Review: The Social Animal - W.G. Runciman

[Non-fiction – Sociology 1998]

Sociology has not yet recovered from the lambasting it received during the late 70s and the 80s when it became obvious that most of its theoretical underpinnings, especially those most influenced by Marxist theory, were at odds with the very natures of the societies sociology itself exists to study. For a long time, until Media Studies came along to take the dubious honour from it Sociology was the butt of that student joke where the graffiti above the toilet roll dispenser states ‘Sociology Degrees Please take One’.

The sociologist soon became a stereotypical character, an out-of-touch academic misunderstanding all that they see and seeing everything as class conflict, exploitation and other such Marxist, post-Marxist or pseudo-Marxist inspired clichés. This – in a way – is a shame as the study of people and their relationships with the rest of society from small groups right up to the nation state and beyond is something well worth studying. As would – incidentally – a proper and rigorous study of the Media and its relationship to society, rather than the simplistic theory-driven pseudo-study that is often passed off as Media Studies in contemporary academia. Runciman himself is very aware of this, stating:

Sociology may be easy to do badly (what isn’t?). But the lesson of its history to date is how hard it is to do well. To sociologists, this should be a challenge rather than a deterrent. But to their readers, it should be a reason to be at the same time sceptical about sociology’s pretensions, charitable about its limitations and discriminating about its achievements.

As Runciman says, Marx was wrong about the inevitability of proletarian revolution in capitalist societies, wrong about the inevitability of revolution in industrial rather than agricultural societies and wrong about the socialist utopias bringing about an end to class conflict. Runciman goes on to state that the only lasting legacy of Marx is the prominence given to ‘class-conflict’ in post-Marxist sociology. But whether that is a benefit or not is very debatable, especially to us non-sociologists.

Runciman goes on to discuss those other ‘greats’ of sociology Weber and Durkheim, finding their concepts of man and society equally as flawed as the Marxist worldview. Runciman argues that neither Weber’s view of history as ‘a process of inexorable ‘rationalisation’ originating in the societies of early modern Europe’, nor Durkeim’s notion that ‘human social behaviour is explicable entirely by the social environment’ as satisfactory.

Neither is he convinced by the followers of Hobbes and Rousseau who argue, in the case of the former that mankind is ‘naturally’ aggressive, warlike and in constant conflict, and in the later that mankind is ‘naturally’ a ‘noble savage’ living in harmony with each other and nature. Runciman instead argues that it is more a case of neither and both, that all societies combine both aggression and co-operation, and so on, as necessary. This is again, another example of where some sociologists have become caricatures of themselves by slavishly following such over-simplifications to the point of absurdity. Runciman is therefore correct to call for the discipline to move beyond such narrow ways of thinking.

However, Ruciman’s neo-evolutionary theory is very distinct from the old and discredited notions of the so-called ‘social-Darwinists’. They put the varying successes of different societies down to genetic differences between the ‘races’, which is patently absurd as the genetic differences that there are between the different so-called ‘races’ are so minor and insignificant that they cannot be seriously considered as an explanation for the relative qualities of societies at all.

Runciman’s argument, therefore, is that societies, just like living creatures must adapt to their environment and to changing circumstances, otherwise they will become extinct. There are, of course, several examples which could support this thesis, such as: the fall of the USSR and Eastern block countries when it became obvious they could no longer continue, the gradual change of China away from communism, the stagnation of North Korea, the civilisation of Easter Island collapsing and leaving behind those enigmatic statues, the Vikings failing to cope with the change of climate in Greenland, the fall of the Roman Empire and many more.

This neo-evolutionary approach to human societies is a very intriguing idea, especially now that Marxism et al are such spent forces, and the - in general – left-wing (for want of a better description) notions that have underpinned so much of sociological theory have proved - at best – ineffectual, and often counterproductive, if not downright dangerous. Therefore it is now necessary that we look for some better way of understanding societies. It is just a pity that this book only scratches the surface of the idea, serving more as an introduction to the notion of neo-evolutionary social theory rather than being more of an in-depth study of societies through that lens. Nevertheless, The Social Animal is still a very interesting and intriguing read for those interested in the nature of human societies.