Gellner and the Historians

Abstract

Despite a widely shared assumption, Gellner’s theory of nationalism was not well accepted by historians. This was due to (i) methodological assumptions by historians and (ii) a misunderstanding of the level of abstraction of Gellner’s theory. The theory was treated as if it were underdetermined (while the opposite was the case). In fact, it could be effectively applied to European history. The shadow effect of industrialization has been neglected by historians. Gellner’s assumptions on the relationship of nationalism to equality, industrialization, homogeneity and unequal development are quite sustainable. In 1991 Gellner began to reformulate his theory in a more chronological manner. Commentators on Gellner’s work now tend to emphasize the importance of his Jewish and Czech background, but this is misleading.

Comment on Guido Franzinetti’s ‘Gellner and the Historians’

David Shankland david.shankland@therai.org.uk

Royal Anthropological Institute, London, UK

Franzinetti in his fascinating chapter outlines the long engagement between Gellner and the historians, and I have read it with great pleasure. It is indeed very interesting to see how he was received by them, all the more so as it concerns perhaps the most famous part of his work, and indeed because the disjunction between Gellner’s vision and those of the historians appears to be often so stark. I am not, of course, myself a professional historian but Franzinetti’s argument appears to be convincing, and we can assume, I think, broadly correct. It would indeed appear that Gellner has not been inspirational to most historians (with the notable exception of Alan Macfarlane, who is of course trained in both traditions, and has himself expressed scepticism). Yet, as his project was, by definition, a diachronic one it is a supremely important question.

It would help, I think, to distinguish between what Gellner was doing and what he was not, and when. Most of the time, my sense is that Gellner is not writing history in the sense of academic history. We may recall that, in his ‘Reply to Critics’, he remarked that he wrote a work called Saints of the Atlas not Lay tribes of the Atlas. In the same vein, Gellner was not trying to write a work entitled History of Nationalism, but rather seeking to understand the emergence of modernity (however we might wish to define it) in as rounded a way as possible: that it is a phenomenon that gives rise to a radically different form of social life. His stumbling across, as it were, his theory of nationalism is thus a by-product of his wider project. This is clear, for instance, if we look at Thought and change where it is mentioned late on in the book, and phrased as an argument to explain why nationalism may continue in spite of the Marxist assumption that nationalism could be overcome by the forces of the revolution. In other words, Gellner was identifying social forces that he felt could far more realistically explain why nations were not doomed. Here, clearly, he is very successful. The idea that a homogenous culture becomes supremely attractive to an indigenous population fighting perceived imperial economic repression is utterly convincing. We can see this, afresh, sadly for those such as myself who are of Scottish descent, in current-day Scotland, where they are busy rewriting history and creating just such a putative new country.

Clearly, however, his theory is not history in the academic sense. But I believe that it is by no means the worse for it. Could it, in fact, be turned into history? Here, we do not have time to go into the wider epistemological differences between academic history and academic anthropology intended as history, but clearly our respective understandings of causality would have to be part of any discussion. So too would the question of evidence. One fascinating characteristic of social anthropology as it is conventionally written is that typically it does not assemble evidence in a way that is acceptable, or even comprehensible, to those rooted in history.

But what of those instances where Gellner does intend his work to be read more conventionally as history? An obvious instance of this is his encapsulation of the history of anthropology, and Malinowski’s place within it. Here, I must confess to having doubts. Gellner is very fond of the Frazerian metaphor of the king being slaughtered by the previous king, and clearly views Malinowski in this light. Now, in recent years, I have had the opportunity to read the archives, and they don’t appear to support this idea. Indeed, they show that Malinowski was not on bad terms with his senior colleagues in Britain; he took every opportunity to be friendly with them. He was welcomed to the LSE by Seligman and Westermarck, who very early on identified his brilliance. Together, these two colleagues lobbied Beveridge to keep Malinowski on, to promote him, to give him sick leave before he had even taken up his permanent post, and to augment his salary. Seligman, indeed, paid part of Malinowski’s salary out of his own stipend, so that he could better survive economically as his family grew.

Malinowski repaid the compliment. His intellectual fidelity to Westermarck is abundantly acknowledged, and continued to the end of his life, as can be seen through their private correspondence as well as his published work. It does not appear, then, that Malinowski was competitive towards his immediate teachers in the way that Gellner assumed was the case: Frazer, Westermarck and Seligman all supported him. He in turn learnt from them, particularly Westermarck, on whom he appears to have relied for both his theories of social institutions and his conception of functionalism. We do, however, have abundant evidence that he could be highly dismissive towards his peers, such as Elliot Smith, and his pupils, such as Evans-Pritchard. The model that Gellner perhaps should have been using is that of the Ottoman Seraglio, and the new ruler who slaughters his brothers upon acceding to the throne, not the Frazerian one of a son attacking his father.

Does this matter? I rather think that it does, because it makes us understand afresh the way that the generations after Malinowski attributed to him characteristics and an influence that he did not possess. It also matters when attempting to understand his intellectual development: though no doubt Malinowski’s early studies were important to him, there is no need whatsoever to invoke Mach in trying to understand Malinowski’s anthropological trajectory: the prosaic answer—that Malinowski was taught well, and responded well to his teachers—is, so far as I can see, vastly more accurate historically. Then, far from being killed by his followers in his turn, like the mehti, he removed himself from the scene, and vanished.

Does this mean, though, that anthropology can never be good history? Such a judgement would obviously be absurd, however correct it may be to note that there is often a problem. There are also recent grounds for better possibilities in the future, curiously enough stemming from the land restitution claims that have gradually developed since 1993 in the Australian Legal System, where a new sub-discipline called Forensic Social Anthropology is beginning to emerge. Social Anthropologists such as Howard and Frances Morphy, and in the younger generation James Rose at the University of Melbourne, are beginning to develop ways of conveying the intricacies of complex human relations coherently enough that they are regarded as acceptable to trace longitudinally based land claims, relying on social anthropologists piecing together historical evidence in such a way that will satisfy the courts. It would be perfectly possible in principle to take such techniques and apply them to the study of nationalism, and in this way, perhaps, overcome some of the obstacles that appear to have arisen between our two disciplines. Let us indeed hope for a rapprochement.

References

• Gellner, Ernest. 1974. Thought and change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Gellner, Ernest. 1996. Reply to critics. In The social philosophy of Ernest Gellner, ed. John A. Hall and Ian Jarvie, 623–686. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.