Shils, Edward, 1973-1985

February 13, 1973

Mr, William J. McClung ©
University of California Press
2223 Fulton Street
Campus :

Dear Mr. McClung:

In responding to your request for an evaluation of the manuscript by Edward
Shil@ I think I will be less constrained by putting my comments in the form of
a letter rather than follow your questionnaire, though I will keep your cuestions
in mind. I should say, of course, that your recent transmittal of a detailed
outline by Professor Shils is an enormous help because as the manuscript stands
one’s first reaction (especially to the first part) is one of some bewilderment.
To comment on a manuscript that is still being worked on is rather awkward in
any case, because what comments one might make are not only preliminary but in
a sense superfluous. After all, the author is still working on the manuscript and
if the author is Edward Shils one ean assume that all the obvious points will
be taken care of. So, I respond to your request with this sense of hesitation.

All the obvious questions are answered easily. There is nothing like it in
the literature and Shols has a style of thought and writing all his own which
anyone familiar with his work can detect easily. It almost goes without saying
that I strongly recommend publication, it will be a very good book to have--
once the promised revisions are completed.

Incidentally, the manuscript is about twice as long as I thought you indi-
cated to me, roughly between 400 and 430 pages. Perhaps I misunderstood you,
and in any case the typing is triple-space, but it is a good bit longer than some
150 pages in print, or so I assume.

Having said all this, I will indicate some of my misgivings about the
manuscript as it stands at present, with the caveat that the revision as pro-
jected in the outline may take a rather different form in any case. As of now,
I have the feeling that the first part contains a phenomenology of tradition which
appears rather lopsided. Emphasis seems placed to a considerable extent on
“high culture" or what Redtfield called the "great tradition." Put another way,
when examples are given they come more often than not from this realm, although
the substance of the discussion would seem to call for more attention to the
place of tradition in ordinary life. Indeed, my main misgiving is related to
the level of abstraction at which the material is presented. To those who know
something of this kind of material, a good bit of the presentation (in the first
part) seems a bit la bored and obvious (but very abstract); to those who know
little of it, the abstractness may be an obstacle that could be overcome by more
and more vivid illustrations. As it stands, the first part reads too much like


“hay,
q

an article for an Encyclopedia in which the author is very sparing of illustrations
because of space limitations.

This is related to a comp3aint I have of some of Shils's other writings
(his recent book on intellectuals, for example). He is one of the most learned
scholars in the social sciences today, but references to the literature are
rerely cited, or if cited then in the form of some bit of esoterica here and there.
I find that frustrating and frankly discourteous. Whether or not it is intended,
it gives such essays an air of condescencion, as if these pronunciamentos came
from on high. Now, in the essays on intellectuals this tone may be unavoidable
and indeed serve a “political " function. But in an essay on tradition it is
misplaced. The least that could be expected would be an extensive biblio-
graphical essay in an appendix. The point is that Shils has surveyed all that
literature, so a little assistance to his audience is not too much to ask. (A¥
the same time it may interfere with the essay style to have a lot of footnotes,
and footnoting the obvious would strike a false note.)

Another way of expressing my misgivings about Part I is that the analysis
conveys too little of the sense of awe or reverence towards the past, traditions,
ancestors, etc., that is the psychological dimension is rather slighted. Perhaps
what I miss most is some sense of the agony in the encounter between traditionality
and modernity, which is hard to get at unless one first emphesizes how deep-
seated traditionality was for many people at an earlier time.

With reference to Part II and Part III the outline has rather the effect of
disorienting me. As suggested on p. 21 of Part II the intention there was to
describe and analyze the diminished sense of tradition in modern societies, but
the outline submitted now seems to shift some of this material into Part I and
present a typology of traditional, patrimonial and modern societies in Part II.
(The reference to an outline on pp. 27-29 has no equivalent in the MS before me.)
I can only comment on what I have read and here my impression is that the analysis
of the diminished sense of the past in modern society is a very powerful one as
is the third part on the future of tradition. Perhaps there is not much point
at this stage to try to unravel the discrepancies between the present manuscript
and what the outline conveys as the intention of the author.

Finally, I would hope that with the revision the author sees his way clear
to include significant parts of his outline in the text itself. In this type
of work, the thematic sequence should be transparent. This is not the case so
far, nor is the rationale of that sequence obvious at present. Finally, my
preference would be for a clear statement of purpose for the whole essay near the
beginnigg.

But lest there be any misunderstanding: this promises to be a major con-
tribution to the literature.

*

Sincerely yours,

Reinhard Bendix
Professor of Political Science


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY * LOS ANGELES* NEW YORK

2223 Fulton Street
Berkeley, California + 94720

7 February 1973

Professor Reinhard Bendix
Department of Political Science
210 Barrows

Berkeley Campus

Dear Professor Bendix:

I recently received the enclosed letter from Edward Shils
which explains his perception of the present state of the
manuscript that you are reading for us, and includes a
table of contents, which may help you to see the project

in perspective, I hope you are finding it interesting and
that we will have the pleasure of knowing your opinion soon,

Yours sincerely,

Wb

William J. Méflung


Edward Shile

)
| LTE REHOUSTE,

C AamMaRIDGE.

e2 January, 1973

Dac Ts 7 ct :
VC site iC Clung °

I was pleased to receive your letter of 18 January
anc to know that the second copy of my menuscript finally reached
a 4

youe I cannot make out what became of the first copy, which

was Correctly addressed ane which had a full return address as
well. The United States postal system has gone to the dogs;

and ulthouch it is more expensive then ever, it is less reliable
than ever. However, that is all beside the point. I an of
course srcatified that you found the very rough manuseript in-

a. J. .
teresting.

I have only begun to re-read it myself recently in
connection with the seminsr on the subjeet, which I am conducting
at University College, Loncon,on Friday afternoons. . I was dis-
concerted by the large number of gaffes of all sorts. Of course,
all you say about repetitions is entirely true. These will all

be dealt with in the next revision, which will be very much better

than the present version. I enclose a copy of a table of con-
tents, which I made up afte: I wrote the first 200 pages. The
second half of the manuscript corresponés much more closely

to the table of contents than does the first half. My revision
of the first half will bring it more closely into correspondence
with the table of contents, élthough not necessarily exactly so.
the table of contents will in any case give your editorial
committee a bit more guidance in making out what the book is all
about. |

In view of the uncertainty of the post and the fect
that there is only one other copy of the manuscript, namely,
the top copy which I am using for my next revision, I think it
might be safer if you were to hold the copy which I sent you
under lock and key -~ at least until further notice.

During this past weekend I met my old friend, Mr. Minoo

Masani, in Germany. As you lnow, he has had a very fascinating

coreer in Indian politics since his youyh. He comes from an
eminent Parsee family in Bombay. He was one of the founder-
menbers of the Congress Socialist Party, became a leading spokes-
mon of liberalism and individualism in India and, together with
Rajaji, founcec the Swatantra Party. He was, at one time, Indian

Zod.

Al/S661L—ON posaue5 Ja]SDWISOg kg peaoiddp wo

ambassador to Bragil and Indien representative in the United
Nations. In the latter role he disagreed with Nehru ance
break occurred between them. He is the author of what wos
for many years, the standard history of the Communist rarty
of India. He writes extremely well and has hud a very wide range
of experience in polities, beciness and intellectual lite in
India and abroad. He tells me that the first volume of his
autobioeravhy is now finished and that he has an agreement with
Maemillen to publish it in this country. Since you published
Tandon's euiobiograrhy and have reprinted Chaudhuri's autobliogra-
phy, it immediately occurred to me that your press would be the
right one to publish it in the United states. If. you wish. to
write directly to him, you.can reach him c/o the Indian Liberal
Group, 127 ifahatma Gandhi Road, Bombay 1. I hope that you will
follow this up. .

~~

My kindest regards to you.

Yours Sincerely,

ldward Shils
lir. William J. MeClung
University of California Press
2223 Fulton street ad
Berkeley, California 947&O-Fint fois here—> Ogte

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An tssay on Tradition

Edward Shils

Prolegomena: some Usages of "Tradition" and "Traditional"
First Part
Traditionality
I. The Presence of the Past
A. The Inherited Stock of Beliefs and Images
1. Beliefs about the Universe
eo "Recollection" of the Past beyond the
Past of the Self
B. The Inheritance of Expressive Works ~
C. The Inheritance of Technological Works and
Practices
D. The Inheritance of Institutions and Styles
of Conduct
1. The* Coerciveness of Inherited Institutions
and Styles” .
2. The Heritability of Attitudes
a. Can Sentiments be Inherited
Il. The Past as Fact and the Past as Sacred
A. The Presentness of the Past as a Given
B. The Past as a Locus and Repository of the.
7 Sacred |
1. The Varieties of Sacred Things
2. Revelation and Tradition
a. The Treatment of the Relationship
of Revelation and Tradition in Christianity,
, Judaism and Islam
III. The Structure of Tradition )
A. The Patterns of Tradition as Confronted in

the Present
1. The Way in Which the Past Lives in the

Present
ao The Equal Presentness of Elements of
different Ages oe

be. Agedness as a perceived Attitude of
Objects, Beliefs and Actions
ce "Taking Something for Granted"; "Tacit
Knowledge" (M. Polanyi: Personal
Knowledge)
2. identity and Continuity (Filiation)
ae The Sense of Identity with the Past
: i. Justification by Assertion of
Identity ;
be The Sense of Continuity with the Past
i. Justification by Continuity (Filiation)

a”

4

B. The

Co

3 6

Recall and Invocation of Precedents
a. VCase-law
1. Common Law
2. Hadith law
4. Rabbinical (Talmud) law
be Comparison with statute law and legal
codes
The Composition of "Historical Facts"
Written and Unwritten Vraditions
ao The Relative Stability of Written and
Unwritten Works and Beliefs
Temporal Structure of Tradition
Duration; Recurrence; A "Statistical"
Definition of Tradition. The Age of Traditions;
When Does a Tradition Begin?
ae Linearity and Cumulativeness of Traditions
of. Belief
i. Scientific Beliefs
ii. thilosophical Beliefs
iii. Religious Beliefs |
b. Recursiveness of Traditions of lxpressive
Arts
i. Differences between Traditions
of Belief and Traditions of Expressive
Works |
c. Continuity of Traditions of Techniques
d. Continuity of Traditions of Institutions
Patterns of Growth y
ao Omall Increments |
be Large Modifications
Fluctuations, rejections, losses, reestablish-

ments ("Renaissances")
aoe Patterns of Disruption of Traditions

i. Relegation or Segregation
ii. Subsidence
iii. Disappearance? |
be Successive and Disjunctive Continuity

i. Linkage with the immediately
Preceding

ii. Linkage with the Relegated or f
Subsided |

C. Families of Traditions (Outline 19)

1.

Potentialities of Traditions for Development

a. Diversity of elements within a single
tradition-complex (e.g. Islam, Hinduism,
Christianity, Socialism, etc.) |

be. Susceptibility to Rational Interpretation

c. Exhaustibility of Traditions (Kuby, ©
Kroeber)

Fusion of Traditions

ao Peripheral and central traditions

“ i. Little and Great Traditions
be Fusion of Traditions in Conflict


IV.

De

4. Fission of Traditions
ae Conflict among the Bearers of a Given
Tradition
be. identity and Difference in Neighboring
Traditions
4, Diffusion from sphere to sphere
ae The Spread of a "theme"
Complex Structures of Tradition

_le Scientific Yraditions

2. Rational Traditions (Popper)
4e Revolutionary Traditions

Modes of Transmission

A.

"Traditional Transmission"
1. Dogmatic oral transmission
ae Rote learning .
2. Face-to-face textual inculcation™
ao Rote learning
4. Apprenticeship
ae Empirical learning
Reception by Identification with Transmitter
Rationat Transmission of Tradition
1. ‘The Explicit and the Implicit ("Tacit .
Knowledge" )

Responses to Traditionality

le. Factual traditionality
ao Simple givenness
be Visibility of Long Temporal Sequence
2. Traditionality of Transmission
ao Recommendation on grounds of Pastness
3e Substantive Traditionality
ao Primordiality
be Piety and Hierarchy
ce . Handicraft Technology
Attachment to the Past
1. Modes of Attachment to the Past
ae Through the Sense of Biological Linkage
be Through the presence of Artifacts from

tf

the Past

co Yearning for the Fast: "Searching for
Tradition" ("Loving the Past"; "Clinging he
to the Past"

is Sense of Identity with Fast Things
Sense of Continuity with Fast Things
iis Searching for the past within
primordial boundaries; "Golden Ages"
iii. Search for the past outside pri-
mordial boundaries (Turkey:
Comte as the fountainhead of
"Union and Progress Party")
2. Attribution of Sacredness to the Past
4. The Cognitive Reconstruction of the Past
ao Attachment and Detachment

VI.

Bo

Dd.

Ae

ae

Traditionalism: the ideological search
for the past and its reestablishment

Hostility to Traditionality

1.

Co

3 6

Hostility towards the given; hostility
towards recommending authority; hatred
of the past; desire to escape from the
past
a. Suppression of traditional practices
by elites (Turkey, Africa, etc.)
i. Suppression of Teaching of
a Doctrine
ii. Suppression of References to
the Past and Derogation of the
Past (Contemporary China)
iii. ‘Suppression of Practices on
ground of their Retrograde
Character
Justification of Actions and Works by
their Novelty .

ae "Tradition of the New"; "Avant-garde"
“be trogressivism
Enthusiasm

ao The Charismatic as the Negation of

the Traditional (Factual and Legitimatory)
b. Antinomanism
c. The Tradition of Enthusiasm (Knox)

Creativity in Response to Traditionality

“Le

The Discernment of New Possibilities in
the Given:

a Curiosity and Imagination

be Rational Scrutiny and Reinterpretation

ce Invention and Discovery

J

Charismatic Disclosure of a Truth External
to the Tradition
ao Prophetic Fulfillment
— i. Accompaniment of discrediting
of an actual regime: restoration
Individuality and the Traditional |

a. The Need to Assert Oneself

bo. Genuine and False Individuality ~
(Outline pp. 15-17)

Indifference ("Unmusicality")

1.

Co

Acceptance without Attachment

a. Philistinism

bo. Acceptance as a Matter of Convenience
Pastness a Matter of Indifference

ae Simply a Factual Matter

be Fastness not Perceived

The Demands of the Present as Reinforcement and
Disruption of Acceptance of Tradition

Se

A. Consensual Support for Acceptance of Tradition
1. Authoritative Support
ao “upport of Tradition by Law
B. #ffectiveness of the Tradition-recommending
authority
C. iInconveniences of the Past and its Discard
D. Weaknesses and Ineffectiveness of Tradition-
recommending Authority
1. Restlessness
2. "A new spirit is abroad"; Zeitgeist
E. Present Conveniences accommodated by Inheritance
from the Past
le The Prudential Interpretation of Tradition
ae Tradition as the "Wisdom of the Race"
Cpp- 31-33)
be. Adaptation
Oo Rigidity/Flexibility of Attachment to
Inheritance from the Past
VII. Traditionality and Change
A. Traditionality is by Definition a Guarantor
of Gradualness of Change in the Particular
Sphere to which it refers
1. Does Acceptance of Tradition Traditionally
Recommended in one Sphere entail a
general Traditionality in other Spheres of
Individual's Life?
2. its Recommendation is not a Guarantor of
Acceptance of the Recommended
B. The Polemical Adduction of Traditionality in
Debates about Innovation
1. The Adduction of Traditionality to
Justify Changes
2. ethe Adduction of Traditionality to
Justify Rejection of Proposed Changes

aon

Second Part

Tradition in Society

I. "Traditional Societies" (Outline pp. 27-29)
A. The History of the Idea of "Traditional Society"
B. The Kinship-locality-deity complex
le The "unitary" society; unitary gerontocratic
elite
ao Smallness
be. Undifferentiatedness:
2. Self-Sufficiency; Enclosedness (Marx on
the Indian Village) ;
Ze «Ancestors and Deities
- a. Power of ancestors
bo Traditional Deities
c. Ritualization and Magic


Il.

III.

or

Handicraft Technology

1. Traditionality and Incremental Innovation

Oral Culture:

1. Folklore

2. Tales | *

Gradualness of Endogenous Change

1. "Unconsciousness" of Innovation

The Realism of the Idea of "Traditional. Society"

1. The Distribution of Traditional and the
Non-Traditional Elements in "Traditional
Societies" |

2. Piety versus Convenience as the ground of
Traditionality

4. Etogenously generated Change in Traditional
Society

oe?

Patrimonial Societies

A.

Stratification of Traditionality
1. "die abdringendes Kulturgut;" the traditionality
of the lower classes
2. Arbitrariness plus traditionality of rulers
The Modification of the Ascendancy of the
Primordial
l. Monarchical Rule over Alien Lineages
and Ethnic Groups
2. The Transcendance of Locality
3. Quasi-Bureaucratic Modes of Administration
a. Departure from kinship as Criteria
of Recruitment J
Large’ Technological Undertakings
1. Empirical Technology
2. New Modes of Organizing Labor Power
Modes of Warfare
Proto-Science
1. Astrology and Astronomy

eo Medicine .
"World Religions" ‘ Rote Loan
Tendencies Towards Rationalization
l. Law

2. Religious Thought

40 Organization ©

"Modern Societies"

A.
Be

The ldea of Modern Society as Free of Tradition
The Consequences of Differentiation of Elites
and Roles |
lo Plurality of Sectoral Traditions |
2. Mutual Discrediting of Sectoral Traditionality
The Distribution of Traditionality between
Center and Periphery
1. The Center as Custodian of Tradition
-@- Recent Changes in Performance of this
Function by the Center


7°

2. Centers of Innovation
ae innovating Institutions
3. Secularism and hedonism; popular sovereignty
a. Displacement of Sacredness into the
Present
4, The Progressivist Culture
ao "Futurism"; "Futurology"
5. Resistances to Innovation
ao Traditionalistic Reactions
b. Reasons for Attenuation of Traditionalistic
Reactions
D. The Coexistence of Diverse Traditions in the
Same Sphere; variations in the Balance and
Preponderance of Diverse Hlements
1. The Diversities of the Traditions of
Different Strata _
ae Their fate under conditions of a
public educational system
bo “he Impact of Mass Communication and
: the Formation of a Common Culture
2, “The Diversities of the Traditions of
Different Localities
a. Their fate under conditions of
powerful national center
3. The Diversities of the Traditions of
Corporate Bodies and Professions
4, The Linkages of Diverse Tradition
ao Families of Traditions
b. Conflicts and Solidarities of Traditions
E. "Traditionspolitik"
ae celebration: Holidays, Ionuments,
Commemoration
»- bo Museums
c. National Historiography
Societies between Traditionality and "Modernity"
("Underdeveloped Countries")
A, "Draditional Societies" under the Pressure
of Elites who would be "Modern"
B. Nationality and Traditionality
C. "Traditionspolitik"
le Coping with "Traditional Leadership"
ae Suppression of Chieftainships,
"orincely states," sultanates, etc.
, pb. Establishment of House of Chiefs
2. The Discovery of the "National past"
a. Historiography and Archeology
be The Revival of Ancient Names, Heroes,
apparel
‘ec. National Essences:
i. "African personality"; "Negritude"
d. The Indigenization of the Education
Syllabus


8B.

46 Encouragement of "Traditional Arts"
4, suppression of Traditional Practices:
Success and Failure
a. vooviet Union
b. Turkey
c. Mexico

Third Part

The Future of Tradition

I. The Future of Dependence on the Fast
A. The Concept of Efficiency
le. Utilitarianism; Benthamism
2. "Cost-Benefit Analysis"
B. Discovery and Invention
lo Scientific Research
2. Technological Research
C. The Evaluation of Novelty
D. The Ecology of the Past
1. The Fate of O1d Buildings and Places
E&—ae, The Aspiration to Individuality
1. wself-Determination
2. The Desire to. Lighten the Burden of the Past
E. -The Balance of State and Family
II. The Future of Respect for the Past
A. The Future of the Sense of Continuity
1. .In the Individual
2. in the larger Society
3. (In particular Institutions
ao Families
<be Churches,
* CG. Schools and universities
d. Armed Forces
e. Professions and Occupations
f. Governments -
1. Judiciary
B. The Future of the Sense of Biological
- Continuity and Identity
C, The Future of Interest in the Past
1. The Replacement of Appreciation of the
Pastness of Object by their Aesthetic
Contemplation |
ae Museums
be. Collections
Ce NAntiques"
ad. "Tourism"
2. The Shrinking of Linguistic Entry into
the Past
3, The "Contemporanization" of the Syllabus
in Educational Institutions
4, The Professionalization of Historiography
and the evaporation of the Lay Sense of Histor

-

96

D. The Intellectual Fenetrability of the Future
1. How will the demonstrable Impenetrability
of the Future react in Attitudes towards
the Past
ae The Future of "Futurology"
© Lhe Congeniality of the Realized Future
1. Will the Inconveniences of the Realized
Future affect the appreciation of the Past
a. "Naturalness" as an Alternative to
"Pastness"
F, The Strength and Weakness of Secularism
G. Populism and Traditionality
III. Institutions of Pastness
A. Family
1. family law and Custom «
Be Property 7
ae Title Deeds
be Faper property instead of "owned" .

4
)

property
C. Universities |
D, Governments . Chace 4

1. sdudiciary
ae Constitutions


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY * LOS ANGELES * NEW YORK

2223 Fulton Street
Berkeley, California + 94720

18 January 1973

Professor Reinhard Bendix
Department of Political Science
210 Barrows

Berkeley Campus

Dear Professor Bendix:

I am grateful to you for agreeing to read the draft of
Edward Shils' manuscript on Tradition, It is enclosed
along with our regular readers report form, Although
the manuscript looks fairly long, it is actually only
about 50,000 words. As you will see immediately, the
manuscript is only a draft and is in need of final
polishing and shaping.

I hope you find it interesting,

Yours sincerely,
William J. Clung
WJM/s1

Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
15 May 1980

Professor Edward Shils
Coinmittee on Social Thought
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637 .
U.S.A.

Dear Edward:

Shmuel has shown me your letter of April 18th. This is not the first time
I have been asked about Theda Skocpol, I have written to Harvard
concerning her as well as to the Berkeley Department. In the course

of these exchanges I have learned of two people whose opinions you may
wish to solicit. One is David Riesman, who had first-hand experience
with Mrs. Skocpol as a teacher and wrote me a detailed letter concerning
his misgivings in that context. The other is Martin Malta, Professor

of History in Berkeley, who has read Skocpol's book, attended her lecture
in Berkeley (as I did not), and who is himself at work on a comparative
study of revolutions. Incidentally, Dean Henry Rosovsky at Harvard has
also had experience with Mrs. Skocpol as a colleague in a larger
administrative context.

My contacts with Mrs.Skocpol have been more limited. I have read and
reviewed her book (New Republic, February or March of this year).
The review is laudatory because I do not agree that her work can just be
dismissed as schematic or slipshod. As a first effort by a young scholar
in comparative studies there is much to commend it. If this was not so,
fewer departments would have an active interest in her. But the work is
also deeply flawed in my judgment. Mrs.Skocpol evidently considers
herself some kind of Marxist, yet the strength of her work lies in the
analysis of the state under the old regime and in this respect she is
closer to Otto Hintze than to anyone else. What troubles me about her
is her rigiddty, which she somehow manages to combine with a fairly
flexibie and critical interpretation of Marx. She shows the same
tendencies as her mentor Barrington Moore (about whom I was just asked
to write a letter concerning an honorary doctorate at Chicago which I
declined - I did have an operation just five months ago): now that we
have done with the proletariat as a revolutionary force, we have discovered
the peasants. When Martin Malia challenged her on this point (as he told
me) she simply said that she thought she had stated the case adequately
and saw no reason to change her mind. Her response was the same when I
| challenged her knowledge of intellectual history; (that she was mistaken
in considering her approach Marxist.) Via the grapevine whatever that
is worth, I have heard that she is as rigid in her own relations with
students, and that she does not show anything like the tolerance toward
the university as an institution as that institution has so far shown

/towardsS.....cceees

iN eee aS Racal as a Be eB Pe a IE I ee ee Re ve Bs ee BE RO ee ep Re, ae eee


Professor Edward Shils -2- 15 May 1980

towards her. My own reluctant conclusion is that I would argue
against her appointment to a critical position in a Department of
a major university, not on grounds of scholarship but on grounds of
unsuitability in the equally important fields of teaching and
professional relations. This is certainly an unusual argument

to make and I make it with the greatest reluctance. But I do so
nonetheless, because in this case there seems to be evidence of a
lack of civility as a teacher and colleague which goes beyond the
wide tolerance of universities for oddities off one kind or another,
and particularly so in the two contexts of teaching and colleaque-
Ship which to me are as important as scholarship.

I could go on but my energy is still limited. If I have stated

the case too bluntly, without the usual academic circumlocutions,
then attribute it to fatigue. The basis of my judgement is the
Simple ground-rule that universities cannot survive if members

of the faculty do not share an anti-dogmatic openness to each
other's point of view and a willingness to consider their con-
clusions as tentative. My evidence to insufficient to reach a
firm conclusion in this case, but what I have heard and what I have
examined first hand (Mrs.Skocpol has come to see me twice on

visits to Berkeley), point in the direction I have indicated.

With best personal regards,

Sincerely,

Reinhard Bendix.


January 6, 1982

Professor Edward Shils
Committee for Social Thought
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Dear Edward:

Many thanks for sending me a copy of your hew book, TRADITION.
IT have just leafed through it so far, but want you ho know that I am
looking for the extra leisure to read it slowly. There ia a very
personal reason, not only my high regard for your work. I am completing
my biography of my father, and one main theme of my story is his break
with the Jewish tradition and the way I was brought up in an indivisual-
ism without tradition except for quotations from the German classics.
How fragile that particular "tradition" proved to be--even before Hitler!
Suhrkamp is publishing the biography in Germany, but I have trouble with
finding a publisher for the English original. Any suggestions?

In any case, thanks you again for your thoughtfulness.
With all best wishes, however belated, for the New Year.

As ever,

Reinhard Bendix


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT

1126 EAST S9TH STREET
CHICAGO * ILLINOIS 60637 14 November 1983

Dear Reinhard:

I hope that you have completed writing the biography
of your father. It is a work to which I very much look for-
ward. My hope, however, is impelled not only by my desire
to read your book but also to draw you into another activity.
I want you to contribute to a symposium on the obligation of
university teachers which I am going to publish in Minerva
over the next two years.

A little while ago, the study-group on the academic ethic
and sponsored by the International Council on the Future
of the University ,supported by the Thyssen-Stiftung and working
under the chairmanship of Professor Thomas Nipperdey completed
its report. The report has now been published in Minerva
(XX, 1-2). IL am sending you a copy under separate cover. I
would like to use the report as a point of departure for an
extended discussion on the obligation of university teachers
by leading academics, academic administrators and persons having
to do with universities. I am suggesting that the report be
used by the experienced and thoughtful persons I am inviting,
primarily, if not wholly as an occasion for the formulation of
their reflections and observations. I do not want to have a
series of reviews of the report. The reasons are not just modesty
or the inappropriateness of having so much attention directed to
a document of which I am the author but rather because I want
to have a discussion focused on the substantive issues of the
obligations of university teachers rather than on some particular
formulation of those obligations such as the report contain.

The contribution can be anywhere from 1,500 to 10,000
words. I would like to have them in about six months. I expect
the symposium to run over several years and, at the end, I would
like to publish them in a book. My aim is to make academics
think a little bit more about their obligations and not just
about their rights.

I hope very much that you will be one of the partici-
pants of the symposium. I know that you came close to these
matters when you wrote Scholarship and Partisanship. But now
I would like to direct your attention to the contemporary and


the immediately prospective problems of academic ethics rather
than to deal with the problems in a primarily historical per-
spective. Of course, historical perspective is very desirable
and I am sure that that will be a feature of your contribution
but I would like the attention to be directed to the present
and the near future.

I hope that you are well and that you will not regard
my invitation as an intrusion or a distraction.

I look forward very much to hearing from you.

With my kindest regards, I remain

Yours ever,

LD
7 fr sora

Edward Shils

Professor Reinhard Bendix

Department of Political Science
University of California at Berkeley
210 Barrows Hall

Berkeley, California 94720


January 19, 1984

Professor Edward Shils
Committee on Social Thought
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Dear Edward:

After reading your Minerva report which reached me some weeks ago, I come back
to your letter of November 14. The fact is that I am much too Baffled to wiwe you
an affirmative answer. Let me explain briefly.

At one level your report states the academic code of ethics as I have under-
stood and tried to practice it. In these terms I have nothing to add. You have
thought of everything, and your statements are so evenhanded or balanced that I
would find it impossible to write on the subject without in fact repeating what the
report has stated already.

At a second level I ask myself whether I have some particular concern regarding
the contemporary and prospective problems of academic ethics to which you ask me to
address myself. I do. One of my concerns is the academic de~socialization which has
taken place since the 1960's, but then this is adequately covered by the peport. I
do in this field at the practical level what I can, but I do not feel like writing
about it because the hortatory approach is not my style. And how else could this
subject be discussed?

My second concern is more troublesome, and here your report gives me no guidance.
Its assumptions concerning the functions of universities--truth, knowledge, rights,
health--are the classic ones, which your and my generation have taken as their raison

d'etre. We still do. I wrote along these lines in 1951 (Sociobogy and the Distrust

of Reason). My work continues on this basis to the extent that I can practice what

I "preach$'" but I am quite perplexed how my ethic can be the ethic of my children
(who by now range from 27 to 34) and of the students who are mostly younger. I don't
have to tell the author of THE TORMENT OF SECRECY and this report that the knowledge
and truth we and our colleagues have pursued with such technical success, appear to
younger eyes than ours in so equivocal a light that it makes even those enrolled in
universities repeatedly if not constantly question whether seeking knowledge and
truth still makes moral sense. The question of academic ethic which I see and have
no answer for, is how we teach our subject to students who raise this kind of problen.
Last semester I gave a freshman seminar(!) in which we discussed this question among
pthers in quite personal terms. I try to face the issue when the setting is right,
as it was in this case, but I am really too baffled to write about it. In the

1980's very serious students are raising questions intellectually, not politically,
which their peers of the 1960's exploited by demonstaations and publicity.

I suppose we shall meet again in Bod Hamburg. Perhaps we can talk about it
then, or perhaps you want to respond to this letter. In any case, I do not feel
prepared to accept your kind invitation.

With best personal regards--

Yours,

Reinhard Bendix
Professor

Jan-« 30, 1984

Dear Papa,

We got your interesting exchange with Ed Shils today, and I
thought I would let you know what it immediatelym made me think
about, reflections.which may prove of some interest to you.
While I am not entirely sure that I understand what Shils has
in mind (nor e what you mean by academic de-socialization),
the problems of Wihoti one of universities and knowledge are
topics Regina and I often talk about. ;

I was at a grant writing workshop put on by the ethnomusicology
students two days ago, and Tony Seeger (now chairman of the
Anthropology Dept.) made a very strong plea for returning some
of the knowledge one collected to those one collected it from.
American scholars tended to be very colonial about this - taking
data, analysis, etc. away and not providing it gor the people
(in particular the soholars) in the country that they had gathered
the data in - and he spoke from bitter experience in helping
Americans do research among Brazilian Indians in the 7 years he
spent working at the National Museam in San Paolo. Not only
did scholars not send their thesis or papers, but very few of
them even came back to give lectures or otherwise communicate
their findings, a point underscored by another professor of
Folklore, Ron Smith, who had observed the same thing in Panama.

Certainly the field of anthropology, with its heavy emphasis
on fieldwork, permits this more than mathematics, but I also
heard his comments as a general plea for greater interaction
between studied and studier. It is the plea Regina responded
to by getting her book on Urn&sch out in German, for Urn&ascher
and printed in Urn&sch. It is in part in thanks to those who
have helped, in part to provide a record that future Urntscher
can draw on, and also, to be sure, in part to further Regina's
career as a folklorist. For her too, part of the motivation is
to provide a different kind of analysis than that provided by
1i9th-century folklorists which insisted that everything Was
demmns and fertility symbols, to try to show &hat there can be
perfectly good social or economic reasons for performing customs.

This is an answer to the "why?" or “what for?" kinds of
questions that one is always tempted to ask about research, but
it is a different answer, and one that may result from the
residues of the 1960s. In the generation of Tony Seeger, the
pursuit of knowledge does make sense, but it has ba to be know-
ledge that matters to people - indeed, in a course I'm taking
with Norm Furniss, his criterion for our research papers was
that it had to be on a topic that really made a difference to
Someone other than the student and the professor. He himself
admitted that by this criterion, 75% of research was not worth
doing, and while you may think this is harsh, I think it re-
presents a Widespread attitude among younger scholars.

For, after all, what is the purpose of knowledge? Isn't

it to further our understanding of phenomena, and even more
particularly to improve the human condition if that is possible?
Certainly the assumption about the perfectibility of man may

be questioned (and has a history I certainly don't need to recite
to you), but to strive for improvement seems one of the few
charters one can continue to uphold. Yet one must also steer
clear of the shoals of social engineering. To answer your question
in another way, moral sense can only be achieved if one invests


a)
in 3 Z
’

one*s inquiry and research with a moral purpose. The sense
of moral commitment to social problems, or a social commitment
to one's informants provides one sort of purpose.

Perhaps we are also from a more cosmopolitan, relativistic
(or cynical) generation that is less Willing to accept truths
as truths, and constantly see a point in worrying about the
value of received knowledge. This is obviously a process re-
peated in each generation, and each generation deals with it
in a different fashion, and it is also one that constantly
leads to moral questions. What is going to matter, in the end,
to an individual other than what is relevant to his or her
individual life? And if this relevance includes both a certain
distance and skepticism, is this to be deplored?

An academic ethic for us is not an ethic of devotion to
abstract principles (which are in any case not without their
controversies of meaning), but an ethic of commitment to ~~
TRY TD DEW. cup CTP (ls the gulf between community*and
study. One's commitment here need not be politically colored
in a particular direction, and in its own way is also devotion
to a larger principle, but it is one which tries to bring back
to the community (in which one is supported) whak some of what

they have given. In state-supported institutions, it seems
the least one can do in social sciences.

Dear John and Regina,

Thanks for your good letter of the 30th. I enclose the first page
of Shils' monograph to put you in touch with what I was reacting
against. Shils is a master at qualifying what he has said and then
asserting it anyway. What comes through though is a 100-page essay
on the university's commitment to the teaching of the at&£itudes
of criticial assessment and testing of beliefs and the academic ethic
which supports that commitment. And not once is the question asked
"knowledge for what?" when that is the question of the current era.
The fact that the people who raise this question also use the methods
of critical reasoning, as they do, just pushes the issue back a bit
without addressing it. Francis Bacon wrote in 1623 or thereabouts:
"Knowledge and power meet in one, for where the cause is not known,
the effect cannot be produced." The whole enlightenment philosophy
to which this was the introduction is in question, once one asks:
what of the effect which can then be produced, do we want it or need
it, or what are its unanticipated side-effects?

I have one reaction to your use of the field worker's relation
to the community studied. As always, this is a rather special situation.
If you did a questionnaire study of 2000 randomyselected people, just
publishing your results would not help to give an account to the 2000
provided even you could get their attention. And what of research that
has no clear audience, is not even of identifiable people but contexts
that have a current interest. Take a personal example. I have spent
a year off and on studying early christianity, specifically the trans-
formation of charisma from Jesus to Paul to the first-century martyrs.
Now, the external stimulus was a request from Wolfgang Schluchter to
fill a gap among the papers submitted for his last conference on early
christianity, and my external reason for putting in that work is simply
that I have a long-standing interest in charisma, its uses and abuses,
starting with my experience under Hitler. But external reasons aside:
my real reason is that in the last 20 years or so we have seen a revival

of charismatic persons and movements starting with the various Maharishis,

the Rev. Jones, the southern fundamentalists, and most importantly
Islamic fundamentalism a la Khomeini. Now, charisma, i.e. religious
charisma plays some kind of role in these movements, and there has been
a post-war revival of interest in similar movements like the cargo-cults
and early or recent millenarian movements which pertains to the encounter
between "modernism" and widespread popular reactions in poor countries
to the encounter with "modernism" and America (the Coca-Colaization of
the world). As you know, V.S. Naipaul's stories are one long phenomeno-
logy of "third world reactions" to the trappings of modernity without
its underpinnings. So, in this broad context it seemed to me worthwhile
to clarify for myself and anyone who might read or listen what happens
to charisma from its inception to its institutionalization - ostensibly
because Weber left this gap in his writing, actually though because

a serious understanding of the transformations of charisma seems essen-
tial for comprehension of what goes on in our world. So, the ultimate

end of this particular effort (and of many of my things actually) is


better comprehension of the world in which we live - which to be sure
has an audience only if there are people out there seeking better
comprehension. The fact though is that I write for them, not for my
fellow academics, only some of whom seek such comprehension. That is

why I am still dedicated to education, knowing that the knowledge
acquired thereby may not be useful or useable in any direct sense,

but can "enlighten the soul" as the ancients used to say. I write

this because I want to find out from you and Regina whether this makes
sense to you as younger scholars or belongs to the 75% of research ~
that is not worth doing. The only way I can tell, or find an answer
to this question for myself, is just what Norm Furniss says it should |
not be: namely that the topic really makes a difference to myself, |
a student and professor, on the chance that I am one of the penple
and as able to judge as the anonymous many what makes a difference

to people other than myself.

I had better divest this last statement of its false modesty.
I think I am better able to judge "what is relevant" than the anonymous
many and by "relevant" I mean what matters for a better, namely
deeper or subtler understanding of the world in which we live. That
is where a public-opinion approach to this moral question is inadequate,
because some kind of intellectual aristocracy is a built-in element
in scholarly pursuits, not only in the technical sense that scholars
know something about these pursuits that laymen do not, but also in the
moral sense that - if they are worth their salt - they have the
ethical sensibility towards their work which can distinguish it ideally
at least from the humdrum accumulation of knowledge without purpose.
(I venture to think that these moral questions are much harder to answer
in the natural sciences where technical considerations loom so large,
and where it is also true that playing around with intellectual possibi-
lities sometimes produces the most surprising results which prove to
be creative - the serendipity effect). I think moral purpose can and
should be closer to the substance of social science research than
is likely in the natural sciences like mathematics or physics, not so
clearly in biology - but with modern developments these distinctions
have become harder to make. In any case, whatever the field, the
problem of moral purpose in the search for knowledge is that ethical
resolve of the scholar cannot ever cope with the unanticipated con-
sequences of more knoweldge in his field. That is one consolation
-of the long-run effects of education in contrast to the short-run effects
in knowledge that lends itself more directly to testing and application.

Here is a last question for you: in the relation between study
and community what kind of community are you talking about once you
exclude the community of scholars? I am speaking of the undefinable
community (if that is the proper word) of those who for the next
generation have gone through the educational process.

Your good letter deserved at least this attempt at a response.

Love to both of you,

Ju |ASY

March 19, 1984

Professor Edward Skils
Committee on Social Thought
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

My dear Edward:

Your letter of March 6 from Cambridge has reached me. I send
this brief note to Chicago, since it will not reach you in Cambridge.

In response to your letter I also am sympathetic but in diagreee-
ment. Following the precepts of Weber's Wissenschaft als Beruf does not
seem to me a sufficient answer pedagogically at a public univerdsaty with
some 30,000 students), It may be sufficient at Cambridge or Chicago.

At any rate, I have already expressed my bafflement in an article in
Social Research some nine years ago and enclose a copy 6or your easy perusal.
Despite these misgivings I have not absented myself from teaching, and I

agree that teaching by example is the best way. Better than exhortation,
incidentally.

I would not know what to add or how to adumbrate my article of 1975,
though the last reference in it is by now outdated, superficially at least.

With best personal regards--

Sincerely,

Reinhard Bendix

Professor
Enclosure


Peterhouse, Cambridge

6 March 85 (!)

My dear Reinhard:

I thank you very much for your letter of 19 Jan. which was
forwarded to me here. I have read it with great interest and sympathy
but also without complete agreement. For one thing I do not agree
to your reluctance to participate in the Symposium on the academic
ethic. I hope that you will reconsider this because I would not like
to hold that symposium with you as an absentee.

Now about the grounds for your reluctance, I am sympathetic but
in disagreement! Seeking the truth makes sense because making that
sense of the world is the obligation of any human being, partly because
it is incumbent on a human being, and partly because accepting so much
from our ancestors, we owe it to those who conferred such benefits on us t
to continue the search in which they themselves engaged. The fact that
we can never reach a final answer is not a reason for not trying to find
better ones than those which we have received. Max Weber raised this
question in "Wissenschaft als Beruf" but it did not inhibit him from
struggling to improve his understanding of society.

Universities are not for everyone and those who do not respect
truth, both instrumentally and intrinsically valuable truths, should not
be in a university. Let them go’their conventicles as Weber suggested,
let them go to their political sects and to their 'rap-sessions' or
whatever. But universities are for knowledge and truth and we are
entitled to expect both teachers and students who "sign on" to be
aware of that. Of course, it is not a simple matter: even if one grants
what I say, there are many dilemmas and ambiguities and hence much
to discuss. I do not think that “The Academic Ethic", fuller though it is
than almost anything else purporting to deal with that subject, by any
means closes the matter.

That is why I want so much to have your contribution in the
Symposium. What is worrying you needs to be said. The fact that I am
in disagreement with you does not deter me from pressing you. The

main thing is to state your uncertainties as fully and as concretely
as you can.

Incidentally - or perhaps fundamentally - I do not think that one
can "teach" the proper attitude towards learning to students who are
Opaque to it; one can exemplify it, embody it in one's own bearing
and one's own devotion. In my experience that counts for a great deal.
(That is one of the reasons why it was a tragedy for Germany with pro-
found consequences that Max Weber absented himself from teach(ing)
for nearly a decade and a half.)

I have not been invited to any further meeting at Bad Homburg
so we are unlikely to meet there. All the more reason’ then for
me to press you in writing and perhaps later by telephone to write out
your views on the problems raised by you in your letter. (I return
to Chicago on about 26 March, and can be reached by telephone at my
home preferably in the evenings - until midnight or after, the number
there is (312) - MUseum 4-2567 = 684-2567.)


Finally, why not write in a hortatory style. Nothing forbids
it and the topic demands it.

My kindest regards to you,

Yours ever,

Edward

Professor Reinhard Bendix
Department of Political Science
University of California Berkeley


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