Some Observations on the Comparative Method

Author(s): Andre Beteille

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Oct. 6, 1990, Vol. 25, No. 40 (Oct. 6, 1990), pp.
2255-2257+2259-2263
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

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 SPECIAL ARTICLES

Some Observations on the Comparative

Method
Andre Beteille

A hundred years and more after Spencer, 7ylor and Durkheim, it cannot be said that sociologists a
anthropologists have a method that they would all agree to describe as the comparative method. There is as
disagreement among them about it now as there was in the past, even though they have trimmed their am
considerably about what they can expect from such a method in the study of society and culture.
However, while it is doubtful that we will ever have a comparative method, like some ideal method of the
scientists, about whose proper use sociologists and social anthropologists will reaoh complete agreeme
afact that our deepest insights into society and culture are reached in and through comparison. We have to
and to e-xercise our judgment as well as our imagination, and beyond that we can only hope that our compa
as well as our contrasts-will be illuminating andfruitfuL At any rate, it will be futile to suspend our compa
until the perfect classification or the perfect typology of human societies is placed within our grasp.
I tion it devoted to the study of non-western and social anthropology in these countries,
societies. It can easily be shown that the con-and a beginning has been made by scholars
Introductory
clusions drawn about family and marriage, from there to study aspects of western socie-
I HAVE chosen the comparative method as or about economic processes, or about the ty. This has introduced new perspectives and
the subject of my lecture this evening relation between religion and society remain it has raised questions about the very con-
because it seemed appropriate for an institu- incomplete or even misleading so long as cepts and categories used by earlier schoMrs,
tion devoted to the study of society and they are based on studies confined within both foreign and indigenous, in the stujdy
culture in the countries of Asia. These coun- the context of a single society or a singl, typeof societies in Asia and Africa.'
tries have a great variety of institutions andof society. Here the work of the scholars
ways of life, with different historical ante- associated with the Annee sociologique set II
cedents and different prospects for change, an example, for they attempted to examine
Comparative Method and Scijntific
but they also share a number of things in within a single framework all the varieties
common, so that the knowledge and under- of human society, both western and non- Study of Society
standing of each is bound to be deepened western, from the simplest to the most com-
I must now return to the comparative
by comparison and contrast with the others. plex, or, in the language of those times, from
method as it was fashioned in its early phase.
Moreover, the comparative method has been the most primitive to the most advanced.
It was in a sense the great achievement of
a favourite topic for sociologists and social Although the full integration of the study
19th-century sociology and social anthro-
anthropologists for at least a hundred years, of western and non-western societies still
pology. The most extensive comparisons
and there is a large, though inconclusive, remains to be achieved in practice, scholars
were attempted, not only of whole societies,
literature on it. My treatment of the have since the end of the 19th century steadi-
but also of particular institutions and prac-
literature will be highly selective, being con- ly extended the range of the societies they
tices: kinship systems, marriage practices,
fined mainly to the tradition associated with have investigated through broadly similar
techniques of agriculture and pottery,
Durkheim rather than Marx or Weber. concepts and methods. However, the scholars
magical practices, religious beliefs, and so
who began to extend their observation to an
I must state at the outset that I do not on. The central place assigned to compari-
increasing range of societies were themselves
believe I can reach any definite conclusion son was signalled by Durkheim [1982:571
all members of the same society or the same
about the correct use of the comparative when he wrote: "Comparative sociology is
type of society. It would not be unfair to
method at the end of the lecture. That can not a special branch of sociology; it is
describe the project of the A nnee sociologi-
hardly be expected for a subject with which sociology itself".
que as the study of all societies, western as
so many able scholars have wrestled over If we take a sufficiently broad view of
well as non-western, by western scholars. At
such a long period of time. Yet the subject comparison, then it will be obvious that all
least for that generation of scholars the
retains a great fascination, and one may even
question did not arise whether their projectsociologists and anthropologists have to rely
profit a little from a consideration of some on it, and they would probably all agree that
might alter significantly by extending to the
of the false starts that have beep made in there has to be some method in the com-
limit not only the range of investigation but
the past. I will adopt in the main a historical parisons they make. But beyond this one
also the range of investigators.
approach, dwelling on the development of finds important differences, for there are
That question has now got to be raised,
the subject, although this may appear some- those who are enthusiastic about the com-
and I believe that it will acquire increasing
what paradoxical since the comparative parative method and those who are sceptical
salience in discussions of the zomparative
method has in the past been set in opposi- about it. Among the enthusiasts I would
method. There are now scholars in India,
tion to the historical method.
Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere include Spencer, Tylor, Durkheim and
Before entering into a historical examina- engaged in the study of their own [Link]-Brown; and among the sceptics,
Boas, Goldenweiser and Evans-Pritchard.
tion, I would like to indicate very briefly a This began after the First World War when
a handful of scholars, trained in the west, The great wave of enthusiasm for the com-
new development in our subject whose im-
plications have not so far been seriously sought to apply the methods and techniques parative method belongs to the past, and
today there are probably more sceptics than
examined. Much of the appeal of the earlierthey had learnt there to the study of their
enthusiasts.
use of the comparative method, pafticularly own societies. The last few decades have
by social anthropologists, lay in the atten-witnessed an enormous growth of sociology In the 19th century, the principal attrac-

Economic and Political Weekly October 6, 1990 2255

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tion of the comparative method lay in the sweeping generalisations made through the the understanding of social life, and he
belief that it could be used for discovering use of the comparative method, and recom- sought to base his natural science of socicty
scientific laws about human society and mended studies on a more limited geogra- on observation as against conjecture Evolu-
culture. The strong advocates of the com- phical scale and with more careful attention
tionary speculations belonged in his vicw to
parative method believed in the possibility to-facts. He introduced the distinction that the domain of 'conjectural history' which he
of a natural science of society that would was to appear in one form or another in the categorically rejected in favour of what he
establish regularities of co-existence and writings of his successors, between the 'com- called 'systems analysis'. Hence,the laws that
succession among the forms of social life by parative method' and the 'historical method'. he sought to discover related to the struc-
means of systematic comparisons. It must clearly expressing his preference for the latter ture and functioning of societies rather than
not be forgotten that in 19th-century anthro-over the former. to their evolution [Radcliffe-Brown 1952].
pology the study of social and cultural Boas did not declare himself to be in prin- Radcliffe-Brown chose the comparative
phenomena was typically combined with the ciple against the comparative method, but method in social anthropology as the sub-
study of the physical or biological aspects he put his finger on a weakness of that ject of -his Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1951.
of human life. And of course both Spencer method that was to embarrass its users in He began by referring to the writings of
and Durkheim were greatly influenced by the the future. His point was simply that "before
Boas in the late 19th century, pointing out
organic analogy, and in Durkheim, in par- extended comparisons are made, the compa- that two distinct aims, those of reconstruc-
ticular, we find not only a metaphorical but rability of the material must be proved" ting the past and of discovering the laws
also a methodological use of that analogy. [Boas 1940: 275, emphasis added]. Now it governiffg social processes, had been mixed
Not only was the early use of the compa- is one thing to recommend caution while together in them. Comparisons of particular
rative method tied to the idea of a natural making comparisons; but how can the com- features of social life for the purpose of
science of society, it was, more specifically, parability of the material be proved before historical reconstruction were very different
tied to the theory of evolution.2 A large the comparisons are made? The proof of from comparisons for the purpose that he
part of 19th-century anthropology was con- comparability in advance can be used to had in view. "In comparative sociology or
cerned with the origins of phenomena and undermine virtually any application of the social anthropology the purpose of com-
the reconstruction of the stages through comparative method. parison is different, the aim being to explore
which they had evolved from their simplest No one can deny the hazards of reckless the varieties of forms of social life as a basis
to their most complex forms. The classifica- comparisons. Such comparisons, made for the theoretical study of human social
tion and comparison of the forms of social characteristically in the service of somephenomena"
gran- [Radcliffe-Brown 1958:108]. It
life became an indispensable part of this pro- diose theory, jeopardise the serious study of may be noted that Radcliffe-Brown not only
cess of reconstruction. Many anthropolo- society and culture in our own time as they tried to separate social anthropology rout
gists and sociologists believed that they did in the time of Boas. But then there are from ethnology, which he regarded as being
could achieve through the method of classi- disadvantages also in moving to the opposite concerned with historical reconstruction, but
fication what the biologists had achieved extreme. Boas and his successors felt most often used the term 'comparative sociology'
through the method of taxonomy. If only at ease with comparisons between what may as a synonym for social anthropology.
they could arrange all the known forms of be called 'neighbourly cultures'.3 But how I have pointed out that classification was
social life in a systematic order, from the much caution do we have to exercise in en- thought to be of fundamental importance
simplest to the most complex, they would suring the conditions of 'neighbourliness'? to comparative sociology by Durkheim who
get from it an evolutionary sequence, since, Neighbourliness is obviously not just a mat- tried, moreover, to formulate rules for the
in their view, every type of society repre- ter of geographical propinquity, although classification of social types, Radcliffe-Brown's
sented also a stage of evolution. that was important to Boas. By making the thinking was along similar lines. In his famous
The attempt to trace the origins of institu- conditions of comparability successively Chicago seminar of 1937, he declared:
tions and the successive stages of their evolu- more rigorous, we might find ourselves I would suggest that an examination of the
tion through the comparison of existing limited to the study of the unique constella- other sciences immediately suggests that the
types of society was fraught with many tion of characteristics in a single society. It first step in social science will be to under-
harzards. Knowledge of the existing types is in this sense that Boas's historical method take the task of taxonomy and classification,
of society was sketchy and fragmentary. might become opposed rather than comple- and in the rirst instance, the classification of
There were no agreed rules for the classifica- mentary to the comparative method. social systems t-hemselves, I propose that no
tlion of social types. Social types that had The work of Boas and his pupils, parti- scientific study of societies can get very far
disappeared did not leave-behind the kind cularly Goldenweiser [1922] and Lowie until we have made some progress towards
of records that the palaeontologist could [1960], did much to damage the scientific a classification of social systems into what-
examine in fossil form in order to make his pretensions of the theory of social and ever types, groups, or classes suggest them-
classificatory series complete. A very great cultural evolution. But the retreat from the selves as expedient, that is, likely to lead to
deal was left to conjecture, and anthro- reconstruction of the stages of evolution did valid generalisations with respect to all
pologists took easy recourse to what may be not necessarily lead to the rejection of the societies [1957:331.-
called the artifice of inversion. In other idea of a natural science of society. That idea Radcliffe-Brown's thinking at this stage was
words, they took the end point of evolution was vigorously advocated by A R Radcliffe- dominated by the idea of 'natural kinds' and
as the form current in western, principally Brown [1952, 1958] who exercised great in- the belief that societies are natural kinds.
Anglo-American, society, and' then con- fluence on anthropologists in the United What is a natural kind? A natural kind
structed the,starting point by a simple in- Kingdom and the Commonwealth in the is given by a combination of properties that
version of the features known in advance to thirties, forties and fifties of the present occur repeatedly in the same arrangement;
have prevailed in the end. century. for instance, a class of metals or a species
The difficulty of arriving at valid generali- Radcliffe-Brown borrowed a great deal of animals. If societies were natural kinds
sations through the classification and com-from Durkheim, including the idea that we would be able to classify them in the
parison of societies on a worldwide scale societies were governed by laws that could same way, in which zoologists classify
made some anthropologists uneasy. Within be discovered by the application of the pro-animals. I believe that it is a fundamental
a year of the publication of Durkheim's per method. That method was the com- mistake to thihk. of societies in this way, for
manifesto for the comparative method parative method, based on the observation,human societies are not like plants and
[Durkheim 19821, there appeared an essay description and compari- ci of-societies as animals in either their similarities or their
by Franz Boas [1940], entitled, 'The Limita- they actually existed. Rad jiffe-Brown wrotedifferences. No two societies resemble each
tions of the Comparative Method of An- at a time when fieldwork amXong the simpler other in the wvay in which two birds of the
thropology'. Boas objected above all to the societies was opening up new possibilities for same species do; and no two societies differ

2256 Economic and Political Weekly October 6, 1990

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from each other in the way in which a bird gation in a limited area because "it might ference? Should our aim be to show that all
differs from a butterfly. well be held that the small-scale comparative societies are alike or that each one is unique?
Radcliffe-Brown tried later to rescue the studies have been more rewarding than the These questions may appear trivial, but peo-
comparative method from too close a depen- large-scale statistical ones" [1965:29]. But he ple have responded differently to them, and
dence on the organic analogy. Towards the is sceptical even about that. "Even when I their responses reflect differences of
end of his career he wrote, "But forms of have attempted to make a comparative study aesthetic, moral and political judgment.
social life cannot be classified into species of only the northern and best-known Nilotic It is obvious that when anthropologists
and genera in the way we classify forms of peoples, I have not succeeded in establishing make comparisons, they find both simila-
organic life; the classification has to be not any correlations I have thought important rities and differences, and I do not know of
specific but typological, and this is a tnore enough to record" [1965:28]. So finally, a single anthropologist whose comparisons
complicated kind of investigation" [1952:7]. "One might go even further and assert that have in fact brought to light only similarities
He did not, however, show any way of deal- the intensive study of a single society may or only differences. It is nevertheless the case
ing with the complication without abanidon- prove more illuminating than literary com- that some anthropologists have argued that
ing the basic objective of arriving at general parisons on whatever scale, if only because,the principal aim of comparison is to
laws about social life. as all who have had the experience must have discover difference, although the forms of
Radcliffe-Brown's successor at Oxford, discovered, a theory which can be well tested their arguments and the reasons behind them
Evans-Pritchard, chose the comparative by observations in the field can seldom be have not all been the same. Very broadly
method in social anthropology as the sub- so rigorously tested by literary research" speaking, one can distinguish between the
ject of his Hobhouse lecture in 1963. By that[1965:29-30]. view that the societies studied by anthro-
time the idetof a natural science of society For those engaged in the study of large pologists all differ among themselves, and
that would discover universal laws of social and complex societies in India or in the view that they are all different from the
life had fallen into disfavour, at least among Indonesia, this may appear as a counsel of anthropologist's own society, viz, western
anthropologists in Britain, and Evans- despair. If it proves difficult to make valid society. Again, the two views reflect dif-
Pritchard was merely driving the last nail in- generalisations about the Nilotic tribes, it ferences of aesthetic, moral and political
to the coffin. The general tone of his address might prove impossible to make them about judgment, but they are closely intertwined
was critical, not to say querulous, for, Indian tribes which are more numerous, with each other.
although he admitted the indispensability of more dispersed and more heterogeneous; Returning briefly to Evans-Pritchard's
"observation, classification and comparison and the tribes constitute only one of the essay on the comparative method, it ex-
in one form or another"' he went on to com-many components of Indian society. Those presses dissatisfaction with anthropologists
ment, "But it is over two hundred years since who study, let us say, migrant labour in India from Frazer to Radcliffe-Brown for their
L'Esprit des lois was written, and we may or the conflict of religious groups in search for universality which, according to
well ask once more what has been achieved Indonesia, will find it difficult, not to say him, "defeats the sociological purpose,
by use of the comparative method, in what- impossible, to reproduce the total context which is to explain differences rather than
ever form, over this long period of time" within which the particular phenomena they similarities". Evans-Pritchard expresses his
[1965:31-32]. Evans-Pritchard reserved hisstudy have their place. own bias for differences somewhat tentative-
severest censure for what he called the It may of course be argued that com- ly, thus: "I would like to place emphasis on
"statistical use of the comparative method". parisons within the same society stand on the importance for social anthropology, as
Evans-Pritchard pointed out that, despite a different footing from those between dif- a comparative discipline, of differences,
all its scientific pretensions, the comparative ferent societies. But this raises the question because it would be held that in the past the
method as used by Radcliffe-Brown and of what we mean by a society. Is the Munda tendency has been to place the stress on
many others was little more than the illus- tribe of south Bihar a society, or is it only similarities, as conspiquously in 7he Golden
trative method, or what may be called the a component of the larger society of Bihar, Bough, whereas it is the differences which
method of apt illustration. What the social or the still larger society of India? From would seem to invite sociological explana-
anthropologist in search of general laws in Boas down to Evans-Pritchard, anthro- tion" [Evans-Pritchard 1965:25, emphasis
fact did was quite different from the prac- pologists dealt primarily with simple socie-added].
tice of any natural scientist. There was a ties, or what used to be called primitive Evans-Pritchard's stress on difference, as
wide gulf between Radcliffe-Brown's prac- societies, and they tended to assume a high he himself indicates, is partly to redress the
tice and his declared objective; and "his ver- degree of unity and coherence in those balance, but there seems to be more to it
sion of the comparative method was in prac- societies. They now write also about large than that. It is hard to understand why dif-
tice mainly a return to the illustrative and complex societies, what are generally ference should invite sociological attention
method" which consists of "thinking up called civilisations, and they tend to carry more urgently than similarity. The stress on
some plausible explanation of some social the assumptions of coherence and organic difference does not have any obvious metho:-
phenomenon and then searching round for unity into the study of these societies as well. dological advantage, and seems to me to he
illustrations which seem to support it and What I wish to point out is that the use of the outcome of an unstated, and perhapsm-
neglecting the rest of the material relating the organic analogy was not confined to the conscious, aesthetic preferencce. An aesttietic
to the topic under consideration" 11965:23].advocates of the comparative method such preference for the exotic, not at all uncom-
With Evans-Pritchard we are back to the as Durkheim and Radcliffe-Brown; the mon among anthropologists, can lead to
distinction between the historical method assumption of organic unity is deeply serious misrepresentation. No doubt an
and the comparative method, with the embedded also in the writings of those who equally serious misrepresentation can result
preferences of Radcliffe-Brown [Link] the uniqueness of civilisations and from an unstated aesthetic preference for
advocate the historical as against the com-
historical method views everything in its con- sameness.4
text; the comparative method takes things parative method. For a hundred years since the days of Boas
out of their context. Eyans-Pritchard is even and Haddon, anthropologists from Europe
more mindful than Boas of preserving the III and America have travelled to distant places
richness of context in writing about social to study the customs and institutions of the
Difference and Otherness
instutions and practices. Where comparative peoples of. the world. They have not done
studies are insensitive to this richness, as they so solely for the purpose of discovering the
I now turn to the question of similarity
laws of social life through the application
invariably are when statistical techniques are and difference in comparative studies. What
used, they are to be treated with suspicion. should be the aim of comparison in socio- of the comparative method. Many of them
For a start, Evans-Pritchard would recoin-logy and social anthropology? Should it be have travelled to Asia, Africa and, now in-
mend a sort of intensive comparative investi- to identify similarity or to discover dif- creasingly, Melanesia in search of a different

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experience and a different way of life. new depth and richness to the discipline of was built into the comparative method. All
Something of the explorer's outlook has anthropology. Whereas Radcliffe-Brown was this is rapidly changing, and we will need
become a permanent part of the anthro- the tireless advocate of the comparative to weave into our comparative studies a far
pologist's habit of mind; or, as Lkvi-Strauss method, Malinowski was the master of the more sensitive treatment of similarity 4nd
[1963:378] has put it, combining romance single case study. He looked into every detail difference than has been in evidence so far.
with science, the anthropologist is -"the of society and culture among the Trobriand As an Indian interested in comparative
astronomer of the social sciences". Islanders, and brought their complex inter- studies, I have found it frustrating to move
It is, however, one thing to indulge a tasterelations to light. Malinowski's fieldwork set in a world in which what is sociology for
for what is different and another to try to an example for the next generation of an- one person is anthropology for another.
make a distinct scientific discipline out of thropologists in Britain, of whom Evans-
the study of other ways of life. One of the Pritchard was perhaps the most outstanding. IV
most popular text-books of anthropology in Although not a comparativist in
Typification vs Classification
Britain in the sixties and seventies, written, Radcliffe-Brown's style,, Malinowski [1925,
incidentally, by an Oxford colleague and 19481 was a great believer in the fundamen- I drew attention a little while ago to the
former pupil of Evans-Pritchard's, was en- tal sameness of human beings everywhere. problem that arises when we treat the Other
titled Other Cultures [Beattie 1964]. Its He used his mastery of Trobriand ethno- as a copy of ourselves. I must now say
author, like most of his Oxford colleagues graphy to expose the shallowness of the something about the practice, common
of that period, had done fieldwork in Africa stereotypes of primitive man current in his among anthropologists who study civilisa-
where, moreover, he had served in the col- day. Primitive man did not follow the dic- tions, of treating the Other not as a copy but
onial administration, and he had written a tates of custom blindly; nor was he driven as an inversion. This practice is rooted in the
text-book based on his own fieldwork and solely by blind and irrational impulses. belief, widely held and sometimes expressed,
that of his colleagues. Assuming that the There was roughly the same mixture of by western scholars in the uniqueness of
title was meant to be taken seriously, one reason and sentiment behind the actions of their own civilisation. It leads to a distor-
wonders what the significance of such a text- primitive, as of civilised man. The image of tion of the non-western civilisation being
book would be for students and teachers of primitive man becomes merged with that of studied because those aspects of it that dif-
anthropology in Africa. 'man in general' who, in the end, looks fer most from western civilisation receive ex-
To some extent, every discipline constructs suspiciously similar to the goal-oriented aggerated attention and those that differ
its own object, and it has been said that the pragmatist of capitalist society [Leach 19571. least from it receive scant attention.
object that western anthropology has con- The point to stress here about those who Jack Goody has observed that wherever
structed for itself is the Other. The social an- made a dogma of the unity of mankind is a strong anthropological bias has invaded
thropologist's preoccupation with otherness that in their comparisons other societies comparative sociology, there has been "a
is justified by Evans-Pritchard [1951:9] in theoften come out not simply as copies, but as tendency to primitivise the oriental civilisa-7
following characteristic terms: "Moreover, imperfect or unformed copies, of their own tions". In a recent compdrative study, he has
it is a mnatter of experience that it is easier society. This is seen most clearly in 19th- shown with a wealth of illustrative material
to make observations among peoples with century evolutionary theory which took it that marriage and the family in India and
cultures unlike our own, the otherness in for granted that western societies had attain- China have often been wrongly represented
their way of life at once engaging attention, ed the highest levels of institutional advance- by anthropologists in the image of their
and that it is more likely that interpretations ment in every respect, and that other socie- counterparts in African and other tribal
will be objective' As one would expect, there ties would follow them, also in every respect, societies from which they differ substantial-
is an ambivalent attitude in the anthropo- in due course of time. I have explained how ly. Goody's argument is that where a line
logist towards his object, and the ambiva- 19th-century evolutionary theory fell out of needs to be drawn between industrial and
lence has deepened over the years. The favour in the 20th century. But its spirit was pre-industrial societies, it is drawn instead
strong emphasis on the 'otherness' of other revived in our own time by what has come between "the West and the Rest" [Goody
cultures has sometimes been only a pretext to be known as 'development theory'; that, 1990:11].
for stressing the uniqueness of the anthro- however, is a whole subject by itself into In this kind of comparative method,
pologist's own culture. As a recent critic has which I cannot enter here. which proceeds more by contrast than by
put it, with perhaps a trace of dramatic em- What I would like to stress is that in mak- comparison, not only are differences bet-
phasis, "The We of anthropology then re- ing comparisons we must try to deal even- ween civilisations-China, India, etc-
mains an exclusive We, one that leaves its handedly with similarity and difference, and flattened out, but the past and the presen
[Link] on all levels of theorising ex-avoid making it a dogma that either the one of each civilisation tend to be treated as one.
cept on the plane of ideological obfuscation, or the other is the more fundamental of the Here the contrast is between western civilisa-
where everyone pays lip-service to the 'unity two. This may sound like a counsel of perfec- tion which is dynamic and ever-changing,
of mankind"' [Fabian 1983:157]. tion, and somewhat banal at that. But the and other civilisations in which change is so
Perhaps the construction of the object as point needs to be made because of the slow that it need not be taken into account.
'Other-the view from afar-necessarily en- change now taking place in the context of If I may dwell for a moment on the Indian
tails a certain amount of foreshortening and comparative studies. case, a kind of privileged position is assigned
distortion. Much depends on the extent to As I pointed out at the beginning, in the to India's past in the comparison, or rather
which the anthropologist distances himself early use of the comparative method, from the contrast, made between Indian and
from his object of study, and the intellec- Durkheim to Radcliffe-Brown, scholars western civilisations. Indian civilisation is
tual and political intent with which he does from one part of the world were studying represented by a structure of values that is
so. It would be a mistake to suppose that viewed as relatively stable or unchanging, so
societies in all parts of the world, their own
those who talk about the 'unity of mankind',as well as others. Speaking as recently as for-that one can speak of the same structure
or the fundamental similarity of all societies,ty years ago, Evans-Pritchard [1951:84] whether one is speaking of India at present,
even when they do so sincerely, become im-observed: "However much anthropologists in the recent past or in the distant past.
mune to the risks of foreshortening. For they may differ among themselves they are all These accounts of the structure of Indian
might represent other societies and cultureschildren of the same society and culture".5 society, although sometimes informed by
as copies, more or less imperfectly formed, When such a scholar studied his own society, fieldwork of a very high quality, take their
of their own. he was regarded as a sociologist and when orientation from the representation of it in
Here I may refer very briefly to Mali- he studied another culture he was regarded classical Indian literature. I have elsewhere
nowski, the great contemporary and rival of as an anthropologist. A kind of objective [B&tille 1990] described this approach as the
Radcliffe-Brown, whose fieldwork gave a distinction between 'ourselves' and 'others' 'Indological approach' whose ablest contem-

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porary exponent is Dumont, who has had India which is a hierarchical society. In a ated unambiguously with India; but 'indi-
a great influence on Indian studies through similar vein, the individual has no value vidualism' and 'equality' are treated as defin-
his own writings and through the journal, within society in India; in order to be an ing features, now of western society and
Contributions to Indian Sociology, individual in India, one has to renounce again of modern society, so that India is
established by him in 1957. A marked em- society and become a sanyasi. contrasted sometimes with western society
phasis on the unique significance of the In going over the full range of Dumont's and at others with modern society. It is as
Indian religious tradition may be found also work, one is struck over and over again by if India (and other non-western societies)
in the ethnosociological approach of the the neatness of the contrasts and the sym- were denied modernity by definition.
Chicago School of Anthropologists as metry of the inversions. "India is hierar- In some ways Dumont's contras', between
represented in particular in the work of chical, the west is egalitarian; the west values Homo hierarchicus and Homo aequalis is
McKim Marriott [Marriott 1976; Marriott the individual, in India it is only the group a restatement of Tocqueville's conirast bet-
and Inden 1974.]. that counts": these apparent commonplaces ween aristocratic and democratic societies
Dumont [1967] has spoken of his own are hammered into the form of profound [Beteille 19831. But Tocqueville's contrast
work as representing a 'typifying' approach and ineluctable truths by a massive array of was a historical one, whereas Dumont's is,
to which he has opposed the 'classifying' ap- fact and argument put together with unsur- if the distinction be permitted, a typological
proach to be found in the work of Barth, passed intellectual vigour. one. Tocqueville was interested in showing
Berreman and others. The classifying ap- A careful reading of the books, Homo how aristocratic societies were being trans-
proach derives, in his view, from the natural hierarchicus and Homo aequalis will show formed into democratic ones in the western
sciences, and it leads to a comparison of part that the arguments have been constructed world. In Dumont's scheme there is very lit-
with part on a superficial assumption of somewhat differently in the two cases. The tle room for the passage from Homo hierar-
their similarity, and without due regard to book on India, although it takes its orien- chicus to Homo aequalis. Yet it is precisely
the meaning of each part in the whole of tation from the past, is an exercise in an- with this acutely problematic passage that
which it is a part. The typifying approach thropology, making extensive use of the data sociologists in India and other societies in-
is, by contrast, a comprehensive approach, of ethnographic fieldwork. The book on the heriting a hierarchical order from the past
for in discussing any aspect of a society it west is an exercise in the history of ideas, have to contend.
always keeps the whole in view. Underlying based on a different kind of empirical
There is no doubt that Indian society had
all this is a very strong assumption of the material [B&eille 1987]. It is not that no one
a markedly hierarchical structure in the past
organic unity of a civilisation. has done ethnographic fieldwork in the west,
and that much of it continues to exist in the
Dumont has used his typifying approach not to speak of the enormous body of
present: one encounters hierarchy at every
to formulate a comprehensive contrast bet- sociological work on ranking and stratifica- turn in contemporary India. But there have
ween Indian and western (or modern) socie- tion in Europe and the United States. One
also been important changes since the mid-
ty. Such a contrast has been made repeatedly will look in vain for a discussion of this
dle of the 19th century and more particularly
by western students of Indian society from literature although the book was designed
since the middle of the twentieth. A new
the middle of the 19th century onwards. But to be a counterpart to the volume on hierar-
Constitution has assigned a central place to
Dumont's contrast is, in the judgment of chy in India. If one decides in advance that
equality and the rights of the individual.
many, at once the most forceful and the mostdifferences of rank are 'fundamentally Adult franchise, agrarian reform and
subtle, and I would like to make a few obser- meaningless' in western society, one will
positive discrimination have become impor-
vations on it in order to clarify my own posi- naturally pay little attention to the literature tant ingredients of the contemporary Indian
tion on the typifying approach. on social ranking in the west. reality. They may not have succeeded in
Dumont's contrasting types are indicated Dumont's book on India tells us a great
establishingequality here and now, but they
by the titles of his two books, Homo hierar- deal about hierarchy, and even if it is not all have seriously undermined the legitimacy of
chicus for India, and Homo aequalis for the new, it presents many new insights. His book
the traditional hierarchy. An enquiry into the
west [Dumont 1966, 1977, 1987; Beteille on the west tells us nothing about inequality
meaning and significance of all this comes
1987]. These types are constructed on the which exists in every western society, though
up against the wall established by the typi-
basis of the values said to be predominant declared by him to be 'meaningless'. What
fying approach.
or paramount in the two societies in ques- is more, it tells us very little about equality,
The typifying approach used by Dumont
tion. Hierarchy, which characterises Indian although the title of its French version is
has put all its emphasis on the enduring
society in all its aspects, is itself an aspect Homo aequalis (in English it is called From
traditional structure, and paid little atten-
of holism, according to which the part (i e, Mandeville to Marx). The book is about in-
tion to newness and change. It has had a
the individual) is subordinated to the whole dividualism rather than equality, and there
great appeal for those who have watched
(i e, society). Conversely, in western society, is a presumed correspondence between the
two that is nowhere seriously discussed
contemporary India from afar. But it has
equality is an aspect of individualism which
been out of tune with the perceptions of
has there established itself as the paramount [Dumont 1987; Beteille 1987] . Nor is there
many Indian sociologists engaged in the
value. In India, hierarchy animates every any serious discussion of the different mean-
study of their own society for whom dis-
aspect of life and gives it meaning; in ings assigned to equality, some of which are
order and change have been a part of every-
western, i e, modern society, hierarchy is less consistent with individualism than
day experience. I would like to repeat again
fundamentally meaningless. others [Hayek 1980]. A classifying approach
that the whole context of comparative
No doubt, there are collective identities in may lead to superficial comparisons, but a
sociology is being altered by the fact that not
western or modern society based, for in- typifying approach can lead to misleading
only are the same people studying different
stance, on race and ethnicity, and no doubt contrasts. It is not always easy to stay on the
kinds of societies, but that the same society
there is ranking of both individuals and right side of the thin line between the
is being studied by different kinds of people.
groups in it; but these, Dumont would main- scholarly art of typifying and the popular
tain, exist on the plane of facts and not practice of stereotyping.
V
values, which are his main concern. As he There is an ambiguous use of history
has put it, "Differences of rank run contrarycharacteristic of the typifying approach of Conflicting Forces and
to our dominant ideology of social life, Dumont and others. There are two kinds of
Counterpoints
which is equalitarian. They are for us funda- contrasts used, between Indian society and
mentally meaningless" [Dumont 1967:28]. western society on the one hand, and bet- I have now come to that part of my discus-
One cannot talk about hierarchy in the west ween Indian society and modern society on sion where I must introduce into it the
but only about stratification, whereas it is the other, and the two contrasts tend to be eponymous hero of the present occasion,
misleading to talk about -stratification in merged. 'Holism' and 'hierarchy' are associ- Wertheim, after whom this lecture is named.

2260 Economic and Political Weekly October 6, 1990

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As an enthusiast for the comparative universe to one in which there are few clearevaluation. It is impossible to determine in
method, J have always been uneasy about signposts. It is a challenging exercise intellec- advance which of these will prevail where,
tually, but also one in which there are a greatand it can not be an established principle of
the typifying approach, its exaggerated con-
many risks.
trasts and its stress on difference. Wertheim's method to subordinate new elements of
work has given me a basis for articulating Let me explain briefly why I consider it value to old ones simply because the latter
my misgiving. I have in mind his view of *so important, in defining society as a field have had a longer life than the former.
society as a field of conflicting values and of conflicting forces, to take both values and To revert for a moment to the Indian
also the idea of the counterpoint, adapted interests into account. As I have indicated, example, its traditional structure was for cen-
by him from the work of the Dutch histo- the contrapuntal conception of values is fun- turies dominated by the hierarchical order
rian, Jan Romein [Wertheim 1964, 1967]. damentally different from the hierarchical of castes. It was a society in which inequality
In a paper first written almost forty years conception. In the latter, values arrange in both principle and practice prevailed in
ago on 'Society as a Composite of Conflic- themselves according to their own internal
most spheres, and one, moreover, in which
ting Values'. Wertheim [1964] had drawn at-logic, the inferior being encompassed by thethe individual was subordinated to the
tention to the co-existence of disparate superior. But as we know, and as Wertheim group. The long period of Muslim rule in-
elements in all human societies. He has suggested, different and even incompati- troduced some new elements, but these did
developed the same theme at a seminar in ble values may be characteristically associ- not alter substantially either the old mor-
Delhi in 1965. Drawing attention to the dif- ated wvith different groups, classes, and phology or the old scheme of values. The
ferent approaches prevalent in sociology, he categories in the same society, such as upper impact of British rule was of a different
said, "In my view, we should look for the and lower castes, landowners and landless, magnitude, partly because it came in on the
common denominator in the realm of values". or men and women. It becomes easier to crest of capitalist expansion which was in-
But he then went on to say, "I would sug- understand these contrapuntal values whentroducing new economic arrangements and
gest that, in any society, more than one value we keep in sight the divergent interests of thenew social values on a world-wide scale. It
system is to be found as a determinant of groups, classes and categories that are their generated a nationalist movement, of which
human behaviour and judgment" [Wertlheim characteristic bearers. there are parallels everywhere, that sought
1967:182-83]. I would go further and speak It is far from my intention to suggest thatto forge its own ideology by combining new
of a field of conflicting forces, because in societies are carried along solely by the con- elements of value with old ones. The na-
dealing with any society, whether in Asia or flict of interests, and that we have no needtionalist movement was critical not only of
Europe, we have to deal not only with values, to take values into account except as reflec-the colonial power but also of many ele-
important though they are, but also with in- tions of those interests. Indeed, I have triedments of value inherited from the past, in-
terests [Beteille 1969]. to repudiate strongly that view in my workcluding those associated with caste.
Even where certain values are dominant, Beteille 1974, 1987]. Every society has, if not India became independent in 1947 after
there are others that act as counterpoints. one single paramount value, at least its own two centuries of colonial rule. It adopted a
"Conflicting sets of values may function as distinctive eqtuilibrium of values which, new Constitution in 1950 which embodies
a kind of counterpoint to the dominant set. moreover, is often an unstable equilibrium. very different values~ from those that prevail-
They may be dormant and hardly noticeable, All I would say is that we need to understand ed in the past, and where the stress is on
but their existence and latent acceptance the dynamics of this equilibrium and that equality between individuals in place of the
among certain individuals or groups forms, we cannot effectively do so without taking hierarchy of groups. I do not mean to sug-
from the outset, a potential threat to the interests into account. gest that the old values disappeared as soon
stability of the system" [Wertheim 1967:183]. Wertheim [1974] has used the idea of the as the new Constitution was adopted; they
Here we have a different way of looking at counterpoint to construct a theory of social are, as mentioned earlier, in evidence
societies, including the co-called traditional change i-n both its evolutionary and revolu- everywhere in contemporary India, At the
societies, with the eyes open to evidence of tionary forms. Without following him all the same time, they now operate in an altered
contradiction and chanige. way in that direction, I would like to stress moral, political and legal environment in
Those who adopt the typifying approachthe need to take both continuity and change which they have to contend with other values
no doubt acknowledge the existence in anyinto account in making comparisons bet- that act as their counterpoints.
society of elements other than its paramount ween societies. The advantage of viewing If we are to take seriously the view of
values. But these other elements do not society as a field of conflicting forces and society as a field of conflicting forces, we
receive the attention due to them. Either theyin terms of its contrapuntal elements is that have to renounce the organic analogy-or
are relegated to an inferior domain, that ofit invites us to examiae not only the facts of th'e idea of the organic unity of societies-
'mere facts' as opposed to values; or they change but also the potential for change in- which has vitiated the comparisons made by
are treated as values that are 'subordinated herent in every society. A common abuse of the proponents of the classifying approach
to' or 'encompassed by' the paramount the compFative method is to represent some as well as the contrasts maintained by the
values [Dumont 1980]. The advantage with societies (modern societies) as if they were proponents of the typifying approach. There
the idea of counterpoint, as I understand destinedit, to move forward all the time, and are indeed similarities and differences
is that it acknowledges the co-existenceothers of (traditional societies) as if they were among societies, but as I have pointed out
divergent values without seeking necessarily destined to remain forever embedded in their earlier, these are not at all like the similarities
to place them in a hierarchical arrangement. ancient moulds. One can show, on the other and differences that we encounter in the
In a hierarchical arrangement the 'encom- hand, how a society that has remained world of plants and animals. Although
passing' and the 'encompassed' elements are 'backward' for long can be moved ahead ofsocieties differ among themselves, they are
in a stable equilibrium; no necessary a more 'advanced' society by the accumu- not separated from each other by the kinds
assumption of a stable equilibrium is lated re- tensions inherent in its conflicting of boundaries that separate organisms. Nor
quired by the idea of the counterpoint. elements [Wertheim 1974]. is there in the animal kingdom anything like
The great attraction of a model of society It is true that many of the so-called tradi- the interpenetration among societies that has
based on a single hierarchy of values, tional with societies maintained broadly the same become such a common feature of the con-
encompassing and encompassed elements structure
in of values over long period of time. temporary world. It is this interpenetration
their appropriate places, is that it provides This continuity is evident in all the societiesthat makes it more appropriate to speak of
the investigator with familiar landmarksofthat south Asia where old modes of percep- societies as fields of conflicting forces than
help him to find his way through a large tion
andand evaluation have survived major in- as discrete and bounded units. I am, of
complex society. The idea of society as a novations in law and politics. But these course, speaking of society in the broad
field of conflicting forces take.c us away frominnovations in law and politics have also sense and not just about the nation state.

the security of a well-ordered intellectual introduced new modes of perception and It appears to me that if we treat societies

Economic and Political Weekly October 6, 1990 2261

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as fields of conflicting forces, rather than best results have come only when the com- we should speak of the agnatic principle or
as discrete and bounded units, the classifica- parisons were narrow, and never when they the egalitarian principle, since each-of these
tion of social types according to the rules were broad. principles generally coexists in one and the
of taxonomy may not be a very rewarding Where, then, does the problem lie? Part same society with all kinds of other prin-
exercise. Those rules require that com- of the problem is that, in the absence of any ciples. The label may be a convenience, but
parisons should proceed on a strictly gradu;
definite method, comparisons are used to to take it too literally may lead to serious
ated scale, first between the nearest neigh- illustrate an argument arrived at in advance misrepresentation.
bours, then between groups of near neigh- without careful attention to the available and
Durkheim's labelling of social types was
bours and so on, just as in biology one first relevant facts. This is what Evans-Pritchard
based on a conscious use of the analogy bet-
compares species within the same genus, called the illustrative as against the com- ween societies and organisms, and he main-
then genera within the same family, and so parative method, and its most notorious
tained that there were social species for the
on. Societies are implicated in each other to exponent in anthropology was Frazer. How- same reason there were species in biology.
such a large extent in the contemporary ever, it is not altogether easy to devise a clear
The labels used by him-simple polysegmen-
world that one will find it hard to constructtest to distinguish the two methods; and
tal societies, polysegmental societies singly
any simple scale of neighbourliness with Radcliffe-Brown, who was a strong advocate
compounded, etc, etc-have become ob-
which to assess the interpenetration, in termsof the comparative method as well as a critic
solete, and were never seriously applied ex-
of ideas, beliefs and values, of, let us say, of Frazer, was himself criticised by Evans-
cept in the most rudimentary comparisons.
Britain and India, or the Netherlands and Pritchard for using the illustrative in place
Such use as they had was limited to the com-
Indonesia. of the comparative method. parison of the simplest types of societies,
The above difficulty is not avoided, but What was wrong with Frazer's compari-
and Durkheim never used them systematical-
in a way accentuated by the typifying ap- sons was not that they were broad and ex- ly in comparing and contrasting complex
proach. By stressing the organic unity of tensive, but that they were made with little
states and civilisations.
each society, and by dwelling on what it owes serious attention to the facts of the case. I
to its own past and ignoring what it owes believe that there is nothing wrong in com- When we deal with larger systems, the
to others, it tends to represent societies as paring institutions that exist in widely states and civilisations in Asia and elsewhere,
mutually impenetrable substances. dissimilar contexts, provided one keeps in we encounter the co-existence of several dif-
To typify means to engage in a 'one-sided mind the dissimilarity of their contexts. ferent types in one and the same social field
accentuation', and we know, since Max After all, comparisons between Dravidian [Beteille 1986]. The organic analogy, on
Weber, that a one-sided accentuation can be and Kariera kinship have yielded interesting which Durkheim based his constitution of
of the greatest use methodologically, under insights despite the vast differences between social types, breaks down because there are
appropriate conditions [Shils and Finch South Indian and Australian aboriginal no clear boundaries and interpenetration is
pervasive,
1949:90]. But what is a use under certainsocieties [Dumont 1983]. Above all, I do not if not universal. Moreover, the
conditions becomes a misuse under others. believe that the defects of Frazer's com- types differ so enormously in scale that it
It is one thing to construct ideal types of, parisons can be made good by a rule that becomes difficult to determine what should
say, 'rational action' or 'ethical prophecy', requires us to establish first and foremost be the proper units of comparison.
through one-sided accentuation, and quite comparisons (or contrasts) between wholeIt is clear that the comparison of whole
another to typecast whole societies as being societies. societies cannot be satisfactorily made on
'hierarchical' or 'egalitarian'. I doubt if that The idea that the comparison of whole
a morphological basis because human socie-
kind of typecasting can ever become an aid societies constitutes the core of the com-
ties do not have the same kind of structure
to the comparative method. parative method accounts for many of the as animal organisms. In fact the organic
difficulties faced by that method. That idea analogy is no longer very widely used by
VI was at the bottom of Durkheim's preoccupa- sociologists and social anthropologists. The
tion with social types and the rules for their morphological conception of social struc-
Comparison of Whole Societies
constitution and classification; it was also ture, representing the disposition of groups
A hundred years and more after Spencer,at the bottom of Radcliffe-Brown's preoccu- and classes in a society, has been displaced
Tylor and Durkheim, it cannot be said pation
thatwith natural kinds. In both cases it by a different conception of structure in
sociologists and social anthropologists was
have associated with the belief that the com- which ideas and values have pride of place.
a method that they would all agree to parison of whole societies was an essential Can the comparison (or contrast) of whole
describe as the comparative method. Therepart of the discovery of the laws of social societies be more satisfactorily based on an
is as much disagreement among them about life. The prospect of such discovery has been 'ideological' than on a 'morphological' con-
abandoned by most sociologists and an-
it now as there was in the past, even though ception of structure? I think not; the dif-
they have trimmed their ambitions con- thropologists, but many of them continue ficulties are even greater here because of the
siderably about what they can expect fromto adhere to the belief in the importance of lability of ideas and values, and their in-
such a method in the study of society andcomparing whole societies; that belief often herent tendency, particularly marked in the
culture. One of the main problems-or comes out in the criticisms they make of the modern world, to flow across boundaries.
comparisons attempted by others. While
perhaps it is merely the symptom of a deeper It is doubtful that we will ever have a com-
making a concession to classification,
problem-is that, while they make all sorts parative method, like some ideal method of
of comparisons themselves, they judge the Dumount [1980:215] insists, "If classificationthe natural scientists, about whose proper
comparisons that others make by excesslvely is to be introduced further on, it will have use sociologists and social anthropologists
severe standards. to start from wholes and not from itemised will reach complete agreement. At the same
It is difficult to see how sociology and features". time our deepest insights into society and
social anthropology can justify their exis- The comparison of whole societies re- culture are reached in and through com-
tence without making comparisons exten- quires us to categorise and label each and parison. W>e have to improvise, and to exer-
sively and continuously. The very fact that every society, or at least the ones we seek tocise our judgment as well as our imagina-
we are able to talk about matrilineal descent, compare and contrast. This process of labell- tion, and beyond that we can only hope that
or patron-client relations, or occupational ing is a part of ordinary discourse, and it our comparisons-as well as our contrasts-
mobility shows not only that we are inex- is impossible to avoid it altogether in will be illuminating and fruitful. At any rate,
orably dependent on comparisons, but, more scholarly discussion. There is no great harm it will be futile to suspend our comparisons
importantly, that the comparisons m7ade in in speaking about agnatic and cognatic until the perfect classification or the perfect
the past, no matter by what method, have societies, or about hierarchical and egali- typology of human societies is placed within
yielded some results. Nor is it true that the tarian societies, although, strictly speaking, our grasp.

2262 Economic and Political Weekly October 6, 1990

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 Notes stitution or set of ideas are peculiar to a New York: Alfred Knopf.
given society, how others are common to all Goody, J, 1990: The Oriental, the Ancient and
tFhis is the text of the inaugural Wertheim societies
Lec- of a certain type, and how yet the Primitive, Cambridge: Cambridge
ture delivered in Amsterdam on July 5, 1990. others are found in all human societies- University Press.
I am grateful to the Centre for Asian Studies are universals" [123]. And it is well to Hayek, F 1980 (1946): 'Individualism: True and
for inviting me to deliver the lecture, and I of- remember what Geertz [1988:71] has recent- False' in Individualism and Economic
fer it as a small token of gratitude to Wertheim ly written about Evans-Pritchard's view of Order, Chicago: University of Chicago
for hlis kindness to me on my first visit to man: "'On the Akobe as the Isis, men and Press.
Amsterdam in 1966. The paper was written women are brave and cowardly, kind and Kapferer, B (ed) 1976: TRansaction and Mean-
while I was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg cruel, reasonable and foolish, loyal and per- ing, Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of
zu Berlin in 1989-90, and I would like to thank fidious, intelligent and stupid, vivid and Human Issues.
the Kolleg for its generous hospitality and its boring, believing and indifferent, and bet- Leach, E R, 1957: 'The Epistemological
excellent facilities. I am grateful in particular ter the one than the other.' Background to Malinowski's Empiricism'
to Peter Burke for the patience and care with 5 He went on to add, "Certain kinds of fact in Firth 1957.
which he read and commented on all that I are noticed, and they are seen in a certain Levi-Strauss, C 1963: Structural Anthropology,
wrote, and I would also like to thank Elaine kind of way, by people of our culture. To New York: Basic Books.
Scarry for helping me to improve the language some extent at any rate, people who belong Lowie, R H, 1960 (1921): Primitive Society,
of the text. Thanks are due also to Jack Goody to different cultures would notice different London: Kegan Paul.
who took time off on a brief visit to the Kolleg facts and perceive them in a different way" Malinowski, B 1925: Crime and Custom in
to read the text and comment on it.] [Evans-Pritchard 1951:85]. Savage Society, London: Kegan Paul.
-1948 (1925): 'Magic, Science and Religion' in
I M N Srinivas [1966:153-541 wrote a quarter
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Ashok Kumar
similarities in others. For instance, "One Durkheim, E 1982 (1895): The Rules of
has, of course, to act with great caution in Sociological Method4 London: Macmillan. Rs. 210
seeking from a study of social phenomena Evans-Pritchard, E E 1951: Social An- An authentic study presenting
in one society, interpretative guidance in the thropology, London: Cohen and West.
empirical realities on various
study of similar phenomena in another -1965: 'The Comparative Method in Social
society; but in fact, however, much in some Anthropology', in The Position of Women programmes initiated by Government
respects the phenomena may differ, in other in Primitive Societies and Other Essays, of India on rural development during
and basic respects they are alike" [Evans- London: Faber and Faber. the last four decades
Pritchard 1951:128]. Nor has he always been Fabian, 1 1983: Time and the Other, New York:
averse to talking about universals: "The Columbia University Press. For Orders/Enquiries
social anthropologist aims also at showing, Firth, R (ed), 1957: Man and Culture, London: INTER-INDIA PUBLICATIONS
by comparing one society with another, the Routledge and Kegan Paul. D-17, Raja Garden,
common features ef institutions as well as Geertz, C 1988: Works and Lives, Oxford: Poli-
New Delhi-1 10015
their particularities in e ach society. He seeks ty Press.
to show how some characteristics of an in- Phone: 5413145
Goldenweiser, A A 1922: E;arly Civilisation,

Economic and Political Weekly October 6, 1990 2263

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