Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

SOCIAL AGNOSTICISM 257
there are political ideologies which are themselves allegedly superseded
by the euphoria of manipulated conspicuous consumption in the affluent
society. At what previous stage, therefore, did man ever have a 'correct'
relationship to his society? And what, indeed, is 'correct,' apart from
what the critic of a society happens to think fit?
For the moment we can allow such social agnosticism. There will
probably never be a true or-from the point of view of an epistemological
purist-a correct relationship between members of a society
and the social system as such (leaving aside the question of culture and
society, as also that of the supra-individual forces that uphold and actuate
the system). But is that a misfortune? Can it be turned into an accusation
against the form of a given society as such? Can a social system somehow
be held responsible for so misleading. its members that they can never
learn the truth about the nature of their society?
What for most people really counts is simply this: Always and in
virtually every society or simple tribal culture, however unscientific,
irrational and far removed from reality the average belief and social
self-interpretation of these people, there has always been sufficient
correlation between what was believed or habitually done, and what was
in fact possible in any given social, political, economic and geographical
environment, so that somehow, despite all the waste and inefficiency,
social existence was possible. Today we know much better than in 1930,
1900 or 1800 what an unheard-of quantity of specious nonsense a social
and economic system can swallow without disintegrating.
Is this really so surprising? After all, it has long been realized in
natural science that, so far as our knowledge and mastery of the world
are concerned, control and prediction depend on only an approximate
correspondence between human intellect and matter. In many cases
scientists long did not know, and in others they still do not, how or why
something 'works': why a medicine cures, or a chemical compound is
stable, etc.
May not the case of social existence be similar? As a rule members of
a society will understand what is right, at least to the extent of being able
to devise tolerable forms of social existence. Claims may vary considerably
in this respect, but it would seem to me doubtful whether the
people who have prospered most qua collectives are those who have
subscribed to the most current 'scientific' theory about their social life.