Custom and public opinion may be considered together, since they have certain features in common and there are important connections between them. In the first place, they are to be counted among the less formal types of social control. They do not have the kind of systematic elaboration which we find in the case of law, morality or religion. There is a certain vagueness, and sometimes ambiguity, in regard to infractions of the code of behaviour which they prescribe, and in regard to punishments.
Custom has frequently been contrasted with law, and a distinction made between societies which possess law, in the sense of rules promulgated by a single recognized authority and sanctioned by definite punishments, and societies in which behaviour is regulated by traditional norms which are simply ‘accepted’ rather than sanctioned or enforced. We shall examine later the problems raised by this conception of law. Custom, as thus conceived, presents other difficulties. Conformity with custom is made to appear almost automatic, and indeed some early anthropologists, in their accounts of primitive societies, gave the impression that individual deviation from the customary rules was hardly conceivable.1 This total and automatic submission to custom was explained largely by the force of habit, although some writers also referred to public opinion and supernatural beliefs as additional supports for conformity.2
This distinction between types of society in which behaviour is regulated by custom and law respectively is too simple and clear cut, and the explanations of the submission to custom are inadequate. It is one of the major contributions of Malinowski to have shown the complexity of social control in primitive societies, and to have provided a more satisfactory account of the influence of
1E.g. R.R.Marett, Anthropology, (p. 182) ‘…one reason why it is hard to find any law in primitive society is because, in a general way of speaking, no one dreams of breaking the social rules’. Such views underlay the emphasis upon the conservative, unchanging nature of custom, and the contrast between the ‘cake of custom’ which immobilises primitive societies and critical, reflective thought which enables civilized societies to progress.
2E.g. L.T.Hobhouse, Social Development (1924).
custom.1 He argued, first, that ‘besides the rules of law, there are several other types of norm and traditional commandment’, such as morals, manners, rules of craftsmanship and ceremonial, and religious precepts. In discussing custom, he showed that neither the force of habit, nor respect for tradition, nor public opinion, nor the fear of supernatural beings, could entirely account for conformity. He emphasized the role of ‘binding obligations’ and ‘reciprocity’, as positive inducements to customary behaviour. As Schapera comments, ‘…life in a primitive community involves every individual in specific obligations to others, who in turn are similarly duty-bound to him. Those obligations he fulfils partly because of early training, and partly because of public opinion and self-interest: it pays him in various ways to do as he should, and if he does not he suffers loss of material benefit and of social esteem.’2 Further, Malinowski combatted the notion that in primitive societies submission to custom is automatic, by showing that contraventions of the social rules are frequent and motivated by considerations of personal advantage similar to those found in more complex societies.
Taken as a whole Malinowski’s work made untenable the earlier conceptions of the ‘tyranny of custom’ and of the irresistible force of habit and early training. It implied also a greater degree of comparability between different types of society in respect of social control. While in primitive societies custom has a large influence, in civilized societies custom, habit, public opinion and reciprocity still play a part, but some of the major forms of behaviour are more strictly and precisely regulated by law, religion and morality. There are important differences, also, between civilized societies in which social change is taking place rapidly and those in which change is slow. The social life of the medieval European societies, feudal and absolutist, was regulated not only by an armed aristocracy, by the religious and moral doctrines of an organized church, and by law, but also by custom and tradition. At the very end of the ancien régime the power of custom was recognized by conservative political philosophers, such as Burke, who argued that political wisdom consisted in following the traditions of one’s society as embodied in its existing social institutions. The social structure of India, until the last two centuries, underwent few and gradual changes; and the importance of custom was correspondingly great. J.D.Mayne, in
1See especially his Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926). Malinowki’s own views on social control varied at different periods in his career; they are usefully discussed and evaluated in I.Schapera, ‘Malinowski’s Theories of Law’, in R.Firth (ed.) Man and Culture.
2Schapera, loc. cit.
his classical work on Hindu law1 argued that ‘the great body of existing law consists of ancient usages, more or less modified by Aryan or Brahmanical influence’, and observed that the greatest effect was given to custom by the Courts and by legislation under British rule.2
Even in modern industrial societies the importance of custom is far from negligible, for much religion and morality is customary rather than reflective, and ordinary social intercourse is largely regulated by custom and public opinion. But in most of these societies we should rather speak of ‘customs’ and ‘opinions’, for they are characterized by a diversity which springs from the existence of numerous competing and conflicting groups, and from the rapidity of social change. The present-day communist societies constitute an exception, in so far as they aim by a variety of means at the inculcation and enforcement of a single uniform pattern of behaviour. Some recent writers have seen in such societies an extreme form of the regulation of opinion and conduct towards which all industrial societies are tending, because of the concentration of power and the massive growth of effective media of mass persuasion. Thus, C. Wright Mills, in his book The Power Elite, observes that the USA has ‘moved a considerable distance along the road to the mass society. At the end of that road there is totalitarianism, as in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia’. He distinguishes a mass society from a ‘society of publics’ by four characteristics: (i) far fewer people express opinions than receive them, (ii) the communications are so organized that it is difficult or impossible for the individual to answer back immediately or with any effect, (iii) the realization of opinion in action is controlled by authorities, (iv) the mass has no autonomy from the official institutions of society, but is permeated by agents of these institutions. In Britain, Richard Hoggart has recently studied the influence of ‘mass culture’ upon working class attitudes and opinions, and has emphasized the increase in ‘passive acceptance’.3
But it remains true that in many modern societies there is a greater diversity of opinion, more rapid variation in opinion, and a larger number of voluntary groups engaged in formulating and influencing opinion, than in other types of society. The phenomena of public opinion have been studied mainly by social psychologists, but before
1J.D.Mayne, A Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage (10th edn. 1938).
2The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the Ramnad case said: ‘Under the Hindu system of law, clear proof of usage will outweigh the written text of the law’. Mayne, op. cit. p. 47.
3R.Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (1957).
we consider their work reference should be made to some more general studies. A classical work of historical and sociological enquiry is A.V.Dicey’s Law and Opinion in England in the Nineteenth Century,1 which examines the influence of the highly articulate opinion represented in political and social doctrines upon legislation. A quite different analysis of the formation of attitudes and opinions is given by Pareto in his Mind and Society, where a fundamental distinction is made between ‘logical’ and ‘non-logical’ action. Pareto devotes most attention to the latter, and implicitly presents the view that almost all human behaviour is ‘non-logical’ in his sense, i.e. that it is the result of impulses or sentiments which he calls ‘residues’. These residues are the driving forces of human action, but they are often camouflaged in doctrines and theoretical systems which Pareto terms ‘derivations’, and which Marxists would call ‘ideologies’. Thus, for Pareto, opinions, which Dicey and others treated as more or less rational constructions (ranging from prejudices to philosophical doctrines) are merely rationalisations of the basic residues. Pareto does not, however, give a very convincing account of the nature and source of these residues upon which his whole analysis is based.2
The social psychological studies of opinion have concentrated upon more limited fields of enquiry.3 Much research has been devoted to prejudice, especially race prejudice. These problems are briefly surveyed in Arnold M.Rose, The Roots of Prejudice (UNESCO 1952) and discussed more extensively in G.W.Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass., 1954). Two particular studies should be mentioned. T.W.Adorno and other in The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1950) examined the psychological characteristics determining extreme intolerance and prejudice, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism. G.Myrdal in An
12nd edn. 1926. A recently published work, edited by M.Ginsberg, under the title Law and Opinion in the Twentieth Century attempts to continue Dicey’s study by tracing recent changes. As a collection of essays it lacks the unity and critical power of Dicey’s book.
2For a criticism of Pareto’s doctrine of ‘residues’ and ‘derivations’ see M. Ginsberg, ‘The Sociology of Pareto’ in Reason and Unreason in Society. Ginsberg has also provided, in his Psychology of Society, the best general analysis of the parts played respectively by reason and impulse in social behaviour.
3The subject is discussed in most text books of social psychology. In Kimball Young’s Handbook of Social Psychology approximately half the work is devoted to public opinion, mass communication, and prejudice. (See also works listed in the Bibliography at the end of this Section). Current research in this field can best be followed in the Public Opinion Quarterly.
American Dilemma (New York 1944) studied comprehensively the situation of Negroes in the USA, and in discussing prejudice brought out the conflict between a widely held ‘egalitarian ideology’ and the concurrently held opinions concerning the ‘inferiority’ of Negroes.
Another important field of enquiry has been that of political opinions, which was briefly considered in an earlier chapter.1 Here the contributions of social psychology have been chiefly in revealing the distribution and fluctuation of opinions; not in providing explanations. It seems evident that in the formation of political opinions the social situation of individuals and the nature and control of the means of communication are especially important. On the other hand, social psychology should be able to elucidate some of the factors in the rise of new currents of opinion and mass movements; such movements, for example, as National Socialism, or more recently ‘Poujadisme’ in France. In fact, little has been done to investigate such phenomena from the psychological aspect.
These observations on the study of political opinions have a wider bearing. It is necessary to study public opinion in modern societies from different aspects and at different levels. First, there is the need to determine the actual distribution of opinions on different types of issue, and to follow the changes in this distribution. A considerable contribution has been made to this kind of study by the organizations which undertake, as a regular activity, surveys of public opinion; e.g. the ‘Gallup Poll’ and others in the USA, the British Institute of Public Opinion, the Institut Français d’Opinion Publique. These surveys, however, can deal only with relatively simple opinions on very clearly defined issues; they can discover little about the ways in which opinions are supported, or connected with other opinions and beliefs, and they cannot distinguish between identical opinions in terms of the degree of rational conviction with which they are held. Moreover, they can do little to explain, as against describing, the fluctuations in opinion, or to trace the connections between opinion and behaviour. To deal with these problems we have, secondly, to examine the actual ways in which public opinion is formed; and this requires a study of opinion-forming agencies and of the procedures by which opinion is influenced. Among the more important agencies are the mass-media (film, radio and television, the press) and the major voluntary associations which aim at the establishment of particular norms, either directly through the pressure of public opinion or indirectly through legislation brought about by public opinion. In recent years, the mass-media
have been increasingly studied, but it cannot be claimed that the extent and nature of their influence is yet clear. There is some evidence that the press and radio have little effect in changing political opinions, but the diversity of opinions certainly depends upon their finding expression through the mass-media. The influence of associations in forming and changing opinions has been examined very largely by the students of pressure groups.1 A classical study of this kind is P.H.Odegard, Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928) which describes and analyses the means by which the Anti-Saloon League succeeded in bringing about prohibition in the USA. Concerning the individual’s acceptance or rejection of opinions and beliefs, much has been learned from commercial advertising techniques, and more recently from general studies of communication. The rapid growth of advertising in modern societies has led social psychologists to pay increasing attention to it, and quite apart from scientific study many psychologists are now employed as advisers on advertising techniques.2 Political propaganda itself shows increasingly the influence of the advertising and public relations expert; a great distance separates the socialist pamphlets of the nineteenth century from the glossy election brochures of the British Labour Party in the 1950’s.
Finally, it is necessary to consider how the content of public opinion is affected by values and norms derived from law, religion, morality, or custom, and on the other hand by social interests. Public opinion constrains and directs the behaviour of the individual, but in what way is public opinion itself formed? It is obviously relevant to this question to examine the agencies and techniques which influence opinion, and which we have just discussed, but there remains a problem as to the source of the values which public opinion upholds. No doubt, the source is frequently custom and tradition; and public opinion, though it may influence law, often lags behind it. An example may be seen in some of the current problems of caste in India. The notions of ‘untouchability’ and ‘unclean castes’ are essential elements in the traditional doctrine of the caste system. Religious and moral reformers, influenced very often by values coming from outside Hinduism, have attempted to eliminate such ideas from Hindu religious teaching and from popular thought. The Indian Constitution of 1950 abolished ‘untouchability’ as a legal status, but in actual social relations the
1See above, pp. 154–5.
2See A.M. and E.B.Lee, The Fine Art of Propaganda (New York 1939) and Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders.
condition still exists. The behaviour of the individual, in this particular context, is guided by customary values and public opinion, rather than by law. In the long run, no doubt, law, religious and moral teaching, and education will modify customary attitudes and opinions. It would be of great sociological interest to study the ways in which opinions on this issue are affected by changes in the values expressed by the more formal types of social control, and how, on the other hand, change is resisted by particular social groups which appeal to traditional values.
There are problems of a similar kind in other societies. Public opinion is mutable, there are divergent and sometimes contradictory customs and traditions which are invoked, and there are diverse and competing interest groups which seek to spread their ideologies. It is difficult, without field research of the intensive kind which social anthropologists practise, to discover the nature and force of the different pressures upon the individual. Opinion surveys can do little more than provide a broad framework for further enquiry. There is a need to examine on one side the formal symbolic systems of law, religion, and scientific knowledge, and on the other to study, by close and continuous observation, the behaviour and opinions manifested in the life of social groups which can conveniently be directly observed. The relevance of many small group studies is evident here,1 but much could also be learned from studies of neighbourhoods, economic enterprises, and local occupational groups, if they were undertaken from this point of view.
All studies of social control lead eventually to the issue of the relation between the individual and society, and to the problem of freedom and coercion. This concern, which is unmistakably the central reference point in the work of all the classical sociologists, is particularly apparent in the work of Durkheim,2 and in the later writings of Karl Mannheim.3 We shall return to it in a later chapter on sociology and social policy after discussing the other principal types of social control.