Weiner's analysis of clans is so pertinent to this series of
readings that I'm adding two supplements to post #15, in order to present
passages from the two other articles mentioned in post #15. The three articles
have overlaps, but I'm hoping that posting these two as supplements will help
make his points sink in, even if they seem redundant.
First is this interview by Deven Desai, titled "Bright
Ideas: Mark Weiner on his new book Rule
of the Clan" (2013). Weiner's answers provide additional insightful
observations about what he means by "clans", why he decided to study
them, and why they have modern as well as traditional significance.
• Here again is what Weiner means by clans:
"…In my book, I consider clans
both in their traditional form, as a subset of tribes, but also as a synecdoche
for a pattern by which humans structure their social and lhegal lives: “the
rule of the clan.” Clans are a natural form of social and legal organization.
They certainly are more explicable in human terms than the modern liberal state
and the liberal rule of law. Because of the natural fact of blood
relationships, people end to organize their communities on the basis of
extended kinship in the absence of strong alternatives."
• Here’s why Weiner decided to study clans now:
"Two reasons. First, the
United States is involved militarily in parts of the world in which traditional
tribal and clan relationships are critical, and if we don’t understand how
those relationships work, including in legal terms, we have a major problem.
"The second reason to study
clans, and ultimately for me even more important than the first reason, has to
do with our own political discourse here at home. You could say that I became
interested in clans because of widespread ideological attacks against the state
within liberal societies — that is, attacks on government. By this I mean not
simply efforts to reduce the size of government or to make it more efficient.
Instead, I mean broadside criticisms of the state itself, or efforts to starve
government and render it anemic."
• Here's why rule by government improves and protects
individual freedom, more than does rule by clan:
“It’s often said that individual
freedom exists most powerfully in the absence of government. But I believe that
studying the rule of the clan shows us that the reverse is true. Liberal
personal freedom is inconceivable without the existence of a robust state
dedicated to vindicating the public interest. That’s because the liberal state,
at least in theory, treats persons as individuals rather than as members of
ineluctable status or clan groups. So studying clans can help us imagine what
our social and legal life would become if we allow the state to deteriorate
through a lack of political will.”
• Finally, here is why it’s beneficial for societies to
evolve from clans to clubs, and from kinship to social networks:
"But clans are local power
brokers, and the development of central authority diminishes their autonomy.
One of the objects of constitutional reform in countries with strong clan
identities is to provide national incentives for people to cede local power —
and, more generally, for people to give their loyalty to a larger public
identity that rises well above kinship structures. The ultimate goal of this
process is the transformation of clans from hard institutions with legal and
political significance to purely soft institutions with cultural and
psychological importance. From clan to club. From kinship to social networks. …
"For clan societies to
modernize, the economic, social, and political significance of extended kinship
needs to be replaced by relationships based especially on individual choice.
Societies need to undergo a change “from kinship to social networks” as part of
the transformation of the clan from a hard, legal institution to a soft,
cultural one."
To read for yourself, go here:
https://concurringopinions.com/archives/2013/03/bright-ideas-mark-weiner-on-his-new-book-rule-of-the-clan.html
[I posted an earlier write-up of this reading on my Facebook
page, on June 27.]
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