Risk and Social Security: Specified and Non-Specified Risks (1942) By Ernest Manheim (Kansas City, Mo.) Bearbeitete Transliteration und Kommentar von Reinhard Müller [1] Mr. chairman, I appreciate the privilege of speaking to this audience about a subject which is not new but which seems to become of a growing interest to the social scientist. 50 and 100 and 150 years ago social philosophers, lawyers, economists, seemed to give much consideration to the rational basis of human behavior whatever that means. Lawyers, economists and political reformers made attempts to construe human nature in terms of rational impulses, rational interests and rational faculties. It was this current of philosophy which gave impetus to the conception of a philosophy as a science that might play a decisive role in the rational control of human affairs. Although rational interest in human affairs has not been seriously repudiated, the focus of attention seems to have slightly shifted, in the social sciences at least, from the rational aspects of human behavior in the direction of the disturbing factors or irrational impulses of social action. The trend of current publications shows a certain scientific interest in both social and industrial crisis, in the study of behavior under unpredictable or uncontrolled circumstances. An increasing number of studies deals with the psychology of frustration, maladjustment, with various aspects of social disorganization and with the effects of the depression on the individual in his various institutional situations such as the family, recreation, rural life, business etc. It is probably equally true that the words security and insecurity occur more and more frequently in the vocabulary of both scientific and political writers. Apparently the effects of unforeseeable changes and of uncontrolled forces are viewed as becoming vital problems of contemporary society. It appears as if today "security" were becoming one of the focal concepts of our times just as progress and liberty were focal concepts in the latest century. I don't suggest that people now-a-days don't care any longer for progress and for national as well as for civic liberty but these interests do not seem to dominate life at present as much an they did in previous times. These questions raise many controversial issues of our time which I will not raise in my talk. Instead, let me take, this evening a view on the phenomenon of uncertainty and let me envisage it as a problem of human society as such. Prediction and control are two ideas which have been born with sociology. If one accepts these concepts as leading ideas of science then it should not be surprising that it is primarily the social scientist who feels challenged by a certain lack of prediction and control of vital processes. The effects of uncertainties and unforeseeable events can be viewed under two aspects: first, as factors of change that takes place if certain un-predicted events materialize. Thus inventions, discoveries, or calamities are events which effect social changes such as have been analyzed by [William Fielding] Ogburn, [Francis Stuart] Chapin, and others. [2] The presence of uncertainties on the other hand has an effect on both human behavior and the social group even if actually no change takes place. The expectation of a drought, a depression, of war or of social unrest have certain effects on human behavior even if these expectation do not materialize. The presence of such uncertainties is a significant factor of social organization as well as action. Let me first illustrate this point with an example which I take from the political history of the 19th century. The great French revolution and the Spanish revolution of 1848 gave impetus to an influential counter-movement which has been initiated under the name of Traditionalism by the refugees and protagonists of the old regime. The intellectual leaders of this movement such as de Maistre, [3] the cardinal de Bonald [4] and the Spanish count Donoso Cortés [5] were avowed opponents of the rising tide of liberalism. This opposition found expression in a literature in which the political philosophy of the Traditionalists took shape the first time in modern history. These writers had to grind an ax against democracy, democratic constitutions and written guarantees of civic liberty. The main trend of argument of this political philosophy runs something like this: liberals and radicals have succeeded in establishing a constitution on the tenuous basis of reason and philosophy. They set out to draw up a written constitution which should guarantee individual liberties and lay down fixed rules of procedure for government and the executive forces. They tried to base the control of human affairs on irrefutable principles and on a written agreement and they tried to realize a written social contract. They have failed and they were forced to repudiate their own constitution and replace it by a number of other equally short lived constitution. Their failure evidences the absurdity of the attempt. It is absurd to base the political life of society on a binding document. The real constitution of a society is never the written one. The real constitution of a society consists of those vigilant forces which guarantee and protect its order from potential disturbances. The exercise of these forces of control cannot be limited by written law, for the way and extent of their eventual use will have to depend on the nature of those disruptive forces and emergencies which are potential in society. Destructive forces are part of human nature and it is only under the vigilant control of secular authorities and with the support of spiritual guidance that man is able to live up to his role in the moral order and suppress those satanic tendencies which are dormant but not extinct in him. The manifestations and intensity of these destructive tendencies are irrational and that is why the protective agencies of order and control cannot be limited. It is the potentiality of crises and emergencies which prohibit any fixed constitutional limitation of the executive power. "Go ahead", declares de Maistre, "and establish your regime on the tenuous fundament of reason and a written constitution and soon it will turn out to be a scrap of paper." These conceptions are not entirely matters of the 19th century. More recently a German constitutional lawyer and exponent of the present German régime, Carl Schmitt, [6] has given a more modern expression to the same political doctrine. Carl Schmitt has raised the question: Who is the sovereign in a modern state? and his reply is; Sovereign is he who assumes control and decides in a state of emergency. This being so the real constitution as it functions in normal times, viz., the political and social order on which it is based is incomprehensible without an adequate analysis of those anticipatory forces of control which may be partly inactive but are present also in the absence of emergencies. Carl Schmitt and his French and Spanish predecessors had still another ax to grind against liberalism. They oppose the democratic doctrine of the perfectibility and reasonableness of man. Potential crises, Carl Schmitt holds, require repressive forces and their application is inconsistent with the assumption that man is a perfectible being and that his behavior is actuated by reason. We must therefore assume - in order to be consistent - that man is a predatory animal, a brute that needs a master, just as [Thomas] Hobbes [7] did 300 years ago. The logic of this argument may not be convincing to the psychologist but it illustrates the way in which uncertainties, political in this case, have affected the conceptions which men entertain of one another in order to fit with a scheme of life that is dictated by the anticipation of disturbances. Mr. chairman you will have wondered why I dig up such time worn documents of a largely past controversy. One need not subscribe to the political creeds and ideologies of de Maistre, Donoso Cortés and Carl Schmitt to see them as telling examples of how the presence of uncertainties may effect and shape the normal structure of society - regardless whether the anticipated disturbances actually occur or not. These examples also illustrate another point which I propose to discuss this evening: namely the hypothesis that the anticipation of disturbances, not necessarily political, is one of the factors which shape the institutions of social control, I shall not offer you any waterproof generalization of this subject but I shall ask you to assist me in formulating a few hypotheses which might stimulate further research on the question of how uncertainty and risks affect social organization and human conduct. The problem of uncertainty might be envisaged under two aspects of   r i s k   and   i n s e c u r i t y. The concepts of risk and insecurity are related to one another but are not identical. Both imply uncertainties which are due to imperfect control or deficient foresight of events upon which a desired success of one or another kind depends. But there is a marked difference between these two concepts. You take a risk but you don't become insecure if you bet on a horse or buy a second hand car. But you not only take a risk but become insecure too if you stake your estate, your savings and future career on a speculative venture. In assuming a risk you face an uncertainty as to whether or when and to what degree you will succeed in a particular pursuit but you know approximately the limits of your eventual losses. You know precisely how much you loose if your car which the second hand dealer sold you breaks down after the first few rides or if your horse does not make the run. A risk, however, becomes an insecurity and not only an uncertainty, if you don't know what a potential failure will entail to you and if you have no certainty about the limits of your potential losses both tangible and intangible. For the purposes of this evening I propose to distinguish between risk and insecurity so as to designate by risk a specified and limited or partial uncertainty and call insecurity an unspecified and total or unlimited uncertainty. Thus you take a limited risk if you put a nickel or a given number of nickels into a slot-machine, for you know the limits of your possible losses; but you may jeopardize your security if you engage in an illicit business in which you may loose more than you meant to stake: You risk your credit, your clientele, your status in addition to your stake as well as a fine which you may not have anticipated. In short a risk passes into a state of insecurity if the limits of an uncertainty become both uncertain and unspecified. I shall use the terms insecurity and unlimited or total risks synonymous and in contradistinction to specific and limited or partial risks. Economists and students of insurance have dealt predominantly with specific and limited risks viz. with the measurable chances of losses for which the risk bearer may be compensated. Whether risk is a factor in the calculation of prices and profits or of an insurance policy it must be limited to be calculable, and it must be calculable to be insurable. One cannot assess an unknown change or the unknown effects of an expectable change. One must for the purposes of an insurance policy have a reasonable estimate of his maximum and the expectable needs which may arise whenever an undesired event of a specified kind takes place. Thus one may insure one's health or life just as one's home, car or pet animal. Not as if the worth and significance of your health or life to you could be assessed. But for the purposes of insurance it is possible to isolate the effects of deterioration of health upon the earning power of a person from all other effects. Similarly you may insure your life so far as the risk of its loss is a limited one. Life risks are not necessarily total risks. Life may be the highest asset a person has but it is not the only one. People are often more ready to risk their lives on a climbing tour but less readily their credit, status, and their title to a respectable funeral. As long as a rock climber does not jeopardize all that concomitantly his life be unsafe but not insecure. To repeat once more: Only limited risks are insurable, total risks are not. And what can be said of individual insecurity applies also to collective risks and collective insecurity. Insurance consists of a transfer of a specific and limited risk from one person to another. Shipyards prefer to pay a fixed price for the certainty which the insurance company offers. In taking out an insurance policy the shipyard transfers its risks or a specified part of them to the risk specialist, namely the insurance company and thereby achieves certainty at a bearable cost, so far as losses through maritime accidents are concerned. Collective or social risks of an unspecified and unlimited kind can also be transferred from one group to another. But this transfer involves the structure of the whole society. The transfer of an unspecified risk of a whole group is en element of social differentiation. This point may be best developed by a discussion of Thorstein [Bunde] Veblen's related theories on this subject. In his theory of the "leisure class" [8] he has given an individual interpretation of certain traits of what he called the culture of the leisure class. Veblen described in great detail the prestige which certain hazardous activities have among the leisure groups. Veblen interprets the prestige of military activities, of hunting, of speculative games and dangerous sports partly as survivals of a predatory stage of human development - a stage in which social distinction and pecuniary wealth were derived by prowess, venture and predatory skills. The primitive hunters and warriors who possessed those virtues became exempt from the toil of digging the soil and performing the routine work necessary for their own sustenance. This work became the share of women and all those who lacked the virtues of the predatory ruler, adventurers and conquerors. Since this period prowess, daring and leisure became the honorific symbol of domination. Unearned wealth and exemption from useful work and labor became the degrading hallmark of poverty, scarcity and subjection. These anthropological conjectures greatly colored Veblen's brilliant analysis of the role and prestige of risk-taking and venture in the contemporary culture of the leisure class. Modern anthropological records make possible a different interpretation of the social functions of risk-bearing. Since Veblen's anthropological hypothesis greatly affected his views on contemporary phenomena a short digression on the function of risks in primitive life may help to reinterpret the same phenomena in contemporary society in a slightly different light. First, however, I indicate the hypothesis which I'll try to illustrate on an anthropological example. Veblen attributed great importance to the role which power, physical and economic superiority and predatory occupations play in the motivation of prestige, social status and authority. Now, first of all it is well to distinguish between authority such as gives status and prestige on the one hand and physical or economic superiority and power on the other. The conqueror who enforces his orders in a foreign territory exercises superior military force - and not authority - so long as obedience on the part of the subjected is based only on the threat of violence and the fear of retaliation. The stick-up-man who achieves his ends by intimidation exercises a momentary superiority of force and not authority. Authority is based on the recognition of the binding rules which a person in authority sets or enforces. Exercise of authority implies that the group which conforms to it identifies itself with the order that is maintained or with the ends which are achieved by such a conformity. If this interpretation of authority is acceptable then the following hypothesis has a certain hunch value: Authority in a human group exists and is obeyed so long and to the extent as it maintains or promises to achieve security or in other words, so long as persons or groups in authority successfully deal with the total risks of the whole group. It is not risk taking as such which lends prestige and status but as one factor among others it is the person's real or probable contribution to the assurance of the group; it is this contribution which establishes status in the group. Or if I may rephrase my guess: That part of a human collectivity which deals vicariously with the total risks of the whole group tends to be the group that exercises authority in a direct or indirect way. I'll try now to illustrate this hypothesis by the example of the Nama Hottentots in South-West Africa. The Nama Hottentots are or better were a people who have all the characteristics which fit the description of Veblen's predatory hunters and warriors. They were keen adventurous hunters, famous fighters and raiders for cattle and they were not addicted to hard work either. Moreover, their life was full of hazards and venture and yet status and prestige among them was not or probably not primarily dependent upon power or physical force or the conspicuous display of wealth but on generosity, the willingness to share wealth and above all on the services which helped to maintain or enhance the security of the group. In order to establish this fact I'll have to tell you a few details about the hazards of Nama life and about their social organization. The Nama Hottentots were and partly still are hunters and herders of cattle, sheep and goat. Herding is a profitable but risky occupation in the area in which the Nama live. In a normal year the herds would increase at a rate of up to 50% so that if nothing interferes with the herding activities of the Hottentot he stands a fair chance of becoming wealthy in short time. The herds are not needed a great deal for food supply. For normally it is only the milk which the Hottentots derive from their herds - the greater part of their food supply is derived from hunting and food collecting The live stock rather serves as something like a capital which the Hottentot uses only if he can't help it. Cattle serve as a currency which the Hottentot gives in payment for bartered goods and wives, and which is given in compensation for injuries and damages inflicted. Apart from this function, the possession of a large herd serves to give the Hottentot an ultimate food reserve and a foothold in a highly exposed area. For security in Namaland depends primarily on sufficient water, yet water is scarce and its supply is irregular. The rainfall in normal years averages between four and twelve inches only but the number of abnormal years is quite significant. In 135 years, the period of 1761-1896 for which I found data that can be used twenty-one years brought catastrophic droughts to Namaland, droughts which destroyed half or the whole live stock of the Nama Hottentots, or in other words every sixth pasture-season was a failure on account of a chronically water shortage. Water shortage is not the only factor that makes the life of the Naman precarious. There are other contingencies such as devastating locust swarms, cattle pests, the irrational and unpredictable yield of both the hunt and of food gathering activities and the cattle losses which marauding lions and leopards would cause. Now in perusing these contingencies we find that some of them are limited and insurable while others are not. The damage that is occasionally done to the herds by big game is limited to a few pieces. Hunting and food collecting risks are limited in so far as occasional failures have no effects on the success of other activities such as herding, trading and crafts which the Hottentots pursue to some extent. And, as a matter of fact, the Hottentots do practice an effective kind of group insurance in as much as they share both their profits and their losses so that the fluctuation of the food supply is not felt to the extent as it might be otherwise. The effects of cattle pests, locust plagues and particularly of droughts, however, are not limited to pasturalism only but they may and often do effect practically all pursuits of the Hottentots. A serious drought not only thwarts pastural success but tends to derange the social routine at large. A hunting failure does not thwart the herding interests of the Hottentot but a drought frustrates not only pastural expectations but seriously interferes with success in hunting, food collecting, trade and crafts. In a serious drought game and edible plants and berries would gradually disappear from the area the herds would decrease and the remaining part would have to be given away for food. Again, a dwindling live stock interferes with the legal order, for in the absence of a disposable live stock penalties and indemnities cannot be paid so that conflicts which are ordinarily settled by payments of cattle tend to assume violent forms. This in turn would weaken the solidarity and defense power of the tribe and this fact again would increase the chance of predatory raids which similarly affected tribes would undertake to replenish their live stock. Again, loss of cattle interferes with marriage institutions and the legal reproduction of the family, for in the absence of cattle which form the so called bride price marriage cannot be concluded and that tends to interfere with both the legality and kinship structure of the tribe. Similarly lack of cattle makes ancestor worship and the ritual sacrifice of oxen impossible and this in turn would deteriorate the morale of the tribe. In short, in such a state legal, religious and kinship standards tend to break down and tribal coherence would be seriously impaired. In extreme cases social disintegration would become complete. It is this eventuality which the Hottentots try to prevent at any rate and which they forestall through their particular social organization. And this brings me to the final question: How do the Hottentots deal with their total risks? An insurance against such exigencies is out of question because there is nobody in the Hottentot community who has enough assurance to act as an insurer against total risks to other persons. Nevertheless, the Hottentots anticipate their troubles and deal with them as good as their circumstances allow. First of all they have a peculiar tribal organization and a peculiar system of land tenure. The tribe is a loose alliance of a number of clans and kraals. The kraal is a circular camp of people who permanently live together and herd their cattle and flocks in common. The size of a kraal is limited by the number of cattle which can be watered from the common well which the kraal controls. Grazing land is abundant but only such pastures are of any use which are within easy reach from a water hole. He who controls a water pool also possesses the surrounding land within the radius of about a day's walk. If in a drought or any other calamity a camp is forced to move into a new district it are the free water pools which will make the use of new grazing grounds possible and allow the continuation of pasturalism. But the water holes are not many and the water they contain is limited. In periods of drought rivalries or open conflicts for the control of the water holes tend to become acute. Security therefore depends on the control of the water capacity. If a kraal comes into calamities and has to move to new pastures it is the tribal chief who assigns them new water sources and it is he who keeps care that the wells are protected by the military forces of the whole tribe. The tribe, however, is not a living unit. The only guarantee that the tribe will function as a unit in a case of emergency is the permanent council of the spokesmen of the different allied kraals. These spokesmen live at the headquarters of the tribal chief. This body coordinates the loose and scattered parts of the tribe and thereby guarantee the continuous use of water and land by the isolated kraals. The members of this body form a sort of liaison between the chief and the kraals. The chief himself has no executive power and cannot enforce law in his tribe without the assent of his councilors. It is these councilors who enjoy the greatest prestige and who take the initiative in Hottentot society. For their concerted action guarantees that the needed water-pools are protected and made available If a drought or a locust plague forces a camp to change its location. In other words security depends on the possession of the water holes and their control depends on the coherence of the tribe which in turn is based on the concerted action of the kraal headman. These liaison officers as it were are not necessarily the best fighters or the best hunters but mostly experienced elders who have sufficient leisure to spend their time away from their herds at the distant quarter of the chieftain. For only such men who have a numerous kinsfolk to take care of their local interests, only such men can free themselves from the necessity of staying with their herds. In other words highest status attaches not to those Hottentots who contribute most to the food supply and neither is authority necessarily vested in the best fighters. Prestige and status is attributed to persons whose personality and freedom from local routine work enables them to deal with collective exigencies. Again, leisure and freedom from the local routine are a mark of status not necessarily because they reveal wealth or domination but because they enable the Hottentot to keep an eye on potential emergencies, to respond to them whenever they occur and to be available for concerted action at a moment's notice without neglect of the daily and local interests of their particular group. It is this qualification for which leisure gives status to a person. In short, authority rests with those Hottentots who are free to deal vicariously with the total risks of the group. To what extent social control among the Nama Hottentots was associated with the responsibility for security can be illustrated by an episode of the tribal history of the Naman. This episode also illustrates that in extreme cases even the symbols of both authority and security tend to coincide. The social structure and environment of the Hottentots did not favor centralized political institutions and, in fact, the Naman were a particularistic people, jealously guarding their tribal independence. They never had paramount chiefs, kings or dictators - except once. At the end of the 19th century in a period of constant crises, droughts and annihilating warfare with the neighboring Herero tribes, Hendric Witbooi, an ambitious Nama chief, deposed in flagrant breech of tribal tradition his older councilors and installed compliant young warriors instead, apparently without encountering much resistance. For a time he broke traditional particularism, enacted laws on his own responsibility, united the Nama tribes into a nation and assumed the dictatorial authority and title of a "Lord of the Water and Head Chief of great Namaland". I resist the temptation to enter this evening into a discussion on the modern implication of this anthropological example and of the hypothesis which it illustrates - I mean the working connection between authority, social control and the vicarious functions of risk taking. I rather conclude the foregoing analysis of an ethnological example by a final reference to Veblen, or better to a topic which Veblen has raised in his theory of the leisure class, that is the question of the status of women in our civilization as well as in many others. I feel that the question is a test case of the hypothesis which I have submitted to you. I am inclined to doubt whether the subordinate position of women in many societies is primarily due to the physical superiority of the aggressive male. Surely, there are aggressive males and I am told that there are women who submit to male arrogance. However, a series of comparative analysis makes me think that the differential status of women in many societies must be understood in terms of the particular needs which arise out of the cooperative situation of the group. Maternity and their biological life routine tend to restrict women's activities to such functions as can be performed under controlled conditions, possibly in a circumscribed locality and in accordance with a time table that fits in with the biological life rhythm of women, viz. with their actual or future maternity. These functions tend to have a routine character, viz., they consist of performances which can be timed and continued at regular intervals. The male work pattern, on the other hand, is biologically not predetermined, that is to say, man, so far as his biological life rhythm is concerned, is capable of performing both routine activities and such functions which require unforeseeable responses in a location and at times which cannot be always predetermined. In other words men are capable of both routine and risk activities without any particular interference with their physical life rhythm. In our own society e.g. the ratio of the occupational hazards of gainfully employed women and men is 1 to 8. The ratio is even more striking if one takes not only occupational accidents into account but also involuntary changes of occupation and some other measurable factors of vocational risks. However, I will not pester you with figures, for the difference between the male and female work pattern in our own civilization is not unfamiliar to you. Now, the biological work pattern of women and their social status are two entirely different things. The status of women is not determined by their biological disabilities or potentialities but rather by the variable social functions of their work pattern. The social function of the female work pattern differs with the needs of a society and so does the status of women. Wherever the security of a group is based on activities which cannot be planned and fit into a fixed time table, wherever the security of the group requires unpredictable responses to unforeseeable occurrences and a greater amount of freedom of movement in space - it is men who tend to take care of these activities and it is men who assume the role of what one might call the risk specialist. These circumstances usually elevate the status of men over that of women for it is usually the risk specialist who controls the social key positions in an insecure group. In societies, however, where security is and can be achieved by rational foresight and planning and where the major exigencies of life can be met effectively by steady routine work, such as is usually the share of women, there women tend to acquire status and to partake in collective responsibilities. If this hypothesis is true it is an application to a particular case of the general proposition that social authority and status tend to be associated with such functions by which the security of a group is maintained. It need not be overlooked, of course, that there are other factors which may affect the position and status of the individual in his group. I have tried to indicate the role of uncertainties and risks in the structure and integration of human groups. Let me turn now to some of the effects of insecurity and uncertainty on the conduct of the individual. I will not deal with the various forms of anxiety, fear and neurotic maladjustment which may accompany a state of insecurity and expectation of thwart. The contributions to the psycho-pathology of the frustrated person already fill a moderate library. I will only raise one question: How does the individual who looks forward to a possible frustration restore that equilibrium which he needs in order to cope successfully with an uncertain situation? It is common experience that people who are exposed to vicissitudes which they can't control and foresee often resort to strange practices which our scientific age calls superstitions. I do not know how many American children bear luck charms. I grew up with many children who were protective charms at an age when infants are most exposed to diseases and accidents. I do not know how many sailors are free from the protective tattoo marks, how many hotels have rooms No. 13, and how many jockeys, pilots, boxers, and fishers go without amulets and mascots or pay no attention to omens. I was told that the district of Wall Street supplies a good many customers to New York astrologers, palm readers, and soothsayers, particularly at times of a highly speculative boom. In 1931 when the depression was near its peak and when things took an unexpected and irrational turn in Germany, I was able to satisfy my curiosity by collecting some data about amazing increase in the sale of magazines and booklets which specialized in astrology and related arts of determining the future. The prosperity of these specialists in prognostics was beyond expectation. I knew a graduate student of sociology who had the reputation of being an expert in casting horoscopes. Nobody paid much attention to him as long as things went straight; but in 1931 his popularity among his fellow students grew steadily and in 1932 he was a center of interest among a great many of the most intelligent students of Leipzig University. All these practices have one thing in common with primitive magic: they are resorted to in situations in which human control and prevision fail. [Sir James George] Frazer [9] and [Sir Edward Burnett] Tylor, in their extensive studies on magic have interpreted magic as an abortive science or as a pre-scientific attempt of controlling natural phenomena. [10] [Henri] Lévy-Bruhl [11] went further and attributed to the savage a mind that is different from our own, a mind which he called pre-logical because it were not governed by the rules of our logic. I don't know whether contemporary man always acts and thinks strictly in accordance with logic. So far as the primitive goes, more recent field studies of [Bronislaw Kaspar] Malinowski [12] and [Edward Evan] Evans-Pritchard [13] have shown beyond doubt that the savage does not confuse magic with technology and that he does not apply magic in place of more reliable methods of securing results, but he uses magic only when his empirical methods fail to bring about the desired success. Magic spells and concoctions and wants are applied to stop wind, to secure rain, and hunting or fishing luck or to enfeeble an enemy but they are not applied to arts and crafts, such as weaving, plating, or dressmaking where the elements of chance are absent and where success depends only on skill and labor. [William Graham] Sumner's [14] so-called "aleatory elements", viz., factors of contingency and risk are those forces to which man, primitive as well as contemporary responds not with critical reason but with fear, despair, anxiety or with hope and confidence if his emotional responses are guided by established patterns or by what the social psychologist calls "pre-organization of conduct". And magic is a kind of pre-organization that tends to maintain the personal equilibrium in periods of uncertainties. One should sharply distinguish between scientific misconceptions or fallacies, based on misinformation, and superstitions beliefs, or to use a psychological term, compensatory concepts. Scientific misconceptions are errors of intellect and they can be rectified through critical reflection, observation and enlightenment; superstitious beliefs and magical practices on the other hand are usually charged with emotions and actuated by the fear of the unknown. They are not often dissipated by critical arguments and by experimental proofs of the contrary. [Adam Raymond] Gilliland, [Harvey Christian] Lehman, [Floyd Franklin] Caldwell, and [Gerhard Emmanuel] Lundeen [15] and other educational psychologists have made a series of experiments with high school pupils and college students to establish the degree to which both superstitions and misconceptions can be changed by school instruction. A comparative analysis of the results of these tests seem to indicate that a college course in the wider subject matter of the misconception has a high remedial affect on scientific misconceptions such as: "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place", "A ring around the moon is a sign of rain". At the same time the tests do not seem to have established the same remedial effects of instruction upon beliefs such as: "If you find a four leafed clover, or if you carry a rabbit's foot, good luck will come to you", "If you break a mirror you will have bad luck". These modern superstitions, however, and those practices I referred to before are not the most consequential ones. There is the readiness to believe in political miracles, in panaceas and in divinely inspired heroes who will bring salvation to the insecure. And there is the reverse form of the same attitude: The craving for scapegoats on whom all the blame for a common plight can be placed. Such emotional cravings do not usually come up in a state of limited uncertainty. People can usually bear the chance of specified deprivations and setbacks of which they know how they might go. But what seems to disturb the personal equilibrium in the fear of the unknown, the fear of reverses of which the limits are unascertainable. And it is the fear of such unspecified frustrations which is a preeminent factor of social as well as personal disorganization. The types of anxiety reactions which can be ascribed to actual or expected frustration have been observed both experimentally and clinically by a greater number of psychologists as well as psychiatrists. Mild symptoms of anxiety have been produced in experiments with the so called discontinued act. In these experiments persons were given some limited task such as solving a puzzle or getting out of a maze. In an advanced stage the performance was discontinued by the experimenter and the performer were given new assignments. The effects were in most cases marked irritability and lower efficiency in the new performance. It is probably permissible to regard these experiments as miniature samples of what goes on in a person who faces major and unspecified frustrations. In such a state certain persons tend to generalize one particular inhibition to act, become apathetic and fail to make the necessary adjustment to a changed situation. Others aggravate their own situation by becoming panicky, rampant and a liability to their group. An illuminating community study in an Austrian village, Marienthal, has shown the effects of insecurity upon both, community life and personal conduct. [16] The village largely consisted of factory workers who earned their living in the local textile factory. In 1931 the factory closed down for good and the greater part of the population was laid up. Up to 1930 the village was a model community, having its sport clubs, cultural organizations, and its political clubs. People took a great interest in community life as well as in national and in world affairs. In 1932 community life was reduced to insignificance. The workers abandoned their clubs although they had more leisure than ever before and although participation in these communal activities involved no expense. Group consciousness and solidarity broke down. Mutual suspicion arose between families. Local authorities received anonymous denunciations in which fellow villagers charged one another with illicit enjoyment of relief. Most of the denunciations proved to be unfounded. Interests in politics declined and elections which would arouse passions at other times became uneventful in the village. Quantitative observations on subtle details of individual life revealed also the personal side of the deterioration that took place in Marienthal. Interest in planning the future declined. Some workers had job opportunities through their relatives abroad but to make use of them they had to make arrangements for passports, visas and similar necessities. The few months which these preparations would have taken made people feel that their prospects of re-employment were too far removed in time to be real and so they stayed in the village. As long as the workers in Marienthal had their regular wages, earnings were economically spent and even savings were made. Since their unemployment the relief was spent aimlessly on objects such as costly wax flowers and illustrated calendars which were worthless to them. Comparative data also reveal the extent to which the conceptions of time and reality became blurred. The field study as a whole offers a vivid example of a lowered adaptability of persons in an acute state of insecurity. Since the Halifax disaster greater attention has been paid to collective behavior under disturbed conditions and in precipitated crisis. Analyses of what has become known about the circumstances of these events show the importance of personal as well as social pre-organization. An adequate pre-organization will enable a group to make the best of a reverse. A crowd that lacks pre-organization is apt to turn into a mob and break into panic at a theater-alarm or an economic crisis. The magical tradition of primitive man is mostly a part of his pre-organization. The magic ritual mostly serves to imbue the primitive with that confidence and morale which he needs to overcome fear whenever he faces risks and uncertainty. Primitive magic mostly operates as a force that reintegrates the group, restores discipline, initiative and solidarity and thereby helps to bridge critical situations. Our changing civilization, like many cultures which pass a period of rapid transformation, is faced with the problem of evolving new forms of pre-organization and devising new means of dealing with changes which seem to be inevitable but not fully predictable. The question of how to reconcile changes with security seems to be a critical problem or the present. Let me sum up the chief points which I have raided this evening. I have tried to indicate the difference between specified and non-specified risks. Specified or limited risks are mainly a concern of the economist, and insurance-specialist. Unspecified risks present a problem to the sociologist although not only to him. Both types of uncertainty can be anticipated and dealt with, but the difference between both procedures is significant. The anticipation of specified risks is a question of incremental labor or costs at which specified losses can be either prevented or set off. An effective anticipation of unlimited risks is a matter of a type of pre-organization that involves the social structure at large and the institutions of social control in particular. This fact has a bearing on the future development of some of our social institutions. It appears that new factors of uncertainty call for new measures of maintaining the needed social and economic equilibrium and this development may also affect our future institutions of control. The National Resource Committee has undertaken to promote research which may be conducive to social planning in those aspects of life which call for readjustment. The published results of this enterprise provide both the administrator and the social scientist with a wealth of data about the material as well human elements involved in planning. It seems to me that one of the requisites of an effective planning on a community or regional scale is a stocktaking of factors of change and of uncertainties such as are present in the situation of the country. [William Fielding] Ogburn has undertaken such a research in the field of technology and inventions. [17] It seems to me that there is plenty of scope for such inquiries in many other fields. [1]   Referat, gehalten 1942. Der Titel stammt vom Herausgeber. Die Arbeit enthält wesentliche Grundthesen der anthropologischen, bislang unveröffentlichten Dissertation von Ernest Manheim. Das Original befindet sich im Archiv für die Geschichte der Soziologie in Österreich, Graz, Nachlass Ernest Manheim, Signatur 31/5. Zuerst abgedruckt in: Archiv für die Geschichte der Soziologie in Österreich. Newsletter (Graz), Nr. 19 (Dezember 1999), S. 20-27. Anm. R.M. [2]   Vgl. William F[ielding] Ogburn: Social change with respect to culture and original nature. New York: B.W. Huebsch, inc. 1922, und Francis Stuart Chapin: Cultural change. New York-London: The Century co. 1928. William Fielding Ogburn (*Butler, Ga. 1886, †Tallahassee, Fla. 1959), amerikanischer Soziologe. Francis Stuart Chapin (*Brooklyn, N.Y., 1888, †1974), amerikanischer Soziologe. Anm. R.M. [3]   Joseph comte de Maistre (*Chambéry 1753, †Turin 1821), französischer Diplomat, Staats- und Geschichtsphilosoph; Gegner der Französischen Revolution, führender Traditionalist; floh 1793 nach Lausanne. Anm. R.M. [4]   Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise vicomte de Bonald (*Château de Monna bei Millau, Aveyron 1754, †Paris 1840), französischer Philosoph und Staatstheoretiker; Gegner der Revolution, gilt als Begründer des Traditionalismus; 1791-1797 im Exil. Anm. R.M. [5]   Juan Francisco María de la Salud Donoso Cortés, marqués de Valdegamas (*Valle de la Serena, Badajoz 1809, †Paris 1853), spanischer Politiker, Schriftsteller und Staatsphilosoph; ursprünglich Liberaler, wurde er ein führender Traditionalist; 1851-1853 spanischer Gesandter in Paris. Anm. R.M. [6]   Carl Schmitt (*Plettenberg 1888, †Plettenberg 1985), deutscher Staats- und Völkerrechtler; 1933-1945 Professor des Staatsrechts an der Universität Berlin; rechtfertigte zunächst das nationalsozialistische Regime und fungierte bis etwa 1936 als dessen richtungsweisender Rechtstheoretiker. Anm. R.M. [7]   Thomas Hobbes (*Westport [zu Malmesbury, Wiltshire] 1588, †Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire 1679), englischer Philosoph und Staatstheoretiker. Anm. R.M. [8]   8 Vgl. Thorstein Veblen: The theory of the leisure class; an economic study in the evolution of institutions. New York-London: The Macmillan co. 1899. Thorstein Bunde Veblen (*Walders, Wis. 1857, †Menlo Park, Calif. 1929), amerikanischer Nationalökonom und Soziologe. Anm. R.M. [9]   Vgl. vor allem J[ames] G[eorge] Frazer: The golden bough; a study in comparative religion. 2 Bände. New York-London: Macmillan and co. 1894, und ders.: Totemism and exogamy; a treatise on certain early forms of superstition and society. 4 Bände. London: Macmillan & co. 1910. (Seit 1914: Sir) James George Frazer (*Glasgow 1854, †Oxford 1941), britischer Ethnologe. Anm. R.M. [10]   Edward B[urnett] Tylor: Primitive culture. Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom. 2 Bände. London: J. Murray 1871. (Seit 1912: Sir) Edward Burnett Tylor (*Camberwell [zu London] 1832, †Wellington, Somerset 1917), britischer Ethnologe. Anm. R.M. [11]   Henri Lévy-Bruhl (*Paris 1884, †Paris 1964), französischer Soziologe. Anm. R.M. [12]   Bronislaw Kaspar Malinowski (*Krakau 1884, †New Haven, Conn. 1942), britisch-amerikanischer Ethnologe und Sozialanthropologe österreichisch-polnischer Herkunft; Förderer und Freund Ernest Manheims. Anm. R.M. [13]   (Seit 1971: Sir) Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (*Crowborough, Sussex 1902, †Oxford 1973), britischer Ethnosoziologe und Sozialanthropologe. Anm. R.M. [14]   William Graham Sumner (*Paterson, N.J. 1840, †Englewood, N.J. 1910), amerikanischer Soziologe. Anm. R.M. [15]   Adam Raymond Gilliland (*Reinersville, Ohio 1887, †?), amerikanischer Psychologe und Pädagoge. Harvey Christian Lehman (*Humboldt, Kansas 1889, †?), amerikanischer Psychologe und Pädagoge. Floyd Franklin Caldwell (*1891, †197?), amerikanischer Psychologe und Pädagoge. Gerhard Emmanuel Lundeen (*1892, †Fowler, Kansas 1981), amerikanischer Pädagoge. Anm. R.M. [16]   Vgl. Marie Jahoda / Paul F[elix] Lazarsfeld / Hans Zeisl: Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal. Ein soziographischer Versuch über die Wirkungen langdauernder Arbeitslosigkeit. Herausgegeben und bearbeitet von der Oesterreichischen Wirtschaftspsychologischen Forschungsstelle. Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1933 (= Psychologische Monographien. 5.). Marie Jahoda (geschiedene Lazarsfeld, verwitwete Albu; *Wien 1907), britische Soziologin österreichischer Herkunft. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (*Wien 1901, †New York City, N.Y. 1976), amerikanischer Soziologe österreichischer Herkunft. Hans Zeisel (d.i. Hans Zeisl; *Kaaden, Böhmen [Kadan, Tschechische Republik] 1905, †Chicago, Ill. 1992), amerikanischer Soziologe und Rechtswissenschaftler österreichisch-tschechischer Herkunft. Anm. R.M. [17]   Vgl. William Fielding Ogburn: Man and his machines; teaching American youth how invention changes the modern world. Analysis by William Fielding Ogburn, teaching aids by Robert B[artow] Weaver. Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies, National Association of the Secondary School Principals, departments of the National Education Association [1942]. Anm. R.M.