Ideological pluralism

Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and its Rivals By Ernest Gellner Published by Hamish Hamilton, 1994 Republished by Penguin Books, 1996 Pages: 225 Price:$86.98 By Nadeem Omar Tarar Ernest Gellner, who died on 5 November 1995, was one of the great polymaths of the century. Many of his twenty books were concerned with philosophy, sociology and anthropology. Yet, at the core of his work was an historical question. In the backdrop of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gellner wrote essays on the origins of civil society which later provided substance for his book Conditions of Liberty which synthesised and extended the thought of a lifetime. In the wake of judicial crisis in the country, a large scale mobilisation of diverse groups across society have taken place, providing a renewed currency and valency to the term 'civil society' in Pakistan. Gellner's works can help initiate the debate on the role of civil society in the country. Civil society is understood as a set of diverse, non-governmental institutions which are strong enough to counterbalance the state. Without preventing the state from fulfilling its role of peace-keeping and arbitration between major interests, the civil society can, nevertheless, prevent it from dominating and atomising the rest of the society. Underlying the concept of civil society is the notion of institutional and ideological pluralism that prevents the monopoly of power and counterbalances those central institutions which, through necessity might, otherwise acquire such monopoly. The phrase civil society was used in the philosophies of Locke and Hegel that kept the philosophers busy for some time to come. But the recent emergence of the idea of civil society as a shining emblem for a democratic society, is linked with the developments in the recent political history of the world. The political developments

in Eastern Europe, as a result of disintegration of the former USSR, led to an upsurge in the idea of civil society which was found lacking in those societies. It can also be seen, as philosophersociologist Ernst Gellner argues, as a backlash to the suppression of ideal and practices of civil society by Marxist regimes in USSR and elsewhere. They firmly declared their central intuition that civil society is a fraud: being handmaiden to the dominating state, it is a facade to hide its oppression. The support for civil society is a bid to hide the complicity of civil society with state, which should go. The withering away of state will pave the way, it was argued, for a just social and moral order, that can take care of itself, without requiring a state or additional institutions to counter balance the central agency. Therefore, the active suppression of the idea of civil society by Marxist regimes and their consequent failure to live up to their own socialist vision, led to the renewed interests in the idea and the yearning for the creation of civil society. The growing expectation of the people to build up a civil society is not restricted to communist failure alone. In South Asia, it has its own independent roots. Among others, the most important is the hegemonic, over expanded state structures, that has started to crumble under its own weight, creating massive corruption and causing severe problems in the governance of the South Asian countries. The yearning for civil society in former Marxist countries and elsewhere in Asia makes one significant point. That is to say, civil society is not something that is given, it has to be groomed. It's not something that can be cherished as an idea and then imposed on a society by legal frameworks or governmental regulations. It is beyond the reach of an individual efforts or the well wishes of a group. Ernest Gellner outlines the institutional preconditions for the growth of civil society through a historical study of three societies namely Muslim, Marxist and Capitalist west. Gellner analyses the emergence of distinct cultural forms, over the centuries in the aforementioned diverse societies. He is careful to distinguish between the forms of liberties. He doesn't generalise the conditions of civil society as a token of universal human condition. Marxism was the first secular belief system to become a world religion, as well as a state ideology. It instituted a social and moral order with its own socio-metaphysics. It was not only moral, but also promised freedom from economic inequality and political oppression. Marxism promised a total salvation, not for an individual but to the total humanity which is reflected in its failure to create life cycles rituals in USSR. Gellner argues: "the great

weakness of Marxism may not be so much its formal elimination of the transcendent from religion, but its over-sacralization of the immanent." The sacralization of social and economic life leaves out the option of retreating into profanity in the times of diminished zeal. With the sacralization of work, the failure in economy is likely to diminish the faith on the sacred. By a strong contrast, the success or the failure of economic activity (since its neutral), doesn't contaminate or effect the faith in Islam. The religious Umma or community of believers, was able to retain its control over its followers, by keeping up the distinction between sacred and profane and thereby, separating economic from religious. Whereas in Marxist societies, with the sacralization of economy and society, the distinction between sacred and profane was collapsed. As a result political economic and ideological hierarchies were united into a single pyramid of bureaucracy. This not only effected the economic performance, but also proved catastrophic for the social soul. "When the nomenklatura killed each other and accompanied the murderous rampage with blatantly mendacious political theatre, belief survived; but when the nomenklatura switched from shooting to bribing each other, faith evaporated." This observation has serious implication for the civil society. Gellner seems to be asserting that for Marxist regimes, civil society was considered a fraud, not only because of its assumed complicity with state but also due to sacralization of social and economic life. As a result no popular will, expressed through civil society, could be considered legitimate. In the same vein, but due to opposite reasons, in Islamic societies, state was considered as the implementer but not the creator of divine law. As long as it doesn't violate it, the need for an additional institution, expressing the popular will, and holding state accountable for other than divine will, was not considered legitimate. In both cases, there are no grounds for the existence of civil society. According to Gellner, civil society cannot be imposed from above. Rather, it takes its roots with the gradual evolution of institutional preconditions like the centralisation of authority for maintaining political order and decentralised economic and ideological control. For instance, in Europe, the French centralising monarchy, with its respect for property, prepared grounds for the civil society which modern democracy completed. Economic decentralism is also considered essential precondition of civil society mainly because of two reasons. In an industrial society,

it is not possible for sub units (like a county) to claim the loyalties of all of its members. The possibility of pluralism of politically autonomous, coercive units is rather too remote [unlike in a segmentary society composed of clans, baradaris]. Liberty, on the other hand, as a condition of balance of power of autonomous units, demands such pluralist arrangement. Since the pluralistic structure can not be political, therefore, it has to be economic. Secondly, the existence of genuinely independent productive and property controlling units is also necessary for the economic efficiency and growth. In this economic pluralist arrangement, however, Gellner doesn't discard the role of state. In contrast, he argues that modern technological innovations and the welfare system can not be managed alone by market, through the enlightened self interests of the individuals. It requires a loose state control. The assigned role of state becomes all the more necessary, when the "pure-marketcum-minimalist-state" model cannot be relied upon. Viewing large scale and irreversible consequences of modern technological innovations on social order, the production process cannot be left in the 'invisible hand' of forces of market. There must be a regulatory body that monitors and effectively checks the productive units without depriving them of their autonomy. In this loose stateeconomy arrangements, it will be economic growth and ideological pluralism that balances the centralising trends of state. Ideological pluralism or "double think" is also necessary, because these are the cognitive mechanism underlying the technological-economic growth of societies. One of the adverse consequence of ideological and economic centralism, observable in Marxist societies, is the sacralization of social order. Communist system was a moral order where faith and social order was fused, but in a civil society it is reversed. The circle between faith, power and society is broken up. In a civil society, social order is not sacralized. With the desacralization of social order, the social cooperation, loyalty and solidarity do not require a shared faith, instead they require a shared doubt. In contrast to Durkhemian sociology, where man has a organic relationship with society marked by religion and ritual, Gellner makes a strong case for social modularity of modern man, as a essential precondition for civil society. Social modularity makes people capable of combing effective innovations and institutions without these being stranded. The formation of specific purpose, ad-hoc and limited organisation signifies a shift from status to contract form of social relationships.

The transition from a moral order to a functional, pragmatic compromise is aided by economic prosperity and growth. Increase in economic growth facilities this delicate balance of power between desacralized, autonomous, economic units, under lose political control and keeps this strategic balance of forces in play, ensuring civil liberties in modern societies.