Wundt’s Ethnopsychology was actively developed even further by his discipline, the psychologist and sociologist Alfred Vierkandt (1867–1953). Vierkandt adhered to the phenomenological view of society, thinking that it was not worth approaching the investigation of social phenomena with ready, rigid conceptions and to trying to find a correspondence for each of them. On the contrary, societies, and especially ethnic societies (“small societies”), are so diverse, that they demand an attentive living-into their structures, which can prove to be entirely unlike what would be expected on the basis of a priori sociological approaches. Society is a phenomenon (in the sense of Husserl’s Phenomenology) and must be comprehended precisely as such. And the structure of a phenomenon is complex and multiform and has an innumerable plurality not only of variations, but also of paradigms.119
Vierkandt dedicated a separate work to the study of the origin of the family, narod, and state from a sociological point of view, where the ethnosociological side of this processes is accented.120
In his last period, Vierkandt moved away from Wundt’s ideas of the domination of collective psychology in the framework of the ethnic community and started to pay more attention to the psychology of the individual.
Sigmund Freud: Patricide in the Primordial Order
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of Psychoanalysis, was such an influential author on the development of the culture and science of the 20th Century in the fields of Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology, that to evaluate his many works is exceedingly difficult. We will therefore isolate only that which can be related to ethnosociology.
Freud’s major discovery was the sphere of the unconscious (the Id [in Latin, the “It”], Es in German), the structure of which, as became clear, exerts a tremendous influence on psychic processes and even on that sphere of human activity which classical psychology attributed to manifestations of rationality and consciousness.121 Freud showed the immense power of the work of the unconscious, which influences literally all aspects of the personality. Thereby, Freud created the preconditions for a dual hermeneutic (interpretation) of cultural and social phenomena, in the course of which both the rational-logical and the psychic-unconscious sides are studied.122
We can refer to sociology and ethnosociology in Freud’s later works, in which he tried, with the help of the psychoanalytic method, to explain the historical appearance of certain social and religious institutions (such as the totem, cult, monogamy, etc.). Freud gave a summary of his sociological views in the book Totem and Taboo.123
Freud saw at the start of history a “primordial horde,” ruled over by a strict patriarch, founded on the strength of being the oldest man in the lineage. To him belong all material wealth and all the women of the tribe indiscriminately. Then it falls into a universal scenario: the young men of the tribe (brothers amongst themselves and the sons of the one all-powerful father) conspire to kill him and to divide up the resources and women of the tribe with one another. They kill the father and ritually eat him, after which they implement their revolutionary program. From this primordial scenario, all social institutions arise: right, property, power, religion, and rites. Instead of the right of the stronger and older brother, deconcentrated power is introduced (as each brother receives a part of the authority). Property, obtained at such a cost (blood and crime), becomes holy. Power in the horde is differentiated and reproduces in part the (pre-murder) patriarchal scenario, but is limited in part by the rights of the brother-killers. Ritual repeats in different modes the first sacrifice. Religion embodies the fear of retribution, repentance for what has been done and the expectation of vengeance.
This work of Freud’s was repeatedly subjected to harsh criticism since it contradicted scientific knowledge of the structure of archaic societies. Despite this, however, it illustrated the possibility of applying the psychoanalytic approach to the investigation of simple societies (ethnoses).
Ethnosociology can borrow from Freud’s psychoanalysis a whole series of extremely important methodological conclusions. We shall list the most fundamental of them.
1. The ethnos and its derivatives can be studied in parallel on two levels: on the level of consciousness and on the level of the unconscious, as with the separate individual.
2. In simple societies the unconscious will be manifested more immediately and openly than in complex ones. At the limit, we can identify the simple society with the unconscious (as, essentially, Freud himself does, when he describes the scenario of the primordial drama of patricide).
3. In complex societies the ethnos (as koineme) will take its place in the zone of the unconscious, acting as a sociological analogue of the instance that Freud calls the “Id.”
Carl Gustav Jung: The Collective Unconscious
Although for Freud the psyche was only individual and sub-individual, it is theoretically possible to apply the Freudian method not only to the individual, but also to the group and society. This was partly done by Freud’s student, the Austrian psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), who introduced the concept of the “collective unconscious.” Jung wrote:
My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.124
Jung developed the concept of the “collective unconscious” under the influence of both Freud and his theory of the “unconscious” as well as his own familiarity with a number of ethnosociological and sociological works. Thus, Jung himself often mentions the writings of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, who described archaic societies as built on “prelogic,” “mystical participation,” and “collective representations.”125 Jung was also familiar with the notions of the “categories of the imagination,” offered by the sociologists Mauss and Hubert.126 He also referred to Bastian’s notion of “elementary thinking.”
With the aim of testing the hypothesis of the “collective unconscious,” Jung conducted special experiments analyzing the dreams of black Americans at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington in 1912. He wanted to make sure that the “collective unconscious” is an innate characteristic, and not the result of cultural attitudes. Experiments confirmed the universality of archetypes and their independence from the racial factor.
But at the same time, Jung spoke in his texts more than once of the specific forms of “collective unconscious” of different narods. Thus, in 1930, he warned Europe about Germany, indicating that the “collective unconscious” of the Germans was possessed by the militant archetype of Wotan and that if this destructive energy were not directed outside (he proposed the Soviet Union as a target), then it could result in horrific catastrophe for Europeans.127
Neither Jung himself nor his followers tried applying the concept of the “collective unconscious” concretely to the ethnic group. But ethnosociology can very well take the decisive step and affirm the instance of an “ethnic unconscious” as the intermediate layer between the “collective unconscious” (according to Jung, it is universal and identical for all humanity) and the “personal unconscious.”
Richard Thurnwald: The Systematization of Ethnosociological Knowledge
The key figure in the elaboration of the scientific school of German Ethnosociology was the Austrian scholar Richard Thurnwald (1869–1954). Thurnwald was the founder of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology in the Free University of Berlin in 1951, to which he bequeathed his extensive library after his death. In the course of his life, Thurnwald wrote and published many books and scientific articles dedicated to ethnosociology, ethnology, and anthropology, and he also published the journal Sociologus, w
hich focused on ethnosociological problems.
His main work, Human Society in its Ethnosociological Foundations, is not only a scientific study, but also an encyclopedia of ethnosociological knowledge and can be considered a basic work of ethnosociology, familiarity with which is necessary for any professional in this domain.128
If Gumplowicz coined the term “Ethnosociology,” then Thurnwald was the one who filled it with concrete scientific content and created the first general system of ethnosociological knowledge.
We should regard the history of Ethnosociology proper as starting precisely with Thurnwald, since the scientific orientations preceding him can only partially be ascribed to Ethnosociology. Thurnwald was the first to start calling himself an “ethnosociologist,” and Ethnosociology was the primary orientation with which he occupied himself.
Thurnwald himself personally participated frequently in ethnographic expeditions, and his books are replete with field material, collected and worked over by him in the course of his field work. What is more, they are often accompanied by unique photographs, also taken by Thurnwald himself. In his case, we are dealing not only with an outstanding theoretician, but also with an ethnologist-practitioner.
The “Life-Images” of Natural Narods: Typology of Ethnoses
The first volume of Thurnwald’s major work is called Representative Life-Images of Natural Peoples and is dedicated to the simplest type of society, which Thurnwald calls “natural” peoples, Volks, or narods (Naturvölkern), in order to emphasize their harmonious relationship to the surrounding environment and the relative simplicity of their culture.129
The natural narod is the ethnos or ethnic society proper, the koineme. Indeed, the volume is dedicated to the study of the sociological structure of the ethnos.
Within the limits of the simple society (natural narods), Thurnwald isolates three types:
1. Hunter-Gatherers (Wildbeuter)
2. Peasants and breeders of small beasts
3. Herdsmen and breeders of large beasts
Each type has its subtypes.
Hunter-gatherers are separated into the inhabitants of icy zones, steppes, forests, and waters; peasants and breeders of small animals, into a pure form (minimal social stratification), a mixed form (average social stratification), and a complex form (developed social stratification); herdsmen and breeders of large beasts, into egalitarian nomadic tribes, stratified nomadic tribes, and mixed nomadic/settler societies.
Thurnwald described thoroughly how archaic tribes extant in his day belonged to one subtype or another, making periodic digressions into the history of more highly developed narods, the cultural monuments of which preserved evidence of a more ancient stage of development (chronicles, myths, folklore, narodni art, rites, etc.).
The basic division of the ethnos into three types establishes a direct relation between the prioritized economic orientation of a society and its sociological structure. An ethnos can be of three types (in degree of increasing complexity):
1. Simplest (hunters and gatherers);
2. Normal (peasants and the breeders of small beasts);
3. Complex (nomads and the breeders of large beasts).
All three types relate to the ethnos and, in comparison with the derivatives of the ethnos (narods, nations, etc.), can be thought of as simple and undifferentiated. But in the course of a more steadfast focus of attention, it is possible to see even in these ethnoses substantial qualitative differences. Social stratification is practically absent among hunters and gatherers. It begins to take shape on a lineal basis (the elders of the lineage) in settlements of a fixed rural type, where the population works the land and breeds small cattle, and it arises separately in stratified nomadic tribes and mixed nomadic/settler cultures.
The most complex of ethnic societies — the mixed nomadic/settler culture — already leaves the limits of the ethnos somewhat and can be considered as the first phase of appearance of the narod (laos) and its works (most often, a state).
The first volume of Thurnwald’s work gives an idea of the ethnic society and its basic “ways of life,” by which Thurnwald understands the totality of economic, symbolic, gender-related, ritual, mythological, and social practices, as well as complexes, united into a single paradigm (analogous to Frobenius’ “paideuma” or Mauss and Hubert’s “categories of the imagination”).
The Family and Economy in Simple Societies
The second volume of Thurnwald’s major work is called The Establishment, Change, and Formation of the Family, Kinship and Ties in the Light of Volk-Study.130
Here Thurnwald considers the social forms of the family, which correspond to the three types of ethnic society described in the first volume. Thurnwald considers the forms of the family and family right (monogamous, polygamous, polyandrous), the position of women, sexual taboos, the status of the lineage and clan, male and female unions, forms and types of kinship, the structures of “maternal right” and patriarchy, the role of secret societies in their relation to the family, the social status of ages, and the rites and rituals of “artificial kinship” (adoption, “blood brotherhood”).
The structure of kinship, gender functions, and systems of power and right in the ethnoses considered by Thurnwald are arranged in a rather rigorous schema.
The “simplest” societies (hunters and gatherers) have predominantly monogamous nuclear families, based on a relative parity of the genders in a gender-based division of labor (more men are hunters, more women are gatherers).
“Normal” societies (peasants and the breeders of small cattle) present a broad spectrum of family ways: polygamy, polyandry, rudimentary patriarchy, matriarchy with the preservation of gender-based division of labor and thus an increase of the economic role (and, correspondingly, the social status) of women. Thurnwald derives both polygamous patriarchy and matriarchy from one and the same fact: the growth of the social value of women in peasant societies (which can lead to the striving to possess several women at once or, on the other hand, to the raising of the significance of women right up to the creation of matriarchal structures).
In complicated nomadic, pastoral societies, as a rule, strict patriarchy and polygamy dominate, and paternal rule is asserted.
The third volume of the study The Establishment, Change, and Formation of Economics in the Light of the Volk-Study again proposes the model of three ethnic societies, but from the perspective of their specific economic character.131 Thurnwald examines the basic economic techniques of simple, normal, and complex ethnic societies and gives a functional analysis of the instruments of labor and their connection with rites, myths, and symbols, and also with social attitudes.
The theme of the exchange of objects among ethnoses, including those relating to the different categories, is considered separately, which gives rise to a number of symbiotic economic ties. The archaic and embryonic forms of capital, the market, expenditures, accumulation, the division of labor, and the use of instruments of labor (in complex ethnoses) is also examined.
The State, Culture, and Right in Different Forms of Differentiated Societies
The fourth volume of the work, The Establishment, Change, and Formation of the State and Culture in the Light of the Volk-Study is dedicated to the social paradigm, derived from the ethnos, which we call the narod (laos, Volk). Thurnwald uses the formula “natural narod” — “cultural narod” (by “cultural narod” he means a concrete narod having a state, rationally formalized religion, or civilization).132 Thurnwald’s “natural narod” is the ethnos. The “cultural narod” (Kulturvolk) is the laos.
In this volume, Thurnwald presents a model of all known forms of the division of the ethnos (horde, clan, tribe, lineage, phratry, etc.) and analyses their political and legal structures, forms of organization of power, and connection with the way of life of ethnoses.
The main theme of this volume is a thorough analysis of the process of stratification, the construction of social hierarchies and the analysis of those historica
l forms in which these tendencies are expressed: state, religion, and civilization. Thurnwald’s task in this part of his work is to describe precisely the “phase transition” between the ethnic society (simple society) and its derivatives (complex, differentiated, hierarchized, organized politically or civilizationally).
Thurnwald traces the history of the emergence of the first political and economic institutions, and also their connection with those phenomena that immediately precede them in simple, undifferentiated societies (koinemes).
Thurnwald, following Ratzel and Gumplowicz, puts at the foundation of the state the imposition of one ethnic group onto a rather different one. Moreover, the more solid and fixed forms of state and civilization take shape where nomadic pastoral tribes establish control over settled peasant communities. Thurnwald’s thoroughly documented analysis, based on innumerable examples, many of which are drawn from the experience of contemporary archaic tribes or on the material of recent history, substantially corroborates the theory of “superimposition” (Überlagerung).
In the fifth and last volume of his work, The Establishment, Change, and Formation of Right in the Light of Volk-Study, Thurnwald traces the genesis of early legal institutions, the sources of which he sees in the way of life of the simple society (ethnos). All legal procedures and institutions, according to his reconstruction, have their meaning and origin in the social structures of the ethnos, but gradually they are uprooted from their primordial matrix and are transformed into new forms.
The Significance of Thurnwald’s Work for Ethnosociology
The work Human Society ends at the stage in which the study of properly ethnic processes ceases to be unambiguous and evident and where Thurnwald closely approaches historical states and literate cultures. But this does not mean that at the border, where we are dealing with highly developed forms of society (starting from the narod as laos), the competence of ethnosociology comes to an end, and its relevance as a scientific method is exhausted. Those tools that Thurnwald systematized and regularized are fully suitable for the consideration of other derivatives of the ethnos, right up to global society and even post-society, especially as Thurnwald carried out the most difficult task: describing with great nuance and gradation (i.e., taking into account semi-tones and details) the ethnosociological structure of the first phase of transition, from simple society to complex (from ethnos to laos), and revealing the essence and meaning of the ethnic processes occurring in this transition.
The Foundations Page 14