Community

A Sociological Study, Being an Attempt to Set Out Native & Fundamental Laws

Robert M MacIver

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780714615813
• eBook ISBN: 9781136247163
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First Published in 1970. Written before the term sociology was in use, this book has two main principles. One concerns the conception of what a state is and what its relation is to the other organizations that enter into the structure or framework of all society. The second major principle is that individualization and socialization are intimately interdependent. that a developed society stimulates the development of the personality of its members. and vice-versa. This principle still seems to the writer to have high significance and to be capable of application for the interpretation of many phases of social change. A difficulty that may impede its acceptance is a failure to appreciate the significance of the word socialization.

BOOK III

THE PRIMARY LAWS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNITY

CHAPTER I

THE MEANING OF COMMUNAL DEVELOPMENT

§ 1. In what sense laws?

In an earlier chapter we attempted to discover the meaning of social law and its relation to all other kinds of law. It was unnecessary there to raise the question of the existence of such laws. No one, I suppose, doubts to-day that there are social laws, that there are, for instance, laws of economics as certainly as there are laws of physics. But when we come to consider, not the specific laws revealed in definite spheres of association, but the general laws of that community which unifies all associations, and especially when we speak of such laws as laws of development or evolution, we expose ourselves to the attacks of innumerable critics. Some would distinguish development from evolution, others evolution from progress, affirming one and denying the other. Some deny social development in toto, others admit it but deny that it has laws. The only adequate refutation of the latter criticism must be the demonstration of these laws themselves, but before entering upon that demonstration we may consider the implications we make when we assert that there are laws of the development of community.

Here is the issue we must always face when we speak of developmental laws. Are these merely statements summing up an actual process of development, historical or descriptive summaries true of this particular process but not to be regarded as universal principles of development wherever it occurs, true perhaps of the development of western civilisation at a particular epoch but not necessarily true even of communal development as it has taken place almost contemporaneously in the Orient, still less of forms future and unknown? Or are they principles revealing the real nature of communal development, rules to which every community must necessarily conform in passing from certain stages of its existence to certain higher stages, because these rules are what development at these stages means? The difference is vital: if the former alternative is true, we are still outside any real sociology; if the latter, we can confidently claim for sociology a place amongst the sciences. Of the answer I feel no doubt. The term “law” is strictly applicable to the laws of communal development I am about to formulate. Wherever communal development has taken place it has been in accordance with these laws: and whatever communal development will henceforth take place will be in accordance with these laws.

Two assumptions underlie this seemingly bold assertion. We have assumed in the first place that development is something distinct from mere process. The term “evolution” is rather ambiguous in this and some other respects, and may for the moment be left out of the discussion. But the terms “development” and “progress” imply not merely process but process in a certain direction hereafter to be specified. These two terms, though they are sometimes distinguished, I shall (for reasons shortly to appear) use as equivalent, preferring, however, the term “development” because of a certain narrowed ethical significance sometimes attached to the term “progress.” It will now appear that the assertion set out above is not so vast or bold as it may have sounded. We are concerned, not with the laws of all communal process, but only with the laws of that process which is development. If there are laws of non-progressive communal transformation they do not concern us here. We do not say that all communities or any community must develop, but we do say that those which do develop will conform to the laws to be set out in this book.

The other assumption—an assumption which is the necessary preliminary of every such investigation—is the definition of the nature of community expounded in the preceding books. Community is simply common life, and that common life is more or less adequate according as it more or less completely fulfils in a social harmony the needs and personalities of its members, according as it more or less completely takes up into itself the necessary differences which individuality implies, so that they become differences within a unity and not contradictions of that unity. Common life is thus a question of degrees, and all existent communities realise only in degree the idea of community. The laws to be set forth are laws of the completer realisation of community, and wherever a community moves towards a more perfect communal form, there these laws, some or all, are exemplified. The laws are indeed more than mere inductions from history, for how shall history tell us which is more perfect and which less? Here we see the nature of the initial assumption, that we know what is meant by community, not merely as exhibited at various historical stages, but in idea. These laws are the explication of the idea of community, they are not simply laws in accordance with which development takes place, they are laws themselves revealing or even constituting the nature of development. History exemplifies them in developing communities, but their necessity follows from the idea of community. So we can say not only that communities at a certain stage of development have actually followed or are actually following these laws, but that if a community is to com-tinue development from a certain stage it must follow these laws. They are revealed to us in history, but only because, guided by the idea of community, we know what to look for amid the vast welter of historical vicissitude and contradiction. If it be said that such procedure is arbitrary and circular, that we start with an a priori idea of community, and merely select as laws of development those historical changes which conform to it, it may be sufficient to reply—though there is doubtless a deeper answer—that all evolutionary science is faced with the same difficulty. All evolutionary science, however scientists may seek to conceal it, speaks necessarily in terms of development no less than of process—else there would be no system, no hierarchy, no succession, no law. Evolutionary science is concerned not with the history of the world but with the history of selected elements of the world. It is not a kind of history revealing successive stages of life. The amoeba did not disappear when man arose. It is not simply a study of the appearance through time of newer and ever newer forms of life. The facts of reversion and retrogression dispel the idea that we can equate evolution with temporal sequence. Evolution in this connection must mean hot change but change in a determinate direction. Take away the idea of development, leave only the idea of process, and evolutionary science would become a mere reflection of the myriad inchoate contradictory processes of nature, no science, but an endless series of inconsequent descriptions with no guiding thread.

It is most worthy of notice that the difficulties which the idea of development introduces into all other evolutionary science, so that scientists with good reason seek to avoid introducing it, do not exist in the sphere of social science. Here and here alone is the idea of development unambiguously present and realised. We are concerned here with the laws in and through which the nature of community is fulfilled, in and through which community attains ever truer forms, purified of alien elements and contradictions through the activities of human beings who increasingly understand its nature, as gold is purified of dross through the activities of men who understand the nature of gold. We are concerned with the unfolding of the nature of community, as a biologist is concerned with the unfolding of the nature of organism: but the activities which make and transform community are in their degree purposive activities, the activities of purposive beings. These purposes we know, and we know no other purposes in the universe.

Apart from the idea of purpose social development has no meaning. The idea of heterogeneity or complexity is not enough. Is not chaos the very expression of complexity, unordered heterogeneity? The idea of temporal succession is not enough, else we could not talk of decadence or retrogression. The idea of co-ordination or system is not enough. Do not primitive communities often exhibit, in respect of kinship and marriage relations, for instance, a very elaborate order, a sometimes too elaborate system? If we ask why, for instance, we regard modern western civilisation as more developed than mediæval civilisation, the answer is not simply that it is more complex, but that it satisfies more interests, higher interests. If we ask why it has developed, the answer must be that men have found more interests, higher interests, and have found better ways of satisfying them through social relations. The institutions and customs of community are more developed when they serve life more, community is more developed when it is a greater, better common life. Always in the study of community we are brought back to this ethical ideal, this ideal of completer life which must nevertheless be assumed, never demonstrated. The ethical ideal must remain as rich and concrete and inner and as inexpressible as life itself, at whatever cost to the completeness of our theories. The development of community is an aspect of the development of life, the development of institutions means their transformation to the completer service of life. When we study community we are studying a world of values, and in the study of values it is impossible to retain the ideal which perhaps inspires the student of external nature. We must speak of better or worse institutions, of higher or lower stages of development, just because it is values we are concerned about. It is the meaning of values that we should treat them so. It is their essential fact. We must, of course, always beware lest we allow our conceptions of what ought to be to pervert our understanding of what is. We must record existence with the coldest impartiality, but the very meaning of value-existence is lost if we do not treat it as such.

So, alas! we escape one set of difficulties only to be faced with another. We escape the difficulty of the natural sciences which must use the language of development and yet cannot introduce that principle which alone gives clear significance to development, the principle of purpose and value. We are in turn faced with the new difficulty which the idea of value introduces, the difficulty that standards of value vary from man to man, from people to people. This is a real difficulty, but it must not be exaggerated. We have already seen that the conflict here suggested is primarily ethical, not sociological. We must also note that there is after all a general agreement among men in so far as there are certain universal ends which all men seek and thus admit to be good or desirable. The greater divergencies arise over the question how far certain forms of community, certain institutions, further these ends. When men dispute concerning “socialism,” for instance, they dispute on a basis of agreement in respect of universal ends, they differ on the question how far a certain organisation of community would further or retard these ends. Otherwise no argument would be possible. When they dispute concerning the institution of war, the point on which they differ is the effect of that institution upon a common weal in which they alike believe. If, therefore, men apply contradictory ethical epithets to social institutions; if some believe that war is good, others that it is evil; if some approve of dominion over alien peoples and others condemn it; if some esteem the present worse than the past, and others the present better than the past; we must not assume that here we have an ethical conflict and one, therefore, insoluble. The effect of institutions on life is a sociological question, an entirely objective question, and one absolutely soluble, if not to-day, yet as a result of more prolonged research into social causes and effects. It is, indeed, difficult to study with impartiality these relations of cause and effect. It is not simply because certain institutions have a peculiar significance or value for us that we are so prone to bias, even against our wills, in the study of them. It is because we have already made decisions in respect of them, not merely academic decisions, but decisions engraved in our very nature, in our emotions and character, decisions felt and lived, not merely thought. It is these deep-rooted decisions of the whole being which so easily defeat the claim and endeavour of impartiality. And yet every enquiry into the effect of institutions admits of and demands scientific resolution, and the deeper the effect upon our whole nature of a way of thinking about them, the more vital if the more difficult is the knowledge of its truth. For it is impossible to believe that in a world bound fast in causality, ignorance and error should in anything profit us in the place of knowledge.

We should note here the necessity to distinguish between the development of communal institutions and the development of communal life. In one aspect associations and institutions are more continuous than life, for a single association may last through millenia and a single institution outlive many generations of life. In another aspect life is more continuous than its created structures. For associations may pass away, institutions may be replaced by totally different institutions, but life is in essence the same wherever it is found, being present in greater or less degree. The will and intelligence which to-day creates the communities of Western Europe is but more of the will and intelligence which integrated the pre-historic horde or clan. Can we not go yet further? Just as the divine mind may be conceived to comprehend and enjoy the illimitable universe, so the blind worm that feels dimly towards another of its kind is in the measure of its life comprehending and enjoying that much of the universe.

We are to be concerned with the growth of a life as revealed in the structures it has built. In whatever is written about a living developing thing there is almost sure to be some error, but in the study of community there is a peculiar danger. For what we are studying is in process of a development nowhere previously completed before our eyes. We know what a seedling or an embryo will become, for there are previous examples before us of the course of development of individual plant or animal, we know the completed form no less than any present stage of development towards it. But the process of community is as unfulfilled as the process of the universe within which it falls. We know in the early spring what the sprouting lily will become in April, but how shall we know what is spring or summer—if, indeed, we can speak of either—in the history of community? Life may at any time rise intenser and contradict us. We are studying a force whose strength we do not know, for it is revealed in its effects alone; whose full character we cannot know, for we cannot certainly say that it is now near or far from fulfilment, and only in its fulfilment—if there be any—is its nature fully discerned; whose future is at best a probability. What we know is only direction. What we can say is only that, if the force be not spent, the maintenance of the present direction will probably lead to such and such results. But we can, it seems, affirm in spite of all uncertainties that certain results are probable. For though at times in the past the force seemed spent, and though at times the direction seemed reversed, the more comprehensive view made possible by anthropology reveals a general direction and a permanent driving force. The intelligence of man may grow feebler, through inner failure or environmental stress, but it has in fact grown stronger; his plasticity and educability may diminish, but it has in fact increased; his power of will and control of means may slacken, but they have hitherto in the process been beyond measure reinforced.

Finally, we should understand that it is only forms which can in the strict sense be said to evolve, to open out or unfold; powers and energies do not evolve, but increase. We are using the term “development” to denote the whole process in which the forms of life evolve correspondent to the increase of the powers of life in individual and race. And the laws of community are laws revealing the connection between the evolution of social forms and the increase of human life or personality, however we care to name that power which we all find within ourselves, more than any forms but for ever formative.

These principles are so vital for the study of community that we must pause to consider more fully their meaning and truth.

§ 2. The kinds of social development and the criteria of communal development.

A thousand social interests are bound up within community, but not in so complete a harmony that the development of one must mean the development of every other. One interest may be pursued to the neglect of or even to the detriment of others. Thus a community may seem to be at once progressive and retrogressive, moving to one social good while it loses another. It may, for instance, attain a high level of external civilisation while its moral standards are abased, as was the case with some Italian cities of the Renaissance. It may reveal a high moral tone (in the narrower sense of the term “moral”) while its culture remains low, as is said to have been the case with the Germanic tribes at the beginning of the Christian era. It may pursue economic interests to the detriment of the health-interests, as has been the case in the earlier stages of our industrial era. Or it may pursue the health-interests to the neglect of the culture-inte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents
• Book I Introduction
• Book II An Analysis of Community
• Book III The Primary Laws of The Development of Community
• Appendices
• Index