Suffering and Evil

The Durkheimian Legacy

W. S. F. Pickering, Massimo Rosati, W. S. F. Pickering, Massimo Rosati†

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781845458591
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Until recently the subject of suffering and evil was neglected in the sociological world and was almost absent in Durkheimian studies as well. This book aims to fill the gap, with particular reference to the Durkheimian tradition, by exploring the different meanings that the concepts of evil and suffering have in Durkheim's works, together with the general role they play in his sociology. It also examines the meanings and roles of these concepts in relation to suffering and evil in the work of other authors within the group of the Année sociologique up until the beginning of World War II. Finally, the Durkheimian legacy in its wider aspects is assessed, with particular reference to the importance of the Durkheimian categories in understanding and conceptualizing contemporary forms of evil and suffering.

II. The Durkheimian Legacy

Chapter 5

Robert Hertz on Suffering and Evil: The Negative Processes of Social Life and Their Resolution

Robert Parkin

I

Within the Durkheim group, the life and work of Robert Hertz (1881–1915) occupies a unique position for a number of reasons. First, of all the members of the group who died in the First World War, he is perhaps the most regretted, due to his perceived brilliance and promise. Secondly, while the influence of his published work over later anthropology is clearly eclipsed by that of Durkheim and Mauss, it has still been considerable, but unlike theirs it has been primarily limited to anthropology. Thirdly, there is the intellectual focus in most of his work on the negative aspect of social life. This relates to the rent in the social fabric caused by death, the negative symbolism of the left hand, and – most centrally in his own conception of his work – the notion of sin and its expiation. In expiation, inner conviction draws the malefactor back to submission to social authority. This is not to say that Hertz was at odds with Durkheim’s generally positive view of social life (see below, Sect. III). It is, however, this focus that makes Hertz’s corpus suitable for consideration in a volume devoted to suffering and evil in the Durkheim school. Fourthly, there is the heroic nature of Hertz’s own life and death. In life, he was permanently torn between the groves of academia and the desire to devote his life to the betterment of society through both teaching and political action. It is to Durkheim’s credit that he managed to convince Hertz that academic scholarship could also contribute to this aim. As for Hertz’s death in the First World War, it was not merely a matter of him being killed, as were millions of others, but of his growing and perhaps calculated readiness for sacrifice in the war. Since sacrifice clearly suggests suffering, we need to take Hertz’s personal life and death – as well as his academic and political work – into account, if we are to arrive at a comprehensive view of his ideas on these topics.

Before turning to these ideas in detail, however, I offer my own brief interpretation of work on suffering in the sociology of Hertz’s time and later, up to the present day, as well as in anthropology, which is my own discipline (Section II). Section III discusses the background mapped out by Durkheim, and then follows Hertz’s own contribution, which is assessed in more detail in Section IV. The fifth and final section crystallizes the basic underlying position I adopt throughout this chapter, namely that the Durkheimian approach to social life, in emphasizing its fundamentally positive aspects, does not lend itself easily to a comprehensive, existential theory of suffering of the type developed more recently and mentioned in Section II. Even for Hertz, who opted to study what Mauss called ‘the dark side of humanity’ (Mauss 1925b: 24), negativity was merely symbolized by the left hand, or else resolved. The double burial remakes society as the sinner finds his own way back to God. Education and political activity ease the social conditions of the poor, while self-sacrifice in war ends the evils against which the war is being fought.

II

There appears to be a current perception that up to now the themes of suffering and evil have scarcely been addressed in the social sciences. Indeed, it is only very recently that a book on the sociology of suffering has appeared (Wilkinson 2005, on which I draw freely). Nonetheless, as Wilkinson himself remarks, there are reasons for arguing that a great deal of what the social sciences have studied is related to suffering of one sort or another. Evil is never far behind, at least implicitly. Wilkinson argues first and fundamentally that all social life is stressful. People are constantly faced with obligations and other pressures that they would prefer to avoid, but which cause them suffering, even of a physical or mental kind. Secondly, the academic social sciences have always aimed to give a voice to those who lack one. For example, one can point to people who are generally economically or politically disadvantaged, or both, whether because of class, gender, ethnic identity, disability, mental or physical illness, juniority, etc. The focus on economic disadvantage is especially associated with Marx, but it also occurs in a great deal of subsequent social science. These disciplines have increasingly addressed issues of communal conflict and violence throughout the world. They are associated with atrocity research, as well as an increasing focus on forced migration, refugees and asylum-seekers.

The traditional emphasis on positivism and objectivity in the social sciences does not help in writing on these topics. In the view of many writers, their respective disciplines should not simply explain or contextualize suffering, but should suggest how it might be ameliorated or prevented altogether. Coupled frequently with this position is the argument that, whatever they write, social scientists can never be neutral but inevitably assume, if not express, politically oriented positions: even silence about the horrors of conflict therefore reflects a political bias. In general, Wilkinson appears to associate himself with such views. But further, in this literature suffering is addressed not only in terms of its underlying reasons, proximate causes, potential for alleviation and mechanisms for restitution, but is also considered under the aspect of experience. This makes it an existential condition and not simply a set of more or less mechanical processes or an inevitable concomitant of normal social life.

This ‘hands-on’ position, adopted by Wilkinson and those who think like him, though attractive to the humanity in us, has attracted considerable objections on both intellectual and methodological grounds. This theme is too vast to be pursued further here, but is merely stated to alert the reader to the argument in this chapter that, despite a degree of convergence with the view that the social sciences can be useful – which contains within it all the hopes and disappointments of the seducer – Durkheim and his colleagues, including Hertz, never produced an existential account of suffering and evil of the sort just mentioned.

III

Positions like Wilkinson’s, which characterize much social science, represent a fundamentally negative attitude to social life. Yet social life can also be regarded as positive, as improving our conditions beyond what our lives in isolation would give us. It is in any case an inescapable aspect of our humanity. This is essentially the position of Durkheim, Hertz’s teacher and senior colleague, reflecting the influence ultimately of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.¹ Despite Durkheim’s misgivings about the atomization and relative lack of collective feeling in modern industrial society, with its division of labour and class system, this attitude emerged in France as part of the anti-revolutionary reaction of the early nineteenth century. It certainly was not Durkheim’s invention. For Durkheim, suffering is really little more than anomie, usually conceived as the progressive failure of modern society to bind the individual to itself. Here is one reason for suicide.² Durkheim also occasionally emphasizes the stress, already noted, that can arise from undertaking social obligations that conflict with our instincts as biological individuals. Yet he also argues that punishments have become less severe in the modern world, which has also acquired a greater degree of sympathy for the culprit as well as the victim. But anomie can be only a temporary state. Durkheim hoped that a basic sympathy for other individuals would be reformatory in itself. There is a parallel between Durkheim’s position and that of Wilkinson: for Durkheim sociology could provide the intellectual framework for improving social solidarity in particular cases, such as the Third Republic. Among other things, Durkheim used this argument to attract Hertz to his circle.

Durkheim’s strong and positive attitude to social life was clearly shared by Hertz, despite the latter’s focus on what he saw as its inevitably negative aspects. This is different from Durkheim’s theories of the anomie produced by the growing division of labour in human history, especially in the modern industrial economy. In effect Durkheim treated these as contingent, historical events, unlikely to be repeated, though hopefully capable of reform. The phenomena Hertz dealt with – sin, death and religious polarities – fall into the area of process and its repeatable structures rather than history in the above sense. They recur frequently as part of the normal operations of social life and are therefore essentially replicable: they are not seen as altering either the structure or the basic values of society.³ Of course, sin and negative religious polarities can be regarded as values in their own right, since they appear to be culturally determined. The notion of sin is questionably universal, while the ideas and objects that are loaded symbolically with negativity depend equally not only on the society, but very frequently on the social context also. As for death, although it can be seen as universal physiologically, it is certainly not regarded in the same way in all societies. Such variations can be compared and synthesized synchronically. This is what Hertz does. For Durkheim, as already noted, anomie is treated as a trend in world history, in effect, if not by design.

Like Mauss, Hertz can be seen as a proto-structuralist, more so than Durkheim himself. Hertz’s ideas concerning religious polarity form an abstract model of opposition which, as the famous ‘binary opposition’, became the basis for Lévi-Strauss’s later structuralism. Similarly, like van Gennep (1909), whom Hertz may have influenced, ritual, here death ritual, is not only a sequence of phases. Their very sequence has a clear, generally repeatable structure, although some of the phases may be merely vestigial, as is often the case in the modern world.

This is a development of Durkheim’s treatment of ritual as the privileged site for reinforcing the bonds between the individual and society. It is achieved by stimulating a sense of collective unity and harmony, which itself is created through the circulation of significant social knowledge in both symbolic and explicitly linguistic form. Ritual also represents for Durkheim the meeting of sacred and profane, as well as a phase between stretches of ordinary social life, which is given significance. Durkheim’s account is therefore a dynamic one or one of process. This, however, does not relate to the ritual itself. This is partly Hertz’s (and van Gennep’s) contribution, though it extends, not contradicts, Durkheim’s own account, which Hertz accepts in full.⁴

IV

As already noted, Hertz’s own contribution, to which I turn in this section, is focused on the negative aspects of social life. As a result there is, perhaps, a strain of pessimism in his work that one detects far less in that of Durkheim or Mauss. In general, however, Hertz fitted in with the intellectual project of the school, specializing in one aspect of social life rather than contradicting the central theoretical precepts of his colleagues and master. I shall now discuss the three main texts in the order in which they were published (and largely composed), namely death, the right and left hands, and sin.⁵ I then briefly discuss Hertz’s educational, political and wartime activities, and his death in the war.

Death

The long essay on death is basically concerned with a number of interconnected themes that can be regarded as both reflecting Hertz’s Durkheimian intellectual roots and pointing to structuralism in the future. Its essential points are the following. First, death is a social phenomenon that causes a rent in the fabric of society through the loss of one of its members. Secondly, a ritual is required to mend the fabric. This ritual is therefore not primarily held to assuage feelings of loss on the part of the bereaved but, in accordance with Durkheimian theory, produces social sentiments and social knowledge to bind the members of the society together as a collectivity. Thirdly, the ritual has a structure which is interpreted by Hertz mostly in terms of two different mortuary rites. The first of these is concerned with the temporary disposal of the corpse, the second its permanent disposal, perhaps years later. In addition, the structure includes the period in between the two rites, during which the corpse, the soul and the bereaved are all in limbo. The corpse is physically changing, the soul is in transit to its final home, and the bereaved are in symbolic, though not usually social isolation. The second rite has as its main function the ending of this period of limbo in all three cases. In particular, the corpse is finally laid to rest, perhaps in a collective site with other ancestors; the soul finds its final home, perhaps in a similar, spiritual location; and the bereaved cease their mourning.

Clearly associated with these ideas are notions of suffering and evil. The very fact that society has lost a member may represent both. In Western terms, death is a source of suffering for the bereaved, but in other societies, where deaths may be routinely attributed to mystical attacks, such as witchcraft, it may also be a source of evil. As a consequence, the bereaved may be restricted in their social activities, may not be able to cook for themselves or even dress normally, or move physically for long periods, let alone remarry. They may be regarded as shunned by the gods – a situation that may even prove permanent, as with high-caste widows in India. This may be linked to ideas that, unless the bereaved mimic the deceased in some way, the latter will resent it and afflict the former. The bereaved may also attack one another, or even themselves, with weapons in an outpouring of symbolic anger, for example, in the way Durkheim describes Native Australians (1912a).

Another source of evil for Hertz is the corpse itself. For example, in Borneo the coffin may be sealed completely during the decay of the corpse, not for hygienic reasons, says Hertz, but to protect the survivors from mystical dangers – not, he is careful to point out, the soul itself here – arising from the putrefaction of the corpse. Elsewhere, as in many hunter-gatherer societies, the corpse is simply abandoned, perhaps for similar reasons. Conversely, the corpse may attract evil influences, such as spirits, rather than simply being the source of them. It therefore has to be protected, either physically (by washing, being dressed, closing its bodily orifices) or with spirit-scaring tactics (noise, fire etc.). The soul is potentially a danger to the living also, since it may cause them harm or alarm until it has found its final home. It may even try to leave it, missing as it does its ‘other half’, its old body. It is also likely to be confused, resentful, not fully aware of the loss of its body, seeking food in vain. Hence the food and drink left for it by the living, as well as the specific rites, such as keening or playing music or singing songs to it. These are designed to encourage it on its way. However, the experience is also one of suffering for the soul. Such is the reason for its danger to the living, and it may even suffer further from the very act of the flesh separating from the bones. Even greater suffering is attendant on souls who never, for some reason, find their final home, but who turn into ghosts and are destined to wander for ever. This may be either because something goes wrong with the ritual, or else relates to cases of accidental deaths, deaths away from home, suicides etc., when the body and soul may both be lost or destroyed prematurely. In these cases, says Hertz, there can be no second rite of disposal. Therefore the soul remains in permanent limbo, possibly much feared ever after by the living. Finally, the soul may be delayed in its path to its final home or rejected from it altogether, because of a need to purge sins incurred ...