Introduction: the bizarre and the mystical in modern society

The hidden dimension Psychological Orientations Outline

of organisation explanations science

and culturological

in sociology and political

The approach from political of the argument

anthropology

The hidden

dimension

of organisation

The view, implicit in the evolutionary formulations of Weber and others, that modern society is distinct from primitive society in being organised on the basis of contract, in being secular, rational, manipulative and impersonal, has recently been seriously challenged by many students of society. A rapidly accumulating body of evidence indicates that the bizarre and the exotic in the patterns of social behaviour are not the exclusive monopoly of pre-industrial societies. In many situations in modern society custom is as strange and as sovereign as it is in 'primitive' society. Scholars are now 'rediscovering' in modern society the existence and significance of an endless array of patterns of symbolic behaviour that have been for long associated exc1usivelywith 'primitive' society.

INTRODUCTION

In the field of interpersonal relationships, numerous studies have been carried out of extended kinship relations, different types of friendship, ritualised relationships, and a. host of other types of 'informal', non-contractual, relationships that pervade the whole fabric of social life. Extensive studies in the USA and UK show that a great deal of business is ~nged and regulated, not by the law of contract, but by non-contractual mechanisms. Studies of the City of London have indicated that millions of pounds worth of transactions are concluded daily without the use of documents, through the mechanisms of customary rules and practices that are observed within a distinct culture group-the City men. In the field of ritual, the revival of religious activities among a large proportion of the population of the USA has been reported by scholars. In the UK, although Sunday attendance in church has dwindled, the demand on organised religion for rites of passage continues with little change (Wilson 1969:22). About four million Americans and three-quarters of a million Britons are affiliatedwithin what has been described as the greatest secret society on earthFreemasonry (Dewar 1966). The overwhelming majority of these men are from the wealthy and professional classes. They meet periodically in then local centres and, behind the locked and wellguarded doors of their temples, they wear thecolourful and elaborately embroidered regalia, carry the jewels, swords and other emblems of office,and perform their 'ancient' rituals. These rituals, and the beliefs that are associated with them, are as dramatic and as strange as those found in any tribal society in Mrica. The 'rediscovery of the supernatural' has been discussed by many writers (see, for example, Berger 1969) and surveys of superstitious beliefs and practices in modern society have been made by others (see Jahoda 1969), indicating massive preoccupation with such esoteric activities as fortune telling, witchcraft and sorcery. In a recent official document, Sir John Foster reports that a large number of persons in Britain today are members of 'Scientology', a pseudo-religious, pseudo-scientific organisation (Foster 1971). One may also mention here the many types of 'hippy' groupings that have been formed during the last decade, with their own brands of ecstatic and mystical pursuits. Youths from Europe and the USA halt their university studies to trek reverendy to the mystics of the Orient hoping to find new formulae for explaining the meaning of life in modern society.
2

INTRODUCTION In numerous cases, ritual behaviour merges indistinguishably with so-called ceremonial behaviour. In every hour of the day public dramas are enacted by the state, by groups of all sorts, and by persons interacting with other persons. One may include under this heading such patterns of symbolic behaviour as those manifested ~n~nners, etiquette, dress, gift and visit exchanges, eating and dnnking together. As Goffman (1969) shows, all our behaviour is in fact couched in endless series of dramatic performances. . Another type of symbolic behaviour can be found in the organisatiOn of play of all sorts, sports and leisure-time activities. Yet another important related field of activity is that of popular art and drama that is daily presented to millions of people in cinemas, radio and television programmes, newspapers, books and on the stage. All this is true, not only of capitalist societies,as Marx maintained, but also of socialist societies that are officially organised under 'scientific communism'. Here emblems, slogans, banners, mass parades, tides, patriotic music and songs and, inevitably, the 'world view' of dialectical materialism-these and a host of all sorts of other symbolic forms play their part in the maintenance of the political order. The cost in time, effort and resources for both individuals and groups in staging and performing thes; symbolic activities is colossal. Psychological and culturological explanations

Some of these patterns of symbolic action have sometimes been explained, or rather eXplainedaway, historically, as 'cultural lags'. However, although many of them are indeed survivals from the past, they continue into the present, not because of inertia or of conservatism, but because they play important roles within the contemporary social settings. Indeed some of them are revived from the past to serve in the same way. Others are of recent origin and yet others are being continuously created for new, or for old, purposes. The history of a cultural trait will tell us very little about its social significance within the situation in which it is found at present. Thus as I show later (pp. 91-8), although ethnicity involves the extensive use of old customs and traditions, it is not itself the outcome of cultural conservatism or continuity. The continuities of customs are certainly there, but their functions have changed.

INTRODUCTION Within the contemporary situation ethnicity is essentially a political phenomenon, as traditional customs are used only as idioms and as mechanisms for political alignments. Similarly, although symbolic action is always involved in psychic processes, psychology cannot by itself explain the nature of th~se symbolic forms. Collective ritual is not the product of recurnng spontaneous individual creativity resulting from recurring psychic states. On the contrary, for the majority of people it is the ritual that recreates certain psychic states in the minds of the participants, not the other way round. The ritual might have been originally the spontaneous creation of an individual with excl.usive autonomous subjective experience, like a prophet or an artIst. But once the created symbols are adopted by a group, they are no longer subjective or individual. They become objective, in the sense that they confront the members of the group as things that exist outside their psyches and that will constrain them in their behaviour. They also become public, the collective representations of a.group. As I show later, psychology can certainly shed light on the n~ture of the psychic 'origin' of symbo~c action in g~neral. It ~ contrl?~te significandy towards the analysIs of symbolic and artistic creatlVlty and of the psychic experience which is i?du~ed .by the performan~e of ceremonials and rituals. But the socIal slgmficance of symbohc action can be discovered only when it is studied within the context of social relationships. Symbolic action is an essential process for the development of selfhood, but its patterns are provided by society and are always loaded with social consequences, many of which are unintended by the actors. Thus the same pattern of symbolic action has both psychological and social consequences at one and the sa~e time. To put it differendy, the same phenomenon, namely symbohc action, can be eXplained psychologically and sociologi~l!. But these explanations are different and are developed Wlthin two separate conceptual schemes. Even if they may sometimes support one another or shed light on one another, they should nevertheless be kept analytically separate and not confused one with the other (see Leach 1958; Gluckman 1964, 1968; Turner 1.964). . Some serious attempts have been made to explain symbolic forms in their own right, in terms of their own 'logic'. Two maj~r o~i~ntations can be mentioned here. The one of a number of mdiVldual scholars who envisage the development of a 'science of symbolic behaviour'. Some interesting, intelligent and imaginative formula-

INTRODUCTION tions in the 'interpretation' of symbolic forms have been made by these scholars. But these formulations have often been conjectural, non-verifiable, non-cumulative, 'meanings' attributed to symbols and are mostly arrived at by sheer intuitio~ an~ individual, gue~swork. The studies by these writers have mevl~bl~ been undIsciplined', in the sense that they have had ?o specifi~ alI~ or fr~~ of reference and have often wandered in different direCtions, m1Xmg metaphysics with logic, art, psychology, ~heology, lingui~tics. ~nd history, frequently marshalling impressIve arra~s of mspmng statements intuitions apt illustrations and quotatlOns. Above all, they offer ~o clear pro~ramme for furthe~ research a?~ no indic~tion how the subject is to be developed. I beheve that thIS ISwhy wnters like Langer (1964) and Geertz (1964), who hoped to develop such a science, complain of how little has been achiev~d. , . The other orientation is the more systematIc attempt by LeVlStrauss and by the proliferating 'school.s' of his followers, to ~xplain symbolic behaviour in te~s. of a 10glcal .s~ucture underlymg all human thinking. But, as I md1cate later, th1S 1Smade at the expense of ignoring the social actor - political m~n - wi~h the r~sult that the analysis fails to deal with the dynam1cs of mteraction betw~en men in society. Symbols in Levi-StrauSs's system are lOgical categories, while in the dynamics of socio-~l~al life they.are 'valences', being not only cognitive, but also ag1tative and conative.

Orientations in sociology and political science Symbolic action can be systematically analysed only when it is related to other variables with which it is significantly interconnected. Public, or collective, symbols are essentially objective and are intimately related to social factors. So~e. impo~ant contributions to their analysis have been made wIthin SOCI0~ogy. .As Parsons (1951:1-16) puts it, 'the. ce~tra~co~ce~n ~f, soc1?10!pcal theory is with the phenomena of mst1tutlOnalisatlOn. Inst1tutlOnalisation' writes Blau (1969:67, 71) 'refers to the processes that perpetuate a social pa~ern and make.it endure. . . and thus outlast the lives of human bemgs.' Underlymg the whole phenomenon of institutionalisation is the symbolisation process. Social relations are developed and maintained through symbolic forms an~ action. The great sociologists, among them Marx, Weber, Durkhe~m, Edmund Burke, greatly illuminated the sociologicalinterconnectIOnsbetween B 5

INTRODUCTION social relations and symbolic action. More recendy, some important contributions in this respect have been made by sociologists in the study of norms and vaJues, in the development of the sociology of religion, of art, ando thought systems. But a number of factors practical, theoretical, methodological and epistemological - have seriously thwarted the development of a sociology of symbolic behaviour (for a discussion of some of these problems see Duncan 1968 and 1969). Sociology has been developed in the study of the advanced socially differentiated industrial societies of the West. These are highly complex societies with a bewildering array of formal and of less formal groupings, representing a variety of interests, competing, federating and manoeuvring to achieve their ends. Often increasing differentiation and specialisation result in the separation between a group and its legitimating cult of symbolic formations. In this way ideologies become separately organised and the links between them and the groups that created them become blurred or 'hidden'. In due course the now autonomous symbolic cult is adopted by other interest groups and its function may thereby be drastically changed. More frequendy, the same cult can serve different interest groups, providing each with different organisational functions. Further differentiation leads to the fragmentation of the cult into specialised sectors, each promoted by a separate organisation. An interest group may thus construct its cult from drawing on the formulations and services of different cult organisations like churches. For example, in their efforts to articulate an informal organisation to co-ordinate their political activities, the Creoles of Sierra Leone have adopted a variety of beliefs and practices from organised church religion, from the Freemasonic order, and from other specialised organisations (for details see below pp. 83-4, 17-9, 112-18). The complexity resulting from all this is further intensified through the dynamics of change which affect the different elements of a group organisation differently, so that some elements will change, while others will hardly change, though their functions may alter. And, as these societies are large in scale, a holistic view of symbolic forms and social relationships will be almost impossible. At the same time, sociologists hav~ inevitably been forced to specialise, some in different types of social relations, others - few in number in symbolic systems. And as sociologists have often been keen to develop their research on 'scientific lines', they tended

INTRODUCTION to apply rigorous quantification to the phenomena they studied. Gradually this has led to a concentration on easily quantifiable phenomena and to the neglect of phenomena that are not given to intensive quantitive analysis. As symbolic formations and action are essentially dramatistic and are thus not given to direct and precise measurement, less and less sociologists have bothered to study them. Imperceptibly, the phenomena that are not studied come to be regarded as sociologically insignificant and this perpetuates further the view that modem society is predominandy secular, manipulative and rational. But how will the process of institutionalisation, which is regarded as the central concern of sociological theory, be analysed without the detailed analysis of symbolic forms and action? Political science solvesthe problems of institutional differentiation and of scale by concentrating on the study of one variable-power, within the total universe of the state. Instead of studying the vaguely conceived 'social relationships' with which sociology is concerned, it concentrates on the study of power relationships, of subordination, superordination, and equality in various combinations. But of course this solution is accomplished by political science at the expense of its becoming an essentially descriptive endeavour. In the words of one of its practitioners (Young 1968:5), its effort is mainly 'to delineate relevant phenomena, to generate useful classificationsand breakdowns, and to pinpoint the important characteristics of political activities'. Furthermore, even the descriptive picture tends in the work of many political scientists to be limited to the organisation and activities of the state and of formally organised groupings within the state. Some political scientists extend the domain of their study to include the political aspects of formally non-political institutions, such as religion, and thereby come closer to the study of the relation between symbolic action and power relations. Some of them have been concerned with the study of'influence', usually that of business, within local communities. Others have studied political, mainly state, symbols. But these studies have been marginal and the scholars engaged in them are often branded as 'political sociologists'. Their research has been fragmentary, without forming a special 'school' through the accumulation of their findings. Their analysis has not been systematic. Above all, they suffer from an implicit assumption that political symbols are consciously intended symbols 7

INTRODUCTION and when some of them write of 'politicalsocialisation'their accounts are mechanical and unidimensional. And this leads the discussion to another major difficulty in the study of symbolism in modern society. Most of sociology and political science have been developed by scholars studying their own societies. This means that these scholars are themselves personally caught up in the same body of symbols which they try to decode. Most symbols are largely rooted in the unconscious mind and are thus difficult to identify and analyse by people who live under them. Ai; the proverb says: It is hardly a fish that can discover the existence of water. The very concepts and categories of thought which sociologists and political scientists employ in their analysis are themselves part of the very political ideology which they try to understand. It is true that this paradox (Mannheim 1936) can to some extent be resolved by the slow, cumulative, empirical and comparative research. But little has been achieved in this way so far. This is not only because sociologists and political scientists are directed in the choice of problems for research by the donors of research funds (usually interest groups, including the state) and by the current problems of the day. But because there is an element of nihilism in this line of research. Symbols are essential for the development and maintenance of social order. To do their job efficiendy their social functions must remain largely unconscious and unintended by the actors. Once these functions become known to the actors, the symbols lose a great deal of their efficacy.This is one of the reasons why students of society are often so 'revolutionary'. But against this, it can be argued that the symbols of society are manipulated by interest groups for their own benefits and that unless we understand the nature of the symbols and of the ways in which they are manipulated we shall be exploited without our knowledge. This of course is a meta-sociological issue, concerning the uses of sociology. But the paradox that Mannheim posed is there and it is a problem that is at the basis of all social science, more particularly so at the basis of any politico-symbolic analysis. The approach from political anthropology The methodological problems of differentiation, scale and the paradox of sociologicalknowledge that have impeded the develop8

INTRODUCTION ment of a sociology of symbolic behaviour, have ~een e~sil~ overcome by social anthropologists in the course of theIr s~dles l~ preindustrial societies. These societies have had relatIvely sImple technologies, little institutional differentiation, and have been small in scale. The anthropologist working on them has very often been a stranger from a different culture, .and .was thu~ in a.better position than either the nati~e ?r the soclOloglSt ~tudymg. his own society to study the social slgmficance of symbohc behavlOur. I must hasten to say that even under these methodologically and epistemologically favourable conditio~s,. s~cial anthropology has not yet developed into a well-defined dlsclplme. S~me ?f wha~ ~oes on under its banner is descriptive ethnography wIth httle ongmal analysis or theory. Sociologists are sometimes right in saying that what saves some anthropologists is their ethnography. Readers of anthropological monographs usually find intrinsic interest in the accounts of the strange customs of other peoples, even when they find little or no theory in these monographs. If you take ~way ethnography from some anthrop?logi~al.monograph~ ~here will be very little left which is of sociologIcal slgmfica?ce. This IS~~ly pardy due to the emphasis placed by anthropologIsts on e~pmcal fiel~ data and to their initial reservations against speculatIve armchal1' theorising. Social anthropology be~an by critic~sing s~ciology for having a methodology but no subject-matter; It has It~elf so. far ended by having a great deal of subject-matter ~ut relatIvely li~e methodology or theory. Indeed a few leading .s~~lal anthropol~gtsts have expressed serious doubts about the posslblhty of developmg a science of society, and Evans-Pritchard (1963) h.as g?ne so far as.to state that a whole century of extensive studIes m comparatIve sociology and anthropology has yielded not a. single form~latio~
.

similar to those discovered by the natural SCIences.And, m his

recent Frazer Lecture George Murdock (1972) described all theorising in anthropol~gy as being mythologi~al, philosop~ical. or theological, and concluded that anthropology s only contrIbutIon to knowledge is its colossal ethnography. ., . These extreme views however are concerned prmclpally With problems facing all the social sciences and not anthrop~logy a!one. Despite its many shortcomings, social anthropology ha~ made Im~o~nt achievements in the sociological analysis of symbohsm. Consldermg the small number of its practitioners and the very limited resources that have been allocated to its development, it has been unique in the

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION customs of those cultures, but to gain insights into the meaning of the life of man in contemporary society, the rational and the nonrational in his behaviour, his creativity and destructiveness, his potentialities and his ultimate destiny. Equally symptomatic, though for different reasons, are the increasing difficulties which anthropologists encounter now in getting access to their 'traditional subject-matter'. The new states of the Third World have accumulated a strong dislike of anthropolO"gists whom they often associate with reaction and imperialism. Although many of these states can and do benefit a great deal from the work of anthropologists, they are more interested in the study of the problems of the day: economic development, political modernisation, urbanisation, migration and employment. It has recently become difficult - in some cases indeed impossible - for anthropologists to get entrance permits to many of the developing countries. Even when an anthropologist is 'fostered' by a university department in the country where he wants to do research, he has to wait for several months to get an entry permit. Although this seems to be an unreasonable policy on the part of those governments, it can easily be seen as an index to a fundamental bias in anthropology, resulting from the. experience of the colonial period. Until very recently, the anthropologist has usually been a citizen of the colonial power while those studied by him have been natives of colonies or of former colonies. This has been imperceptibly built into the very methodology and concepts of field work and of analysis. Even when a few anthropologists carried out their studies within developed countries, or within their own countries, they were led by a number of factors to study groupings that are regarded as low in social status, like farming settlements, working-class urban centres and immigrants from underdeveloped countries. The same tendency has been observed within sociology itself. Sociological 'field work' has very often been carried out by sociologists from a middle-class social background among working-class populations. More significant than these 'exterior' factors is the theoretical and methodological cross-roads at which social anthropology finds itself. There are many social anthropologists who are no longer satisfied with mere correlations between institutions within a static structure, or system, but seek now to probe deeper into the processes of institutionalisation itself, into the underlying nature of obligation, into the all-pervading processes of symbolisation and hence ofthe II

whole h!story of socio-cultural studies in that it has produced a cumulanve body of hypotheses about the social significance of the symbolism of 14nship, ritual and ceremonial. It can thus shed substantial light on the nature and processes of institutionalisation ~thin a wide comparative perspective. What is more, anthropologts~s :u-e no ~onger confining themselves to. the study of tribal SOCIenes. heir research now extends to cover peasant societies T under the great literate traditions of Islam, Hinduism Buddhism and Christianity. There is already a great deal of anthropological literature on communities in India, Burma, the Middle East North Mrica and Latin America. In Mrica and elsewhere researdh is no longer confined to rural areas but is being carried out also in urban centres to deal with more intensive and complex areas of social life where the struggle for economic and political power within the framework of modern state organisations is intense. As Firth points out (195~:18), altho~gh its techniques are 'micro-sociological', its formulanons. can be macro-sociological'. But the question should still be explored whether social anthropol?~ can .adapt its~lf t~ th.e s~dy ~f mo?ern, large-scale complex soc~enes wtth?~t lost~g tts tdenttty, I.e. WIthout thereby becoming. socIOlogy,pohncal SCIence economics. or S~al anthrop?logists. are themselves being. forced by a variety ?f CIrcumstancesmto facmg this question. The 'primitive' societies I~ w,hosestudy they ha~e specialised are being rapidly incorporated WIthin the new developmg states whose formal struc:ture is similar to that of the more developed countries. The need to analyse the processes underlying socio-cultural change in both the developing and the developed societies has become crucial. It is symptomatic of ~ll this that students of anthropology are no longer mtellectually stImulated by ethnographic subject-matter alone. Many o~them now come to the university after having been exposed to foreIgn cultures, and the accounts of the bizarre customs of traditional tribal societies no longer excite their imagination. In the age of the jumbo jet, of international youth organisations, of schemes for the exchange of students between countries and of mass media of information and communication, ethnography is no longer news. The lesson of cultural relativism that our culture is not the only valid one, has already sunk in. indeed some of our youth continue to be concerned with exotic cultures but, paradoxically enough, they do so in an attempt, not to learn about the
10

INTRODUCTION dialectics of socio-cultural change. And this calls for the development of a more dynamic, more experimental, more analytical approach, than that of 'structural-functionalism' which has hitherto prevailed in one form or another. The main' obstacle to the development of such a dynamic approach is that during its formative years social anthropology was conceived in such a way as to make its methods and concepts applicable to the study of mainly 'primitive' societies. This was neatly summed up by Fortes (1953:38) in his inaugural lecture in Cambridge in 1952: The theoretically significant features of primitive societies are their homogeneity of culture, relative stability and lack of institutional differentiation. Wherever these characteristics occur together the theories and methods of social anthropology can be applied.

INTRODUCTION theoretical issues involved by adopting the motto: 'we are all sociologists' . But many others who for ('ne reason or another are commi~ed to the social anthropological approach, and who are at the same tIme interested in the study of modern complex society, are now probing into the potentialities of their concepts and techniques for the study of contemporary industrial society. This is of course not just a matter of labelling disciplines. Academically it will make little or no difference whether the analysis of socio-symbolic interdependence will be regarded as part of sociology or of political science or of social anthropology. The problem is much deeper than that. Social anthropology is not the sociology of primitive society any more than sociology is the social anthropology of modern society. Anthropologists specialise in the systematic observation and analysis of the drama of custom, or of symbolic behaviour generally. They pose major questions about man, society and culture, but seek to tackle these questions t~rough intensive field work in small areas of social life and through ngorous comparative analysis developed in the course of extensive cumulative experience in the study of a variety of cultural codes in different parts of the world. The first line for probing into the potentialities of social anthropology in the analysis of the dynamics of socia-symbolic phenomena in contemporary industrial society is to re-examine the major methodological and theoretical assumptions of this discipline in the light of nearly four decades of cumulative developments in both theory and subject-matter.

The implications for the study of complex society are obvious. As this society is culturally heterogeneous, continually changing, and institutionally differentiated, the theories and methods of social anthropology do not apply. This view fitted well with the evolutionary formulations of the great sociologistsof the turn of the century, who saw a significant qualitative difference between the sociocultural nature of primitive society and that of industrial complex society. Primitive society was said to be regulated by non-rational customs, while industrial society was said to be dominated by the rationality of bureaucracy. Social anthropology and sociology were branches of comparative sociology. The one was concerned with the sociology of primitive society; the other with the sociology of industrial society. During the 1960s some anthropologists drew the obvious conclusions. Those of them who continued to be interested in the study of 'primitive' societiespursued the rapidly shrinking number of such societies, either by concentrating on the study of more remote and more isolated populations or by <::onfiningthemselves to the 'traditional sector' of the less remote places, or by reconstructing the traditional past of such societies. Some of those who were interested in the study of complex society on the other hand opted out into sociology,and in the UK a number of these have eventually succeeded in capturing strategic chairs in sociology in the universities, often very much to the annoyance of the newly established sociologists. Other anthropologists have tended to avoid the
12

Outline of the argument This will be discussed in the next two chapters which argue that the central theoretical problem in social anthropology has been the analysis of the diale.cticalrelations between two major variables: symbolic action and power relationships. A concentration on the study of only one of these variables results in mere description. Only when the relationsbetween the two domains are studied can significant analysis be made. Chapter 4 deals with the nature of the obligatory, of the impelling 'ought', in symbolic aCtion, in order to indicate the dialectical relation between the political on the one hand and the psychic and 13

INTRODUCTION metaphysical on the other. Two sources of the obligatory that are common to both 'primitive' and industrial man are discussed. The first is the continuous struggle of manto achieve personal identity, or selfhood. The second is his concern with the perennial problems of human existence, like life and death, fortune and misfortune. On both fronts man resorts to symbolic action, in the course of which he continuously creates and recreates his oneness, and also develops solutions to the big, essentially irresolvable, questions of existence. Man is thus impelled to create symbols and to engage continuously in symbolic activities. But individual creativity is limited and most men depend for the most part on the symbolic patterns given to them by the groups to which they belong and by society generally. These groups often manipulate not only the symbols that they hand over to the individual but also the intensity of man's 'need' for these symbols. For example, death, which poses a perennial problem for all men, is heavily symbolised and ceremonialised in some societies and much less so in others. In the one case it is highly dramatised, exaggerated and brought frequently to men's attention, while in others it is much less emphasised. Chapter 5 shows how under certain structural circumstances some interest groups which cannot organise themselves as formal associations manipulate different forms of symbols in order to articulate informal organisational functions. Everywhere, Man the Symbolist and Man the Political act on one another. Often, different forms of symbols are exploited to achieve one organisational function and one ,form of symbols is exploited to articulate different organisational functions. The discussion covers both the basic organisational functions of interest groups and the various symbolic forms that are often exploited to articulate them. The abstract formulations of the first five chapters are finally discussed in terms of ethnographic case studies in chapter 6. This concentration of documentation and illustration in a final part of the monograph, instead of spreading the material in the text, has been made in order to avoid giving haphazard, though plausible, 'apt illustrations' taken out of their context. For the benefit of general readers who are not familiar with abstract anthropological concepts and detailed ethnography, cross-references to the ethnographic cases are given in the earlier parts of the text. To ease the difficulty further, the following paragraphs give a brief survey of the cases.

INTRODUCTION All the cases cited are of-interest groups that for some reason or another cannot organise themselves formally. The different types of cases are meant to demonstrate how different symbolic forms are adopted to articulate the sameorganisational functions under different conditions. First to be considered are interest groups that exploit ethnicity in their organisation in the ~ontemporary situati?n. These groups manipulate values, myths, ntuals and ceremomals from their cultural tradition to solve their basic organisational problems.To the casual observer ethnicity is taken as a manifestatio~ of conservatism, separatism and stagnation, when on careful analysIS we discover that it is a dynamic organisational mechanism involving intensive interaction with other groups. Ethnicity is shown to be essentially a political phenomenon. Ethnicity is presented first, because it th~ows into relief, or rat~er dramatises, the more general, but less obvIous, processes by ~hIch the symbolic patterns of behaviour implicit in the style of hfe, or the 'sub-culture', of a group develops to achieve basic organisational functions. This is shown in the contrasting case of the culture of the apparently highly individualistic groups of elites, with a particular attention to the business elite of the City of Londo~. Here, the elite speak the same language and presumably partake m the same culture of the wider society, but when one looks closely into their style of life one will discover subtle peculiarities - in accent, manner of linguistic expression, style of dress, pattern~ of friendship and of marriage, etiquette, manners - that are orgamsationally instrumental in developing boundaries, communication, and other mechanisms for the organisation of the group. The elite thus co-ordinate their corporate activities through their style of life. In the C;lses of both ethnicity and eliteness, different symbolic forms are combined to achieve the same organisational functions. In contrast the third group of cases demonstrate the varied organisation~l potentialities of one symbolic form - religion. Here it is shown how religious beliefs, sentiments, rituals and organisation become also instrumental in co-ordinating the corporate organisation of interest groups. This is followed by cases of articulation of informal organisation in terms of secret symbolic activities. A detailed case study of Freemasonry among the Creoles of Sierra Leone serves to indicate how highly privileged groups almost everywhere pla~e great emphasis on 'privacy' as means of preventing general publics from 15

14

INTRODUCTION discovering the organisational mechanisms that enable these groups to develop and maintain their privileged position. In all political systems, the men at the top develop a 'mystique' which raises them above the 1p.ul~tude, validates their status in the eyes of their publics and also conVlnces the men themselves of their own 'right' to their superior position in the society. The final group of cases presented involve organisational articulati?n. through the manipulation of female symbolism. In nearly all sOCIeties a number of roles and characteristics of womanhood are manipulated to develop the female image into one of the most po~ent s~bols which is eXploited in a variety of ways in the organisation of interest groups and in the struggle for power between ide~logy :vhich might originally be an essentially male them: creation IS umversal~sed -and validated in terms of myths, values and norms that are inculcated, through continual socialisation in the females of the society as well. Women bear children and thus affect recruitment to groups, are productive workers in the household or outside it, provide sexual pleasure for men, are usually entrusted with the socialisation of the young and can thus affect their se?timents, loyalties and style of life, ensure stable domestic ~nd sOClo-cultural arrangements to enable males to be mobile, and in. many. places can hold property in their own right and can thus alIenate It fr~m men to men through inheritance. This multiplicity and. compleXity of values, contradictory meanings, sensuality and sentIments, and a host of other characteristics of womanhood have ma?~ it possible to transform the female 'mystique' into a powerful polItical symbol. The pattern of the movement of women in marriage in and between groups is intimately interconnected with the ?istribution of power in society. Relations of affinity established in ~ne ge?er~tIon generate relationships of matrilaterality and patrllaterality I~ the next. The alliance established by the marriage bec.omes a cousinhood. The men become. closely interrelated in a vanety of ways. Three cases from different socio-cultural contexts are .discusse?: The first is of a small number of wealthy AngloJ~wlsh famIlIes who started, at about the beginning of the mneteenth century, to exchange their women in marriage and thus developed within a few decades into a 'cousinhood alliance' which was used as an organisational mechanism in the efforts to r~move the civic disabilities from which Jews suffered at the time. The next case shows how the Creoles of Sierra Leone

INTRODUCTION

developed a 'cousinhood network' - again through the exchange of women between families - which they use in the development and maintenance of their privileged position within Sierra Leone society.. The final case demonstrates how in some Arab communities in Israel, the collectivity of men, who are manifestly organised as a patrilineage, is in fact an alliance created by a sustained pattern of marriage whereby the same men exchange a substantial proportion of their daughters and sisters in marriage. A whole cult of 'honour of women' is developed in the process as a mechanism for ensuring the maintenance of this pattern of marriage and hence of the interests that it serves. The same men become intensively linked and cross linked by patrilateral, matrilateral and affinal relationships. In the conclusion, the discussion is brought to bear on the symbolism of power relationships in the large-scale modem industrial society generally. Classes are the figments of the imagination of sociologists. What actually exist are large numbers of interest groups of different scales and political significance, which can be ranged on one continuum, from the most formally organised to the most informally organised, with most of the groups falling in between, being partly formal and partly informal. Political anthropology specialises in unfolding the political implications of symbolic formations and activities - the 'mumbo-jumbo' of modem society - which are manifestly non-political, in the informal organisation of interest groups. It can thus make an important contribution to the social sciences in the systematic analysis of the dynamic processes involved in the institutionalisation and symbolisation of power relationships.

16

17