primeval groups.[25]
At the primeval stage
we may conceive of groups as small
as a nuclear family, i.e., a male and female and their immediate
progeniture,
or small extended families composed of immediate generations, their
mates and
progeniture, with limited environmental possibilities permitting the
development of intricate social organizations. Such groups may remain
primeval
because scarce and sparse subsistence possibilities require constant
splitting
of the groups into self-sufficient nuclear units.[26]
Unless they eventually grow into bigger, more complex and stable
entities, they
will present a life pattern showing little social specialization
wherein
political factors can be distinguished from other aspects of group life.[27] This does not mean, however, that political
structure is totally absent. Indeed, even within such a group the
combination
of affectional and functional relations will establish the roles and
responsibilities of the members. For example, patriarchal or
matriarchal
structures may provide the decision-making machineries.[28]
Where conditions
permit it in terms of economy or require
it in terms of security, the group may remain together and grow, either
in one
locale or through migration. As their number increases, group members
will
identify more with those closer to them than with others. Association
into a
closer circle of persons in the course of socialization will permit the
group
member to identify himself within a subgroup. The subgroup may be an
extended
family, itself the offshoot of a nuclear family with segmentary
unilineal
system of lineage--matrilineal or patrilineal--or it may be of a
kinship nature
along transient, bilateral, consanguine family patterns.[29] Kinship, however, does not always remain at
the stage of blood relationship and may become a social artifact.[30] Kinship terms and behavior may develop among
persons with no known genealogical relationship but close social
contact.[31] This segmental closeness and kinship serve
as the social and political basis of identification in the form of a
clan
within a larger group.[32]
The growth in size may
not necessarily be accompanied by
a diversification of functions. The division of labor may remain simple
with
functions distinguished only along the sex and age lines--i.e., a child
does
what every other child does, and once mature does what every other
woman or man
is expected to do.[33] Durkheim identified such clan-base groups as
segmental
in order to indicate
their formation by the repetition of Zike aggregates in them, analogous
to the
rings of an earthworm, and we say of this elementary aggregate that it
is a
clan, because this word well expresses its mixed nature, at once
familial and
political.[34]
This stage of group
development may be passing or
lasting, depending on such factors as ecological conditions, contact
with other
groups and environments, population growth and density. The group may
retain a
subsistence economy, as have many primeval folk societies recently
studied. At
this level, the economic independence of the group's various clans and
family
units on the one hand, and the integrated dependence of the individuals
on
their family and the clan on the other hand, serve as premises for the
group's
social structure. A brief examination of the affectional and functional
dimensions which provide for and regulate the basic drives of clan
members
under such conditions will further our political analysis.
In the clan, familial
and kinship identifications which
are immanent, affectionally speaking, are converted into functional
instruments
to such an extent that the only premise of the individual's affectional
ties is
his clan as a whole, and his relations with other members of the clan
and other
clans are left to the functional arrangements provided by the clan's
rules. The
clan regulates even such institutions as marriage, allowing little
leeway for
personal choice of mate. In the words of Redfield:
On the
whole, zee many think of
the family among folk peoples as made up of persons consanguinely
connected.
Marriage is, in comparison with what tae in our society directly
experience, an
incident in the life of the individual who is born, brought up, and
dies within
his blood kinsmen. In such a society romantic love can hardly be
elevated to a
major principle.[35]
Sexual union may also
serve as a tool for intergroup
relations. Thus, according to Sahlins:
Sexual
attraction remains a
determinant of human sociability. But it has become subordinated to the
search
for food, to economics. A most significant advance of early cultural
society
was the strict repression and canalization of sex, through the incest
tabu, in
favor of the expansion of kinship, and thus mutual aid relations.
Primate
sexuality is utilized in human society to reinforce
bonds of economic and to a lesser extent, defensive alliance.[36]
The tight sense of
belonging in such a group reduces the
"individuality" of the group members. A member will be part not only
of a group identifiable in a given place or time or for a specific
purpose, but
also of a continuum of kinship constellation changing little its way of
life
from one generation to another. Life does not follow a pattern of
biological
causality, but a pattern of behavior handed down by successive
generations--a
tradition. Asking the reason for a given rite or ceremony,
anthropologists and
sociologists may often have been answered by the clansman that things
are done
that way because the ancestors did them that way.[37]
The subsistence
economy and integrated kinship structure
do not lend themselves to elaborate, long-term, intra-clan power
conflicts, as
they would constitute a contradiction in terms, disintegrating the
basic unity
required for a clan to cohere. Whatever distinction of right, property
and status
exist are part and parcel of the kinship ties regulated through
deep-rooted
customs and beliefs. A subsistence economy cannot permit much
diversified and
complex stratification.[38] The phenonomen is not particular to primeval
groups. Even subsistence economics involving groups of people who have
previously belonged to complex urban civilizations tend to reduce their
power
structures to a bare minimum.[39]
Excitement and
challenge drives can be expressed through
the interaction of the whole group with its environing factors,
including war
expeditions which may involve not only the warriors or the act of war,
but long
and complex preparations and rituals requiring every member to
participate.[40] As for the quest for the unknown, it will be
omnipresent in the forces of nature and will be of direct concern to
the
group's survival. It will need to be explained, appeased or invoked for
help
and for justification of rules of conduct. Tradition and belief merge
and
emerge as the manifestations of group relationship to the unknown. In
the words
of Redfield, "Gaining a livelihood takes support from religions, and
the
.relations of men to men are justified in the conceptions held of the
supernatural world or in some other aspect of the culture."[41] The caprices of nature call for magic
rituals. Malinowski tells us of the islanders who have elaborate
rituals for
their fishing expeditions on the open sea but not for fishing in the
inland
lagoon where hazards are few.[42] The complexities of the rituals in relation
to the supernatural depend on the group's possibilities in its
interaction with
the environment. Thus, for example, the Arctic Eskimos devote
relatively less
time and elaboration to supernaturalism because the taxing conditions
of their
environment demand full employment of both individual and group
resources
simply for survival.[43] In other words, while the drive to relate to
the supernatural is universal, and while at the primeval stage it may
constitute the basic cohesive fabric of the human group, rituals and
exercises
connected with it are not necessarily most elaborate at the primeval
level.
They may, on the contrary, become more complex as the group develops
toward a
certain stage of "civilization." The shaman or the chief who may have
been given his position according to some traditional belief (God,
heaven or
the spirit of the ancestors), may find few possibilities or little
point in
expanding his power (which, under certain circumstances, may already be
total)
in a subsistence economy which does not yield appreciable surplus.
Indeed, as
we shall see later, the nature of the economy is among the major
factors
contributing to the stratification and complex political organization
of the
group and to the elaboration of rituals.
Finally, in the
integrated clan situation where man's
physiological needs are regulated through functional relationships and
his
affectional relationships are immanent and undistinguishable from the
group, no
manifestly identifiable, distinct political institutions regulate the
sociological needs of group members. Liberty, order and justice are
those of
the clan: "A member belongs to the clan, he is not his own, if he is
wronged they will right him; if he does wrong the responsibility is
shared by
them."[44]
Hoebel
tells us, for example, of the Eskimo arrangements whereby a deviant who
repeatedly breaches the tribe's rules is liquidated by an executioner
appointed
by the group.[45]
Kinship and clan
characteristics gain particular
significance for our analysis as they develop into more
politico-economic
tribal phenomena. While kinship and clan serve generally as the
cornerstones of
tribal structures, tribal arrangements can in turn provide bases for
many of
the more complex political realities in both traditional and modern
societies;
for, where politics is the authoritative allocation of values, the
tribe is an
appropriate context for understanding it.
As a term, "tribe"
encompasses social,
political and economic attribution,
distribution and retribution. (The
Latin origins of tribe,
tribute, attribute, distribute and retribute are tribus
and tribuere,
meaning "lot" and "allotment.") The identification of a
tribe and its members assigns them their rights and obligations vis-`a-vis themselves and other tribes.
The tribal distinctions recognize, beyond kinship and clan, the
economic
spheres --in the primeval sense, that is, including not only families
and clans
but their dependencies, such as slaves or adopted strangers, and in
most cases
their territories. Tribal arrangements permit distribution of tasks as
well as
attribution of the harvest (including such products as the booty in a
raid or
the spoils of war). Tribal organization is patterned on the affectional
functional dimension of group relations. The individual members of the
tribe
are thus provided with identity and material security, both of which
will, of
course, claim the member's allegiance and loyalty. The tribal
constellation of
identity, security, allegiance and loyalty constitutes a whole for
political
and economic organization. Because of its high potentials for fusing
the
affectional and the functional, the tribe and the characteristics it
engenders
survive even when the society develops into more complex and
functionally
organized economic and political entities.
Even though we may not
refer to them specifically, the
clannish and tribal dimensions of group organization will be reflected
in our
later discussions and should be present in the reader's mind, not only
when we
examine communal and social patterns or traditional cultures, but also
when we
deal with modern societies and political institutions. The Watergate
case--notably the emphasis of some presidential aides on loyalty, and
the
efforts at the highest executive levels to provide assistance and funds
for the
legal defense and family support of the Watergate burglars--showed to
what
extent the constellation of identity, security, allegiance and loyalty
can
counterbalance--or rather counter--institutions based on strictly
functional,
legal and political premises.
VI.
From Simpler to More Complex Groups
Our study of the
primeval group so far has covered
certain basic social arrangements which, in the absence of elaborate
political
structures, regulate group life. The affectional and functional
relationships
among members merge to make the primeval group an immanent whole, not
the
result of a contractual association or a pact as Hobbes, Rousseau and
Locke
conceived it. A glance at more complex, politically organized societies
makes
us realize that the phenomena discussed in the context of primeval
groups,
although sometimes differently manifested, are at the origin of many
modern
social arrangements and influence our political behavior, processes and
institutions.
In many modern
systems, lineage and kinship do not seem
sufficient bases for transference of position and status. Yet,
hereditary
monarchies aside, lineage is still the recognized channel for wealth
through
heritage (even i.^. socialist political systems striving for
communism). Where
wealth can buy rights and privileges, those rights and privileges may
be
indirectly transferred along with the bequest of wealth. As for
position or
status, even where inheritance is not a recognized channel for their.
transfer,
the process of socialization within the family or the clan helps
maintain an
appreciable degree of continuity in social class, occupation, position
and
status from one generation to another.[46]
Regarding tradition,
we may point out that in their
everyday life, many still justify behaving as they do for the same
reason that
the Aborigines of Central Australia gave Strehlow, because their
forefathers
acted that way. Not only do our fathers' deeds influence our feasts,
ceremonies
and private behavior, but they also seem to influence our political
behavior,
such as party affiliation.[47]
Turning to religion
and myth, we can hardly make our
point better than to invoke Malinowski's words:
Myth is
to the savage what, to a
fully believing Christian, is the Biblical story of Creation, of the
Fall, of
the Redemption by Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross. As our sacred story
lives in
our ritual, in our morality, as it governs our faith and controls our
conduct,
even so does his myth for the savage.[48]
Thus, certain
phenomena are common to group life, at both
the primeval and complex modern urban levels.[49] While at
the primeval level we can see that
such phenomena as lineage, kinship and clan bonds, tradition and belief
constitute enough of a social fabric for the group's rudimentary and
simple
political needs, we will have to examine them in the context of
differentiated
and stratified groups to see whether, in the process of development,
the nature
and role of these phenomena are altered and whether new structures
evolve to
meet new social conditions.
Cumulative
Economy
In the last sections
we outlined a general pattern of
group structure which, to be sure, had its variables. But on the basis
of
archeological, anthropological, historical and sociological studies,
our
general pattern is broadly applicable to the social structures of early
bands of
hunters and food gatherers as well as those of primeval groups which
have
survived to our day with a subsistence economy. Our model can cover
some 30,000
years--from the early Cro-Magnons in the valley of Vezere in France to
the
ancestors of the ancient Greeks. Thucydides describes the early
settlements in
the Greek peninsula in these terms:
There
was no commerce, and they
[the Greeks] could not safely hold intercourse with one another by land
or sea.
The several peoples cultivated their own soil just enough to obtain a
subsistence from it. But they had no accumulations of wealth and did
not plant
the ground; partly because they had no walls.[50]
From this description
let us retain certain factors which
will be useful for our later analysis, namely the facts that in their
subsistence economy they had no exchange,
they did not plant their land, had no
accumulation of wealth and had no walls.
There is evidence of a
turning point in the history of
man starting sometime between twelve thousand and five thousand years
back--the
beginning of "civilization."[51]
Sometime around then the general patterns suggested in the last section
for
group structures at the subsistence level of economy became inadequate
to
explain more intricate social phenomena. According to our present
archeological
knowledge, in at least four areas of the earth--notably the valleys of
the Nile
in Egypt, the Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia, the Indus in India
and the
Yellow River in China--man finally evolved from food-gatherer and
hunter into
farmer and shepherd.
The evolution implies
the domestication of food sources.[52] But is
also implies the need for more
elaborate social structures, as exchange and accumulation of stock will
require
specialization. In other words, it needs a cumulative economy. We use
the term
"cumulative economy" rather than "surplus economy" because
the simple fact of going beyond subsistence and producing surplus is
not
sufficient for social evolution. Malinowski speaks of the Trobriand
Islanders who,
before the possibility of exchange arose, were letting their surplus
production
rot unconsumed.[53] Further, while demographic growth influences
the development of complex social and political structures, the
determinant
factor for such development seems to be the nature of the group's
economy.
Thus, regarding the Logi and Nuer tribes of Africa, which may attain
units of
45,000 members divided into clans, subclans and lineages without
elaborate
political structures, we are told:
Theirs
is mainly a subsistence
economy with a rudimentary differentiation of productive labour and
with no
machinery for the accumulation of wealth in the form of commercial or
industrial capital. If wealth is accumulated it takes the form of
consumption
goods and amenities or is used for the support of additional
dependents. Hence
it tends to be rapidly dissipated again and does not give rise to
permanent
class divisions.[54]
Elsewhere, Redfield
tells us: "Within the ideal folk
society members are bound by religious and kinship ties, and there is
no place
for the motive of commercial gain. There is no money and nothing is
measured by
any such common denominator of value."[55]
In its early stages a
cumulative economy may be a
permanent village-farming settlement. But even before "urbanization,"
this cumulative economy must provide for collection, storage,
distribution and
exchange of the means of livelihood for the group members and, must
make an
exchangeable and convertible surplus possible. The process will no
longer be
hand-to-mouth.
Functional
Social Differentiation
The arrangements for a
cumulative economy require
specialization, notably for the group's material and social
organization and
for control of its surplus. On the way to "civilization,"[56]
this social organization liberates some of the labor force from direct
food-producing tasks and permits the development of arts and crafts.
The
released productive forces are used for building, irrigation projects,
tool
production, and other social functions. Differentiation of labor and
exchange
of the diversified products require social frames of reference making
intercourse feasible. The early Sumerians established commercial and
banking
practices, fixed prices and wages by law, standardized weights and
measures and
codified civil law in writing. The implementation of these social
functions
require specialization and control. Among these is the specialization
to control. In order to make exchange and
convertibility of products and services possible, value
judgments--conscious or
unconscious--will have to be made as to their relative importance for
the group
or parts of the group. I say "parts of the group" because, while at
the primeval level, family, clan or tribe is an immanent whole, in the
differentiated
cumulative and urban society certain parts of the group, with different
degrees
of influence and control and diversified interests, may evaluate the
importance
of different functions differently.
Differentiation and
specialization involve social
stratification. We may assume that those in effective control, whether
holding
public offices and political positions directly or controlling them
through
intermediaries, will be instrumental in establishing social strata and
will,
reasonably enough, place their own position and status high on the
scale. This
should not necessarily be understood or misunderstood as an imposition
on the
other components of the group. It is a social phenomenon arising from
group
fermentations and dynamics. The more those involved consent to a
particular set
of strata, the more the group will have cohesion and harmony, though
cohesion
and harmony do not imply absolute equality and justice. As we noted at
the end
of Chapter Two, both the rulers and the ruled must recognize the
validity of
the prevailing norms for the group to cohere and stabilize.
Similarly, the
gradation of the social strata will not
follow an absolute criterion or an objective mathematical
rationale--impossible
to conceive or formulate anyway--but will depend on the arrangements of
the
power structure. Thus, while the cumulative society draws its power
from the
products and labor of the farmers, shepherds and workers, it will not
necessarily accord them a prominent social position. For the pharaohs
of Egypt,
the priests of Sumer, the Chou princes of China, as well as modern
power
holders (industrial managers, political and economic administrators),
those who
help maintain the social structure, i.e., the soldiers and those who
help equip
them, just to name a few specialists, are more instrumental and
therefore
occupy a more prominent position than the laborers in the fields,
pastures and
workshops. Unless these laborers organize themselves into power
complexes such
as unions (which themselves obey the laws of the power complex), they
will
become instruments rather than instrumental.
As the cumulative
economy grows, bringing about a dense
and heterogeneous population and a more complex society, the functional
character of specialization will result in less personal relationships
among
the group members in the differentiated segments. As we noticed, in
smaller,
less complex groups the affectional relations intertwine with the
functional
parameters, but as the society evolves the loci of affectional and
functional
relations may be transformed and displaced. The affectional factors may
be
weakened in certain relationships and shifted. This should not
necessarily
imply that the social structures as a whole will unconditionally move
away from
affectional relations and that functional organization will tend
toward its
extremes of the state-of-nature or mechanical rationales we discussed
earlier.
For the human group to hold together, affectional relationships must
anchor the
functional arrangements. The drive for contact comfort, the need to
belong, and
nonrational feelings are basic human characteristics. Indeed, while in
the
primeval state they were satisfied through the immanent nature of the
clan or
tribe which made affectional and functional relations a whole, in the
more
impersonal functional arrangements of urbanized cultures they may
receive new
emphasis, both to meet the needs of the individual members of the group
and to
give the group its particular human texture.
Affectional
Communal Identification
We noted earlier that
for socialization, the group uses
man's thinking and communicating faculties by inculcating them with
terms of
reference which permit the group members to understand each other. From
his
early years the individual is usually exposed to a particular way of
life and a
language with which he identifies himself. He also identifies with
those who
share with him his particular way of life and language, which they have
in fact
inculcated in him. These common premises develop a sense of belonging
and an
understanding beyond simple exchange and communication, involving
affectional
relationships in whose context the group members draw satisfaction from
their
mutual familiarity, from understanding each other and from their
similarity of
outlook. Not only do the group members communicate, but they commune as well, interacting in
affectional relationship. But to commune refers to more than the nature
of the
relationship among group members; it also qualifies their position in
relation
to those who are not considered part of their group. Munio,
and its derivative communio,
the Latin origin of the word "commune," means to fortify, to enclose,
to secure, to build together. The wall
in our earlier quote from Thucydides meant not only the walls of the
city but
also a wall for inner security. Thus, in addition to sharing norms and
values
with each other, the members of the group, in their togetherness as
contrasted
with others, find their rampart. It will be their
commune, within which they will commune: their community.
These communal
feelings develop in primeval groups as well
as within complex societies. Of the folk societies Redfield says,
Communicating
intimately with
each other, each member of the group has a strong claim on the
sympathies of
the others. Moreover, against such knowledge as they have of societies
other
than their own, they emphasize their own mutual likeness and value
themselves
as compared with others. They say of themselves 'use' as against all
others,
who are they.[57]
This dichotomy between
"we" and
"they" is clearer at the stage of folk societies where, because of
their segmental economy, clans and tribes can be distinct and their
intercourse
and interpenetration be regulated by strict rules. As we move to more
complex
social structures, communal feelings no longer necessarily imply
close-knit
units and mutual personal knowledge of every fellow member. The
likeness and
"belonging" which provide communal bonds will be relative and in
contradistinction to the complex environment. Members of a particular
group
will share enough likenesses and be conscious of them to spot a
"stranger" in the way he walks, talks, dresses, eats, behaves,
believes or "thinks." The communal identification in a more complex
society, as distinct from folk groups, should be conceived in terms of
particular social characteristics rather than physical nearness. In a
macrocosmic sense, we may also identify larger, thinly homogeneous
groups as
distinct from each other: we may speak of the Atlantic Community. Not
that the
Sicilian shepherd necessarily communes with the Norwegian farmer, but
they do
have some values and standards in common as distinguishable from, say,
the
South Asian community. When we look closer into each of these
macrocosmic
"communities," we will notice that while they do not, as such,
qualify as a community the way a village parish would, they
nevertheless have a
common thread of identity. For example, both the Sicilian shepherd and
the
Norwegian farmer qualify themselves as European and Christian. But it
may be
better that they never meet face-to-face, for if they did they might
realize
that the Sicilian shepherd probably has more in common with a North
African
shepherd, and the Norwegian farmer more in common with a North Dakota
farmer.
The knowledge of both of these facts, however, is important to the
political scientist
or the politician--for example, when he wants to use European and
Christian
community feelings in support of a project for a European alliance. As
an Asian
statesman exclaims, "We Asians..." he touches a key which may vibrate
the solidarity of the Shinto imperial Japanese, the Lamaist theocratic
Tibetan,
and the republican Hindu Indian.
This "we" as against
"they" is based
on the affectional dimension of individual and group relationships.
Affectional
bonds run through the fiber of human social life. There again, our
general
classification of relationships into affectional and functional is
instrumental
in delineating a community from within the society--an otherwise
difficult
sociological dissection, as illustrated in such pioneer works as that
of Toennies
where Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
(community and society) cut
across each other.[58] Similar to primary and secondary groups,
community and society are not tight structural definitions but can be
better
conceptualized through the affectional and functional nature of the
relations
among their members.
Differentiation
and
Identification, Functional and Affectional
The "we" as against
"they" feelings
which develop affectionally bring about, within the group, dimensions
of
identification and differentiation in addition to the functional ones
discussed
in the context of cumulative economy. While social stratifications in
the
complex group are based on functional specialities, a.different type of
stratification based on affectional relations can be recognized within
and by
the group. Generally, though by no means exclusively, affectional
relationships
develop in the context of kinship patterns which evolve as the group
gains
complexity and heterogeneity. These relations may develop at certain
stages of
contact and closeness and continue through the social strata even when
such
contacts and closeness have ceased. The longest-lasting of these
affectional
relations so far has been and still remains within the family, although
the
highly mobile and rapidly changing industrial and modern society is
diminishing
the role of the family as the catalyst of these relations. Further, in
school
among members of the same generation, in the factory, the office or the
field
among members of the same profession, in the church among followers of
the same
confession, and in the society at large among members of the same
ethnic group,
affectional relations develop and permeate the members' functional
behavior.
The affectional
influence on the functional develops not
only out of direct experiences but also out of a general attitudinal
pattern.
The former farmer who becomes a political executive may feel
affectionally more
at ease with a new collaborator who gives signs of a rural temperament
(although he may not be a farmer) than with a functionally more
efficient
collaborator with an urban temperament whom he may consider an
irritation and a
threat. The affectional, as we noticed earlier, may have a positive or
a
negative charge. For example, our farmer may have developed an aversion
towards
his former environment and may shun whatever reminds him of it. Or we
may find
that, although the former farmer identifies more with a person of rural
temperament, he has to opt for the collaborator with an urban
temperament who
can complement his own dimensions--a symbiotic situation. On the other
hand, he
may opt for the rural character with whom he identifies more and with
whom he
can work better because of their common wave length, but who may in
fact become
a competitor--a commensal situation (that is, eating from the same
table).[59] As the affectional develops within the
functional--and when positive, facilitates it--one may also pretend
certain
affections to further functional ends. The politician who runs for
office
claims broad identity with diverse segments of the population.
The heterogeneous
complex society thus provides
diversified areas of contact and cooperation in the context of which
equally
diversified functional and affectional differentiations and
identifications
become both cause and effect of the group's social texture. There will
be
circumscription, overlapping, interlocation, interaction, transaction,
interpenetration or encompassment within and among the groups,
depending on the
criteria used to identify them. The individual in the society draws his
social
identity from these fermentations and dynamics of the different groups
of
which he is a part and to whose impact he is exposed.
VII.
The Range of Group Identity
As the individual is
exposed to further norms and absorbs
them, this range of identity widens: from the family to the clan, from
the clan
to the tribe, or from the school to the college, from the college to
the
professional circle, and so on. The process has an accelerative phase,
the
limits of which change according to the individual and the environment,
and
during which the thrust for satisfaction, curiosity, and the search for
the
unknown move the individual to look for exposure to new dimensions. But
it also
has a decelerative phase when the individual feels his security
endangered by
further exposure and dispersion. The values and norms with which he
identifies
constitute a nucleus wherein he feels mentally at home and wants
neither to
reject them nor to be rejected by them. When he feels distant from them
he will
block himself to alien encroachment on them.
Of course, the
rigidity of the nucleus and the radius of
identity are flexible for both the individual and his group, depending
on
environmental conditions, which may be more or less conducive to
exposure. We
saw earlier that at the level of a primeval group with a simple
subsistence
economy and little contact with a complex environment, we could
visualize a
rather uniform pattern of identification within the group where the
shell and
the core were the clan and the tribe itself (see Fig. 3.02).
Fig.
3.02
As relations among
group members become more complex,
functional and impersonal in the cumulative economy, the individual
becomes
more conscious of his immediate environment on which he can fall back
for
affectional identification and mental security. While the borderline or
the
shell of the group (or now rather the subgroup) may become less clear,
the
nucleus or the core should consolidate if the group is to continue to
be
identified as such--and the individual to be identified with it (Fig.
3.03).
Fig.
3.03
This process will not
only help identify subgroups and
their members, but provide stability and continuity in the larger
encompassing
group. Some vehicle must carry power, position and property through the
social
structure, and the vehicle has been group identification. The family
and the
clan can provide one such identification. The hereditary monarchy
develops not
only because of the paternal attachment of the sovereign to his
progeniture--an
important factor, to be sure--but also because of the likelihood that
as the
society grows more complex, the kind of closeness that can provide for
the
passage of kingly qualities from one generation to another is better
provided
in a filial relationship. From the Chinese traditional accounts we
learn that
on the death of Yu about 2000 B.C., the people insisted on recognizing
his son
as their sovereign, rejecting his minister, I, whom Yu had entrusted
with his
power. Thus began the first Chinese dynasty of Hsia.[60] This recognition of filial identification
for social stability and continuity can better be realized when the
above
account is complemented by the following passage which Han Fei Tzu
attributes
to Confucius:
. . .
there was a man of Lu, who
followed the ruler to war... fought three battles, and ran away thrice.
When
Chung-ni [Confucius] asked him his reason, he replied: 'I have an old
father.
Should I die, nobody would take care of him.' So Chung-ni regarded him
as a man
of filial piety, praised him, and exalted him.[61]
The implication is
that in that social context, familial
responsibilities supersede sacrifice for the political ruler.
While we have used the
family in traditional China to
illustrate how the nucleus provides social structure, we should
underline that,
depending on the social texture, other nuclei can claim the
individual's
attachment and loyalty sometimes beyond and above a filial
relationship. To
stay within the general area of the East and early traditions, here is
a
passage from The Laws of Manu which
will make the point:
Of him
who gives natural birth
and him who gives the knowledge of the Veda, the giver of the Veda is
the more
venerable father; for the birth for the sake of the Veda ensures
eternal
rewards both in this life and after death.[62]
These trends--one, the
importance of filial attachment,
and the other, religious stress and predominence of the priestly
caste--must,
of course, be understood in the context of the cultures in which they
flourished. While an examination of the particular patterns within
Chinese or
Indian cultures is beyond the scope of our study, we may nevertheless
point out
that the range of identity of, the individual members of the group
makes all
the difference in the composition of groups and their social and
cultural
patterns. Depending on the group's texture, complexity and
heterogeneity, some
group affiliations and identifications are inculcated deeper and made
more
primordial than others. Politically speaking, it is of crucial
importance to
know where the loyalties lie: whether in different situations the
individual
considers himself first a Nazi, a Socialist, a Communist or a
Christian, or
whether he considers himself first the son of Mr. Schmit, the grandson
of
Sardar Singh, an Ibo or an American. The intensity of belonging can
create
stronger or weaker delineation between a subgroup and its encompassing
group
(see Fig. 3.04).
Fig. 3.04
In (a) the subgroup is
largely diluted in the
encompassing group, while in (b) it conserves a higher degree of its
identity vis-à-vis the encompassing group.
But the delineation
does exist. Human understanding is
limited. It somewhat resembles the waves of a radar. Beyond its
capacity to
radiate, which may differ for different people depending on their
social and
cultural exposure potentials, lies the alien which is beyond their
comprehension. The more it is distant from the core or nucleus of
identity, the
more it is alien. Alien here refers not to physical distance, temporal
presence
or even necessarily to opposing characteristics, but to that which does
not
fulfill an affectional or functional relationship. Indeed, there is
greater
identity between Canadians and New Zealanders than between either of
them and
Columbians who are spatially nearer to both. Culturally, contemporary
Canadians
may feel closer to ancient Greece--cradle of Western civilization--than
to
present-day Greece (probably because of historical misconceptions). And
the
church and the army, despite their apparently opposing ends, cooperate
more with
each other than either does with the intelligentsia, which
theoretically shares
meditation and spiritual exercise with the church and strategical
rationalization with the military.
The alien becomes less
alien as one learns more about it
with a positive attraction towards establishing relations with it. Of
course,
the attraction may be for either affectional or functional
relationships, each
helping develop the other. Group identity and cohesion depend on where
and how
clearly the limits of understanding and possibilities of
interpenetration among
groups are set. The "wall" delineating group identification may be of
different thicknesses, locations and constructions. Environmental
conditions,
of course, influence the formation of group attitudes. Under different
conditions we witness different group dynamics. When an outside danger
threatens the group's cohesion, or when strict frames are required to
maintain
its power structure, the group tends to draw in and build a protective
shell
around itself.
A rigidly integrative
normative system, such as a
religious sect or an ideologically disciplined group, may impose
stricter
behavioral patterns on group members in their contact with the outside.
Such
rigidity may in general reduce the range (depth and breadth) of
intergroup
understanding and interpenetration, but it may give group members a
stronger
sense of belonging and usually a purpose and meaning to their lives as
members
of their group. When they reach the tolerable boundaries of
understanding, as a
measure of security, they will block
and deflect to their inner belief and
identity (see Fig. 3.05).
Fig.
3.05
Whether a religious
sect, a folk group or an army, the
more rigid the group because of the exigencies for its survival, the
more it
will have to inculcate by strict rules affectional attitudes such as
faith,
love or loyalty. It may also force integration and cohesion through
repressive
laws along the lines of "mechanical solidarity" suggested by Durkheim[63]:
executing the thief in the Eskimo tribe, burning the heretic, or court
martial.
When an outside danger
to the group is not apparent
(although it may exist) nor strict frames required to maintain the
internal
power structure, group members, while identifying with their own core,
may be
more open to alien influences and penetration (see Fig. 3.06).
Fig.
3.06
The less rigid the
group, the more it will tend to loosen
its homogeneity in its contact with the environment. The concept is
global. If
its defenses are not strong, a flock will lose its members to hunters,
an army
to its enemy, one faith to another, or a race will cease to identify as
such
because of intermarriage. The pressure of the environing factors,
similarity,
compatibility and complementarity of the components of the merging
groups and
their dynamics will determine their final interpenetration. Thus, for
example,
it is difficult today to distinguish the Gaul from the Frank in France.
The
Blacks in the United States show an opposite type of evolution, by
which a
group is made conscious of itself by the rigidity of the environment.
There
are, then, different degrees of interpenetration. Where
interpenetration takes
place (and it is likely that it does in situations of close contact and
cohabitation), it will create heterogeneous and complex social
structures.
These structures in turn imply mixed and split loyalties and belongings
in and
among the members of different groups. While groups and their members
may thus
expand their frontiers of understanding, they will nevertheless retain
more or
less fluid frontiers of identity both among themselves and with the
"outside" groups.
Fig.
3.07
Members of groups with
overlapping areas of belonging may
identify themselves strongly with. their own group (for example, A in Fig. 3.07), recognizing an area of
identification and toleration with other interlacing groups (abc, ab,
ac). In
this situation the "outside"--that which is considered alien--is to a
lesser degree the parts of those interlacing groups lying beyond the
original
group and to a greater degree whatever lies beyond the interlacing
groups. The
Jewish people, who have long been accused of such group belonging,[64]
provide an example which, when examined in historical contexts,
reaffirms that
long-lasting group cohesion and consciousness can develop because of,
among
other things, a hostile environment.
Under other
circumstances the members may develop a sense
of belonging only to the overlapping area of the interlacing groups
and,
depending on the nature of the overlapping common group, may be
friendly,
tolerant, indifferent or even hostile to the rest of the interlacing
groups.
The latter situation, however, produces tension which must either
de-escalate
into another intergroup relationship or create a distinct group out of
the
overlapping common area which, depending on its rigidity, may consider
as
"outside" even the group it originated from (see Fig. 3.08)
Fig.
3.08
Development of a new
faith, a class consciousness such as
that of the proletariat, or a strict ideological affiliation can be
conducive
to such group belonging, in which the members recruited from various
groups
shift their loyalty to the new nucleus. Of course, some group
backgrounds may
be more favorable to this kind of conversion. The introduction of
Christianity
to the Roman Empire, Islam to India by the Moghul emperors, or National
Socialism to Germany in the 1920's and 1930's, catalyzed those who
wanted to
escape their social status, caste or condition.
Under other
conditions, however, the members of the
interlacing groups may approach each other's groups openly beyond their
coinciding area. In this case the common area will have a "soft
shell" in relation to the rest of the intermingling groups, and the
"outside" will lie more or less beyond the combined ranges of identity
of these groups (see Fig. 3.09).[65] When this
situation arises and continues,
the original groups may eventually dilute their identity in a new
heterogeneous
society. 'The Dutch, English, Scottish, Danish, German, French and
Irish
immigrants to the United States have become "Americans." That is why
the American culture has been called a melting pot.
The shells, of course, will have different degrees of
"softness."
Fig.
3.09
VIII.
Group Integration
In the transfer of
group identifications and the
possibility of interpenetrating groups diluting into a heterogeneous
society,
we should not lose sight of the fact that in the shiftings that take
place, the
areas that coincide and are eventually instrumental in creating a
heterogeneous
society were once peripheral to the original nuclei of the composing
groups.
After the lines of identification have faded away, the heterogeneous
society
will not necessarily offer its components an integrated nucleus of
identification. To start with, the heterogeneous society will probably
contain
dispersed areas of identification concentrations. Depending upon how
integrated
the original groups may have been, the transfer of their nuclei to the
center
of the heterogeneous society will take different lengths of time. If
the
original group had no great centripetal force, its assimilation and the
identification of its members with the heterogeneous society may occur
faster.
Another variable is the extent to which the heterogeneous society has
absorbed
the characteristics of a particular group. Northwestern Europeans are
generally
assimilated into the mainstream of American culture more readily than
some
Southern Europeans or Chinese,[66]
because American culture corresponds more to that of Northwest Europe,
which in
turn has fewer ethnocentric cultures than, for example, France or China.
Integration within the
heterogeneous society requires
time and favorable conditions for feelings of belonging and identity to
be
displaced from the diluted subgroups to the new larger society. The
favorable
conditions may be catalyzing factors such as a threat from outside
and/or an
attractive power center within. The Napoleonic wars and later
evolutions of
Bismarckian politics helped the nineteenth-century integration of the
German
people, and Commodore Perry's prowess ignited the Japanese ultimate
drive for
integration, culminating in the Meiji Revolution of 1868. These
internal and
external factors can be useful for testing the integration of
heterogeneous
societies. A society may look like an identifiable entity held together
by a
power structure, yet seeds of disintegration may sprout within it,
causing it
to crumble when faced with a serious outside challenge. The collapse of
the
Roman Empire in the fifth century, of the Sassanid Empire.in the
seventh
century and of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War
I are
eloquent examples of such disintegration.
Our examples are
macrogroups where political integration
and disintegration are more readily apparent. But the degree of
integration is
the very stuff that permits group identification at any possible level
and is,
in the last analysis, the business of politics. If the impact of World
War I
caused the Austro-Hungarian Empire to fall, it was because the Czechs,
the
Croatians and other minorities within the Empire felt more like Czechs,
Croatians or others than they felt Austrian, not only because of their
material
subjugation but also because of cultural dissonance--an affectional
dimension.
If Germany became united in the nineteenth century, it was not only
because the
Zollverein offered material
advantages, but also because a Thuringian or a Rhinelander could be
made to
feel German--an affectional dimension.[67] Time and
circumstances had not allowed the
fermentations and dynamics to make the Croation proud to be Austrian,
but the
Rhinelander had become proud to be German. A displacement of identity
is
involved. Social, spatial and temporal conditions may, of course,
create
different conjunctures for its process and development. Shifts and
displacements may not always be coordinated. In some situations, while
identification with one or more subgroups is weakened, a replacement is
not
readily provided. In such a case we find underintegration.
In the accelerated pace of modern change and mobility, for example, the
old
premises of identity may no longer suffice for social integration. The
family
which for millennia, from the Far East to the Far West, played the
basic
socializing role, can no longer claim exclusivity nor adequacy for that
function.[68] Religious beliefs and morality can hardly
provide efficient norms for the material and technological complexities
of
modern society.[69] The heterogeneous larger society, while
diluting and often uprooting the nucleus of subgroup identification,
does not
always offer a satisfactory substitute. Out of our graphic presentation
in Fig.
3.09, there may develop a diffuse ring of interacting subgroup
identifications
with a sparse nucleus (Fig. 3.10).
Fig.
3.10
The individual often
has to adapt himself to changing
social patterns. The nuclear family tends toward becoming an aggregate
of
individuals oriented towards their social functions rather than an
inward group
providing a rampart for the growing persons. The neighborhood itself
may change
because of individuals' mobility, or it may undergo rapid social and
technological transformation. Professional groups will be prone to the
influence of the technological evolution and revolution. Such changes
may
create a sense of bondlessness, a lack of solid loyalties and
established
values in the members of the heterogeneous society--the state of anomie, as Durkheim called it.[70] This
socio-psychological state will fail to
provide the basic affectional dimensions required for social cohesion
and for
satisfaction of individuals' needs for belonging. When Mr. X
is promoted, he tells himself, "Wait until the folks back
home hear this." He not only feels that he is going to do a better job
than his predecessor (functional), he not only thinks about his
personal gain
and interests (functional), but he also thinks about the pride of his
family
(affectional) and the jealousy of his adversaries (affectional). Or,
moving
away from folksy feelings, if he has transferred his affections to new
circles
of friends, mates and colleagues, the object of his feelings will be
those he
hopes to impress. If he had no affectional ties, he might just as
likely become
a derelict or a criminal, or commit suicide.[71] Studies
show a higher suicide rate among
people with looser social ties: the secular as opposed to the
religious; the
Protestant as opposed to the Catholic or Muslim; the city dweller
rather than
the rural community member; the single, divorced or widowed rather than
the
married.[72]
These social phenomena
of underintegration not only fall
short of fulfilling individuals' affectional needs, but can also
drastically
affect a society's political processes and power structure. Chronic
underintegration will eventually engender a centrifugal movement, the
group
losing its components to more integrated constellations--a process
similar to
the physical laws of relationships among cohesion, density, volume and
gravity.
Maybe we should emphasize here that the analogy is only metaphorical,
as the
laws of attraction and gravity in the political sense are relative.
When we say
"more integrated constellations," we do not mean that they are
necessarily and objectively so by some precise measurement. The
constellation
may seem integrated from the outside yet not be so. Nor does this last
statement
imply that an inner lack of integration will prevent the attracted
elements
from merging finally with the constellation. These new elements may
become
catalysts, contributing to the cohesion of a newly joined
constellation. All
this constellation should have is the potential for integration. When,
for
example, the intelligentsia are alienated from the prevailing social
structure,
they may find refuge in an alien doctrine and become its moving force,
as they
did in Russia before the October Revolution.
Thus, underintegration
may lead to disintegration. But it
may also cause overintegration. The
deficiency of underintegration can render the group vulnerable and
sensitive to
eccentric power nuclei, which may have affectional overtones, rising
from
within. The emergence of Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany can in
part be
attributed to this phenomenon. The post-World War I period of lost
causes and
illusions (as well as material insecurity of course) in these two
countries
paved the way for the ascension to power of factions and parties which
impressed the country with their faith in their goals and their
determination
to reach them. They provided a direction and a cause with an
overwhelming
articulation which drowned out and frustrated other alternatives. The
situation
in Italy was different from that in Germany. While the latter had
suffered a
humiliating defeat, the former, despite being on the winning side, had
found
herself the weak sister in the distribution of the spoils of the war.
The
events that followed in the two countries were not exactly identical,
nor were
the factions and parties which took power. Nor were their two motor
personalities, Mussolini and Hitler, alike. One claimed the culture of
the
Roman Empire; the other, the brutal heritage of the German tribes.[73] The similarity was that in the two different
contexts, underintegration had led to overintegration, bringing about
different
degrees of totalitarian dictatorships.
While the
overintegration of a heterogeneous society
through totalitarian methods may show symptoms similar to those of a
homogeneous group with strict norms such as a religious sect or an
ideologically disciplined party, as discussed earlier in this chapter,
the
nature of the integration will not be the same. The homogeneous group
is so
identified because the mechanism of integrative identity functions
within the
individual members of the group. The totalitarian overintegration of a
heterogeneous society needs, as in Nazi Germany, extensive
indoctrination and
use of mass media for propaganda to the point of intoxication,
accompanied by
coercive measures.[74] It may seem conceivable that, allowing time
and some flexibility of the integrating power nucleus, the
heterogeneous
society may become more homogeneous. But beyond time, many other
variables,
such as the size of the society, the environing factors and
circumstances, must
be favorable. Even then, however, the very nature of social and
political
fermentations and dynamics assure that the end product of an
overintegrated heterogeneous
society will not be its total transformation into a large, homogeneous
replica
of the original integrating power nucleus, but rather a new social
amalgam
carrying some of the characteristics of the composing groups. The
evolution of
communism in practically all of the countries that embraced it in order
to
reorganize their society is a case in point. Cambodian, Cuban, Chinese,
Russian
or Yugoslav communisms have each their own national characteristics.
Even if
historical evolution towards communism materialized according to Marx,
with the
dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletariat would need to educate
the
deposed bourgeoisie to new ways of looking at things, and the end
product of
the process could be nothing other than a synthesis. It is significant
that so
many of the utopians built their models on an island in order to reduce
the
chances of foreign contamination which would dismantle their house of
cards.[75]
All this brings us
back to the various group
characteristics discussed in this chapter. Man has a radius of
understanding
and group identification. It can be enhanced and expanded in favorable
conditions of education, contact and communication. Nevertheless, it
has
limits, within which affectional and functional relations develop,
enabling man
to identify with the familiar and to differentiate the strange or the
stranger.
It is significant to note that in the quasi-totality of languages, the
word for
"stranger" is derived from "strange" or
"outside."[76] In other words, the stranger is not "normal"
or "in." He does not correspond to the "norms." But what is
a norm? We shall deal with that in the coming chapters.