Out of Utopia

Out of Utopia: Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis Author(s): Ralf Dahrendorf Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Sep., 1958), pp. 115-127 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2773681 . Accessed: 08/10/2013 02:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 113.108.133.53 on Tue, 8 Oct 2013 02:04:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY Volume LXIV SEPTEMBER 1958 Number 2 OUT OF UTOPIA: TOWARD A REORIENTATION OF SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS RALF DAHRENDORF ABSTRACT This paper first attempts an outline of the common elements of construction in utopian societies. It is claimed that recent theoretical approaches in sociology have tended to analyze social structure in terms of immobility, i.e., have assumed the utopian image of society. The author suggests that overconcern with the social system-in the structural-functionalist approach-has led contemporary sociology to a loss of problem consciousness and urges that a conffict model be adopted for the explanation of sociological problems. Then I may now proceed to tell you how I feel about the society we have just described. My feelings are much like those of a man who has beheld superb animals in a drawing, or, it may be, in real life, but at rest, and finds himself longing to behold them in motion, executing some feat commensurate with their physique. That is just how I feel about the city we have described.- Socrates in PLATO'S Timaios. I All utopias from Plato's Republic to George Orwell's brave new world of 1984 have had one element of construction in common: they are all societies from which change is absent. Whether conceived as a final state and climax of historical develop- ment, as an intellectual's nightmare, or as a romantic dream, the social fabric of uto- pias does not, and perhaps cannot, recognize the unending flow of the historical process.' For the sociologist it would be an intellectu- al experiment both rewarding and entertain- ing to try and trace in, say, the totalitarian universe of 1984 potential sources of conflict and change and to predict the directions of change indicated in Big Brother's society. Its originator, of course, did not do this: his utopia would not make sense unless it was more than a passing phase of social develop- ment. It is no accident that the catchwords of Huxley's Brave New World-"Community, 1 There are very many utopian constructions, particularly in recent decades. Since these vary considerably, it is doubtful whether any generali- zation can apply to all of them. I have tried to be careful in my generalizations on this account and to generalize without reservation only where I feel this can be defended. Thus I am prepared to argue the initial thesis of this paper even against such assertions as H. G. Wells's: "The Modern Utopia must not be static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long ascent of stages" (A Modern Utopia [London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1909], chap. i, sec. 1). It seems to me that the crucial distinction to make here is that between intra-system processes, i.e., changes that are actually part of the design of utopia, and historical change, the direction and outcome of which is not predetermined. 115 This content downloaded from 113.108.133.53 on Tue, 8 Oct 2013 02:04:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 116 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY Identity, Stability"-could be applied with equal justice to most other utopian con- structions. Utopian societies have (to use a term popular in contemporary sociological analysis) certain structural requisites; they must display certain features in order to be what they purport to be. First, utopias do not grow out of familiar reality following realistic patterns of development. For most authors, utopias have but a nebulous past and no future; they are suddenly there, and there to stay, suspended in mid-time or, rather, somewhere beyond the ordinary no- tions of time. Our own society is, for the citizens of 1984, hardly more than a fading memory. Moreover, there is an unexplained gap, a kind of mutation somewhere between 1948 and 1984, interpreted in the light of arbitrary and permanently adapted "docu- ments" prepared by the Ministry of Truth. The case of Marx is even more pertinent. It is well known how much time and energy Lenin spent in trying to link the realistically possible event of the proletarian revolution with the image of a Communist society in which there are no classes, no conflicts, no state, and, indeed, no division of labor. Lenin, as we know, failed, in theory as in practice, to get beyond the "dictatorship of the proletariat," and somehow we are not surprised at that. It is hard to link, by ra- tional argument or empirical analysis, the wide river of history-flowing more rapidly at some points, more slowly -at others, but always moving-and the tranquil village pond of utopia. Nor are we surprised that in social reality the "dictatorship of the proletariat" soon turned out to be more and more of the for- mer, involving less and less of the latter. A second structural characteristic of uto- pias seems to be the uniformity of such soci- eties or, to use more technical language, the existence of universal consensus on prevail- ing values and institutional arrangements. This, too, will prove relevant for the expla- nation of the impressive stability of all utopias. Consensus on values and institu- tions does not necessarily mean that utopias cannot in some ways be democratic. Con- sensus can be enforced-as it is for Orwell -or it can be spontaneous, a kind of contrat social-as it is for some eighteenth-century utopian writers, and, if in a perverted way, i.e., by conditioned spontaneity, again for Huxley. One might suspect, on closer in- spection, that, from the point of view of political organization, the result would in both cases turn out to be rather similar. But this line of analysis involves critical inter- pretation and will be postponed for the mo- ment. Suffice it to note that the assumption of universal consensus seems to be built into most utopian constructions and is apparently one of the factors explaining their stability. Universal consensus means, by implica- tion, absence of structurally generated con- flict. In fact, many builders of utopias go to considerable lengths to convince their audi- ence that in their societies conflict about values or institutional arrangements is either impossible or simply unnecessary. Utopias are perfect-be it perfectly agreeable or perfectly disagreeable-and consequently there is nothing to quarrel about. Strikes and revolutions are as conspicuously absent from utopian societies as are parliaments in which organized groups advance their con- flicting claims for power. Utopian societies may be and, indeed, often are caste societies; but they are not class societies in which the oppressed revolt against their oppressors. We may note, third, that social harmony seems to be one of the factors adduced to account for utopian stability.2 Some writers add to their constructions a particularly clever touch of realism: they invent an individual who does not conform to the accepted values and ways of life. Or- well's Winston Smith or Huxley's Savage are cases in point-but it is not difficult to imagine a surviving capitalist in Commu- nist society or similar villains of the peace in other utopias. For exigencies of this kind, utopias usually have varied, though effec- tive, means at their disposal to do away with the disturbers of unity. But how did they 2 R. Gerber states, in his study of Utopian Fan- tasy (London: Routledge & Paul, 1955): "The most admirably constructed Utopia fails to con- vince if we are not led to believe that the danger of revolt is excluded" (p. 68). This content downloaded from 113.108.133.53 on Tue, 8 Oct 2013 02:04:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions OUT OF UTOPIA 117 emerge in the first place? That question is rather more difficult to answer. Characteris- tically, utopian writers take refuge in chance to carry off this paradox. Their "outsiders" are not (and cannot be) products of the social structure of utopia but deviants, pathological cases infected with some unique disease. In order to make their constructions at all realistic, utopians must, of course, allow for some activities and processes in their soci- eties. The difference between utopia and a cemetery is that occasionally some things do happen in utopia. But-and this is the fourth point-all processes going on in uto- pian societies follow recurrent patterns and occur within, and as part of, the design of the whole. Not only do they not upset the status quo: they affirm and sustain it, and it is in order to do so that most utopians allow them to happen at all. For example, most writers have retained the idea that men are mortal, even in utopia.3 Therefore, some provisions have to be made for the repro- duction, both physical and social, of society. Sexual intercourse (or at least artificial fer- tilization), the upbringing and education of children, and selection for social positions have to be secured and regulated-to men- tion only the minimum of social institutions required simply because men are mortal.4 In addition to this, most utopian construc- tions have to cope in some way with the division of labor. These regulated processes are, however, no more than the metabolism of society; they are part and parcel of the general consensus on values, and they serve to uphold the existing state of affairs. Al- though some of its parts are moving in pre- determined, calculable ways, utopia as a whole remains a perpetuum immobile. Finally, to add a more obvious observa- tion, utopias generally seem to be curiously isolated from all other communities (if such are indeed assumed to exist at all). We have already mentioned isolation in time, but usually we also find isolation in space. Citi- zens of utopia are seldom allowed to travel, and, if they are, their reports will serve to magnify, rather than bridge, the differences between utopia and the rest of the world. Utopias are monolithic and homogeneous communities, suspended not only in time but also in space, shut off from the outside world, which might, after all, present a threat to the cherished immobility of the social structure. There are other features which most uto- pian constructions have in common, and which it might be interesting for the soci- ologist to investigate. Also, the question might be asked, Just how pleasant would it be to live in even the most benevolent of utopias? Karl Popper, in his Open Society and Its Enemies, has explored these and other aspects of closed and utopian societies at considerable detail, and there is little to add to his incisive analyses.5 In any case, our concern is of a rather more specific na- ture than the investigation of some common structural elements of utopia. We now pro- pose to ask the seemingly pointless, and even naive, question whether we actually encounter all or any of these elements in real societies. One of the advantages of the naYvete of this question is that it is easily answered. A society without history? There are, of course, "new societies" like the United States in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; there are "primitive societies" in a period of transition from pre-literate to literate culture. But in either case it would be not only misleading but downright false to say that there are no antecedents, no his- 3 Although many writers have been toying with the idea of immortality as conveyed by either di- vine grace or the progress of medical science. Why utopian writers should be concerned with this idea may be explained, in part, by the observations offered in this paper. 'In fact, the subjects of sex, education, role allo- cation, and division of labor loom large in utopian writing from its Platonic beginnings. Other authors could and should, of course, be mentioned who have dealt extensively with utopia and its way of life. Sociologically most relevant are L. Mumford, The Story of Utopias (New York: P. Smith, 1941); K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1936 [trans. by L. Wirth and E. Shils]); M. Buber, Paths in Utopia (New York: Macmillan, 1950 [trans. by R. F. C. Hull]). This content downloaded from 113.108.133.53 on Tue, 8 Oct 2013 02:04:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 118 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY torical roots, no developmental patterns linking these societies with the past. A so- ciety with universal consensus? One without conflict? We know that without the assist- ance of a secret police it has never been pos- sible to produce such a state and that even the threat of police persecution can, at best, prevent dissensus and conflict from finding expression in open struggles for limited peri- ods of time. A society isolated in space and devoid of processes upsetting or changing its design? Anthropologists have occasional- ly asserted that such societies do exist, but it has never taken very long to disprove their assertions. In fact, there is no need to dis- cuss these questions very seriously. It is ob- vious that such societies do not exist-just as it is obvious that every known society changes its values and institutions con- tinuously. Changes may be rapid or grad- ual, violent or regulated, comprehensive or piecemeal, but it is never entirely absent where human beings create organizations to live together. These are commonplaces about which even sociologists will hardly disagree. In any case, utopia means Nowhere, and the very construction of a utopian society implies that it has no equivalent in reality. The writer building his world in Nowhere has the advantage of being able to ignore the commonplaces of the real world. He can populate the moon, telephone to Mars, let flowers speak and horses fly, he can even make history come to a standstill-so long as he does not confound his imagination with reality, in which case he is doomed to the fate of Plato in Syracuse, Owen in Har- mony, Lenin in Russia. Obvious as these observations may be, it is at this point that the question arises which explains our interest in the social structure of utopia and which appears to merit some more detailed examination: If the immobil- ity of utopia, its isolation in time and space, the absence of conflict and disruptive proc- esses, is a product of poetic imagination di- vorced from the commonplaces of reality- how is it that so much of recent sociological theory has been based on exactly these as- sumptions and has, in fact, consistently op- erated with a utopian model of society?6 What are the reasons and what the consequences of the fact that every one of the elements we found characteristic of the social structure of utopia reappears in the attempt to systematize our knowledge of society and formulate sociological propo- sitions of a generalizing nature? It would evidently be both misleading and unfair to impute to any sociologist the explicit intention to view society as an un- moving entity of eternal stability. In fact, the commonplace that wherever there is so- cial life there is change can be found at the outset of most sociological treatises. I con- tend, however, in this paper that (1) recent theoretical approaches, by analyzing social structure in terms of the elements charac- teristic of immobile societies, have, in fact, assumed the utopian image of society; that (2) this assumption, particularly if associ- ated with the claim to being the most gen- eral, or even the only possible, model, has been detrimental to the advancement of so- ciological research; and that (3) it has to be replaced by a more useful and realistic ap- proach to the analysis of social structure and social process. II Much of the theoretical discussion in con- temporary sociology reminds me of a Pla- tonic dialogue. Both share an atmosphere of unrealism, lack of controversy, and ir- relevance. To be sure, I am not suggesting that there is or has been a Socrates in our profession. But, as with Plato's dialogues, somebody selects for essentially arbitrary reasons a topic or, more often, a general area of inquiry and, at the same time, states his position. Then there is some initial disagree- 6 In this essay I am concerned mainly with recent sociological theory. I have the impression, however, that much of the analysis offered here also applies to earlier works in social theory and that, in fact, the utopian model of society is one of two models which reappear throughout the history of Western philosophy. Expansion of the argument to a more general historical analysis of social thought might be a task both instructive and rewarding. This content downloaded from 113.108.133.53 on Tue, 8 Oct 2013 02:04:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions OUT OF UTOPIA 119 ment. Gradually disagreement gives way to an applauding, but disengaged and uncon- vincing, murmur of "Indeed," or "You don't say." Then the topic is forgotten-it has nothing to do with anything in particular anyway-arid we move on to another one, starting the game all over again (or else we turn away in disgust from the enterprise of theory altogether). In this process, Plato at least managed to convey to us a moral and metaphysical view of the world; we, the scientists, have not even been able to do that. I am reminded of Plato in yet a more specific sense. There is a curious similarity between the Republic-at least from the second book onward7-and a certain line of sociological reasoning rather prominent in these days and by no means associated with only one or two names. In the Republic, Socrates and his partners set out to explore the meaning of StKavoowy7, "justice." In modern sociological theory we have set out to explore the meaning of "equilibrium" or, as it is sometimes called, "homoeostasis." Socrates soon finds out that justice really means ro Eavrov 1rpaTrrepy, that everybody does what is incumbent upon him. We have discovered that equilibrium means that everybody plays his role. To illustrate this point, Socrates and his friends go about the business of constructing a theoretical-and presumably ideal-7ToXivs. We have con- structed the "social system." In the end, both Plato and we are left with a perfect society which has a structure, is functioning, is in equilibrium, and is therefore just. However, what are we going to do with it? With his blueprint in mind, Plato went to the assistance of his friend Dion in Syracuse and tried to realize it. He failed miserably. Plato was wise, he admitted defeat. Without abandoning his idea of the best of all possi- ble worlds, he decided that perhaps, so far as