Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction

Karl Mannheim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136178146
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

First published in 1980. This is Volume II of Mannheim's collected works, translated by Edward Shils and includes recent developments in the author's thinking since 1935 when it was originally written.

PART I

Rational and Irrational Elements in Contemporary Society

I

THE PROBLEMS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

The crisis has its lessons and we must learn them. For many of us the problem of human nature and the possibility of changing it has only been raised through the events of the last few years. Two prejudices seem to have collapsed simultaneously: first, the belief in a permanent “national character”, secondly, the belief in the “gradual progress of Reason in history”.

It has suddenly become evident that our everyday, and often our scientific psychology as well, was unconsciously based on assumptions which implied a well integrated and stable society. It has become clear that even the most careful study of individuals and masses produces a false picture when it neglects the total situation of the society in which they exist. An enduring national character and slowly changing customs are only to be found in stationary or slowly changing societies. Reason progresses, and chaotic forces are suppressed only as long as the social structure fulfils certain conditions of harmonious growth as, for instance, when the psychological development of society keeps pace with its technical development.

Of these two widely held theories the latter seems to us to be the more relevant. We are much more interested in the share rational and irrational elements have in the formation of our personalities and of society than in the maintenance of the doctrine concerning the unchangeability of national character. In any case the doctrine of national character was always cherished by those who desired to maintain the status quo. Belief in progress, on the other hand, has chiefly been associated with a positive attitude towards the changeability of man and society.

Certain groups in society we always knew to be animated by latent irrational impulses. The most disastrous effect of events in recent years is by no means merely that these groups have abandoned themselves to irrationalism. Far worse is the way in which events have nonplussed those other groups from whom we had expected some resistance to an exaggerated irrationality and which now, overnight, have lost their belief in the powers of reason in society.

This sudden impotence of groups which have hitherto ruled society and which, at least since the Age of Reason have given our culture its special tone, has once again shown how important it is to have faith in one’s mission.¹ It has demonstrated that it is by no means unimportant how social groups conceive the general course of history and their function in it. We must on that account revise our view of the main features of the historical process.

To begin with we must include in our picture of historical development our recent experience of the power of the irrational, which has really brought about the present confusion. It may well be true that belief in the progress of reason in history was merely a delusion. It may also be, however, that when people prophesied a continuous growth of reason in history, they took account only of one element in the whole process, and only recently have we been able to feel the full force of other factors which were latent.

Obviously such questions lead us back to problems raised by the Age of Reason—more comprehensive problems which we tended to lose sight of in our attempts at specialization, but which alone have given meaning to the partial observations of the specialist. But we must not be afraid to go back to the sources of our Weltanschauung and to revive certain fundamental questions. The questions raised in the Age of Reason—as to how far history is directed by rational reflection and how far by irrational forces, how far moral conduct can be realized in society, or how far blind impulsive reactions are decisive at the turning points of history—all these are now called in question again under the impact of present day events. To-day it is possible for us to formulate these questions much more precisely than before. For us they are no longer mere speculative themes in the philosophy of history. Since the Age of Reason we have gained a great deal of psychological and sociological insight, and what we really need now is a comprehensive framework in which the new knowledge in the various fields of learning can be fitted into place.

¹ The best treatment of this question is still Sorel’s Reflexions sur la violence, Paris, 1912 (English translation, “Reflections on Violence,” New York, 1912). More recently Harold D. Lasswell has undertaken to elaborate the social function of myths in World Politics and Personal Insecurity, New York, 1935, and Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How, New York, 1936. Cf. also K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, London, New York, 1936, ch. iii and iv and bibliography.

II

THE THREE POINTS OF DEPARTURE OF THIS STUDY

Let us begin the following inquiry with an illustration which will make clear the three main theses of this study. Let us imagine ourselves standing at a busy street corner in a large city. Everything about us is in motion. On the left a man is laboriously pushing a barrow, on the right a horse and cart passes at a steady trot. From different directions cars and buses roll by. Somewhere in the air the hum of an aeroplane can be heard. There is nothing unusual in all this, nothing that to-day would call forth surprise or astonishment. It is only when detailed analysis has revealed the unexpected implications of the most obvious things in life that we discover sociological problems underlying these everyday phenomena. Barrows, drays, motor cars, and aeroplanes all represent typical means of transportation in different historical epochs and accordingly in a different historical phase of technological development. In spite of their different historical derivation, in spite of the fact that they arose in different periods, they all fit in with one another as in the scene above. Their simultaneous operation does not lead to serious friction. This “contemporaneity of the non-contemporaneous” was first noticed by the art historian W. Pinder, in the course of his studies in his own field.¹ And, indeed, in art the co-existence of forms and influences which are very different in their origins does not necessarily lead to serious tensions or crises. Thus in an old cathedral, for instance, Romanesque walls, Gothic pillars, and Baroque decorations can exist side by side in unbroken peace.

But although the inventions of various epochs may exist alongside one another in many spheres of social and intellectual life with very little friction, there are situations in which this non-contemporaneity may lead to a catastrophe. We need only imagine certain modifications in thə scene portrayed above in order to see at once the tensions which would arise and the disastrous consequences they would have. Let us suppose that the aviator who was just flying above us so peacefully and harmlessly suddenly drops a load of bombs. In a single moment everything below him is demolished, everything living killed. All of us must admit that in our present situation this development is by no means a fantastic hallucination, but is rather to be classed with those terrors which may at any time be realized.

In face of this horrible sight our unlimited enthusiasm for human progress, which was the basic dogma of earlier generations, involuntarily decreases. To be sure, as regards technological scientific knowledge, men have accomplished great things since the invention of the barrow. But—we ask ourselves—is the human mind in other fields actually very different to-day from what it was in the days when the barrow was the chief means of transport? Do our motives and impulses really operate on another or indeed on a higher plane than those of our forefathers?

What is the significance of the aviator dropping the bombs? It is that human beings are able to make use of the most modern products of inventive genius to satisfy primitive impulses and motives. Thus, when a city is destroyed by means of the technique of modern military science, it must be attributed to the fact that the development of the modern technical mastery over nature is miles ahead of the development of the moral powers of man and of his knowledge of the social order and social control. The phenomenon suggested by this whole analogy can now be described in sociological terms: it is the phenomenon of a disproportionate development of human faculties. Individuals as well as historical and social groups may, under certain circumstances, suffer from the danger of disintegration because their capacities fail to develop equally and harmoniously. We know very well in the field of child psychology that a child may develop intellectually with extreme rapidity while his moral judgment and his temperament remain on an infantile level, and the same is equally possible in the life of social groups. If such an unevenness in total development is dangerous for the individual, in society it must sooner or later lead to a catastrophe.

Hence, our first thesis is as follows: the contemporary social order must collapse if rational social control and the individual’s mastery over his own impulses do not keep step with technological development.

This disproportion in the development of human capacities has a twofold meaning. In so far as it refers to the fact that in a given society technological and natural scientific knowledge has advanced beyond moral powers and insight into the working of social forces, we will speak of a “general disproportion in the development of human capacities”. Likewise in none of the more complex societies is the good judgment and morality necessary for mastering social and economic problems equally distributed among all groups and classes. This second type of disproportion we will call “social disproportion” in the distribution of rational and moral capacities in human society.

Our second thesis is that the unfolding of reason, the ordering of impulses and the form taken by morality, are by no means an accident, nor do they involve primarily only single individuals and the characteristics they happen to have. On the contrary, it depends on the problems set by the existing order of society.

If we turn our attention to this order, we shall discover that it is primarily the existing division of functions in society which determines a man’s social position and creates different kinds of opportunities for forming intellectual and emotional élites. It is the social structure which in this sense favours certain groups and condemns others to passivity since to one it assigns tasks which require certain acts of thinking and deciding, while the others can adjust themselves to their position only by renouncing all insight or initiative. In India, for example, this functional distribution of intellectual and emotional qualities took on a caste-like form, with the priestly caste concentrating in itself all intellectual and psychological culture and achievement, while the warrior caste practically monopolized the psychological capacity for the exercise of power. Similar to this, though not so crude, was the social distribution of psychological and intellectual functions between the nobility and clergy in the Middle Ages.

As a third thesis let us take the following: societies which existed in earlier epochs could afford a certain disproportion in the distribution of rationality and moral power, because they were themselves based on precisely this social disproportion between rational and moral elements. A society ruled by a despot—citing an extreme case so that we can observe the phenomenon in a pure form— exists by virtue of the fact that the insight and initiative necessary for ruling over a society is found at its maximum in the despot himself, while the others, slaves and subjects, cannot see things as a whole and have no initiative. In contrast with this, the novel element in modern society is the ultimate incompatibility of these two forms of disproportion with the continued existence of this society. Neither the general lack of rationality and morality in the control of the total process, nor their unequal social distribution will allow it to go on.

The reason why this double lack of proportion is in the long run incompatible with our type of society becomes clear when we consider two groups of facts which are essential to its working. On the one hand modern industrial society stirs into action those classes which formerly only played a passive part in political life. Let us call this new and far-reaching activity of the masses the fundamental democratization of society. On the other hand, another factor is at work in our society which we will call the process of growing interdependence. This is the ever-increasing degree in which individual activities are being linked up with one another into larger wholes.

We will now concern ourselves with a more exact analysis of these two processes.

¹ Pinder, W., Das Problem der Generation in der Kunstgeschichte Europas, Berlin, 1926.

III

THE PRINCIPLE OF FUNDAMENTAL DEMOCRATIZATION

To-day a growing number of social groups strive for a share in social and political control and demand that their own interests be represented. The fact that these social groups come from the intellectually backward masses is a threat to those élites which formerly sought to keep the masses at a low intellectual level. It was worth while for these ruling classes to keep down the masses intellectually, as long as they could assume that the ignorance of the masses would keep them away from politics. Even to-day dictators, after they have come to power, try to deaden the will to action of those very masses by whose newly mobilized energies they have risen to their present position. This may, of course, succeed for a time, but in the long run the industrial system leads to a way of life which constantly puts new vigour into the masses, and as soon as they enter in one way or another into politics, their intellectual shortcomings and more especially their political shortcomings are of general concern and even threaten the élites themselves. If to-day we often have the impression that in times of crisis mass-psychoses rule the world, it is not because in the past there was less irrationality, but rather because hitherto it has found an outlet in narrower social circles and in private life; only to-day, as a result of the general momentum brought about by industrial society, is it forcing its way into the arena of public life and even at times dominating that arena.

As long as democracy was only a pseudo-democracy, in the sense that it granted political power at first only to a small propertied and educated group and only gradually to the proletariat, it led to the growth of rationality even when in fact this amounted to no more than the rational representation of its own interests. But since democracy became effective, i.e. since all classes played an active part in it, it has been increasingly transformed into what Max Scheler called a “democracy of emotions” (Stimmungs-demokratie). As such, it leads less to the expression of the interests of the various social groups and more to sudden emotional eruptions among the masses. It once looked as if the intensifying conflict of interests in the world to-day might culminate in an integration of interests which, although originally antagonistic, could be led to a rational compromise or fitted into a rational form of organization. But now it seems as though the irrational is to prevail after all. In the tumultuous periods of recent revolutions, such mass energies have forced their way to the top with increasing vigour. Any dominant group which has been naive enough to believe that it will make use of these energies will soon find itself in the awkward position of being pushed instead of doing the pushing.

Here we see one of the reasons why a society in which rational habits of thought are unevenly distributed is bound to be unstable. As the democratizing process becomes general it is increasingly difficult to let the masses remain in their former state of ignorance. Either one desires democracy, in which case one must attempt to bring everyone to more or less similar levels of understanding, or one must reverse t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• The Sociology of Karl Mannheim
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Original Half Title page
• INTRODUCTION THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AGE OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
• I The Crisis of Liberalism and Democracy as Seen from the Continental and Anglo-Saxon Points of View
• II The Clash of the Principles of Laissez-Faire and Planless Regulation as the Main Cause of Maladjustment in Modern Society
• III The Need for a Psychology which would be Socially and Historically Relevant
• IV Limitations and Shortcomings of the Present Book
• II Rational and Irrational Elements in Contemporary Society
• I The Problems of Enlightenment
• II The Three Points of Departure of this Study
• III The Principle of Fundamental Democratization
• IV The Principle of Increasing Interdependence
• V Clarification of the Various Meanings of the Word “Rationality”
• VI Functional Rationalization by No Means Increases Substantial Rationality
• VII Can the Social Causes of Irrationality in Social Life be Traced?
• VIII Can the Social Causes of the Rational and Irrational Elements in Morality be Traced?
• IX Irrational Tendencies in Morality
• II Social Causes of the Contemporary Crisis in Culture
• I Obstacles to the Discovery of the Rôle of Social Factors in Intellectual Life
• II Two Ways of Analysing the Impact of Society on Culture
• III First Process: The Increase in the Number of Élites
• IV Second Process The Breakdown of the Exclusiveness of the Èlites
• V Third Process The Change in the Principle Governing the Selection of Èlites
• VI Fourth Process The Change in the Composition of the Èlite
• VII The Formation of the Public in Liberal Mass Society
• VIII The Place of the Intelligentsia in Society
• IX The Problem of Intellectual Life in Mass Society
• X Some Problems Arising Out of Regulation of Cultural Life, Particularly in a Dictatorship
• III Crisis, Dictatorship, War
• I Correlation between the Disorganization of Society and the Disorganization of Personality
• II Some of the Axiomatic Beliefs Concerning Human Nature
• III Different Forms of Insecurity and their Impact Upon Behaviour. Disintegration in Animal and Human Societies
• IV From Unorganized Insecurity to Organized Insecurity
• PART IV Thought at the Level of Planning
• I The Redirection of Man's Thought and Will
• II Unplanned and Planned Activities
• III The Tension between Theory and Practice
• IV The Individual and the Unique
• V The Unique and the General in History and the Problems they Present to Logic
• VI Obstacles to the Discovery of the Principia Media
• VII The Concepts of Establishing, Planning, and Administrating Must be Distinguished from One Another
• VIII The Volitional and Emotional Aspects of Planning
• IX The Problem of Transforming Man
• PART V Planning for Freedom
• I The Concept of Social Technique
• II Some Phases in the Development of Social Techniques
• III The Concept of Social Control
• IV The Classification of Social Controls
• V The Laws of Transmutation in the Field of Social Control
• VI The History of Parliamentary and Democratic Government as the History of Social Control
• PART VI Freedom on the Level of Planning
• Real Understanding of Freedom a Prelude to Action
• Bibliography
• Index of Subject Matter
• Index of Names