Fletcher replies to Abrams

Sir: I have been deliberately slow to respond to Mr Abram's recent review of The Making of Sociology (September 25). After the work that goes into a substantial book, it is easy to be over-sensitive to the criticisms of a 2,000-word piece, and I have not wanted to react too quickly, or judge unjustly. But I must now take exception to the ways — large and small — in which he has misrepresented the whole nature of the volumes.

First, and most fundamentally (it forms the platform for his whole article), he says that one of my two chief objects is to offer "an encouraging guided tour" for those students "who prefer to pass their exams by reading easy expositions of difficult texts rather than by spending much time with the texts themselves." Now the disparaging innuendo aside, will he point out — anywhere in the two volumes — where he finds a statement, or even an implication of this intention? The truth is that my entire emphasis is to insist upon the great importance of the writers with whom I deal; to rescue them from the errors and over-simplifications in which current fashion stereotypes them; and to seek to engage the minds of students in a critical re-appraisal of them. Mr Abrams's entire farrago rests upon a gross distortion. In the same vein, Mr Abrams disparages "large books" about the "generally smaller books that the great men actually wrote." Now a man who can write this can never, surely, have even seen the literature to which he refers, let alone have read it. Thinking of my section on Comte, has he seen the six volumes of the Positive Philosophy, the four volumes of the Positive Polity, and the several other volumes besides? Thinking of my section on Spencer, has he seen the three volumes of the Principles of Sociology, the First Principles, The Study of Sociology, etc, Similvolumes of Westermarck, Hobhouse, Durkheim, Weber, Freud? Mr Abrams, I fear, is just uninformed and simple-minded about the sheer size, scope and complexity of the literature that lies before students, and the great difficulty of presenting it manageably, fairly, sufficiently. Quite simply, he does not know what he is talking about.

There are many other specific points. Mr Abrams oontinually gives the impression that the whole scope of my work was the nineteenth century sociologists. Could I point out that the whole of Vol. 2 covers the major developments from the turn of the century (from the death of Spencer and certain meetings at the LSE in 1903) to books by Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown which appeared during and just after the second world war; and that this is the first half of the twentieth century, and that all these achievements (as well as those of the nineteenth century dealt with in Vol. 1) are brought together in a final systematic statement?

A further misrepresentation is Mr Abrams's strongly stated criti cism that I deal with the " men " rather than the "problems." But — throughout — the roots of sociology in modern problems are emphasised, and my account of the " men " is quite centrally geared to their shared recognition of the problems of dealing with the threat and the promise of industrial capitalism. Mr Abrams says I am "unfailingly hopeful," and though I would not wish to deny my effort towards optimism, he seems not to have noticed the great weight I place upon the threat of(a scientific and industrial society a concern shared by all these theorists) and my deliberate quoting of Gissing, for example, to give added force to this. He claims, too, that I prefer the "allencompassing muddle" of Weber to the " more restricted lucidity" of Durkheim — which bears not the slightest relation to my actual treatment. He says that my judgements are "pretty much those of the prevailing sociological orthodoxy in this country." But here again, Mr Abrams shows quite a massive ignorance. As a matter of interest, could he name one university in this country where, in courses on sociological theory, Comte, Mill, Spencer, are given as much space and detailed treatment as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber? Where Ward, Sumner, Giddings are given as much attention as Cooley and Mead? Where Westennarck and Hobhouse are given as extended a critical assessment in late nineteenth and twentieth century developments as Tonnies, Durkheim, Weber?

Then there are his supposedly scathing remarks. Pointing out that "everyone who could possibly matter" is covered, he says nonetheless, that I " shove " Hume, Ferguson, Tylor, Frazer, and Le Play "into an appendix" — "which," he sneers, "certainly makes it easier to assert the unit of sociology." But this, surely, is very cheap. The people I place in the several appendices (not one!) are placed there for very specific reasons which I carefully state, and which do, indeed, give added evidence of the unity of the subject. To give one example. The ' Sociographers,' as everyone knows, are usually held to be at a great distance from the 'grand theorists.' This appendix shows that this separation is untrue, unnecessary, and has been grossly misunderstood. These people did not contribute to theory because they accepted and worked within the theoretical perspectives of others. Thus Branford and Geddes accepted and worked within the wider theoretical and political perspective of Comte. This is not asserted, but shown, by reference to their own writings. This is, in fact, a very important point, showing connections between social theorists and social investigators who have long been thought quite separate from each other. Yet all Mr Abrams can do is sneer.

He remains unconvinced, he says, about my demonstration of the underlying unity of sociology. But on what grounds? First — diagrams indicating nineteenth century agreements. His comment is: "to put ill and Comte in the same box would hardly have amused Mill." But in this again Mr Abrams shows only the extent of his ignorance. Mill would have been ready to agree — quite m^ticulously — with my statement of his relation to Comte, as any reading of Book VI of his Logic will show. But Mr Abrams neglects to say that one of my appendices is there especially to make clear the extent to which Mill, though agreeing with some basic elements of Comte's methodology, was also well aware of, and critical of, his extravagances. However, my volume on John Stuart Mill comes out during November, and shall be glad to see Mr Abrams turn his critical faculty upon that, and consider whether my knowledge of Mill is as unsound as he thinks it is.

"To find a parallel between

Marx and Spencer," he says, "trivialises almost everything that

both men attempted, and falsifies the whole structure of nineteenth century thought." Now Mr Abrams really must shake his brains up a bit. He is not the authority on nineteenth century thought that he thinks he is. I have shown (not asserted) that Spencer's conception of materialism and the Marx-Engels notion of ' dialectical materialism' (despite the letters' quantitative / qualitative nonsense) were essentially the same. Both had the same theoretical perspective of the emergence, continuity, and change of ' forms ' in both nature and society; and, indeed, this was shared quite fundamentally by others too — Ward, for example. I have shown (not asserted) that the structural-functional models which both employed to analyse the nature of social order and social change was of the same nature, and contained — in terms of theory and method —similar basic elements. (To help Mr Abrams, there are diagrams of both.) And all this without in the slightest way suggesting that their substantive theories and political conclusions were the same, which would, of course, be nonsense indeed. If this seems obscure to Mr Abrams, he really must consider the possibility that his mind and knowledge are operating at tod simple a level. And in all this, Mr Abrams makes serious charges. He claims:

(1) that my summaries of other people's arguments are "some-, times too neat to be accurate;"

(2) that serious matters of theorY are "stated only to be dodged;" (3) that "fundamental disagreements about the nature and method of the social sciences are blurred, glossed over, eased out of sight."

Now these statements ird' pugn not only the adequacy of MY, treatment, but also its integrity. ,1 ask Mr Abrams to produce his evidence for each. To make matters easy for him, I ask him t.o. give that one example of eac" charge which, in his view, is the most serious in the whole booh. This should be straightforward. Meanwhfie limited space MI5, controlled all the above points ono excluded others equally important. I can only ask those readers of The Spectator who are genuinely intC ested in sociology, and in 1"

significance within the wider con'

text of education, to go to the. books themselves, and to comPar` the substance and tone of them 07r with the substance and tone of Abrams's piece. I am completetYr

happy, then, to leave to the

judgement which is the effe,,r towards careful scholarly Wdt'l with a concern for individoet, students in their difficult presedo day context of education, _,..dh) which (to use Mr Abrams's ten is "two a penny" vulgarisation.

Cranmere, SouthwoRldo

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