No More Learning

Once when a dish fell to the ground and broke, someone remarked by chance that the number of pieces was exactly the same as the number of people present--an omen for them to join together in a union of friendship in which each should owe the others good turns and assis- tance. Each of the gentlemen took a piece of the dish. Whenever one of them dies, his porcelain fragment is delivered back to the chairman, who glues the pieces handed back to him together. The last survivor is then supposed to glue the last piece, and the thusly repaired dish must be quickly buried. With that the 'Union of the Broken Dish' is finally liquidated and vanishes. Undoubtedly, the emotional tone inside this fellowship and in relationship to it would be a completely changed one if new members had been admitted and its life thereby perpetuated indefinitely. Its being designed from the very beginning to die gives it a certain cachet--which dyadic affiliations possess at the outset by virtue of the numerical limitation of their structure.
From the same structural foundation also only relationships of two are actually exposed to the characteristic coloration or decoloration that we identify as triviality. Because only where the claim to an individuality is productive of its appearance or achievement, the feeling of triviality produces its absence. It is still hardly adequately observed how rela- tionships, with fully unchanged content, are colored by the pervading imagination, however frequently or rarely similarly constituted. It is not only erotic relationships that receive through imagination (that there has never yet been such an experience) a special and meaningful timbre quite apart from their otherwise ostensible content and worth. Perhaps since there is hardly any externally objective property whose value--not only its economic value--would not from the infrequency or frequency contribute to the consciousness or unconsciousness of such, so perhaps also no relationship in its inner meaning for its carriers is independent of the factor of its amount of recurrence; this rate of occurrence can also mean thereby the repetitions of the same contents, situations, excitements inside the relationship itself. With the feeling of triviality we associate a certain level of frequency, of consciousness of the repetition of life content, the value of which is contingent directly upon a level
the quantitative conditioning of the group 85
of infrequency. Now it seems as though the life of a supra-individual social entity or the relationship of the individual to it has generally not faced this question, as though here, where the substantive meaning of the relationship transcends the individuality, even its individuality in the sense of the uniqueness or infrequency played no role and its absence thus operated as triviality. For the dyadic relationships of love, of mar- riage, of friendship--or even such higher numbered relationships that produce no higher structure often than the social gathering--the tone of triviality leading to despair or ruin proves the sociological character of the dual formations: to commit to the immediacy of the interaction and to deprive each of the elements of the supra-individual unity facing them, while they simultaneously partake of it.
That the sociological event remains thus within the personal apart- and-dependent existence, without the elements progressing to the formation of an overarching whole--as it exists in principle even with groups of two--is, moreover, the basis of 'intimacy. ' This characteristic of a relationship seems to me to return to the initially individual dis- position: in that the person gladly differentiates oneself from the other, the qualitatively individual is regarded as the core, value, and sine qua non of one's existence--a presumption in no way always justified since for many it is quite typically the contrary, the essence and substantial value of their personality shared with others. Now this repeats itself with aggregations. For them, too, it is manifest that the quite unique contents their participants share with one another but with no one outside this community have become the center and the real gratifica- tion of this community. This is the form of intimacy. To be sure, in every relationship some components, which its carriers contribute only to this relationship and no other, blend with others that are not exactly unique to this relationship but which the individual also shares in the same or similar way with other persons. Now as soon as that first, the internal aspect of the relationship, is experienced as its essence, as soon as it establishes its affective structure on that which each one gives or shows exclusively only to their own and to no one else--then the characteristic coloration is given that one calls intimacy. It is not the content of the relationship on which this rests. Two relationships, with regard to the mix of individual-exclusive contents as well as those radiating out in other directions, may be quite similar: only that one is intimate in which the former appears as the vehicle or axis of the relationship. When on the contrary certain people on the outside or people whose disposition is relatively alien to us initiate expressions and
86 chapter two
confessions like those that are otherwise reserved only for those closest to us, in such a case we nevertheless feel that this 'intimate' relational content does not yet make it intimate; because our entire relationship even to these people rests in its substance and its meaning still only on its general, non-individual components, and the former, certainly otherwise perhaps never revealed, nevertheless allows the relationship its own exclusive content because it does not become the basis of its form outside of intimacy. That this is the essence of intimacy makes it thus frequently a danger for closely bound dyads, perhaps most of all for marriage. In that the couple share the little 'intimacies' of the day, the kindnesses or unkindnesses of the hour, the faults carefully hidden from all others--it stands to reason that to transfer the accent and the substance of the relationship directly into the definitely fully individualistic, yet still objectively entirely irrelevant, and to view it as though actually lying outside the marriage, as something which one also shares with others, and which is perhaps the most important of the personality, the spiritual, the gracious, the general interests, is to gradually remove it from marriage.
Now there is the matter of how much the intimate character of the dyadic bond is connected to its sociological specificity, forming from it no higher unity over its individual elements. For this unity, its concrete carriers being thus so very much only those two, would be indeed effectively a third that can somehow come between them. The more extensive a community is, the easier it is, on the one hand, for an objective unity to form over the individuals, and, on the other, the less intimate it becomes; both of these characteristics are internally connected. That one is merely faced with others in a relationship and does not at the same time feel an objective supra-individual structure as existing and real--that is yet seldom actually fully clear in triadic relationships, but is nevertheless the condition of intimacy. That a third thus added to the two persons of a group interrupts the most intimate feeling, is significant for the more delicate structure of the groupings of two; and it is valid in principle that even marriage, as soon as it has led to a child, is sometimes undermined. It is worthwhile substantiat- ing this with a few words in order to characterize the affiliation of two members.
Just as duality, which tends to shape the form of our life content, presses toward reconciliations, whose successes as much as their failures make that duality all the more visible--so the masculine and the femi- nine, as the first example or prototype of this, press towards another,
the quantitative conditioning of the group 87
for unification, which becomes possible precisely only by way of the contrasting character of both, and which stands directly before the most impassioned desire for one another, in one another as something in the deepest unattainable ground. That it remains denied to the 'I' to grasp the 'Not I' actually and absolutely becomes nowhere more deeply felt than here where opposites nevertheless appear created for completion and fusion. Passion seeks to tear down the boundaries of the 'I' and merge with the other; however, they do not become an entity, but rather a new entity results: the child. And the characteristically dualistic condition of its becoming: a closeness that must nevertheless remain a remoteness, and its ultimate, which the soul desires, can never be reached, and a remoteness that presses endlessly to become one--with this, what has become stands also between its progenitors, and these varying sentiments associated with them allow now one, now the other to take effect. So it is that cold, internally estranged marriages desire no child because it binds: its uniting function highlights the foundation of that dominant estrangement all the more effectively, but also all the more undesired. Sometimes however very passionate and fervent mar- riages also want no child--because it divides. The metaphysical oneness, into which both sought to fuse only with one another, has now slipped through their fingers and stands over against them as a third physical presence that intrudes between them. But even a go-between must appear as a separation, to those who desire unmediated unity, in the same way that a bridge connects two banks, but nevertheless forms a measurable gap between them; and where a go-between is superfluous, it is worse than superfluous.
For all that the monogamous marriage seems here to be of the essential completion of the sociological character of dyadic group- ings--which is given through the absence of a supra-personal entity--an exception has to be made. The not-at-all unusual fact that there are decidedly poor marriages between admirable personalities and very good ones between quite deficient personalities indicates first of all that this structure, however dependent it is on each one of the participants, nevertheless can have a character that coincides with no member. If by chance each of the spouses suffers confusion, difficulties, inadequacies, but understands these to be as it were limited to oneself, while one contributes only one's best and purest in the marital relationship, this keeps it free from all personal inadequacies--so this may certainly hold first of all only for the spouse as a person, but nevertheless the feeling still arises that the marriage is something supra-personal, something
88 chapter two
in itself valuable and holy that is beyond the mundanity of each of its partners. While inside a relationship the one turns a sympathetic side only to that of the other, behaves only with respect for the other, these attributes, although certainly always one's duty, nevertheless obtain an entirely different color, mood, and meaning from when, in relation to one's own 'I,' they interweave only in the whole complex of this relationship. Consequently, for the consciousness of each of the two, the relationship can crystallize into an essence outside of it that is more and better--under some circumstances, also worse--than the individual self, an essence towards which one has obligations, and from which goods and fortune come to one as from an objective being. With regard to marriage this exemption of group unity from its being built on the basic 'I' and 'Thou' is facilitated by two kinds of factors. First by its incomparable closeness. That two so fundamentally differ- ent essences as man and wife form that kind of close bond, that the Egoism of the individual is so fundamentally overridden not only in favor of the other but in favor of the relationship as a whole, which includes family interests, family honor, the children above all--this is actually a wonder that is no longer rationally explainable beyond even this foundational seat of the conscious 'I. ' And the same is expressed in the separation of this union from its singular elements: the fact that each one of them experiences the relationship as something that takes on its own life with its own powers is only a formulation of its incom- mensurability with what we tend to imagine as the personal and rooted in the comprehensible 'I. ' This is furthermore especially required by the supra-individuality of the marital forms for the meaning of their social regulation and historical transmission. So immeasurably varied are the character and value of marriages--no one can dare decide whether they are more or less varied than single individuals--nevertheless no couple, after all, forged the form of marriage, but rather it is viewed as a relatively set form inside each cultural circle, removed from choice, not affected by individual hues and fortunes in its formal essence. In the history of marriage it is striking how large--and certainly always traditional--a role third persons, often not even relatives, play in the courtship, the arrangements over the dowry, the wedding customs--up to the officiating priest. This non-individual initiation of the relation- ship symbolizes very tangibly the sociologically unique structure of marriage: that the most personal of all relationships both with regard for substantive interests as well as formal configuration is appropri-
the quantitative conditioning of the group 89
ated and directed by plainly supra-personal, socio-historical entities. This insertion of traditional elements into the marital relationship, which places it significantly in contrast to the individual freedom in the arrangement, say, of the relationship of friendship, and in essence permits only acceptance or rejection but no modification, obviously promotes the sense of an objective formation and supra-personal unity in the marriage; although each of the two participants is in relation only to the single other, each feels nevertheless at least partially as though in relation only to a collectivity: as the mere bearer of a supra-individual structure that is in its essence and norms, however, independent of each one who is yet an organic member of it.
It seems as though modern culture, while it increasingly individualizes the character of the individual marriage, still leaves the supra-individu- ality that forms the core of the sociological form of marriage wholly untouched, indeed increases it in some respects. The variety of forms of marriage--whether based on the choice of contracting parties or determined by their particular social position--as it occurs in partly cultured and higher past cultures, appears at first as an individual form that especially lends itself to the differentiation in single cases. In reality it is quite the contrary: each of these separate kinds is still something thoroughly unindividual, socially preformed, and throughout the begin- ning of its differentiation is much more narrow and brutal than a wholly general and thoroughgoing fixed form of marriage, whose more abstract essence must necessarily allow greater room for personal differentiation. This is a thoroughgoing sociological formation: there is a much greater freedom for individual behavior and design when the social fixation con- cerns the whole public, when a thoroughgoing form is socially imposed on all relevant relationships--such as when, with apparent respon- siveness to individual circumstances and needs, social arrangements specialize themselves into all kinds of particular forms. The actually individual is in the latter case much more predetermined, the freedom for differentiation is greater if the unfreedom pertains quite overall to persistent traits. 14 Thus the unity of the modern form of marriage clearly offers wider latitude for further elaboration than does a majority of socially predetermined forms--while through its invariable univer- sality, however, it extraordinarily increases the cachet of objectivity,
14 These correlations are dealt with extensively in the last chapter.
? 90 chapter two
of the independent standing vis-a`-vis all individual modifications, which matter to us now. 15
Something sociologically similar could yet be seen in the duality of the partners of a business. Although its foundation and perhaps opera- tion rely exclusively on the cooperation of both of these persons, the matter of this cooperation, the business or firm, is still an objective structure about which each of the partners has constituent rights and duties--often not unlike those toward a third partner. Nevertheless, this has a different sociological meaning from that in the case of mar- riage; since the 'business' from the outset is something separate from the person of the proprietor due to the objectivity of the economy, and indeed in a duality the proprietor is no different from a sole or joint proprietorship. The interacting relationship of the partners with one another has its objective outside itself, while that in marriage has it
15 The actual intertwining of the subjective and objective characters, of the personal and the general supra-personal that marriage offers, is indeed found in the fundamental process, the physiological coupling, that alone is common to all historically known forms of marriage, while perhaps no single additional purpose is invariably found for all of them. This process on the one hand is felt as the most intimate and personal, but on the other hand as the absolutely general that allows the personality to immerse itself directly in the service to the genus, in the universal organic demand of nature. Its psychological secret is found in this double character of the act as that of the completely personal and the completely supra-personal, and from this it becomes understandable how this act could become the immediate basis of the marital relationship, which repeats this duality now on a higher sociological level. Now however there immediately emerges with the relationship of marriage to sexual activity a most peculiar formal complica- tion. While an exact definition of marriage may be quite impossible in light of the historical heterogeneity of its forms, it can nevertheless be determined what relation between man and woman marriage in any case is not: the purely sexual. Whatever else marriage may be, it is always and everywhere more than sexual intercourse; however divergent may be the directions towards which marriage goes, it transcends them--that it transcends sexual intercourse is primarily what makes marriage marriage. This is an almost unique sociological formation: that the one point that alone is common to all forms of marriage is at the same time the very one that it must transcend to result in a marriage. Only entirely remote analogies to this appear to occur in other realms: so artists, as they pursue even heterogeneous stylistic or imaginary-like tendencies, must equally know most exactly the naturalistic phenomena, not in order to remain with them, but in order to fulfill in that transcendence over them their specifically artistic task; in the way that all the historical and individual variations of gastronomic culture have still had to satisfy the same thing, the physiological needs of their field, but not in order to remain stationary there but precisely to step beyond this satisfaction of shear general need with the most diverse allurements. Within the sociological forma- tions, however, marriage appears to be the only or at least the purest of this type: all cases of a conceptual social form really involving only one unique element common to all, but for that very reason do not become realizations of this concept unless they add to that commonality something further, something unavoidably individual, something different in different cases.
? the quantitative conditioning of the group 91
within itself; in the former the relationship is the means toward obtaining some objective result, in the latter any objective actually appears only as a means for the subjective relationship. It is all the more notable that in marriage, nevertheless, the objectivity of the groups of two and the independence of the group structure grow further away from the immediate psychological subjectivity.
One constellation however of utmost sociological importance is lacking in that group of two, while it is in principle open to every plurality: the shifting from duties and responsibilities to the impersonal structure-- which so frequently characterizes social life, and not to its advantage. And, to be sure, from two angles: Every whole that is more than a mere pair of given individuals has an uncertainty in its boundaries and its power, which easily tempts one to expect all kinds of benefits from it that in fact obligate the individual member; one shifts them onto society, in the way one often in the same psychological tendency shifts them into one's own future, whose vague possibilities give room for everything or will secure through one's own growing powers everything that one would not readily want to take on at the moment. Over against the power of the individual, transparent in the relationships just considered but therefore also just as clearly limited, stands the always somewhat mystical power of the totality, from which one therefore easily expects not only what the individual can achieve but also what one would not like to achieve; and indeed with the sense of this shift of responsibil- ity being fully legitimate. One of the best North American experts shifts a large part of the deficiencies and constraints under which the governmental apparatus works onto the belief in the power of public opinion. The individual is supposed to rely on the totality inherently recognizing and doing right, and so easily loses the individual initiative for the public interest. This intensifies conceptually into the positive phenomenon that this selfsame author thusly describes:
The longer public opinion has ruled, the more absolute is the authority of the majority likely to become, the less likely are energetic minorities to arise, the more are politicians likely to occupy themselves, not in forming opinion, but in discovering it and hastening to obey it. 16
16 Quotation is from James Bryce in The American Commonwealth, vol. II, first pub- lished in London in 1888; see James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, vol. 2 (1888), The Online Library of Liberty, Liberty Fund, Inc. , 2005 <http://oll. libertyfund . org/Home3/Book. php? recordID=0004. 02> [accessed 26 November 2006].
? 92 chapter two
Likewise dangerous for the individual is membership in a whole, just as much with regard to inaction as action. Here it is a matter not only of the increase of impulsiveness and elimination of moral restraint, as these emerge in the individual in a crowd of people and lead to crimi- nal mob action in which even the legal responsibility of the member is controversial, but also that the true or the alleged interest of a com- munity entitles or obliges the individual to actions for which one as an individual would not like to bear responsibility. Economic enterprises make demands of such shameless egoism, office colleagues confess to such howling abuses, fraternities of a political as well as of a scientific type exercise such outrageous suppression of individual rights--as would not at all be possible for an individual or would at least make one blush if one were to answer for it as a person. As a member of a collective, however, one does all this with the clearest conscience because, as such, one is anonymous and shielded by the whole, indeed feels, as it were, concealed and intends at least formally to represent its interests. There are few cases in which the distance of the societal entity from the elements that form it gets so strongly, indeed almost in caricature, tangibly and effectively out of hand.
This reduction of the practical value of the personality, which the inclusion into a group often brings for the individual, must be indicated in order to characterize the dyad by its exemption. While here each member has only one other individual beside oneself, but not a greater number that would comprise a higher entity, the dependence of the whole on the member and thereby a share of responsibility for every collective action, is obvious. It can of course, as often enough happens, shift responsibilities to the companion, but the latter will be able to reject this much more immediately and definitely than can often be the case with an anonymous whole, for which the energy of personal interest or justifiable substitute for such cases is lacking. And likewise as little as one of two, on account of it, can hide what one does behind the group, so little can one, on account of it, depend on it for what one does not do. The strengths with which the group transcends the individual, to be sure very imprecisely and very partially, albeit still very noticeably, cannot compensate for individual inadequacy as in larger groupings; since in many cases two united individuals accomplish more than two isolated ones, so it is nevertheless characteristic in this case that each one must actually do something, and that, if one refuses this, only the other, and not the supra-individual power, is left--as is the case, indeed, even already by a combination of three. The importance
the quantitative conditioning of the group 93
of this provision, however, lies in no way only in the negative, in that which it excludes; from it stems rather also a narrow and specific tone of the combination of two. Precisely in that each one knows one could depend on the other alone and no one else, there is a special dedica- tion to the other--e. g. , marriage, friendship, but also the more external affiliations of two groups, including political ones--each element finds its social destiny in relationship to it and more highly dependent on it as an all or nothing affair than in more distant associations. This characteristic closeness is manifest most simply in the contrast to the combination of three. In that kind of grouping each individual element acts as a mediating authority for the other two and shows the two-fold function of such: both to bind together and to separate. Where three elements--A, B, and C--form a community, the direct relationship, for example, between A and B, is supplemented by an indirect one through their common relationship to C. This is a form-sociologi- cal enrichment, that each two elements, besides being bound by the direct and shortest line, is also yet bound by a refracted one; points at which they can find no immediate contact are created in interac- tion with the third member to whom each has a different perspective and unites each in the unity of the third personality; divisiveness that the participants cannot straighten out themselves are repaired by the third member or by its being dealt with in an encompassing whole. However, the direct binding is not only strengthened by the indirect but also disrupted. Still there is no such intimate relationship between three in which each individual would not be experienced occasionally as an intruder by the other two, and would also be only through the sharing of certain moods that their focus and modest tenderness can unfold at the undistracted glance of eye into eye; every attachment of two is thereby irritated that it has an onlooker. One can also note how extraordinarily difficult and seldom it is for three people to go, for instance, on a visit to a museum or before a landscape in an actually cohesive mood that develops relatively easily between two. A and B can emphasize and experience without interruption the ? they have in common because the ? that A does not share with B and the ? that B does not share with A are readily felt as individual reserve and as though on an altogether different floor. Now, however, C appears, who has ? in common with A and ? in common with B; thus is ended even with this the schema favorable for the unity of the whole as well as the assimilation of the mood in principle. While two can actually be a party relatively beyond any doubt, three tend to form immediately,
94 chapter two
in most emotionally subtle affiliations, three parties--by pairs--and thereby override the united relationship of, now one, now the other. The sociological structure of the bond of two is thereby characterized in that both lack the strengthened connection by the third, with respect to a social framework inclusive of the two, as well as the distraction and diversion of pure and immediate reciprocity. However, in many cases precisely that lack will make the relationship stronger and more intense, because in the feeling of being exclusively dependent on one another and on the cohesive powers that one is able to expect from nowhere in particular, not immediately evident in social interaction--some other- wise undeveloped powers of community, stemming as well from more remote psychic reservoirs, will come alive, and some disturbances and threats, to which one could be misled in the reliance on a third as well as on a collectivity, are more scrupulously avoided. This limitation, to which the relationship between two people is susceptible, is precisely the basis on which they construct the principal occasion of jealousy.
But one other expression of the same basic sociological constellation lies in the observation that relationships between two, formation of a whole from only two participants, presupposes a greater individualiza- tion of each of the two than, ceteris paribus, a whole made from many elements. Here, the essence is that in a union of two there is no majority that can outvote the individuals, an occasion immediately given by the addition of a third. Relationships, however, in which the oppression of the individual by a majority is possible, not only reduce individuality but generally, insofar as they are voluntary, they are not in general inclined to entertain very distinctive individualities. Whereupon indeed two commonly confused ideas are to be distinguished: the definitive and the strong individuality. There are personalities and collective entities that are of the most extreme individuality but do not have the power to protect this characteristic in the face of suppressions or leveling powers; whereas the strong personality tends to firm up its formation precisely in the face of opposition, in the struggle for its distinctiveness and over against all temptations to conform and blend in. The former, the merely qualitative individuality, will shun associations in which it finds itself opposite a possible majority; it is, however, as though it is predestined to multiple pairings because it is dependent by its distinctiveness as well as by its vulnerability on completion through another. The other type, the more intensive individuality, will, however, rather view itself in opposition to a majority against whose quantitative preponderance it can prove its dynamism. To be sure, technical reasons, as it were,
the quantitative conditioning of the group 95
will justify this preference: Napoleon's consulate-of-three was decid- edly more comfortable for him than a duality would have been, since then he needed to win over only the one colleague (what the strongest nature among the three will quite readily succeed in doing) in order to dominate the other, i. e. in fact both others, in the most legal man- ner. On the whole it can be said, however, that on the one hand the union of two, compared to larger numbers, favors a relatively greater individuality of the participants, on the one hand, and, on the other, presumes that the suppression of character by way of social incorpora- tion into an average level is absent here. Since it is for that reason true that women are the less individual gender, that the differentiation of individuals deviates less from the generic type than is the case on the average for men--so the very widespread opinion of them would be understandable, that they are in general less responsive to friendship than men. Because friendship is a relationship resting entirely and completely on the individualities of the members, perhaps even more than marriage, which, through its traditional forms, its social defini- tions, and its actual interests, includes the rather supra-individual, an independence from the distinctiveness of the personalities. The funda- mental differentiation, on which marriage rests, is in itself indeed still not an individual one but one of types; friendship, however, rests on one that is purely personal, and for that reason it is understandable that on the level of lower personality development in general actual and ongoing friendships are rare, and that on the other hand the modern highly sophisticated woman shows a conspicuously growing capability and inclination towards relationships of friendship and, to be sure, with men as well as with women. The entirely individual differentiation has here gained preponderance over that of types, and we therefore see the correlation produced between the sharpest individualization and a relationship that is limited absolutely at this stage to the relationship between two; naturally that does not exclude the same person being able to stand in different friendships at the same time.
That relationships between couples generally have such specific traits indicates not only the fact that the entry of a third changes them but also, what is often observed, that the further expansion to four or more in no way modifies the essence of the grouping correspondingly more. So, for example, a marriage with a child has a completely different char- acter from a childless one, while it does not differ so very significantly from a marriage with two or more children. Of course the difference in its inner being that the second child brings about is considerably
96 chapter two
greater again than what is being produced by a third. However, this still follows the mentioned norm, since a marriage with a child is in many respects a relationship with two members: the parents as a unit on the one hand, the child on the other. The second child is here actually not only a fourth but, sociologically viewed, simultaneously also a third member of a relationship that exercises the characteristic effects of such; because inside the family, as soon as the actual period of infancy is past, the parents much more commonly form a functioning unity than does the totality of children. Also in the realm of marital forms, the critical difference is whether monogamy generally prevails or the husband also has a second wife. If the latter is the case, the third or twentieth wife is relatively unimportant for the structure of the marriage. Inside the boundary drawn thereby, the step towards the second wife is here, of course, also at least from one perspective more consequential than that towards yet a greater number because just the duality of wives can generate in the life of the husband the sharpest conflicts and deepest disturbances, which do not in general increase with each additional one. Since with this, such a degradation and de-individualization of women is established, such a decisive reduction of the relationship to its sensual side (because every more mental relationship is also always more naturally individual)--it will not in general result in those deeper upheavals for the husband that can flow precisely and only from a relationship of two.
The same basic motif recurs in Voltaire's claim regarding the political usefulness of religious anarchy: two sects in rivalry inside a nation would unavoidably produce disturbances and difficulties that could never arise from two hundred. 17 The significance that the duality of the one element possesses in a multi-member combination is, of course, no less intrinsic and invasive, when it, instead of disruption, directly serves to safeguard the whole relationship. Thus it was asserted that the collegiality of the two Roman consuls may have counteracted monarchical appetites still more effectively than the system of nine top officials in Athens. It is the same tension of duality that simply functions, now destructively, now preserving, depending on the sundry circumstances of the whole association; what is essential here is that this latter one acquires an entirely different sociological character as soon as the activity in question
17 "If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace. " Voltaire, Philosophical Letters, translated and introduced by Ernest Dilworth (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961 [1733/34]), p. 26--ed.
? the quantitative conditioning of the group 97
is carried out either by an individual person or a number greater than two. By the same logic as the Roman consuls, leading colleagues are often paired together: the two kings of the Spartans, whose continuous disagreements were explicitly emphasized as a protection for the state; the two chief war leaders of the Iroquois tribes; the two city guardians of medieval Augsburg, where the attempt at a unitary mayor's office stood under a severe penalty. The characteristic irritations between the dualistic elements of a larger structure acquire the function by them- selves of maintaining the status quo, while in the cited examples the fusion for unity would have easily led to an individual higher lordship, the enlargement to plurality, however, to an oligarchic clique.
Now regarding the type that showed the duality of elements in general as so critical that any further increase does not significantly alter it, I mention yet two very singular facts, but nevertheless of the utmost importance as sociological types. The political standing of France in Europe was immediately changed most significantly when it entered into a close relationship with Russia. A third or fourth ally would not bring about any essential change, once the principal one has occurred. The contents of human life vary quite significantly depending on whether the first step is the most difficult and decisive, and all later ones have secondary importance for them--or whether it does not yet mean anything for it, and not until its developments and increases realize the changes which it only portends. The numerical relations of social interaction provide ample examples of both forms, as will be pointed out time and again below. For a state whose isola- tion stands in reciprocal relation with the loss of its political prestige, the reality of an alliance is generally the crucial thing, while perhaps certain economic or military advantages are obtained only when a circle of alliances is available from which even one is not allowed to go missing should success not be forthcoming. Between these two types then there is obviously that in which the specific character and success of the alliance appears in proportion to the number of elements, as is the rule with the association of large masses. The second type includes the experience that command- and assistance-relationships change their character in principle if instead of one domestic servant, assistant, or other kind of subordinate, two of them are allied. Housewives some- times prefer--wholly apart from the matter of cost--to manage with one servant because of the extra difficulties that a greater number of them brings with it. The single one will, because of the natural lack of self-assurance, strive to draw near and fit in to the personal sphere and circle of interest of the rule of the master; that very same person will
98 chapter two
be moved, with an eventual second party, to organize against the rule because now each of the two has the support of the other; the sense of rank with its latent or more conscious opposition to the domination of the master will then become effective for the two because it emerges as what they have in common. In short, the sociological situation between the dominant and the subordinate is absolutely altered as soon as the third element enters; instead of solidarity, now there is in fact party formation, instead of emphasis on what binds those who serve with those who rule, now in fact the disjunctive, because the commonalities on the part of the comrades are sought and naturally found, which constitutes the opposition of both against that shared by those who dominate. Furthermore, the transformation of the numerical difference into a qualitative one is no less fundamental when it shows up in the opposite consequence for the ruling element of the association: one is better able to hold two at a desirable distance than one, and possesses in their jealousy and competition a tool to hold each down and to keep them compliant, for which there is no equivalent over against one. An old saying says technically the same thing: "Who has one child is its slave; who has more is their lord. " In any event the grouping of three stands in contrast to the dyad as a fully new structure, the latter char- acteristically distinguished in such a way that the former is specifically distinguished backwards against it but, however, not forwards against increased groupings to four or more elements.
In the transition to the peculiar formations of the triad of elements, the diversity of the character of groups is to be emphasized, which their division into two or three main parties produces. Impassioned times tend to place the entire life of the public under the motto: Who is not for me is against me. The result must be a division of the elements into two parties. All interests, persuasions, impulses that generally place us in a positive or negative relationship to another are distinguished by the extent to which that principle holds for them, and they fall into a spectrum, beginning from the radical exclusion of all mediation and nonpartisanship to tolerance for the opposed standpoint as one likewise legitimate and to a whole spectrum of standpoints agreeing more or less with one's own positions. Every decision that has a relationship to the narrower and wider circle surrounding us, that determines our place in them, that involves an inner or outer cooperation, a benevolence or mere tolerance, self-promotion or threat--every such decision occupies a definite rung on that scale; each draws an ideal line around us that decisively either includes or excludes every other person, or has spaces where the question of inclusion or exclusion is not raised, or that is
the quantitative conditioning of the group 99
managed in such a way that it makes mere contact or merely partial inclusiveness and partial exclusivity possible. Whether and with what decisiveness the question of "for me or against me? " is raised is deter- mined in no way only by the logical stringency of its content, indeed not even the passion with which the soul insists on this content, but likewise by the relationship of those doing the asking to their social circles. The stricter and more solidary this is, the less the subject can co-exist with others as entirely equally disposed fellows, and the more an ideal demand embraces the totality of all the latter as a unity--the more intransigent will each one become in regard to the question of for or against. The radicalism with which Jesus formulated this ruling rests on an indefinitely strong feeling of the unified solidarity of all those to whom his message came. That there is over against this not only a simple acceptance or rejection but indeed even an acceptance or fight--that is the strongest expression for the indeterminate unity of those who belong and the indeterminate outsider status of those who do not belong: the fight, the being-against-me, is always still a distinc- tive relationship, proclaiming yet a stronger internal, albeit perversely developed, unity than the indifferently co-existing and the intermediate kingdom of half-and-half. This basic sociological sense will therefore force a division of the whole complex of elements into two parties. Where in contrast that passionate feeling of envelopment vis-a`-vis the whole is lacking, which forces each into a positive relationship--acceptance or resistance--with the emerging idea or demand; where every faction is satisfied in essence with its existence as a faction, without the earnest demand for inclusion in the totality--there the soil is prepared for a multiplicity of party formations, for tolerance, for moderate parties, for a scale of gradually tiered differences. That epochs wherein the great masses are put into movement manifest the dualism of parties and preclude indifference and the minimizing of the influence of moderate parties--becomes understandable from the radicalism that appeared to us a little while ago as the character of mass movements. The simplicity of the ideas by which these are guided forces a definite 'Yes' or 'No. '18
18 Throughout history the democratic tendencies, in so far as they lead the great mass movements, go in for simple regulations, laws, principles; the various standpoints taking antipathetic practices into account are all complicated for democracy by varied ongoing considerations, while the aristocracy on the other hand tends to abhor universal and compulsory law and to establish the particularity of the individual element--of the personal, local, objective type--in their law.
? 100 chapter two
This radical decisiveness in mass movements does not thoroughly prevent their total shift from one extreme to another; indeed, it is not difficult to conceive of this happening even to completely irrelevant trifles. Any one cause, X, which corresponds to mood A, may affect an assembled mass. In that mass is a number of individuals or even only a single one whose temperament and natural enthusiasm are predisposed to A. Such persons are highly excited by X; it is grist to their mill and understandably they assume the leadership in the mass already in some measure set out in this direction by X; the mass follows them through their spiritedness and drive into their exaggerated frame of mind, while the individuals who are by nature disposed to mentality B, the opposite of A, remain silent in the face of X. Now enter any one Y, which B warrants, then the former must keep silent, and the game repeats itself in the direction of B with the same exaggeration; it simply comes from the fact that in every mass individuals are available whose nature is disposed towards a more extreme development of the correspondingly excited frame of mind, and that these, as the momentarily strongest and most impressive, take the mass with them in the direction of their frame of mind, while the contrarily disposed remain passive during this movement that offers them and the whole no motivation towards their particular direction. Expressed wholly in principle, it is the inducement of the formal radicalism of the mass and its easily changing content that a resultant middle line arises, not from its elements disposed in various directions, and that a momentary preponderance of one direction tends at the same time to silence completely the representatives of the others, instead of their participating proportionally in the mass action, so that for any particular tendency getting a hearing there exists absolutely no inhibition to prevent it from going to an extreme. Over against the fundamental practical problems there are as a rule only two simple standpoints, while there may be countless complex and thus intervening ones. Likewise in general every vital movement inside a group--from the familial, through all interest groups, to the political--will be disposed to its own division into a pure dualism. The heightened tempo in the execution of interests in the course of developmental stages presses always towards more resolute decisions and divisions. All interventions require time and leisure; quiet and stagnating epochs, in which the life questions are not stirred up but remain covered over by the routine of everyday concerns, easily allow imperceptible changes to emerge and give way to an indifference on the part of personalities whom a more lively current would have to drag into the conflict of the major
the quantitative conditioning of the group 101
factions.
The typical division of the sociological constellation remains then always that of two or of three main factions. In the function of the third, to mediate between two extremes, several divisions into graduated levels are possible; here there is, so to speak, only a broadening or even refinement in the technical design of the principle. This change, itself determining the configuration internally, is for sure always realized through the introduction of the third party.
The role played by the third party and the configurations that result among three social elements have hereby indeed been suggested for the most part. The two present, as the first synthesis and unification, thus also the first disunity and antithesis; the entry of the third means transformation, reconciliation, abandonment of absolute opposition--of course occasionally even the instigation of such. The triad as such seems to me to result in three kinds of typical group formations that on the one hand are not possible with just two elements, on the other hand are with a number greater than three either likewise excluded or expand only quantitatively without changing their type of form.
1. The nonpartisan and the mediator. It is a most effective sociological reality that the common relationship of isolated elements to one outside the reach of their power leads to an association between them--going from the confederation of states, which is concluded for the defense against a common enemy, to the invisible church, which incorporates all the faithful into a union by way of the identical relationship of everyone to the one God. This social constructing mediation of a third element is treated, however, in a later context. Because the third element has here such a distance from each of the others that actual sociological interactions, which would combine the three elements, are not occur- ring, but rather dyadic configurations: while either the relationship of the one or the other joining together is sociologically certain, it persists between them as a unity on the one hand and the center of interests confronting them on the other. Here, however, it is a matter of three elements standing so close to one another or in common movement that they form a permanent or temporary group.
In the most significant case of dyadic formations, that of the monoga- mous marriage, the child or children, as the case may be, often exercises the function of the third element that keeps the whole together. Among many primitive peoples, the marriage is first considered actually com- plete or even indissoluble when a child is born; and one of the motives from which emerging culture deeply and closely connects marriage is surely this, that the children become independent of it relatively late
102 chapter two
and thus need care for a longer time. The basis for the aforementioned fact naturally lies in the value that the child has for the husband and in his tendency, sanctioned by law and custom, to disown a childless wife. The real effect of this, however, is that precisely the third additional member actually first closes the circle, in that it binds the other two together. This can occur in two forms: either the existence of the third member immediately establishes or strengthens the bond between the two--as for example when the birth of a child increases the couple's love for one another or at least that of the husband for the wife--or the relationship of both individuals to the third results in a new and indirect bond between them--as the common concerns of a marital couple for a child generally mean a bond that simply must lead via this child and often consist of sympathies that could not operate at all without such an intermediate station. This occasion of internal socializing from three elements--whereas the two elements on their own would resist this--is the basis of the phenomenon mentioned above that some internally disharmonious marriages want no child: it is the instinct that the circle would thereby be closed, inside of which they would be held more closely together--and to be sure not only superficially but also in the deeper psychological levels--than they intended it to be.
Another variety of mediation occurs in the third functioning as an impartial element. Thus the third party will either bring about the unity of both conflicting parties while it seeks to disengage and simply continue to function, while it seeks to exclude itself and make the two disunited or divided parties unite without mediation; or the third will emerge as conciliator and bring their conflicting claims more or less into balance and thereby eliminate the divisiveness. The disputes between workers and employers have developed both forms of agreement, especially in England. We find bargaining councils in which the parties dispose of disputes through negotiations under the chairmanship of a mediator. Certainly the mediator will bring about the agreement in this form only if each party views the relationship as more advantageous in peace than the grounds for the hostility, in short if the actual situation war- rants it in and of itself. The enormous prospect for both parties being convinced by this faith, which is brought about by the mediation of the mediator--apart from the obvious elimination of misunderstandings, effective persuasion, etc. --is formed in the following manner. While the impartial member puts forth the claims and grounds of one party to the other, they lose the tone of subjective passion that tends to pro- voke the same from the other side. Here what is so often unfortunate
the quantitative conditioning of the group 103
becomes beneficial: that the feeling that accompanies a psychological content within its first bearer tends to be substantially moderated inside a second for whom this content is transient. Therefore, recommenda- tions and intercessions that must first pass through several mediating persons, are so often ineffective, even when their objective contents arrive entirely unchanged at the deciding authority; simply with the transmission there are emotional imponderables lost that complement not only insufficiently objective reasons, but also furnish sufficient rea- sons with just the incentives for practical realization. This fact, most highly important for the development of purely psychological influence, brings it about in the simple case of a third mediating social element, that the emotional accents accompanying the demands, because this is formulated by an impartial side and presented to the other, are abruptly separated from the substantive content, and thus that circle disastrous for any agreement is avoided--that in which the vehemence of the one calls out the same in the other, this latter reality, then, reactively raising the vehemence of the former, and so forth until there is no stopping it. On top of that each party not only hears more objectively but must express itself more objectively than with unmediated confrontation. For it must now matter to them that they also win over the mediator to their point of view, which is exactly where the third is not an arbitrator but only the manager of the initial compromise and must always stop short of the actual decision, whereas, however, an arbitrator in the end definitively takes a side--which can be expected precisely in this case only on the basis of the most objective grounds. Inside the social method there is nothing that would serve the unification of conflicting parties so effectively as its objectivity, that is, the attempt to let the purely factual content of grievances and demands speak--philosophi- cally stated: the objective spirit of the party's position--so that persons themselves appear only as irrelevant carriers of it. The personal form in which objective contents are subjectively alive must pay for its warmth, its colorfulness, its depth of feeling, with the acrimony of the antagonism that it generates in instances of conflict; the moderation of these personal tones is the condition under which understanding and unification of opponents is achievable, and indeed especially because only then each party is actually aware of what the other must demand. Expressed psychologically, it is a matter of a reduction of the obstinate form of antagonism to the intellectual: intellect is everywhere the prin- ciple of understanding on whose ground can be encountered what is rejected uncompromisingly on the grounds of feelings and their willful
104 chapter two
decisions. The merit of the mediator, then, is to bring about this reduc- tion, to present it in itself or even to form a kind of central station that, in whatever form the matter of controversy gets into from one side, dispenses it to the others and withholds everything beyond it that tends to stir up useless conflict conducted without mediation.
For the analysis of community life it is important to make it clear that the constellation heretofore identified in all groups that count more than two elements occurs continually even where the mediator is not specifically selected, is even not particularly known or identified as such. The group of three is here only a type and schema; all cases of mediation reduce in the end to its form. There is absolutely no com- munity of three, from the hour-long conversation to the life of a family, in which now these, now those two do not get into a disagreement of a harmless or pointed, momentary or long-lasting, theoretical or practical nature--and in which the third would not function mediatively. This happens countless times in quite rudimentary form, only hinted at, mixed with other actions and interactions from which the mediative function is never purely absent. Such mediations need not even take place in words: a gesture, a kind of listening, the mood that comes from a person, suffices for giving a misunderstanding between two others a direction toward unity, to make the essential commonality perceptible underneath a sharp difference of opinion, to put this in a form in which it is most easily discharged. It is not at all necessarily a matter of actual conflict or strife; rather there are a thousand entirely minor differences of opinion, the hint of an antagonism between personalities, the emergence of wholly momentarily opposed interests or feelings--which colors the fluctuating forms of every enduring collective life and is determined by the presence of a third continually and almost unavoidably performing the mediating function. This function rotates, so to speak, among the three elements, because the ebb and flow of shared life tends to realize that form in every possible combination of members.
The impartiality needed for mediating can have two kinds of pre- condition: the third is impartial because of either standing outside the contrasting interests and opinions, untouched by them, or because of sharing in both at the same time. The first case is the simplest, bringing with it the fewest complications. In disputes between English workers and employers, for example, a nonpartisan is often called in who can be neither a worker nor an employer. Noteworthy is the resoluteness with which the above emphasized division of the material from the personal moments of the conflict is here realized. The impartial member brings
the quantitative conditioning of the group 105
the presumption of absolute personal disinterestedness to the material concerns of the conflicting parties, viewing them as though from an entirely pure, impersonal intellect, untouched by any subjective residue. The mediator must, however, have a subjective interest in the persons or complex of persons whose issues of conflict are merely theoretical for the mediator because otherwise the mediator would not take on the function of mediation. Thus here a more-or-less purely objective mechanism of subjective warmth is put into operation; the personal distance from the objective meaning of the conflict and the simultane- ous subjective interest in functional combination characterize then the position of the impartial and render it all the more suitable, the more sharply each of these angles is developed in itself and the more unified at the same time both work together precisely in this differentiation.
There tends to be a more complicated formation in the situation for the nonpartisan who is obligated to play an equal role vis-a`-vis the conflicting interests, instead of being unaffected by them. A position of mediation on this basis will then frequently arise when personalities belong to another interest circle in respect to location rather than to actual role. So in earlier times the bishops could sometimes intervene between the secular powers of their parish and the pope; so, too, civil servants, who are close to the special interests of their district, will be the most suitable mediators when a collision occurs between these spe- cial interests and the general interests of the state, whose civil servants they are; thus will the degree of impartiality and simultaneous interest that is available for the mediation between two divided local groups often be found in the personalities who come from the one and live in the other. The difficulty of such positions for the mediators tends to originate then from the equality of interest in both parties, their inter- nal equanimity not being firmly secure and often enough distrusted by both parties. A more difficult and often tragic situation arises, however, when there are no such separate provinces of interest for the third party with which the third is bound to the one or the other party, but when the third's whole personality is close to both; this grows most extremely acute when the issue of conflict is in general not quite objectifiable and the objective meaning of the conflict is actually only a pretense or an opportunity for deeper personal incompatibilities. Then the third, who is tied to each of the two with equal sincerity through love or duty, through fate or custom, can be crushed by the conflict, much more than if taking one of the two sides; and all the more so than in those cases when the balance of the intermediary's interests allows no tilt to either
106 chapter two
side but tends nevertheless to lead to no successful mediation because the reduction to a merely objective opposition collapses. This is very often the pattern in family conflicts. While the intermediaries whose impartiality is a consequence of a similar distance from those in con- flict, capable then of pleasing both parties relatively easily, they will, because of their equal closeness to both, encounter great difficulty and get caught up personally in the most awkward emotional ambivalence. Consequently, when the mediator is chosen, one will prefer, in otherwise similar circumstances, the equally disinterested over the equally inter- ested; so, for example, the Italian cities in the middle ages would often obtain their judges from other cities to be sure of their impartiality with regard to the internal party feuds.
With this, there is the transition to the second form of reconciliation by the impartial: that of arbitration. As long as the third element func- tions as a genuine mediator, the cessation of the conflict still remains exclusively in the hands of the parties themselves. By the selection of an arbitrator, however, they have handed over the final decision; they have, if you will, outsourced their drive for reconciliation; it has come to be in the person of the arbitrator, whereby it gains particular clarity and power vis-a`-vis the antagonistic parties. The voluntary appeal to an arbitrator, to whom one submits a priori, presupposes a greater subjec- tive trust in the objectivity of the judgment than does any other form of adjudication. Since even before the state court only the action of the plaintiffs, in fact, arise from confidence in a fair-minded decision (because they view it in their case as beneficial for the just); the defendants must enter into the process, irrespective of whether or not they believe in the impartiality of judge. Arbitration, however, as mentioned, comes about only through such trust on the part of both sides. In principle mediation is sharply differentiated from arbitration by the indicated difference, and the more official the action of reconciliation is, the more it adheres to this distinction: from the conflicts between capitalists and workers, which I mentioned above, to those of large-scale politics, in which the 'good services' of a government being approached for the settlement of a conflict between two becomes something altogether dif- ferent than the appeal for arbitration sometimes made to the rulers of a third country. In the everyday reality of private life, where the typical group of three continually places the one manifestly or latently, fully or partially, into the margin between both of the others, a great many intermediate levels will be generated: with the inexhaustible variety of possible relationships, the appeal of the parties to the third and whose
the quantitative conditioning of the group 107
voluntarily or violently seized initiative toward unity will often put the third in a place where the distinction between the mediating and the arbitrating element is overall not very great. For understanding the real fabric of human society and its indescribable richness and dynamism, it is of utmost importance to sharpen the view for such formations and transformations, for the merely hinted and then again hidden forms of relationship, for their embryonic and fragmentary development. The examples in which each one of the concepts constructed for these forms of relationship are presented entirely purely are, of course, the indis- pensable manipulations of sociology, but for the actual life of society they act only as the approximately exact spatial forms by which one uses geometrical sentences to typify the immeasurable complexity of the real formations of matter.
On the whole, after all is said and done, the existence of the impartial serves the survival of the group; as a particular representative of the intellectual energy vis-a`-vis parties momentarily dominated more by desire and emotion, it replenishes, as it were, the fullness of the mental unity that dwells in the life of the group. The impartial, on the one hand, is the force of restraint over against the passion of the others, and can, on the other hand, bear and lead even the movement of the whole group when the antagonism of the other two elements wants to paralyze their strengths. Nevertheless this outcome can turn into its opposite. From the indicated context the most intellectually talented elements of a group will lean especially in the direction of neutrality because cool reason tends to find light and shadows on both sides, and its objective fairness does not categorically favor one side easily. For this reason the most intelligent elements are sometimes kept away from influence on the decision in conflicts, while such influence precisely from their perspective is most desirable. Straightaway they, when the group is at that point of decision between Yes and No, would have to throw their weight onto the scale, given that this then will move all the more probably in the right direction. Thus when neutrality does not directly serve practical mediation, it will, by means of its link to intellectuality, result in the decision being left to the play of the more foolish or at best more biased powers in the group. When therefore the impartial action as such so often experiences disapproval--since Solon--this is something rather healthy in the social mind and is a return to a much deeper instinct for the welfare of the whole, as something of a suspicion of cowardice which neutrality often meets, although often quite wrongly.
108 chapter two
It is quite obvious that neutrality, functioning as a third just as equally distant as sympathetic to the colliding two, can blend in with the most varied types of relationships of the former to the latter and to the group as a whole. That, for example, the third, who is engaged with others in a group but who had, until now, stood far from their conflicts is pulled into them, but nevertheless precisely with the cachet of independence from the parties already established--this can serve the unity and bal- ance of the group very well, albeit overall in the form of the instability of that latter. It is in this sociological form that in England the third estate first participated in matters of state. Since Henry III these were irrevocably bound to collaboration with the great barons, who, together with the prelates, had to approve funds; the combination of these estates against the king was powerful, indeed often superior. Nevertheless constant divisions, abuses, coups, and conflicts resulted, instead of a fruitful collaboration. And then both parties felt that a remedy could be found only by bringing in a third party: the subvassals and freemen, the earldoms and cities previously excluded from affairs of state. When their council representatives--the beginning of the lower house--were summoned, the third element exercised the double function: to make the government actually a counterpart to the totality of the state, and used it as an authority that helped the older parties to a certain extent to be objective with regard to the government and thereby funnel their strengths, heretofore consumed in opposition, more harmoniously into the united functioning of the state.
2. The tertius gaudens. The neutrality of the third element served or damaged the group as a whole in the combinations discussed so far. The mediator as well as the arbitrator wish to rescue the unity of the group from the danger of breaking up. Obviously their relatively superior position, however, can also be exploited for their own purely egoistic interests: while they conduct themselves at one time as mediator for the purposes of the group, on another they reverse and make the interactions between the parties and between them and the parties a means for their own purposes. Here it is never a matter of a structure already previously consolidated into whose social life this event would appear beside others; rather it is precisely here that the relationship between the parties and the impartial one is often first established ad hoc; elements that otherwise do not comprise any unity of interac- tion can get caught up in a dispute; a third, to whom both are equally unconnected beforehand, may spontaneously take the opportunity that this dispute offers a nonpartisan, and thus can produce a rather
the quantitative conditioning of the group 109
unstable interaction, the liveliness and formal richness of which for each element member stands entirely out of proportion to the fleetingness of its durability.
I would mention two apparent kinds of the tertius gaudens without going into detail, because the interaction within the group of three, whose typical formations are the present concern, does not character- istically stand out. Rather, a certain passivity either on the part of the two conflicting elements or on that of the third is characteristic of it. It can be arranged to the advantage of the third in such a way that both of the others are held in check, and the third can pocket a profit for which one of the two would have otherwise challenged the third. The dispute brings about here only a paralysis of powers that, were they able, would be turned against the third. The situation then actually cancels the interaction among the three elements instead of adding to it the kind without which the most obvious outcome for the three ele- ments cannot be gained. The deliberate effecting of this situation is a matter of the next configuration of three. Secondly the third can have an advantage only because the action of one combative party realizes this advantage for the sake of that one's ends, even without any initiative required on the part of the one advantaged. The model here is that the benefits and advances that one party allows to accrue to a third are designed to injure the opposing party. So the English worker-protection laws were originally passed in part because of the mere grudge of the Tories against the liberal manufacturers; in this way many charitable actions owe their origin to the competition for popularity. It is in a strange way precisely an especially petty and malicious disposition that, in order to aggravate a second, treats a third well: the indiffer- ence toward the intrinsic moral character of altruism cannot stand out more sharply than through such an exploitation of it. And it is doubly significant that one can achieve the goal of aggravating opponents by the benefits that one accords one's friends as well as those that one accords one's enemies.
The more fundamental formations arise here when the third for its part turns practically, supportively, generously to the one party (thus not only intellectually matter-of-fact, as the arbitrator) and thereby extracts its direct or indirect gain. Two main developments occur within this form: two parties are hostile toward one another and thus compete for the good will of the third, or two parties compete for the good will of the third and therefore are hostile toward one another. This difference is especially important for the further development of the constellation.
110 chapter two
To wit, an already existing hostility presses each party to seek the good will of the third; so the decision in this conflict will mean the addition of the third to the side of one party at the beginning of the struggle; conversely, where two elements independently of each other strive for the favor of a third, and this forms the basis of their hostility, their party-formation, the definitive granting of this favor--which in this case is thus an object, not a means of conflict--tends to put an end to this: the decision has been made, and further hostility has thereby become practically pointless. In both cases the advantage of neutrality with which the tertius originally stands over against them both, lies in the fact that those in that position can set their conditions for their decision. Where for whatever reason this proposal of conditions is denied them, then the situation also does not offer them the full benefit. So is it in one of the most common instances of the second type, the competition of two persons of the same gender for the favor of a person of the other. Here the decision of the latter depends in general not on that person's will in the same sense as that of a buyer between two competing suppliers or princes granting favor between competing petitioners; rather it is offered through existing feelings that do not obtain from will and from the outset do not place that person in any kind of a position for choos- ing. Therefore, of offerings whose significance is controlled by choice, we are talking here only of exceptional cases, and yet the situation of the tertius gaudens is taken fully for granted, its specific exploitation as a whole is nevertheless denied. The most encompassing example of the tertius gaudens is the buying public in an economy with free competition. The contest for customers gives it an almost complete independence from the individual supplier--although the supplier is dependent on the totality of buyers, a coalition of them would thus immediately reverse the relationship--and allows it to link its purchases to the satisfaction of its desires with regard to the quality and price of goods. The situation of the tertius gaudens has then still the peculiar advantage that the producers must yet try even to anticipate those conditions, to guess the unspoken or unconscious wishes of consumers, not at all to suggest or to accustom them to what is on hand. From the first mentioned case of the woman between two suitors, in which, because the decision depends on her being and not on her actions, the one choosing tends not to place any conditions and thus does not exploit the situation--leads a continuing series of phenomena up to that of modern consumption, from which the being of the personality is fully excluded and in which the advantage of those choosing goes so far that the parties take from them the increase
the quantitative conditioning of the group 111
of conditions even to its maximum. The latter is the farthest extreme to where the situation of the tertius gaudens can take this.
The history of any cooperative alliance, from that between states to that between family members, tends to offer an example of the other formation--conflict forcing the parties to compete for the help of the third who originally has no relationship to the issue. In the following variation the very simple typical course is still of special sociological interest. In order for the third to acquire that advantageous position, the power accrued need not necessarily possess a great quantity compared to the great power of each party. Rather, how great the power of the third must be for this is determined exclusively through the relationship that the powers of the parties exhibit among one another. Actually it obvi- ously depends only on its being enough to counterbalance one of them. Thus if the forces are about equal, a minimal increase is enough to be the decisive factor toward the one side. Hence the frequent influence of small parliamentary parties that they can never acquire through their own importance but only by way of the big parties being held roughly in a balance. Generally, where majorities decide, everything thus frequently hanging on a single vote, there is the possibility that completely unimportant parties put forth the most crass conditions for their support. Parallels can appear in the relationships of small states to large ones involved in conflict. It simply depends only on the forces of two antagonistic entities mutually paralyzing one another so that the position, however weak, of the yet unengaged third is given relatively unlimited power. Entities strong in themselves will naturally profit no less from this situation; what is, of course, made difficult in some forma- tions, e. g. inside of a definitively shaped party existence, is that precisely the large parties are frequently very firmly set in material respects and in their relation to one another, and therefore do not have that full freedom of decision-making that all the advantages of the tertius gaudens would offer them. Through entirely uniquely favorable constellations the Center party in the German parliaments has more-or-less evaded this limitation for the last hundred years. What extraordinarily strengthens its position of power, of course, is that its party ideology commits it to a definite direction with regard to only a rather small portion of the parliamentary decisions. With regard to all other decisions it can fully freely decide for itself, now one way, now another: it can speak out for or against protective tariffs, for or against labor-friendly legislation, for or against military demands, without being prejudiced by its party program. Consequently in all such cases it stands as a tertius gaudens
112 chapter two
among the parties, each of whom can endeavor to curry its favor. No landowner will seek the assistance of the Social Democrats for grain tariffs, since it is known that they must oppose them on party grounds; no Liberal will look or bargain for their aid against customs duties since it is known that they on party grounds approve of them anyway. In contrast, both can go to the Center party which on account of its freedom in this matter is free, even in principle, to grant their wish. On the other hand, what even from the very beginning is a strong factor in the situation of the tertius gaudens is that it frequently saves the tertius gaudens the trouble of having to develop real power. The advantages of the tertius gaudens will in fact flow from the situation indicated here not only in an actual conflict but even in a tense relationship and latent antagonism on the part of the other two; it works here through the mere possibility of siding with one or the other of them, even if that does not really happen. As for the change in English politics in early modernity, compared to the medieval era, this was always character- istic of it, to the extent that England no longer sought possessions and direct domination on the continent but always possessed a power that potentially stood between the continental powers. Already in the six- teenth century it was said that France and Spain would be the scales of the European balance; England, however, the tongue or the holder of the balance. 19 The bishops of Rome had already with great emphasis cultivated this rather formal principle in the history leading up to Leo the Great (440-461), in that they compelled the warring parties within the Church to grant to them the position of the decisive power. 20 Quite early on, bishops standing in dogmatic or other disputes with others had appealed for support to Roman colleagues, and the latter had in principle always taken the side of the petitioners. Consequently there was nothing left for the respective second party except to likewise turn to the bishop of Rome in order to not have him as an opponent from the beginning. The latter thereby obtained for himself the prerogative and tradition of an arbitrating authority. What can be termed the sociological logic of the situation of three, in which two are engaged in conflict, has here evolved from the perspective of the tertius gaudens with particular clarity and intensity.
19 "The tongue or the holder of the balance," English in the original--ed.
20 Dates for Leo the Great added--ed.
? the quantitative conditioning of the group 113
Now the advantage that accrues to the third from this--that of having an a priori identical, equally independent, and thereby even determining relationship with the other two--is not tied only to both of the others being in a state of opposition. It is instead enough that they have in general merely a certain distinctiveness, alienation, qualitative dualism towards one another; this is in fact the general formula for the type by which the enmity of the elements forms only one particular, albeit the most frequent, case. Especially notable, for example, is the following advantage of a tertius resulting from the mere duality. If B is obligated to A to perform a specifically defined duty, and this passes from B to C and D, among whom the performance is to be distributed, the temptation arises for A to impose, where possible, on each of the two just a little bit more than half, so that A benefits overall even more than before, given that the obligation was still in one hand. In 1751 the government especially in Bohemia had to prohibit, with division of peasant areas by the squirearchy, the imposition of a greater bur- den of service on each divided portion than would have been the case correspondingly before division. With the division of the obligation to the two the idea prevails that each individual has in any case less to accomplish than the former individual, on whom was the burden of the whole; the more precise appraisal of the amount goes back to before and can be thus easily transferred. Thus while here, so to speak, the mere numerical reality of the duality instead of the unity of the party produces the situation of the tertius gaudens, it rises in the following case above a duality determined by qualitative difference. The legal power of the English kings after the Norman conquest, unheard of in the Ger- manic middle ages, is explained by the fact that William the Conqueror indeed encountered the legal rights of Anglo-Saxon peoples, which in principle should have been respected, and likewise his Normans brought their native rights with them. However, these two legal structures did not fit together; they provided no unity for people's rights before the king, who through the singularity of his interest could shift between the two and largely annul them. In the disunion of nations--not only because they constantly fought with one another, but because their difference impeded an assertion of a law common to them--lay the basis for absolutism, and therefore his power sank steadily as soon as both nationalities actually fused into one.
The favorable position of the third generally disappears then in the moment in which the other two combine into a unity, i. e. the group- ing in the relationship at issue reforms from a triadic into a dyadic
114 chapter two
combination. It is instructive not only concerning the specific problem but group life in general that this outcome can occur even without personal unification or merging of interests: in that the object of antagonism is deprived of its subjective demands through the objective specification of the dispute. This seems to me to illuminate the following case especially well. Through modern industry leading to an ongoing interlocking of the most varied trades and perpetually presenting new tasks that belong historically to no existing craft, there is very frequently produced, especially in England, conflicts of competence between vari- ous categories of workers. In the large firms the shipbuilders are always in conflict with the joiners, the tinsmiths with the blacksmiths, the boil- ermakers with the metalworkers, the bricklayers with the tile workers, over for which of them a specific work would be fitting. Each trade immediately stops working if it believes that another one is encroach- ing upon the tasks entitled to it. The irresolvable conflict here is that fixed limitations of subjective rights are presumed to be objects that in their essence are continually in flux. Such conflicts between workers have often severely weakened their position before the entrepreneurs. The latter have a moral advantage, as a result of the workers' internal disputes, as soon as their workers go on strike and thereby do them immeasurable damage, and moreover they have it in their power to threaten every single trade with arbitrarily pushing the work in question off onto another. The economic interest of every trade in not allowing the work to be taken away rests on the fear that the competing worker might do it more cheaply and thereby eventually lower the standard pay scale for that work. It would thus be suggested as one way out that the trade unions might, in consultation with the combined entre- preneurs, set the pay scale for each kind of work and then leave it up to the entrepreneurs to choose which category of worker they want to employ for each existing work; then those left out need not fear any damage to their economic interests in principle. Objectifying the matter of conflict removes the advantage of the entrepreneurs in terms of wage pressure and playing the two parties against one another; even though choosing among the different unions remains with them, the choice is however no longer an advantage. The earlier undifferentiation of the elements of the workforce and of its material conditions has differenti- ated, and while the entrepreneur with regard to the former is still left in the formal situation of the tertius gaudens, the objective establishment the latter has eliminated the chances for its exploitation.
the quantitative conditioning of the group 115
Many of the kinds of strife mentioned here and in the next forma- tion must have contributed to producing or increasing the position of the medieval church among the emerging world powers of the Middle Ages. With the perpetual unrest and strife in the large and small political districts, the one stable power, already equally honored or feared by every party, had to gain an incomparable privilege. Countless times it is in general only the stability of the third party in the changing phases of strife, its unaffectedness by the issues of conflict around which the two parties oscillate up and down, that brings it its predominance and its possibilities of gain. The more violently and especially the longer lasting the conflict of the parties allows their positions to fluctuate, the more superior, respected, and opportunity-rich will steadfastness and persistence, ceteris paribus, shape the position of a third purely as formal fact. There is probably just no greater example of this constellation observed everywhere than the Catholic Church. For the overall char- acterization of the tertius gaudens with regard to all the church's forms, the most notable is the fact that the mere distinction of spiritual ener- gies that it and the others introduce into the relationship belong to the sources of its privileges. What I mentioned previously in general about non-partisans--that they represent more the intellectuality, and those in conflict, however, more the passion and drive--this gives them, where they want to exploit the situation egoistically, a dominating, so to speak, enthroned position at an ideal height and that external advantage that the dispassionate participant possesses amidst every complexity. And even where one spurns the practical exploitation of one's more impartial view and of one's powers, uninvolved from the very beginning but always available, the situation incorporates at least the feeling of a quiet ironic superiority over the parties who exert so much effort in a contest for a prize so unimportant to oneself.
3. Divide et impera. 21 In these combinations of triadic patterns it is a matter of an existing or emerging dispute between two elements from which the third derived advantage; it is time now to consider separately that nuance, although not always in reality defined in this way, where the third deliberately creates the dispute in order to gain a command- ing situation. It is also to be mentioned here in advance that the triad, of course, represents just the smallest number of participants necessary
21 Latin: "Divide and conquer"--ed.
? 116 chapter two
for this formation and thus may serve as the simplest schema. It is here thus a matter of two elements originally united with each other over against a third or dependent on one another, and the third knowing to set the powers united against oneself into activity against one another; the outcome then is that either they hold each other in check so that one can pursue one's advantage undisturbed by the two or they so weaken each other that neither of them is able to mount a resistance to the superior power of the third. I will now characterize several steps on the scale in which one can order the relevant phenomena. The simplest then is where a superior power hinders the unification of elements who are not yet at all striving positively towards such a unification, but who nevertheless could perhaps do it. To this belongs, above all, the legal prohibitions of political associations, both altogether as well as of link- ages between associations that are permitted to exist separately. For the most part there is not any definitively substantiated fear, nor any kind of demonstrable danger to dominating powers from such combinations. Rather the form of association as such is feared because it could possibly incorporate a dangerous content. Pliny the Younger says expressly in his correspondence with Trajan that the Christians are dangerous because they form such a cooperative society; otherwise, however, they are fully harmless. 22 The experience that revolutionary tendencies or even those directed towards change of the existing tendencies must take the form of union of as many interests as possible leads to the logically false but psychologically very understandable converse, that all associations have a tendency to be directed against the powers that be. The prohibition is thus founded, so to speak, on a possibility of the utmost: not only are the combinations, forbidden from the very beginning, merely possible and frequently do not even exist in the desire of those thus kept apart, but the dangers, for the sake of which the interdiction results, would even be just a possibility on the part of the realized combination. In the form of this prohibition against association the divide et impera emerges thus as conceivably the most sublimated prophylaxis of the one element against all eventualities from the combining of others. This preventa- tive form can be immediately replicated formally where the majority, which stands over against the one, consists of the various elements of power of one and the same personality. The Anglo-Norman kingdom took care that the manors in the feudal era were scattered as widely
22 Pliny the Younger, Letter 10, to Trajan--ed.
? the quantitative conditioning of the group 117
possible: several of the most powerful vassals were long-established in 17 to 21 shires. Because of this principle of local division the jurisdictions of the crown's vassals could not be consolidated into large sovereign domains as on the continent. So we hear about earlier apportionments of lands among the sons of lords: the portions were to have been laid out as haphazardly as possible in order to forestall complete secession. The idea of the unified state seeks thus to preserve its domination by splitting up every territorial portion which, if it were spatially enclosed, could easily secede.