The Ju Ju of War

[Tom OC]

If not the iron cage, then basically I am suggesting an application of the ideas in Weber's Protestant Ethic for battling Islamist extremism. My reasoning goes like this. Since any theocratic system, in order to exist, must have convenience for a politico-economic system, then the more specialization that occurs on the theological side of the house, the more bureaucratization, and hence more modernity, occurs on the politico-economic side of the house. This should explain or expand on what I suggested. In practical terms, it means encouragement of sectarianism, as well as other forms of specialization, rather than discouragement of theological differences. The resultant tendency of the spiritual mind to "exhaust" itself, so to speak, while trying to comprehend all the theological specialties would force a "practical" turn toward secularism. I'm just applying Weber as I understand that kind of sociology.

[tequila]

That sounds somewhat disturbing in practice. The sort of spiritual "exhaustion" that accompanied the turn towards the Enlightenment in Europe (certainly not the Reformation) came atop the corpses of a third of Germany's population, to mention just one of many sectarian conflicts in Western European Christianity's past. The sort of upheaval that sort of "exhaustion" would entail would not be tolerated by the West, not least for the disruptions it would cause the world economy.

This idea that Western secularism holds the magic key for a Middle Eastern future strikes me as a little implausible in the short term, the short term being defined as anytime in the next fifty years or so. It was once viewed that way before. Not so coincidentally, fifty years ago the most popular and powerful Shi'i movement in Iraq was the Communist Party, as Hanna Batutu documented in exhausting detail. Western secularism is identified today in the Arab world with dictators like Hosni Mubarak and Bashir al-Assad. Not the best or most popular models.

[Tom OC]

I was just pondering some application of Weber's ideas. There's no necessity for "exhaustion" nor sectarianism. The goal of inner-worldly asceticism could be accomplished by other means. For example, a plain ole work ethic might do. One of the appeals of Islamist, other-worldly mysticism is the principle of least effort, a kind of non-participation, if you will, driven by hedonistic desires. In my mind, it was Parsons who had Weber down the best in this regard, not so much in reconciling hedonism with sociological peace, but in devising a system of action (adaptation) involving willful participation in community affairs. However, as Parsonian systems rely so heavily on pre-existant norms and roles, the problem comes back to conflict with customs and folkways (or maybe I've got this conflict stated wrong). I only have an undergraduate degree in anthropology. Can somebody fill me in on what conflict I'm doing so badly at describing?

[Rex Brynen]

One of the appeals of Islamist, other-worldly mysticism is the principle of least effort, a kind of non-participation, if you will, driven by hedonistic desires.

This hardly seems to describe any of the Islamists that I know...

[Tom OC]

Well, Rex. Sorry that other-worldly mysticism and non-participative least effort doesn't seem to describe any Islamist you know, but the processes I'm describing operate at a level which is not manifested in full consciousness. This is to say that the Islamists themselves would not be aware of them. A similar and related process would be cognitive dissonance. However, I will point out some features that are more manifest. The other-wordly mysticism feature is most apparent in the Sufist and Mahdist sects, but also among jihadists as an interpretation of Koran 78:31 pointing to the reward of virgins in heaven for martyrs. A good book that covers the cosmic overtones as they apply to all Islamists is Juergensmeyer, M. (2001). Terror in the mind of God. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. With regard to what I meant by non-participative least effort, the more visible part would be attributional error and bias, such as a tendency to blame others for what are essentially one's own problems. The tendency to "take the easy way out" both in interpretation and attribution has been discussed by both Gerges, F. (2005). The far enemy: Why jihad went global. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press, and Roshandel, J. (2006). Jihad and international security. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. In my field of expertise (criminology), non-participativeness is like being a dropout from society. It involves a withdrawal of legitimacy or sense of alienation from existing institutions and creates a mindset of anticipatory failure if one were to try participating to change things via the status quo. Hence, terrorism is a lot like crime in this regard, but getting back to Weber, it would seem that affording wannabe jihadists some inner-worldly preoccupations (like the study of psychology or social science) along with affording more opportunities to participate in community groups would go a long way. That's all I was suggesting.

[skiguy]

This is to say that the Islamists themselves would not be aware of them. A similar and related process would be cognitive dissonance

That doesn't really make sense. If going by the standard definition of cognitive dissonance, then how can they not be aware? The same can be said about the Christian religion too.

[Rex Brynen]

I think we probably have to differentiate here between Islamists and Islamists.

There are those Islamists--al-takfir wa-l-hijra in Egypt in the 1980s being the most obvious example, but including many AQ elements--for whom separation from society, and other-wordly rewards, are of importance.

However, the vast bulk of Islamists--including not only Muslim Brotherhood non-violent types, but also (say) armed groups like Hamas and Hizbullah—are deeply engaged in their societies, at all levels. They are, to borrow Putnam, certainly not "bowling alone." Indeed, much of their broader popular appeal is due to their perceived social commitment and "work ethic."

[marct]

Hi Tom,

If not the iron cage, then basically I am suggesting an application of the ideas in Weber's Protestant Ethic for battling Islamist extremism. My reasoning goes like this. Since any theocratic system, in order to exist, must have convenience for a politico-economic system, then the more specialization that occurs on the theological side of the house, the more bureaucratization, and hence more modernity, occurs on the politico-economic side of the house.

Honestly, I think you are misreading Weber, here. His Protestant Ethic was an explanation (erkennen) situated in a very specific space-time locus. It was not a generic explanation but, rather, a particular one centered around the development of a theological justification for a way in which people could find clues to their salvific status. In order to operate, it requires that individual knowledge of salvation be a) predestined and b) not specifically knowable (i.e. unachievable via works or practice). And yet, the second criterion is contradicted in almost all branches of Islam.

Secondl, you are assuming tat theocratic systems must "have convenience for a politico-economic system", but this is not true. It relies on two assumptions that are invalid: a) that the social system that is quite bounded and, b) that the political-economic system dominates the symbol system. Neither of these assumptions is valid at the present time. For example, economic globalization disproves the first, while there are countless examples disproving the second (in all cases, the symbol system creates alternate political-economic systems that eliminate the ones that disagree with them).

Third, the belief that increasing specialization leads to increasing bureaucracy is also invalid: Islam has a far greater range of law that Christianity does, and yet it has not produced many secularized states.

The resultant tendency of the spiritual mind to "exhaust" itself, so to speak, while trying to comprehend all the theological specialties would force a "practical" turn toward secularism. I'm just applying Weber as I understand that kind of sociology.

Honestly, I just don't see that happening. Why would this happen? Historically, there are very few societies that have highly significant percentages of their populations involved in "spiritual" matters (pre-invasion Tibet was one). The far more probable result, at least historically speaking, is the development of either an ecclesiam type of structure or a mass fragmentation.

One of the appeals of Islamist, other-worldly mysticism is the principle of least effort, a kind of non-participation, if you will, driven by hedonistic desires.

I think that this is a characteristic of almost every religion, at least in potential. Still and all, it is also usually held by a very small percentage of any population.

In my mind, it was Parsons who had Weber down the best in this regard, not so much in reconciling hedonism with sociological peace, but in devising a system of action (adaptation) involving willful participation in community affairs. However, as Parsonian systems rely so heavily on pre-existant norms and roles, the problem comes back to conflict with customs and folkways (or maybe I've got this conflict stated wrong). I only have an undergraduate degree in anthropology. Can somebody fill me in on what conflict I'm doing so badly at describing?

Well, there is an argument, which I tend to agree with, that Parsons systematically "slanted" his translations of Weber to mesh in with his own models. Also, as an historical note, Parsons really didn't have that much to do with Anthropology. He spent one term studying with Malinowski at the LSE (Michaelmas term, 1927), and never really got what Malinowski was saying.

A large part of Parsons' problem was that he was locked into a top-down model of functionalism. So, using your example, he sets up a conflict between norms and roles on the one hand with customs and folkways on he other. Unfortunately, what he never got was that neither of them is "naturally" better or more apropos - they are, in actual fact, exactly the same thing differing only in where they derive their legitimacy from (tradition or imposition).

[Tom OC]

Regarding Parsons (forgetting Durkheim and Weber for now), isn't it true that a symbolic media of exchange, like making money or engaging in legitimate economic behavior, serves to connect components of the social action system? And, that socio-political justifications for this kind of legitimate behavior serve to create more generalized norms and values that move a society from reliance on traditions, customs, and folkways into a more modernized, organic solidarity form? I would agree that a crude application of Durkheim or Weber's ontology would be disasterous. The real ju-ju is where the money is. Can I talk Parsons here, as it applies to say, modernization or nation building?

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Regarding Parsons (forgetting Durkheim and Weber for now), isn't it true that a symbolic media of exchange, like making money or engaging in legitimate economic behavior, serves to connect components of the social action system? And, that socio-political justifications for this kind of legitimate behavior serve to create more generalized norms and values that move a society from reliance on traditions, customs, and folkways into a more modernized, organic solidarity form? I would agree that a crude application of Durkheim or Weber's ontology would be disasterous. The real ju-ju is where the money is. Can I talk Parsons here, as it applies to say, modernization or nation building?

Always glad to "talk Parsons" . I spent a couple of years early on in my Ph.D. studies reading his work (an that was a fight, let me tell you!). I came to the conclusion that there were several fatal flaws in his model, the most glaring of which was its top-down formulation and extremely narrow limits of applicability. Put simple, it's excellent for post-diction and lousy for prediction (i.e. statistically indistinguishable from random chance for prediction). It took me a while to figure out why this was but, once I did, it became glaringly apparent: Parsons had inverted social causality (I often suspected that this is why Merton pushed mid-range theory so much).

So let me answer your questions in order, but from a Malinowskian perspective.

Regarding Parsons (forgetting Durkheim and Weber for now), isn't it true that a symbolic media of exchange, like making money or engaging in legitimate economic behavior, serves to connect components of the social action system?

For Malinowski, symbolic media are fairly high order cultural responses that serve to integrate institutions. But "integration", for Malinowski, is not the same as symbiosis; there can (and will) be conflict between institutions, and the very basis of institutions are subject to change brought about by shifts in their operational environments. This creates a "social action system" (to use Parson's term) that is radically different from the type that parsons conceived; it is more fluid and unstable.

that socio-political justifications for this kind of legitimate behavior serve to create more generalized norms and values that move a society from reliance on traditions, customs, and folkways into a more modernized, organic solidarity form?

Again, for Malinowski, the generative source of norms, values, customs, traditions and folkways is the same: institutions. As institutional conflict changes the relative social status of institutions, some of these gain greater influence than others, but that influence is dependent upon the continuing influence of their institutional base (as a note, Andrew Abbott's work on Professions falls in here quite nicely).

The shift to "modernized, organic solidarity" is, in many ways, a chimera. If we go back to Durkheim's original formulation of these categories, it's readily apparent that it is a distinction built on "0" and "everything else", where "mechanical solidarity" = 0 differences, and organic solidarity = everything else. But, since Durkheim didn't bother to actually look at any of the fieldwork coming out at the time, he didn't realize that even the most "primitive" groups (e.g. the Andermani Islanders according to the then in vogue classifications) had a quite complex system of social stratification and, to use his own terms, "organic solidarity". He had fallen into a classical trap of assuming Rousseau's "Noble Savage" was the true state of primeval man, which it wasn't.

As a result of this mistake, Durkheim ended up creating a dichotomous analytical variable, mechanical vs. organic solidarity, that had no basis in actual fact. I think he actually recognized this problem with his introduction to the 2nd edition of The Division of Labour in Society when he introduced the concept of intermediate organizations and, de facto, converted mechanical and organic solidarity into a sliding scale rather than a crisp dichotomy.

Parsons seems to have built on this sliding scale version but, IMHO, he completely missed the ball on the actual role played by Durkheim's "intermediate structures" (Malinowski's "institutions" more or less). He then compounded this error but adopting an uncritical and highly biased reading of Weber's concepts in routinization of authority. In particular, notice that Parsons ascribes charismatic authority to past operations and seems to leave out its potential for current or future operations. This was probably his most serious flaw, and it is my guess that this is the man reason why Parsonian theory was pretty much tossed on the scrap heap during the 1960's.

A second major flaw in Parsons theoretical model was that, because of his misreading of Weber and Malinowski, he assumed a unilineal form of evolution for societies from "traditional" to "modern". (I suspect that if Parsons had been better read in history he would not have fallen into that trap but, as one of my old mentors once noted, he had an ego the size of Texas .) His belief that society would become more "modern", and his assumptions as to what that meant, made his theoretical model unable to withstand the rapid shifts that happened in the 1960's and 1970's.

One of the most pernicious assumptions of his model was his assumptions about the locus of the generation of consciousness in individuals. There's too much to go into in a post, so I'm attaching a part of my dissertation on the subject.

Marc

[Tom OC]

Marc; I hope it's not just you and I having this conversation. Not that I don't mind the company, but I'd love to hear from some others too because some of the prior comments about my (ontological) take on Durkheim and Weber were helpful to me. Anyway, regarding Parsons, my first-ever peer reviewed article long ago was on him, called A Neofunctionalist Model of Crime Control. It touched on terrorism, and I plan to do an updated presentation at ASC next month with even more such focus. I'm impressed with your knowledge of the topic. That attachment of yours clearly resonated with me re: the Unified Social Science Movement and neo-evolutionary theory. Anyway, let me throw out some starting points: One, I am going to assume functional prerequisites are fulfilled by new kinds of institutions (neofunctional ones). Two, I am going to assume a media of interchange between these institutions. Once the model is constructed (and yes, it will have cybernetic action properties), I will test it against some trend data in the directions of more and less stability in a COIN operation. Does this make sense, and do you know what I'm trying to do?

[Rob Thornton]

but there are plenty of us who benefit by listening in - Its kind of like science C-Span - you learn allot, but don't have to say much.

Best Regards, and Thanks, Rob

[marct]

Hi Tom,

[quote=Tom OC;28222]Marc; I hope it's not just you and I having this conversation. Not that I don't mind the company, but I'd love to hear from some others too because some of the prior comments about my (ontological) take on Durkheim and Weber were helpful to me.

As Rob noted, "others are listening" . I suspect that our current conversation is sort of acting like a round table discussion for our ongoing "graduate seminar".

Anyway, regarding Parsons, my first-ever peer reviewed article long ago was on him, called A Neofunctionalist Model of Crime Control. It touched on terrorism, and I plan to do an updated presentation at ASC next month with even more such focus.

I'd love to see a copy of it if you don't mind shooting it my way.

I'm impressed with your knowledge of the topic. That attachment of yours clearly resonated with me re: the Unified Social Science Movement and neo-evolutionary theory.

I've always been favourable towards some form of functionalism. Over the years, I read quite a bit of it, but I always felt that most of the Sociology side of it tended to be wearing some heavy blinders where both biology and pre-industrial societies where concerned. I mean, really, if the goal is to create a GUTE (Grand Unified Theory of Everything), then we really have to include both biology and pre-industrial societies in our models (along with Psychology, History, Economics, etc.) .

On the whole, that led me to looking more closely at Malinowski's work, which seemed to be the only real attempt to tie everything together in a manner that would cover both pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial societies. Not that he didn't have a lot of theoretical problems, he did. Probably the worst of which was that there wasn't a mathematical language that could describe his insights. Also, his level of biological knowledge, while it was definitely up to speed for the 1920's and 1930's when he was writing, has been so far surpassed these days that it is almost laughable (especially in the neuro-cognitive area). Still and all, I think his basic outline works (with one major and some minor adjustments).

Anyway, let me throw out some starting points: One, I am going to assume functional prerequisites are fulfilled by new kinds of institutions (neofunctional ones). Two, I am going to assume a media of interchange between these institutions. Once the model is constructed (and yes, it will have cybernetic action properties), I will test it against some trend data in the directions of more and less stability in a COIN operation. Does this make sense, and do you know what I'm trying to do?

Yup, it makes sense to me and I do know what you are trying to do. Let me toss out a couple of suggestions that you may have already thought about and just not included in the above.

1. Institutions operate in environments and the vast majority of their "sensory mechanisms" are aimed at those parts of the environment that assure their survival and replication. This means that the strongest media ties will be with those institutions that are most likely to help or hinder that survival and replication and not, necessarily, with their ostensive social function. BTW, a really useful distinction that Malinowski made regarding institutions was between the Charter (sort of a combined foundation myth and official function) and the function (what they actually do). This becomes especially important when the two diverge under environmental stress. Even more importantly, for Malinowski at least, institutions may destabilize their social environments catastrophically under their own survival imperatives (Mary Douglas argues much the same and, IMO, makes a much better case for it that Malinowski did, in How Institutions Think).

2. Cybernetic loops are fine, but they only operate well if the elements in the loop refer to the same "level" of social reality. Any really good COIN model operates either fractally, such as Dave Kicullen's one here, or on an assumed (if not always stated) 4D model (e.g. Mao, Lenin, etc.). This means that you are going to ave to account for emergence from one level to another and for miscommunications between levels (i.e. stuff like the irhabi spin playing out on al-Jezira and finding its way into CNN).

Marc

[Tom OC]

Marc, I sent a copy of that old paper of mine to you by email. I couldn't get around the file size limitations here.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Marc, I sent a copy of that old paper of mine to you by email. I couldn't get around the file size limitations here.

I just got it. I probably won't get a chance to read it until tomorrow (I'm swoting a paper for tonight right now).

I've got to say that I really do enjoy these discussions. Nobody at Carleton will really talk functionalism at all - the vast majority just seem to dismiss all forms of it as a "given" ("That? Who reads Parsons anymore?!?"). I have a few colleagues who are "familiar" with the models but, on the whole, no one who I can really hone my ideas against .

BTW, I notice the file is larger than the post limit here. Did you want it posted and linked through to this discussion?

Marc

[Tom OC]

Well, I don't know about posting the whole article. It was written a long time ago and is a very rudimentary expostion of Parsonianism applied to a Filipino insurgency problem. I can try to attach an excerpt from it, but I would probably rather move on and post bits and pieces from my presentation next month. The image portrays some of the system dynamics, but I think I've got the I and L cells misplaced.