La Pensée Cyclique (5)—Total Social Phenomena

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series about Marcel Granet, "La Pensée Cyclique"
One year ago on Round and Square (3 April 2011)—Theory Corner 1c: Bricolage and Change

[a] Total RF

This series is dedicated to understanding one of the most fascinating intellects of the twentieth century, Marcel Granet (1884-1940). In an earlier era, he might have been considered (at least by bibliophiles studying tomes ranging from De l'esprit des lois to 呂氏春秋 between the world wars) the most interesting man in the world. For me, he is every bit of that (as we say back home). Granet's range of interests in social theory and Chinese literature were profound, catholic, and engrossing. I hope that (whether you are interested in French, social theory, or Chinese) you will give Monsieur Granet a little bit of your attention. The material is not simple, by any means, but it is an ideal way to grasp how knowledge really works.

Total Social Phenomena 

Among the authors contained in Marcel Granet’s volumes of L’année sociologique was Marcel Mauss (1872-1950), Granet’s close friend and colleague. Mauss was also Emile Durkheim’s nephew, and the three make a formidable trio that reflects the breadth and depth of the Année sociologique school and the “kinship ties” uniting them. Durkheim began as a philosopher who, growing frustrated with the individualistic interpretations among his contemporaries, embraced the fledgling field of sociology. The two Marcels (Mauss and Granet) pushed those positions into academic disciplines that were just beginning to develop in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

[b] Social RF

Marcel Mauss has often been considered one of the greatest of early anthropologists, and, even though he himself never did fieldwork, his interpretations of the ethnographic accounts of others were masterful. They sustained his own arguments in a series of short accounts that could almost be called “sketches” for further inquiry. Indeed, Mauss’s essays on the concept of the person, gift exchange, sacrifice, and magic have given scholars nearly a century of interpretive potential, and his stature has only grown over the decades. Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and historians have all written works that were inspired by his influence.

Surely one of the great books of the twentieth century is Mauss’s Essai sur le don (The Gift).  It alone has generated almost unimaginable amounts of scholarship, considering its brevity and the fact that it was published first as a study in L’année sociologique. In it, Mauss sparingly but adeptly demonstrates the manner in which prestations, or gifts, are cycled through society, and the processes of thought that are linked to each. After a long quotation from the Edda, the linguistically-gifted Mauss begins with three simple sentences that frame the theoretical and substantive focus of the book:

          The foregoing lines from the Edda outline our subject-matter. In Scandinavian 

          and many other civilizations contracts are fulfilled and exchanges of goods are 

          made by means of gifts. In theory such gifts are voluntary but in fact they are 

          given and repaid under obligation.[1]

[c] Total-italy RF

As many authors have pointed out, Mauss saw “total social phenomena” where others saw only confused or random actions. Building upon the foundations of Durkheim’s sociology, Mauss explicated the social pressure behind gift exchange, and the manner in which gifts formed society rather than merely reflecting it. Total social phenomena are “wholes…systems in their entirety.” They should not, argued Mauss, be studied statically. They are concrete, detailed, and particular—not unlike the kinds of materials with which historians and psychologists are interested.

          The study of the concrete, which is the study of the whole, is made more 
          readily, is more interesting and furnishes more explanations in the sphere 
          of sociology than the study of the abstract. For we observe complete and 
          complex beings. We too describe them in their organisms and psychai as 
          well as in their behavior as groups, with the attendant psychoses: sentiments, 
          ideas and desires of the crowd, of organized societies and their sub-groups. 
          We see bodies and their reactions, and their ideas and sentiments as 
          interpretations or as motive forces. The aim and principle of sociology is to 
          observe and understand the whole group in its total behavior.[2]

[d] Arctic RF

Mauss did “observe the whole group in its total behavior,” and has been a model for anthropologists and sociologists because of it. Indeed, Mauss’s use of ethnographic example is far richer and more nuanced than that of his uncle and teacher (Durkheim), as is his desire to bring the individual more prominently into the discussion of social actions. 

With just the short introduction above, one can clearly see outlines of what would become Marcel Granet’s approach to Chinese society and its regeneration in festivals and the shared harvest. That Marcel Mauss’s influence on his friend Marcel Granet has often been slighted in favor of their teacher, Emile Durkheim, is due, I feel, to scholars’ failure to read Mauss’s less well-known works as carefully as Granet and his friends did.

Perhaps the work that influenced the small circle of thinkers in the Durkheimian tradition the most was his “Essay on Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo Societies.” It has captured few imaginations beyond that small coterie, but it was a powerful reason why Marcel Granet carried L’année sociologique with him to China—and brought it with him as the Qing government fell all around him. It is also surely the reason why Granet recommended that one of his very best students spend two months reading and rereading it. Read it carefully, he told the student; mark it, reread it, and ponder it. It is because this now obscure essay has the seeds of a new way of looking at social life.[3]

[e] Movement RF

It moves. Society—it moves. 

That is the point of Mauss’s brief essay, and it is laid out with the linguistic depth and ethnographic detail that colleagues had come to expect from him. The question behind the essay, as with most of Mauss’s works, is deceptively simple. Why do Eskimo groups winter in one place and summer in another? No good Durkheimian would expect anything but a social answer.  As Durkheim himself maintained, there is a perpetual need of re-formation in all social groups. They are anything but static, even in the most traditional societies. 

Even the most private and sequestered of groups—isolated from others for months at a time—has a powerful need for re-formation and social connection. In the most basic sense, outsiders need to be brought in as marriage partners and child bearers, lest the inner group shrivel, literally and figuratively. Moreover, there is a need for social gathering that comes from the intermixing of groups that usually are hostile to—or at least distant from—one another in several respects. Marcel Mauss makes the point that there is a powerful need for integration and dispersal that goes to the very core of human society.

[f] Dispersal RF

Society moves.

Mauss’s elegant arguments and fine use of ethnographic example gives Seasonal Migrations its power. He describes the coming together of units of Eskimo society in almost the manner of a novelist, much as Granet would later articulate Chinese festivals with an enthusiasm that channeled the literary flair of the great French novels of the nineteenth century. Echoing the social theory behind The Gift, Mauss notes the social necessity of changing locations. They can do none other than to gather, revel, compete, and confuse the social order. They can do none other than to disperse and return to their smaller units in order to gather their strength for winter work (and, as Mauss notes, to rest from the stressful short-term pressures of intense social interaction). Movements are not individual or contrived. They are systematic. Social.

          Winter is a season when Eskimo society is highly concentrated and in a 
          state of continual excitement and hyperactivity. Because individuals are 
          brought into close contact with one another, their social interactions become 
          more frequent, more continuous and more coherent; ideas are exchanged; 
          feelings are mutually revived and reinforced. By its existence and constant 
          activity, the group becomes more aware of itself and assumes a more 
          prominent place in the consciousness of individuals. Conversely in summer, 
          social bonds are relaxed; fewer relationships are formed, and there are fewer 
          people with whom to make them; and thus, psychologically, life slackens its 
          pace. The difference between the two periods of the year is, in short, as great 
          as can possibly occur between a period of intense social activity and a phase 
          of languid and depressed social life.[3]

It is as though human society came together in festivals, only to disperse again. It is as though, being alone, the desire for social grouping fairly pulls them toward communion. It is as though the very pressures of communion dictate their return “home.” It is as though social movements, the interactions of people, were based on a calendrical pressure that was attuned to the changing seasons. It is as though the very movements of the calendar (and this is a key point) were dependent on the movements of people. 

Think about that. No, really think about it. 

It will change your life, just as it did Marcel Granet's. Mauss’s analyses of total social phenomena and the movement of gifts and people would have a powerful effect on his friend Marcel Granet as he began his serious study of Chinese texts and two decades of intense scholarly publication between the World Wars. 

Notes

[1] Marcel Mauss, The Gift [Translated by Ian Cunnison] (New York: Martino Fine Books, 2011), 3.

[2] Mauss, Gift, 4.

[3] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated with an introduction by Maurice Freedman] (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 22.

[4] Marcel Mauss, Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Morphology [Translated by Ian Cunnison] (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 76-77.

Bibliography

Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated with an introduction by Maurice 
     Freedman]. New York: Harper & Row, 1973).

Mauss, Marcel. The Gift [Translated by Ian Cunnison. New York: Martino Fine Books, 2011.
Mauss, Marcel. Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Morphology [Translated by 
     Ian Cunnison]. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

[g] Seasonal RF