Chapter 6 (pt.3)
INDIVIDUALITY AND SOCIETY
As Toqueville sees it Americans are in too much of a hurry (under the pressure to indulge in commercial enterprise) to catch more than a fleeting 'glimpse' of rules of honour. We may suggest that a further reason for the differentiation has to do with the more complex bonds which unite the members of a community in such a state of internal motion. Among the Tallensi (or indeed in Toqueville's 'aristocratic' times) moral values were secured by the weight of investment which went into the relationships which they were primarily about, and by the extent of common definition of the situation with which all parties to a situation -- and indeed the whole community -- tended to work. In the democratic society which Toqueville saw (even more through prescience than in his observations) the extent and probability of such commonality or congruence is reduced. This is not directly because of egalitarianism or even actual levelling of social differentiation. It is due to intervening variables, such as the reduced multiplexity of social bonds and the absence of hierarchically inclusive -- and thus commonly ordered -- social groups.
It is in something of a similar context that Bloch has emphasized Fortes' arguments regarding the 'morality' of kinship and rebutted those which take kinship as instrumental and as primarily the object of manipulations based on immediate individual self-interest (1973). Bloch brings out the way in which morality is primarily a matter of relationships in segmentary kinship-based societies. He suggests that moral relationships are those which are not organized for specific immediate ends but are long-term and binding as part of the social order, their source focused in the ancestors, not in individual decisions. Bloch sees the contrast which Toqueville was also pointing out between particularistic norms of relationship which leave every man to establish his own, and moral norms and kinship regulation, which make relationships a social obligation of the individual, and, especially in close kinship, one to be assumed, not chosen. The distinction, of course, is closely related to social stability:
I have tried to show that it is only because of the fact that to the ancestors kinship is moral, that is, non-specific and long term, that it produces an adaptability potential to long term social change. If more rational ties were used, i.e. ties which are the fruit of a process of maximization, they would be more efficient in the short term but more costly in the middle and long term. (1973, p. 86)
We may see Bloch's argument as in some ways a timely restatement of Merton's (1936) presentation of the importance of unanticipated consequences in social organization. Men do not live by plans alone.
There is a flaw in Bloch's argument, however. He goes on from the above passage to remind his readers of the principle of generalized adaptation in biological evolution, a 'maximization of options' principle of survival that does not directly, or even analogically follow from the case he has presented. The morality of kinship may indeed influence adaptation to long-term changes, but this is not what he has shown in his interesting paper. Rather, he has detailed an instance of the significance of kinship morality in maintaining long-term continuity not as an adaptation to long-term change, but to short-term fluctuation. This is indeed the impact of the lineage system which Fortes emphasized years ago:
Observation of the lineage system in action suggested that its distinguishing characteristic, as a regulating factor in the social structure, was its tendency toward equilibrium. This operated in such a way as to leave room for continual internal adjustments in the social organization without endangering its long-term stability. (1945, p. x)
It is equilibrium in this sense to which Sorokin gives further specificity in emphasizing the autonomy of the system in relation to external conditions:
Any functional or logical system as a unity has a certain degree of autonomy and inherent self-regulation in its functioning and change ("equilibrium" of the imitators of mechanics). Any system, . . . has a certain degree of independence of, or immunity to, external conditions. In some cases this freedom may be large, in others narrow, but it is possessed to some extent by every system which pretends to integration. (1957, p. 18)
Bloch's analysis differs from Fortes' in another significant way (which can not be considered a matter of error). He describes patterns of labour cooperation among the Merina in which active reciprocity is most important with distant or fictive kin, somewhat secondary relationships in terms of the formal system of descent-based bonds. This, he suggests, is because the nearer kinship ties are more insured by the moral aspect of the relationship so that:
'Real' kinsmen would always come, they said, 'artificial' kinsmen would only come if one kept up the typical kinship behaviour of repeated requests for help. If one did not do so these 'artificial' kinsmen would lapse. (1973, p. 79)
Fortes, on the other hand, tells us that among the Tallensi,
The more distant a genealogical tie is, the more does it become a matter of moral and ritual, rather than of jural or economic relations. (1949a, p. 18)
Bloch argues that his findings in fact contradict Fortes and demand some sort of resolution. Other differences in the social organizations make it difficult to settle the matter in any way conclusively, but we can offer a couple of additional points. First, the two statements are not necessarily as contradictory as it might seem, if one bears in mind Fortes' distinction between the mutuality of close agnatic relations and the reciprocity of more distant, especially cognatic, ties. Secondly, in Fortes' description of the Tallensi we find that socio-spatial fields exist in which geographically proximate kin are also genealogically near. There would seem to be relatively few situations where distant kin would be appropriate or practical to call upon for farming assistance. Among the Merina to who Bloch refers, on the other hand, a high rate of geographic mobility means that neighbours are not necessarily close kinsmen -- or kinsmen at all. Although Bloch emphasized the importance of this mobility in his earlier monograph, in the present comparison with Fortes' analysis he does not bring out the difference between the two cases (cf. Bloch, 1971).
There is some question, finally, as to whether the fictive kinship Bloch describes is simply a matter of comparison to other kin categories, seeing these latter as themselves ranged on a single continuum of intensity. I think this is not the case. Bloch's fictive kinsmen seem analogous to cognatic kin among the Tallensi. They have relationships with individuals, which may be established personally, rather than group relations situated in a formal corporate organization. They are relations thus of reciprocal but not common interest. Agnatic bonds are characterized by mutuality in part because agnates share responsibility and rights in inheritance; because they together form social units at higher levels. Cognates have interests in each other's welfare not on the basis of commonality but exchange. Artificial kin are similar but for the fact that their relations are not formal. This is why keeping up the relationship is so important to them. The relationship among fictive or artificial kin is never implied by the rest of a set of relations. It is not the product of descent or marriage. It is never potential but unactualized. Herein is the key to part of the distinction between the Tallensi case Fortes describes and the Merina case Bloch describes. Among the Tallensi distant cognatic kin become relevant only in situations where they are called upon to assist in travel or to make sacrifices to their agnatic ancestors who are their kinsmen's matrilineal ancestors (see Chapter 4). These distant cognatic kin seldom live nearby, and are therefore unlikely to be of everyday significance. Close cognatic kin, however, are the persons most frequently called upon to form work parties. This, as we saw in Chapter 3, is because the need for labour is seen as a personal issue. Among the Merina, unrelated persons are likely to live in close proximity while close cognates and agnates may be quite distant. In any event, however, the fluctuations in demand for cooperative labour make it practical to maintain fictive kin relations (as Bloch describes -- actually these are not fictive versions of particular relations, apparently, thus Bloch's term 'artificial') on an everyday basis. An interesting question is whether with today's greater mobility, the same is becoming true of the Tallensi. Presumably, at least to some extent, it is.
This discussion of Bloch has been something of an apparent digression from consideration of traditional authority. On examination, however, one will see that this appearance is more a matter of terminology than topic. What is important in Bloch's argument is the stress on the morality of kinship ties, and the implication is much akin to traditional authority. It depends, in Bloch's consideration as well as Fortes' on the authority of the ancestors. Essentially, both the morality of kinship and the authority of ancestors are ideational extensions of the social organization which is based upon agnatic segmentary kinship. In considering the authority of ancestors, however, it is necessary to move beyond the internalization -- or even collective representation -- of 'morality' to a consideration of the ways in which ancestors are seen as exercising their authority. Since this forms a large part of Chapter 9, we shall not dwell on it here, noting only a point which will increase understanding of authority as discussed in connection with the model of social order in chapter 8. This is the idealization of ancestors. Very simply -- and we need say no more here -- this refers to the fact that it is not the actual personalities of the ancestors as they were when alive which is important. The ancestors are culturally idealized and stereotyped figures. This is important in achieving social stability in the uniformity it produces among ancestors, in the common moral representation they produce, and, especially, in the extent to which it removes them from the complications of everyday life. Just as consistency is a crucial virtue in a parent as authority-figure vis-á-vis his child's development, so it is crucial in an ancestor. The common reason for the parallel importances is that the best authority figure is one which adds nothing of its particular foibles and self-interested involvements to the situation but remains disinterested and in a sense pure. In psychoanalytic terms, counter-transference is an impediment in such a highly formalized relationship as that of the ancestor to his descendant. This is one reason why it is important for ancestors to be dead. Their authority is unaffected by actual power and so they cannot upset the system through the exercise of their individual wills as can such human figures of authority as presidents, premiers and popes.
There is another difference between considering kinship morality in general and focusing specifically on the authority of ancestors. This is the importance of ancestors in defining social groups, that is, the groups of persons subject to their authority. Among the Tallensi, corporate groups are constituted only through reference to such relevant ancestors. We have already discussed this in chapters 2 and 3, but certain points should be elaborated here. First, we may note that our definition of authority has this connection to the constitution of social groups as a corollary. We indicated that we were referring to authority as recognized a priori right. Clearly this presupposes a recognizer, or defined range of recognition. As a number of writers have emphasized, the range of recognition of common authority tends to coincide with the range of collective responsibility. Authority figures do not always define corporate groups, although (in Sorokin's term) this is the most 'consistent' formulation. Weber's definition of a corporate group, in fact, is most especially distinguished on the criterion of submission to common authority:
A social relationship which is either closed or limits the admission of outsiders by rules, will be called a 'corporate group' (Verband) so far as its order is enforced by the action of specific individuals whose regular function this is, of a chief or 'head' (Leiter) and usually also an administrative staff. These functionaries will normally also have representative authority. (1921, pp. 145-6)
Obviously this is not the definition of corporate group with which we have been operating; in particular it is important to recognize that authority is by no means always a characteristic of individual persons or of the living. Despite the inordinate amount of time Weber spends defining terms, domination, authority, power, superordination and other words have confused and overlapping meanings in his work (presumably not entirely as an artifact of translation).
One cannot refer to authority meaningfully without designating either over what or for what purpose it obtains. In our concern with social order, we are particularly interested in the extent to which authority limits social fragmentation, idiosyncracy and/or conflict. We thus see it as a quantitative variable in terms of the extent of authority operative in a population. What is not immediately clear in such a statement is the importance of intermediate associations (see Nisbet, 1953 for a superb general discussion). A single overarching authority and an undifferentiated mass constitute a population of less total authority than many hierarchically inclusive social groups each with its specific focus on authority. This is in large part because of the extent to which authority depends on (as well as produces) social order, and hierarchical inclusivity also influences other variables of social order directly (see Chapter 8). The two are also directly related, however, particularly in that the extent of hierarchical inclusivity influences the extent to which authority is vulnerable to replacement by sheer power from any single source. We have already described the inclusivity of the Tale corporate groups, so let us turn here to a consideration of their operation in collective responsibility and the relation this has to authority (see also discussion of collective responsibility in Chapter 3).
The dimension of inclusivity is behind Moore's suggestion that
many apparently 'private' disputes between individuals have a much wider range of potential structural importance in pre-industrial societies than do factually comparable disputes in complex societies. (1972, p. 59)
This is because such disputes are likely to remain on the individual level in complex societies unless they are between extra-ordinarily important private persons, in which case either the structure of the settlement (e.g., a procedural precedent) or its results (e.g., a reorganization of social group boundaries) may be of 'structural importance'. In segmentary societies (and in general in small-scale societies) the existence of smaller (intermediate) structural units means that disputes between individuals can affect the structure much more readily. Thus a dispute between agnates might lead by segmentation, between cognates or non-kinsmen to 'self-help' in the form of raids (before the imposition of ' Pax Brittanica '). Further, in a kin-based society, 'partisan commitments' are much more likely to be structurally determined than in a large-scale industrial society (cf. Moore, 1972, p. 74; in Moore's as in many other anthropological discussions this latter is treated as self-evident. The model of social order in chapter 8 considers some of the salient variables on which such types may more rigorously be seen to differ). Thus, among the Tallensi, disputes may expand along the structurally determined lines of patrilineal affiliation to clans and ultimately to the Namoo/Talis split.
Collective liability is, of course, not a totally given function of group membership. As Moore puts it:
It is my hypothesis that where every member of a corporate group has the power to commit it in this way to a collective liability, a corollary rule always exists whereby the corporation may discipline, expel or yield up to enemies members who abuse this power or whom the corporation does not choose to support in the situation in which he has placed them. (1972, p. 89)
Moore then takes this as indicating a key element in her distinction of 'legal' and 'moral' obligations:
'legal' obligations are those in which such specific performance or repair may be immediately achieved through physical force. 'Moral' obligations are those in which the sanction of social pressure is used to obtain performance. (1972, p. 91)
She goes on to argue the existence of legal penalties for stubborn resistance to social penalties. In the case of the Tallensi, social penalties in response to failure in moral obligations are clearly the matter of first importance. It is also these penalties and obligations which are handled through the ancestors, that is through chance and divination, as well as through the direct social sanctions which the living may apply. What if any legal penalties there are is another matter. The crucial differentiator would seem to be the existence of some means for the organization to take concerted action against this violator. Fortes does not mention such means, nor does it seem likely that this is an oversight on his part. It would appear that an individual could never be formally expelled from any Tale corporation. He could be denied the aid or protection of the corporation, but his children could not be denied membership, for example. The extent of close cooperation necessary to social and economic life in the traditional Tale order was considerable, however. It is conceivable that in this extremely 'dependent' situation, moral obligations were sufficient (under Moore's definition). Legal obligations and penalties would seem likely to vary in inverse proportion to the efficacy of social or moral obligations, and this efficacy is a direct function of the extent of dependency, of sociation in a given population. The co-vesture of power and authority would also seem crucial to legal penalties. That is, if specific enforcement is to be coupled with moral obligation and general social sanctions then there must be a mechanism -- and usually a functionary -- of mobilization and administration of force.
An important factor in the operation of moral obligations among the Tallensi is the investment of individuals in their social relations and the limitation of options which this produces. The multiplexity of interpersonal bonds reflects this. This is, further, directly linked to the solidarity of social groups, and to the extent to which they can be hierarchically inclusive. We have already mentioned above some of the importance and prevalence of multiplexity in Tale relationships. The concept should also be familiar to most readers since in one form or another it figures in a large number of theoretical systems. Unfortunately, it has not always been paid the attention it deserves, and so we must emphasize and explicate it here. We shall do only this, however, and not attempt to examine its many theoretical roots. Rather we shall make note of two of its appearances on the modern theoretical scene, first in Gluckman's 'multiplex/monoplex' distinction, the terminology we adopt, and then as 'specificity/diffuseness' in Parsons' scheme of definitions. Gluckman has, in fact, noted that he regards the two terminologies as equivalent (Devons and Gluckman, 1964, p. 192). It seems to me, however, that although they are close, they are (best regarded as) not identical; in particular Parsons' conception is broader, and is less specifically linked to social solidarity an to comparison of social organizations. Parsons does set his discussion in terms of individual actors' orientations to action vis-á-vis other actors as objects, which is important as it leads to a stress on the way people evaluate options and make decisions:
There remains the question of the scope of ego's "interest" in the object. It has been noted above how crucially important is the differentiation of modes of orientation of action and the corresponding differentiation of types of orientations in terms of primacies. But this differentiation has been treated in terms of the orientation of an actor taken as a point of reference without regard to the question of whether the different modes of orientation were segregated out in relation to different objects, or combined in orientation to the same object. This question of the relative incidence of "fusions" and "segregations" of action-orientation types will be seen to be of the greatest importance for the analysis of social structure. (1951, p. 65)
The Dynamics of Dependence - Authority - The Dynamics of Independence