Walter Goldschmidt - Understanding Human Society

UNDERSTANDING HUMAN SOCIETY

Founded by KARL MANNHEIM

SOCIAL THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
In 22 Volumes

by
WALTER GOLDSCHMIDT

First published in 1960
by Routledge

Reprinted in 1998, 2001 by Routledge
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or
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First issued in paperback 2010

1959 Walter Goldschmidt

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Understanding Human Society
ISBN 9780415175210 (hbk)
ISBN 9780415605090 (pbk)
Social Theory and Methodology: 22 Volumes
ISBN 9780415178181
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 9780415178389

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

UNDERSTANDING HUMAN SOCIETY

T HIS BOOK examines both the manner in which men live and the route that man has traversed through time. In order to understand mans cultural development, one must also understand the way he lives, and in order to understand his ways, one must know the road he has traveled.

Mans way, in the first sense, is to live in a society of fellow men, according to established custom. Mans commitment to social existence has consequences, and in this book we set forth the general features of all societies. While customculture, in modern anthropological parlancesets down the details of proper social behavior in any one time and place, custom is itself shaped by these requirements of social life.

Mans way, in the second sense, has been an evolutionary development involving the greater and greater mastery of the physical world. This has enabled him not only to spread into all quarters of the globe, but also to increase in numbers and to live in ever larger aggregates. This, in turn, has created new and different problems in the organization of society, and has required different ways of living.

The character and evolution of social forms is our concern, but man himself is at the center of our interests. To have a proper view of society requires a proper concept of the human animal. Therefore we boldly put forth our assumption that man is by nature committed to social existence, and is therefore inevitably involved in the dilemma between serving his own interests and recognizing those of the group to which he belongs. Insofar as this dilemma can be resolved, it is resolved by the fact that mans self-interest can best be served through his commitment to his fellows.

Mans way is a hard one, a faltering one. It is hard because the commitment to social existence and the dependence upon accumulated culture place limitations upon the free operation of self-interest; it is faltering because the manifestations of self-interest within the cultural milieu have not always served the ends of continued survival or continuous growth. But through time and with many false moves and casualties, man has gained an increasing mastery of his world. And with each successive step forward on the technological level, new problems have required new solutions, some technical but many social. In meeting these social problems, man has founded a wide variety of cultural forms, of which many have been recurrent because they are the obvious solutions to the demands placed upon social existence.

Modern society is a product of this evolution, a process that continues to operate with all its force. We are witness to the emergence of a new kind of society, made both possible and necessary by the magnificent development of our technical competence, which has given time and space new meanings and which, too, has created such destructive powers that warfare is no longer a luxury that the species can afford. These developments make it necessary for us to evolve the institutions requisite for social life in this new world. Since social evolution (unlike biological) can proceed through mans own conscious efforts, an understanding of the nature of human society can be useful to the survival of mankind.

In this book we are concerned with the understanding itself; not with problems of amelioration; not with programs of action. It is one of the universal features of social systems that man provides himself with a mode of explaining the events around him. The modern cosmology is scientific, and the understanding of man and his social environment must fit this system of scientific understanding. We sometimes feel that the modern scholar, interested in contributing to the understanding of some segment of the universe, is the direct descendant of those priests along the ancient Nile, whose astronomical observations were concerned first and foremost with a comprehension of the world, but whose accumulated understanding (however faulty) made possible the prediction of the seasons of inundation of that life-giving river. Thus their understanding contributed to the welfare of their society. So, too, with the modern sciences. So too, perhaps, with the understanding of human society.