We can define Fichte’s views in the sphere of Ethnosociology as “naïve Primordialism,” and to correlate his function in the self-awareness of the German society of his historical situation with the transition from a condition of the narod (laos) to a condition of the nation.
Johann Jakob Bachofen
The Swiss German author, historian, and jurist, Johann Bachofen (1815–1877), formulated exceptionally important anthropological theories concerning the structure of simple societies and the stages of their development. According to Bachofen, simple (ethnic) societies were organized according to the principle of “maternal right” and were egalitarian communities, in which a matriarchy dominated. He summarized these ideas in his main work Mother Right: Studies of Gynaecocracy in the Ancient World in its Religious and Juridical Nature.91
From Bachofen’s perspective, the historical stratification of societies was directly connected with the establishment of a patriarchal order. This order was not established in an empty space, however, but on the basis of more archaic institutions, which were formed along the principle of the domination of the mother. Bachofen studied a broad range of archeological, historical and linguistic data concerning the Mediterranean area, and everywhere he found traces of an ancient “gynocratic” (from the Greek gyné, “woman,” and krátos, “rule”) culture, preserved in rites, myths, traditions, and a series of legal guidelines.
Despite the many-sided criticism of Bachofen’s theory, it gave an important impulse to anthropological studies and drew attention to the social role of gender, which subsequently became one of the most important themes of sociology as a whole and ethnosociology in particular.
Adolf Bastian: Elementary Thought and Narodni Thought
Adolf Bastian (1826–1905), founder of the Berlin Museum for Ethnography (Berliner Museum für Völkerkunde) was an eminent figure in German ethnology and anthropology. Bastian adhered to the theory of evolution and of the single origin of humanity (he called this the “psychic unity of mankind”). But in contrast with many other supporters of evolution, he did not consider it as a linear, but as a helical process, developing in history by ascending cycles. Bastian shared the positivist approach of the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) and strove to elaborate a consist teaching about society (thereby acting as a forerunner of sociology). At the same time, Bastian accented the psychological side of culture and studied diverse social phenomena — myths, dances, mystical states and other forms — from the perspective of their psychological content.
Bastian laid out his basic theoretical conclusions in his work Man in History. Towards the Justification of a Psychological Worldview.92
According to Bastian, on the Earth’s territory one can mark out several “geographical provinces,” where the parallel development of diverse types of human society occurred. All these societies followed the same trajectory and the same logic, despite never intersecting or interacting with one another. Unity was founded on the fact that the consciousness of all people is a qualitatively homogeneous phenomenon, which he called “elementary thought” (Elementargedanken). Differences in culture are due to the influence of a geographical environment, which affected the process of evolution of societies, arrested or on the contrary pushed it or developed some or other psychological qualities and social practices as a priority. Thus, according to Bastian, from the “elementary thought” common to all mankind, various social and cultural forms took shape with each narod. Bastian called these secondary forms “narodni thought” (Volkergedanken). Bastian also used the term “social thought” (Gesellschaftgedanken), anticipating Durkheim’s “collective consciousness.” “Social thought” is not composed of the mathematical summation of the thoughts of separate persons, but more often represents a unique intellectual breakthrough of the spiritual and political elite, imprinted in the form of general culture, which gradually becomes part of a society’s heritage in the aspect of “narodni thought.”
On this theoretical foundation, Bastian grounded his method of study of ethnic cultures. At its basis lies “cross-cultural” comparative analysis, i.e., the juxtaposition of distinct cultural forms of diverse ethnoses and narods with the aim of separating out the structures of “elementary thought” (as universal) and the empirical description of “narodni thought” as a specific.
Friedrich Ratzel: Anthropogeography and Ethnology
Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), a German geographer, undertook one of the first attempts to provide a general overview of ethnoses in their geographic dimension.93 From Ratzel’s perspective, man, being one of the most mobile living organisms, is nevertheless tied to the Earth and depends on that natural environment in which he dwells and is formed. In this way, the differentiation of societies and narods occurs.
In the spirit of evolutionism, Ratzel divides ethnoses into “savage” and “cultured,” considering the main criterion the degree and quality of dependence on nature. Nature looms over “savage” narods. Cultured narods liberate themselves from it and enter into a more equitable and mutually beneficial dialogue with it. On the basis of such an approach Ratzel elaborates his system of “Anthropogeography,” i.e., a study of the maps of the historical dynamics of the interaction of narods in concrete geographical conditions.
Ratzel laid the foundations simultaneously for a few approaches that received further development in the 20th century. Thus, in particular, he:
• Worked out the preconditions for geopolitics (this term was first introduced into scientific use by his disciple, the Swede Rudolph Kjellén and formulated its main postulates (“the law of the spatial growth of states,” the idea of a “living space,” etc.);94 , 95
• Drew the attention of sociologists to the significance of the factor of space, with the help of which he explained the differences in cultures of various ethnoses;96
• Introduced the very important concept of “spatial sense” (Raumsinn), which served as a prototype for the concept of “place of development” as advanced by Eurasian philosophers such as P. Savitskii;97
• Laid down the premises of the theory of “cultural circles,” which affirms that all material, technical, and cultural discoveries in history were made only in one place and by one narod, and were further spread among other narods by the method of their transmission;98
• Proposed for Archeology the model of the criterion of the form of an object, and not its function, for the clarification of the area of its primary contrivance;
• Advanced the hypothesis of the origin of the state out of the subordination of one ethnos to another, more aggressive, ethnos-conqueror, which was the basic for Ethnosociology.
Robert Graebner: The Methods of Ethnology
At the same time as Ratzel, the German anthropologist and ethnologist Robert Graebner (1877–1934), who became a crucial figure in the “diffusionist school,” developed and systematized a theory of cultural circles. Methods of Ethnology is considered to be his most important work.99
Supporters of Diffusionism made Ratzel’s intuition about the uniqueness of all historical inventions and discoveries the main principle of their studies and on this foundation built a reconstruction of the phases of the historical establishment of ethnoses and cultures.
The basic idea of the diffusionists consisted in their criticism of Adolf Bastian’s evolutionary theory of “elementary thought,” which dominated in German-speaking circles of that time. Bastian asserted that all members of the human species are mentally identical, while Graebner and the supporters of the idea of “cultural circles” rejected such an approach.
According to Graebner, during a weak occupation of territory, a society has no stimulus to technical and cultural innovations, since relations with the surrounding natural world are sufficient for the maintenance of the status-quo. Hence all discoveries — metal working, the taming of diverse livestock, the manufacture of instruments of labor, vehicles, as well cultural rites and customs — were made either accidentally or in strictly spe
cific geographical places, where there were entirely unique natural or ethnic conditions. Graebner likened invention to a stone thrown into water: the point of contact is strictly singular, but circles spread in all directions. Robert Graebner was the one to introduce the concept of the “culture circle” (Kulturkreise).
Following Graebner, this approach received the name “the Cultural-Historical School of Vienna.”
Wilhelm Schmidt: Primitive Monotheism
Graebner’s ideas were picked up by the Catholic priest and ethnologist Wilhelm Schmidt (1868–1954), who used the method of “cultural circles” as a justification for his own hypothesis about the origin of religion. Schmidt advanced the idea of “Primitive Monotheism,” according to which the most ancient beliefs in ethnic societies were not “Animism,” “Totemism,” “magic,” or “Polytheism,” as classical evolutionists thought, but a primordial form of “Monotheism.”
Schmidt summarized his ethnological and ethnosociological theories in a monograph, written by him jointly with another Catholic priest and minister Wilhelm Koppers (1886–1961), Handbook of the Methods of Cultural-Historical Ethnology.100
One of Schmidt’s goals in using the cultural-historical method was to criticize the theories of evolution and Marxism as contrary to the Christian view of history. Schmidt separates all societies into “primitive,” “initial,” “secondary,” and “tertiary,” thinking that “primitive” societies stand closest of all to the moment of the creation of the world and bear the mark of the most ancient forms of “Monotheism.”
In this instance, ethnology and sociology cross with a theological approach of a clearly expressed confessional color.
Leo Frobenius: Tellurism, Chtonism, and Paideuma
The German ethnologist Leo Frobenius (1873–1938) was one of the brightest and best known representatives of the theory of “cultural circles.” He put forward an entire array of conceptions in use in contemporary Ethnology and Ethnosociology.
Thus, the idea of the division of all types of cultures (above all, archaic ones) into two basic, fundamental kinds, telluric and chthonic belongs to him. In his works, Frobenius painstakingly observes how these types are dispersed along diverse geographical regions (chiefly, on the continent of Africa, about which Frobenius was a world-class specialist),101 intersect, mix, and separate anew.
The telluric type (from the Latin tellus, meaning “earth,” often with the added connotations of “earthen knoll” or “embankment”) differentiated itself by the steady creation of projecting, bulging structures, pillars, ritual hills, burial mounds, menhirs, stones for burial, housing, and the performance of rituals. This type is active, aggressive, inclined to the complication of societies and patriarchal attitudes.
The chthonic type (from Greek χθών [chthón], “earth,” in the sense of a plane or a hollow in it) of cultures, on the other hand, is characterized by constructions in the form of pits, dugouts, burrows, caverns, hollows, which influences lodgings, burial forms, and ritual complexes.
Frobenius also introduces the concept of the “paideuma” (from the Greek παίδευμα (paídeuma), literally “education” or “self-education”), which he defines as a “figure (in German, Gestalt), a manner of producing meanings (Sinnstiftung).”102 The paideuma is that radical beginning of culture which remains unchanged in the process of social and ethnic transformations. It secures the connection and very possibility of communication for those who belong to one and the same culture, a kind of ethnic and cultural code of society. It is precisely this paideuma — as the indissoluble wholeness of the spiritual and material beginnings — that comprises the basis of that content which is transmitted in cultural circles. The explication of the paideuma gives meaning to social phenomenon. Different ethnic groups possess their own paideumæ, which ensures their cohesion.
Leo Frobenius applied his ethnosociological methods to contemporaneity and on the basis of the pluralism of ethnosociological forms, which he defended, he came out against all forms of colonialism.
Ludwig Gumplowicz: Struggle of Ethnoses
The Polish-Austrian sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838–1909) is a key figure in the field Ethnosociology for many reasons.
1. He introduced the term “Ethnosociology” and laid the foundation for the development of this discipline.
2. He suggested considering ethnoses as the main motivating force of the historical process and the basis of sociality as such, thereby combining the ethnological approach with the sociological. Gumplowicz proposed an ethnic interpretation of human history.
3. He developed and substantiated the idea of the origin of the state arising out of the conquest of one ethnos (predominantly settlers or hunters) by another (predominantly nomadic), creating the “theory of superposition” (Überlagerung). At the same time, Gumplowicz proceeds from the principle of the primordial plurality of archaic ethnoses (primitive hordes), which are located a certain distance from one another, and when this distance is shortened, they come into contact and lay thereby the ground of social differentiation. Most often this is expressed in the creation of a state and a hierarchized society, in which elites and masses are distinguished.
4. Government, according to Gumplowicz, is a product of ethnic processes and represents the primordial form of organization of the domination of an ethnic minority over an ethnic majority. He sees here the origins of the family, law, property, etc.
Gumplowicz shows that private law and state law have a different nature: private law limits the masses, while public law is a fact of the forceful presence of government.103 And even in these purely political and legal models it is possible to discover the roots of their ethnic origin.
5. Gumplowicz anticipated E. Gellner in that he considers the nation (in the political sense) an artificial construction of the state, not connected with an ethnic origin, or by language.
These and other aspects of Gumplowicz’s theory make him a crucial figure in Ethnosociology.
We should make one important correction in Gumplowicz’s terminology. In his writings he persistently employs the term “race” (die Rasse), but means by it not a biological, but a cultural and social concept i.e. the ethnos. He contrasts race (in the sense of ethnos) with the state as a form of political organization in which the conflict of the ethnoses changes into the confrontation of elites and masses, i.e., it becomes an inner contradiction, and to the nation as one of the artificial creations of the state. Hence, Gumplowicz’s basic thesis about a “racial struggle” (Rassenkampf), as his best-known work is called, should be translated and understood as “struggle of ethnoses.”104 He does not mean “race” in any of the meanings that are implied in “racial theory.” By the conflict of “races,” Gumplowicz understands not the struggle of the “White race” with the “Black race,” the “Nordic” with the “Mediterranean,” etc., but the conflict of different ethnoses and nothing more. With this terminological correction, everything falls into place.
Karl Marx saw society’s main motivating force in “class struggle,” and it served him as a key for the explanation of all social processes. Ludwig Gumplowicz sees society’s motive force in the “struggle of the ethnoses,” which passes over at a certain stage from the external domain (conflict of two tribes as two societies) into the inner domain (antagonisms between the ruling class and the underlying population).
Gumplowicz’s views about the origin of the state and the theory of superposition are similar to Ratzel’s theories of “Political Geography” and “Ethnography.”
Gumplowicz’s ideas about the origin of government became a standard for German ethnosociologists (in particular, for Richard Thurnwald, although his disciple, Mühlmann, criticized some of its aspects).
Franz Oppenheimer: The State as a Result of Ethnic Conflict
The sociologist Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1943) definitively formulated the theory of the superposition of two ethnic groups onto one another during the establishment of the state in his classic work The State: I
ts History and Development Viewed Sociologically.105 Oppenheimer relied primarily on the work of Ratzel106 and Schmidt,107 and proposed the search at the origins of any type of statehood whatsoever — whether archaic and ephemeral or highly developed and settled — the primordial fact of “ethnic conquest” (Eroberung). Oppenheimer showed that “ethnic conquest” is most often (practically always) carried out through the invasion of settled and agrarian ethnoses by nomadic pastoral ethnoses. He referred to Ratzel’s widely documented observation: “Nomad-shepherds are not only born wanderers, but also born conquerors. As far as the steppes span in the Old World, so far span the states created by them.”108
In those historical regions in which the cultivation of large live-stock was unknown, some types of belligerent hunting tribes (North America) could fulfill the function of the ethnos-conqueror, according to Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer classified the Vikings as “nomads of the sea,” who “left their herds on the shore,” but preserved the nomadic and warlike structure of the “conquering ethnos.”
Oppenheimer adduced many historical examples that support the “conqueror” theory of the state: the Babylonians, the Amorites, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Parthians, the Mongols, the Seljuk Turks, the Tatars, the Turks, the Hyksos, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and other narods which have demonstrated in their history multiple occasions of conquest, producing strong and developed statehood.109
Oppenheimer traced this line right to the Modern Era, looking at capitalism as a continuation of this ethnosociological dualism, in which the aggressive, active, and dynamic trader-townsmen (bourgeoisie), mobile and inclined to relocate, impose their dominion onto the predominantly rural masses (peace-loving and conservative), bringing the entire society into movement and creating national states.
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