Tradition, as an English word, comes from the Latin traditio 'to hand over'. In Sanskrit, the word would be 'sampradaya'- and denotes a generous handing over of something good. The corresponding word in Hebrew is masoret. Clearly, the word tradition is associated with a chain of transmission. It is not a 'spontaneous order'. I suppose one could argue that what is handed down may be modified by the needs of the time. Thus there is a possibility that tradition accommodates whatever 'spontaneous order' has been established. However, the tradition itself would be handed down in its original form- or, at least, that would be the pretence. It would only be modified under the rubric of 'exigent circumstances' (apadh dharma) or the notion that some teaching is no longer useful because of material advances which have been made. In this case, it is always possible to give a new moral or spiritual meaning to the restriction.
Karl Mannheim, like Michael Polanyi, was Hungarian. Both moved to Germany after Admiral Horthy took power before fleeing to England when Hitler became Chancellor. Mannheim was considered more left wing- his Sociology of Knowledge seems based on the Marxist notion of Class and he appeared to advocate scientific planning because, it was obvious, the old world had disappeared because of the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the inevitable transition to a war economy. One may as well be on the side of the Utopians because a new world had to be built out of what the war had shattered.
Mannheim's bitter enemy, at the LSE, was Morris Ginsberg- indeed, Mannheim's wife blamed Ginsberg for her husband's death in his early Fifties. It is interesting that Ginsberg, unlike the two Hungarians, was actually reared in the Ashkenazi tradition. Hailing from Lithuania, he studied only Rabbinical lore till the age of 15 when he came to England to join his father. He spoke only Yiddish and knew only the Hebrew script. Yet, within three years he was able to matriculate. Sadly, his financial circumstances did not permit him to go to University. For three years he worked as a clerk before getting a teaching job. He was then able to get a scholarship to UCL. His academic ascent was steep and rapid. It appears his traditional Jewish education in some Lithuanian backwater enabled him to assimilate the Western tradition with greater rigor and precision than Englishmen more favourably placed. Yet, in obedience to his own earliest training, he was preoccupied with ethical questions.
This passage is characteristic-
We have not to choose between Hume's view of reason as the slave of the passions and Kant's view of it as independent and over-riding them. We may conceive of it rather as that in our personality which strives for integration, deeper than conscious thought, but the more effective the more it uses thought, working within and through the basic impulses and interests and deriving its energy from them".
~ from: "Is Reason the Slave of the Passions" – in The Plain View" Feb. 1955
I recall watching the movie 'Fiddler on the Roof' when I was about ten or eleven years ago. The song 'Tradition' made a strong impression on me. I suppose this was because the plot of the film could be easily transposed into a Tamil or Hindi setting. For the protagonist, it becomes clear, tradition is malleable- up to a point. He will permit love marriages- even one to a Revolutionary!- for his daughters, provided they marry within the faith. This is perfectly sensible. By the end of the movie, he will soften to the daughter who eloped with the Gentile. Who knows? Perhaps the children will reclaim their Jewish heritage.
Morris Ginsberg stressed that the ethical element in tradition involves a continual process of integration, a seeking of psychological wholeness and harmony, and this is expressed as an integrity of a type which is humane and malleable. It is an 'economia' not an 'akrebia'.
Polyani, who had been led to Christianity by his reading of the Brothers Karamazov, seems to have believed that conversion was necessary for Jewish genius to flower. Richard Moodey writes
Polanyi invited Shils to lecture at the University of Manchester in the winter of 1946 and 1947, and
Shils spoke about the tendency of literary figures to dislike their own societies. At that time, Polanyi courteously
disagreed with him, but Shils says that within a few years “the intellectuals’ rebellion of moral indignation, of
excessive claims and exaggerated hopes, became a major theme of Polanyi’s view of the world.” After this,
when Polanyi disagreed with him, Shils would often say, “Don’t be too strong in your disagreement, Michael.
In two years, you will say exactly what I am saying having forgotten that you first heard it from me”
It is precisely that moral indignation and the polarizing, Manichaean, view of the world it promotes, which is the opposite of Ginsberg's tradition- which, indeed, is more truly our own than some nonsense that Hume or Kant wrote. I think Ginsberg- whose first big academic achievement was his study of Malebranche- saw that a tradition is not the scholasticism or categorical theory that accretes around it. It is a sort of 'reverse mathematics' which continually asks if the same result can be achieved without coercive or programmatic means. At the same time, it is a stable 'creode' or developmental pathway in which many are concerned. There is a mutuality here which gives a qualitative aspect to 'spontaneous order' such that we have a Schelling focal perspective from which to distinguish more from less moral and ethical social arrangements and outcomes. In this sense, Ginsberg was part of the 'evolutionary Sociology' school though, of course, evolution does not have a teleology.
Returning to the subject of this post- which draws on Phil Mullins and Struan Jacobs's paper on Mannheim & Polyani- the following gives a flavor of the differences between the two Hungarian savants-
“I think I represent among
my friends the most ‘radical’ Keynesian attitude which—incidentally—involves the least ‘planning’” (No.
244).
Polanyi's achievement was to integrate monetary theory into a broadly Keynesian framework. The problem with this- as the English knew but the Hungarians didn't- was that Britain had been in relative decline since the 1880's. Reflating the economy would merely reinforce the tendency for Finance and light industry to create a prosperous South while the North languished. Furthermore, the Hungarians were oblivious to the problems of social class which bedevilled England. It was easier for a foreigner to vault these entrenched barriers precisely because they had not eaten of the forbidden fruit and knew not good or evil- i.e. that it was wrong to speak of dinner as luncheon if one's collar was blue while the reverse applied if it were white. Furriners devour snails and such like at any time of the day or night. Bland English fare will lower their spirits till they find their proper place in Society.
The proclamation is intended directly to confront Mannheim’s interest in “planning” as his next comment
makes clear: “I cannot agree with your use of this word as for example in your phrase ‘Planning for Freedom’”
(No. 244).
Yet the post-war world would require high military expenditure as well as the maintenance of a Defence related Scientific establishment. At the same time, bombed cities and factories had to be rebuilt. Furthermore, Britain had become a debtor country. There would have to be Exchange and Capital controls. There was no alternative to Planning. However, this could be of an 'indicative' sort with a public-private partnership such that the Government supplied funds at a lower interest rate and took on some of the 'down-side' risk.
There follows an effort to set forth more precisely the meaning of “planning”:
The only sense in which the word planning can be used in my view without creating
misconceptions is to designate by it discriminative dispositions concerning an aggregate of
particulars. Indiscriminate disposition over an aggregate of particulars on the other hand
should not be called planning but simply legislation—law being a generalised command, as
distinct from specific (executive) commands (No. 244).
I suppose Polyani means things like the nationalization of the 'commanding heights'.
It is clear that Polanyi here makes a sharp distinction between “discriminative” and “indiscriminate dispositions” and that he thinks Mannheim’s “planning for freedom” blurs this distinction. “Indiscriminate dispositions
over an aggregate of particulars” is law understood as a generalized command, which should be distinguished
from specific commands.
Today, this is odd language, but it is easy enough to recognize that Polanyi’s distinction is basically
the same as that drawn in 1940 in his lecture “Collectivist Planning” that he incorporated as the second chapter
of his 1940 book, The Contempt of Freedom.
15 Here Polanyi distinguishes planning as a method of ordering
human affairs from what he identifies as the alternative method, supervision (CF 30). Supervision “ultimately
relies on a multitude of individual initiatives which planning would subordinate to a central will” (CF 30).
Polanyi draws his examples of planning from military actions. He sees planning as a comprehensive top-down
activity: “no stage adds anything to the original plan as conceived by the one man at the top, every further and
further detail fits into it, and has significance only as its execution; the plan does not change by being put into
effect”( CF 33). Discipline is essential to planning or activities to be accomplished by planning (CF 34).
Supervision aims not at simple execution but at regulating
manifold impulses in conformity with their inherent purpose. It achieves this by making
generally available social machinery and other regulated opportunities for independent
action, and by letting all the individual agents interact through a medium of freely circulating
23
ideas and information (CF 36).
In “Liberal society,” Polanyi argues, “there is a wide domain of activities in which ideas are cultivated under
the supervision of organizations or public authorities” (CF 37) Such cultivation relies upon “widely dispersed
sources of initiative” and requires that “mental communications are open throughout the community.” (CF 36).
Polanyi suggests that
artistic pursuits, religious worship, the administration of justice, scientific research are the
main manifestations of the permanent principles to the cultivation of which such a society is
pledged. Supervision authorities guard the occasions and regulate the channels for these
manifestations, and they keep communications free for public discussion and instruction
concerning them, but must not interfere with their substance (CF 37).16
With regard to the law, Polanyi emphasizes that the state provides the machinery for the administration of justice
but it also
rigorously guards the decisions of the courts from public influence. The courts are sole
masters of their conscience and interpretations under the law which they are required to apply,
and as they make their decisions, these are instantly added as amplifications, valid throughout
the land, to the law from which they have just been derived. (CF 38)17
In his April 19, 1944 letter to Mannheim, Polanyi implies that Mannheim uses the words “planning
for freedom” in a particularly loose fashion that obscures important distinctions regarding the law.
The problem here is that the English law courts would not have permitted 'supervision'. Only if there is statute law changing ownership- or permitting this to happen- could any such 'control rights' accrue. Clement Atlee had once lectured at the LSE. As a solicitor, he was well versed in the law. Nationalization, by itself, is by no means a bad thing. It permits rapid rationalization and the exploitation of scale and scope economies. If the thing is privatized once it has become viable then the Exchequer gets not just the purchase price but a stream of tax revenue. On the other hand, it must be admitted, Nationalized industries were supposed to produce a stream of profits for the Government.
Below we
discuss Polanyi and Mannheim’s interaction in J. H. Oldham’s group, “the Moot.” For the second Moot meeting
in April of 1939, Mannheim wrote a paper titled “Planning for Freedom” for discussion. 18 There is no evidence
that Polanyi read this particular paper but Mannheim’s work inside and outside of “the Moot” overlapped.
Gábor reports that Mannheim has used the expression “planning for freedom” in several publications by this
time.19 Apparently, Polanyi thinks that Mannheim is too quick to link all kinds of law to planning. He warns
Mannheim “that we must not give new names to ancient human institutions but rather try to find the old names
and conceptions which will cover, guide and sanction our modern endeavors” (No. 244). Polanyi offers to
explain the importance of this point in more detail to Mannheim. In sum, what seems clear is that Polanyi views
Mannheim’s ideas about planning as akin to ideas of Bernal and others who have championed a Soviet style
planned science. By the time he becomes re-acquainted with Mannheim in England, Polanyi has spent some
years vigorously arguing against such planning and he thus has no sympathy for any similar tendencies in
Mannheim’s thought.20
Polanyi closes his April 19, 1944 letter to Mannheim by moving from his criticisms of “planning for
freedom” to a more global criticism of Mannheim’s perspective as a sociologist of knowledge. He distinguishes
Mannheim’s approach to history from his own: 'As regards the social analysis of the development of ideas, suffice to say that I reject all social
analysis of history which makes social conditions anything more than opportunities for a
development of thought. You seem inclined to consider moral judgments on history as
ludicrous, believing apparently that thought is not merely conditioned, but determined by a
social or technical situation. I cannot tell you how strongly I reject such a view' (No. 244).
In Mannheim's defence, it could be argued that this 'ideological' commitment to determinism is merely strategic. Mannheim sees that post-war reconstruction has no choice but to create a new world. Why not an utopia? Surely, that would lend vigour to the working population and create the sense that their sacrifices had not been in vain?
24
Although, his ideas are not developed here, this comment is an important one that draws on earlier ideas
developed in publications like The Contempt of Freedom. It is also a comment that foreshadows ideas Polanyi
develops later about human callings and about the interpretation of history.21 In The Contempt of Freedom,
Polanyi attacks what he calls the “Marxist doctrine of social determinism and the kindred teaching of Fascism”
for “claiming that thought is the product of society and ought therefore to serve the State;” such a view removes
“all ground on which to consolidate an authority to which man could justifiably appeal against the commands
of the State” (CF 10-11). Polanyi argues that “the realm of thought possesses its own life” and this means that
“freedom is not only made possible, but its institution becomes a social necessity” (CF 11):
Freedom is made possible by this doctrine because it implies that truth, justice, humaneness
will stand above society, and hence the institutions which exist to cultivate these ideas, such
as the Press, the law, the religions, will be safely established and available to receive
complaints of all men against the State and, if need be to oppose it. Freedom also becomes
necessary because the State cannot maintain and augment the sphere of thought, which can
live only in pursuit of its own internal necessities, unless it refrains from all attempts to
dominate it and further undertakes to protect all men and women who would devote
themselves to the service of thought from interference by their fellow-citizens, private or
official—whether prompted by prejudice or guided by enlightened plans (CF 11).
Later in The Contempt of Freedom, Polanyi emphasizes how “guiding principles” complement
supervisory authority:
As long as certain guiding principles—of truth, of justice, of religious faith, of decency and
equity—are being cultivated, and as long as commerce is protected, the sphere of supervision
will predominate and planning will be limited to isolated patches and streaks (CF 39).
He is clear that “comprehensive planning” must ultimately eliminate guiding principles and the freedoms that
are basic to human activity in an environment in which supervisory authority is predominant:
Conversely, if comprehensive planning were to prevail, this would imply the abolition of
both the cultivation of guiding principles and the pursuit of commerce, with all the liberties
inherent in these forms of life. Hence collectivist revolution must aim at the destruction of
liberty, and in particular must suppress the privileges under which Universities, Law Courts,
Churches and the Press are upholding their ideals, and attack the rights of individual
enterprise under which trade is conducted (CF 39-40).
In sum, the April 19, 1944 letter to Mannheim offers a condensed statement of Polanyi’s social vision,
which Polanyi regards as fundamentally at odds with Mannheim’s vision. Interestingly, Polanyi suggests that
his social vision came together only as he began to understand the British tradition and particularly civil liberties.
Polanyi implies that Mannheim misreads the critical role of freedom in social life and that Mannheim is also
confused about the role of planning in society. Planning cannot produce freedom but is by its nature an
alternative to a liberal society with supervisory authorities that relies on the freedom and initiative of persons.
The role of independent thought in society for Polanyi is central. It is the key not only to the success of endeavors like science but of other institutions of liberal society
The problem here is that both Mannheim and Polyani were ignorant of the common law tradition. Its sources of 'positive law' were much more circumscribed than on the continent. There had to be clear legislative authority vesting control rights of various sorts in the Executive. But that was difficult to achieve for numerous historical reasons of a highly specific, ideographic, type. It explains why Britain lagged parts of the continent when it came to compulsory education. On the other hand, unlike in the US, the Courts were less likely to intervene against Executive overreach because the House of Lords traditionally exercised that role.
It should also be remembered that though 'thought' was free in England, there were severe legal restrictions on what could be taught. Thus, early in the Nineteenth Century, Judges had found that the ancient public schools had no warrant to change and modernize their curriculum. Everywhere you looked the 'dead hand' of an Institution's charter paralyzed progress. This is what drove the English towards the Left. However, by the same token, a Legislative expansion of control rights could, in practice, be rolled back or disregarded. In other words, the English principle that the Crown in Parliament can't bind itself meant that the English could appear very radical indeed while keeping within their own pragmatic tradition. This confused the fuck out of Hungarians and Indians of a cerebral type.
In 1946, a fellow Hungarian, George Mikes wrote a best-seller- 'How to be an alien'- which well captures the comedy in what follows-
Mannheim’s response to Polanyi, dated one day after Polanyi’s letter, is an interesting one. Mannheim
notes that he, like Polanyi, found their discussion frank and invigorating. He protests that Polanyi’s letter implies
Polanyi has misread his intentions in asking Polanyi direct personal questions. Mannheim says he explored
Polanyi’s development not in order to make accusations but such exploration was
only the expression of a human interest to find out ;'through what type of experiences you
arrived at your present attitudes. Just because I myself felt when reading your studies that
there are so many points of agreement and similar ways of looking at things, I was also keen
to find out where our differences lay'.
Mannheim then suggests that Polanyi’s reaction to the social analysis of the development of ideas seems to be
an emotional reaction that rules out further confrontation of evidence. Polanyi jumps to moral conclusions in
proclaiming that social conditions cannot be anything more than opportunities for the development of thought.
Mannheim thinks that sometimes there may be not enough evidence to conclude that social conditions are more
than opportunities, but at other times there may be evidence that demands social conditions have a more
significant impact.
For an Englishman, 'social conditions' are an accretion of the law. Moral conclusions are a way to get the Crown in Parliament to change the law. This does not necessarily mean there will be a new social configuration or any 'development' in thought.
At the end of his letter, Mannheim turns again to Polanyi’s projected Routledge volume, asking for
a short statement showing 'the main content of the Introductory article to be written, how it will unify the two sets of
problems with which you deal in the studies which are with me: the one being the discussion
of the necessity for freedom of science and the second with social political problems of
nations and groups, as, for instance, the article on England and the Continent and the other
on the Jewish question (No. 245)'.
An Englishman would have thought 'the Jewish question' was Palestine. Otherwise, there could be no question that Jews were just people and all the better for being subjects of the King Emperor.
Mannheim’s skill as an editor shows in the way he outlines for Polanyi precisely how he can pull his diverse
set of essays into a unified whole: 'As a possible title I thought of ‘Re-discoveries’, meaning by this that you and we all of a
sudden rediscover values which have been taken too much for granted, and have therefore
nearly disappeared from our consciousness and reappear as an answer to the totalitarian
challenge. Such a re-discovery is that science cannot flourish with[out]freedom, that the Jews
need not necessarily share the nationalism of the modern age but can make a better
contribution by utilizing their peculiar chances of becoming a ferment in the integration of
bigger units under Anglo-Saxon guidance,'
So, they thought Zionism was bound to fail. However, what the English objected to was 'ferment' or yeast or anything of that sort. The Irish might have sourdough bread. Britain must be as bland as possible, if not blander.
that England has a peculiar function in the re-birth
of Europe,
this turned out to be to so provoke Gallic ingratitude that France embraced its recent enemies. Brexit may indeed provoke a re-rebirth of Europe if England does well. Envy is a powerful motivator.
and that last but not least Europe as a new entity has to be re-discovered too' (No.
245).
In early May of 1944, Polanyi responded to Mannheim’s April 20, 1944 letter and this too was a lengthy
reply. Polanyi seems to have believed that he could transform some of Mannheim’s epistemological notions
about the bearing of facts and evidence on human knowledge. He points out that scientific experiments presume
26
“that natural events can be analyzed in terms of causal sequences” but in a laboratory environment “failures
prevail overwhelmingly over successes.”23 A research director must work to boost morale in the face of regular
disappointment. Scientists don’t abandon assumptions about naturalistic causality simply because apparent
evidence does not support them. Polanyi argues that the case of science is analogous to that of moral life: 'Similarly, I suggest, as moral beings we are dedicated to an interpretation of human actions
in terms of right and wrong. The latter form a more complicated pattern than that of causality
which had its application of course to an entirely different field. Moreover I suggest that as
Christians and Westerners we are dedicated to seek and uphold human interpretations more
especially in the terms of our own moral tradition. That is what we are here for, as I understand
our purpose in life' (No. 246).
Mannheim was ethnically Jewish but does not appear to have converted to Christianity though he was close to Christian thinkers like T.S Eliot. The question must be asked, what common 'moral tradition' is Polyani appealing to here? One answer is that there was something wrong with their ancestral Judaism's 'mussar' tradition of morality and integrity. Both had been reborn into some sort of realm of 'universal reason'. But why would that involve ceaselessly discriminating right and wrong? After all, both can be causally explained. Moreover, during war-time, the action of the 'right' may be more horrific than that of the 'wrong' party.
Polanyi suggests that thinkers like Marx abandon this view, regarding history as “the manifestation of economic
necessities conditioned by technical progress” (No. 246). There is a tendency in modernity to “regard material
forces as the ultimate reality in human affairs” and once thinkers follow this course, they “will not find it easy
to entrust their minds ever again to a more intangible aspect of these affairs” (No. 246). He concludes by saying
that evidence seems only very vaguely connected to fundamental beliefs:
Evidence, in short, can neither kill nor create fundamental beliefs. What we accept or reject
in these matters is life itself. To some extent we can choose our forms of existence, to some
extent we are born to them, to another part again we may be battered by experience to abandon
one form for another (No. 246).
Thus, whatever 'moral tradition' he shared with Mannheim- or that he wished Mannheim to more fully share- was not an empirical matter. It was an ahistorical 'Faith' of a highly contingent kind- ceaselessly 'battered by experience' and expelled from one form of life so as to have taken on a different identity.
He suggests that in the middle of
rising and falling convictions there remains fixed a deeper secret pivot of faith, round which
we keep revolving; we follow throughout a code of duty of which we are so unconscious that
we could not formulate one single syllable of it (No. 246).24
What does it mean to 'follow a rule' of which one has no inkling? One could say, with the later Wittgenstein, that one is within a language game. But is a pawn 'following a rule' or is it merely a pawn in a game it can't comprehend?
What seems clearest in the context of this discussion is that, unlike Mannheim, Polanyi holds that human agents
necessarily have basic convictions, and also define “facts” and “evidence” in relation to such convictions:
So there is no way out. We must choose—and usually we have chosen already by implication.
That is, we must choose in such a fashion that what we instinctively love in life, what we
spontaneously admire, what we irresistibly aspire to, should make sense in the light of our
convictions. When the prospect of such a solution opens up before our eyes, we undergo a
conversion.
A pawn may become a Queen. That is a conversion- but only in a certain sense.
'Henceforth we do not doubt the faith to which we have been converted, but rather
reject such evidence as may seem to contradict it' (No. 246).
Polanyi notes that one of his essays, “The Autonomy of Science,” that he has sent Mannheim as a proposed
part of a book makes precisely this case for those who are scientists. He points out that in making the case for
“a professional life dedicated to the convictions of science,” he “was constantly bearing in mind the
generalizations arising from this scheme in the wider field touched upon by your questions. Perhaps this letter
conveys a hint of the programme of such a generalisation” (No. 246).
Just this “programme of such a generalisation” is what Polanyi undertakes in his 1951 and 1952
27
Gifford Lectures and later in PK. It is not difficult to see a rather direct line of development between this May
1944 letter to Mannheim and such passages as the following in PK:
We must now recognize belief once more as the source of all knowledge. Tacit assent and
intellectual passions, the sharing of an idiom and of a cultural heritage, affiliation to a likeminded community: such are the impulses which shape our vision of the nature of things on
which we rely for our mastery of things. No intelligence, however critical or original, can
operate outside such a fiduciary framework (PK 266).
Consider the strangeness of this assertion more especially the fact that it came from a scientist. This was a time when, as C.P Snow was to point out when there was a particularly sharp cleavage between the 'two cultures'- viz. the Humanities and the Sciences. But even within the Sciences there were people who were skeptical of Einstein's claims or the possibility of nuclear fission. Beliefs changed after Hiroshima. It was obvious that 'critical' and 'original' intelligence operated outside the 'fiduciary' framework of a given epistemic community. On the contrary, crucial experiments could turn an eccentric opinion into orthodoxy.
Mannheim, in a suave manner (he was publishing a book by Polanyi) influenced him towards a 'sociology of knowledge' stand point. But that sociology is revolutionary.
So also it is easy to notice the connection between ideas in this letter and Polanyi’s later account of philosophical
reflection: 'I believe that the function of philosophic reflection consists in bringing to light, and affirming
as my own, the beliefs implied in such of my thoughts and practices as I believe to be valid;
that I must aim at discovering what I truly believe in and at formulating the convictions which
I find myself holding; that I must conquer my self-doubt, so as to retain a firm hold on this
programme of self-identification' (PK 267).
But this 'self-identification' is linked to a 'discovery' process which is technologically constrained. In other words, it has the same substructure as class society.
he accepted the following:
The Autonomy of Science. By Prof. Michael Polanyi. F. R. S.
28
The distinguished Scientist investigates the social conditions of scientific progress. As one
of them he considers the existence of a scientific community of scholars. Out of their cooperation ideals and standards emanate certain scientific beliefs which together form a
tradition and guide their work. Although an organ of society this community can only
flourish if its autonomy is maintained. Any interference by an external power such as the
State can only destroy this inheritance instead of fostering it. This plea for the freedom of
science is extremely timely at present when in the name of misinterpreted planning State
guidance is propagated by those who ought to be the guardians of scientific liberty.
Clearly this is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it was a stick to beat the Soviets and Hitlerites with. On the other it is anti-MacArthurism avant la lettre. As Rebecca West pointed out, at that time, Scientists and engineers tended to be on the Left.
A similar point may be made about the Mannheim/Polyani 'ding dong' battle at 'the moot'. Nineteenth century radicalism assumed a group of revolutionaries could seize power before a dictator emerged. This dictator might consult individual scientists or scholars. It was enough for the State to provide specialist training in arcane disciplines without any need for fostering epistemic communities. The dictator could always take his pick of savants and, if they failed to perform, replace them with another of their ilk.
By contrast, the mid Twentieth century scientist was aware that more orient horizons were opened up when a community of scholars, bound by nothing but intellectual curiosity, committed to a counter-intuitive world view- e.g. that of General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics- so as to drive a Research Program. War time successes- e.g. ENIGMA & Los Alamos- confirmed that even more rapid progress could be made if you brought in mathematicians like Turing and Von Neumann.
IV. “The Moot” and Its June 1944 Meeting
These late spring and summer 1944 letters also mention another venue in which Polanyi and
Mannheim were to meet, J. H. Oldham’s group called “the Moot.” Oldham was an important British Christian
ecumenist who, in 1938, as the world moved toward war, organized this intellectual discussion group. Its
membership included a number of leading British intellectuals: T. S. Eliot, Eric Fenn, Walter Oakeshott,
Geoffrey Shaw, Walter Moberly, Hector Hetherington, John Middleton Murry Alexander Vidler, John Baille,
Fred Clark, Herbert Hodges as well as Mannheim. Mannheim had become a member of “the Moot” in its second
meeting.32 “The Moot” usually met in a retreat setting for a long weekend and Oldham organized and led the
sessions. He was careful to keep the number of participants in any given meeting manageable and he divided
the weekend up into a number of different sessions. Oldham’s hearing was impaired and he orchestrated the
discussion in a very deliberate manner so that he could follow.33 Usually, there was a set of papers, written by
Moot members or guests, which were pre-circulated to those attending; different papers were slotted for
discussion in different sessions. Each meeting ostensibly had a topic or major theme, but sometimes the variety
of the papers suggests that the topic consisted in rather diffuse ideas.
Although “the Moot” began meeting before Britain entered the war, its focus was, generally stated,
on post-war reconstruction and the role that the Christian church and Christian laypeople were to play in it. From
the beginning, questions about how an order or a Christian order might shape reconstruction were central to
discussions. “The Moot” was a diverse group with a range of different opinions but a shared concern for shaping
the new post-war society.34 Mannheim’s intellectual interests seem to have been a natural fit with the concerns
of Oldham and “the Moot.” After Mannheim joins “the Moot,” he becomes – after Oldham himself - the most
active Moot member, attending all meetings until the end of 1944, and producing a number of papers.35
Clements notes that Mannheim was “the most prolific” author of papers in and for “the Moot,” while Oldham
looked on Mannheim as “the most important” Moot recruit that he “ever secured.”36 Taylor and Reeeves report
that Alec Vidler, a theologian member, also identified Mannheim as the central figure in the group. Further, they
suggest that Mannheim’s views about “social planning in a democracy as an alternative to bureaucratic
totalitarianism” had substantial support in “the Moot.”
This was Corporatist. The Church would be represented as would the Unions and the Industrialists and so forth.
Oldham in 1943 became interested in Polanyi’s article “The English and the Continent,” which was
published in Political Quarterly that year. This is one of the articles that Polanyi in early 1944 sent to Mannheim
to consider as part of his proposed book. Oldham wrote Polanyi on 12 November 1943, asking for permission
to publish a shortened version of the article as a “Supplement” (an occasional paper series) of the Christian
News-Letter, which was a publication sponsored in part by “the Moot.” Not only Oldham saw this article and
29
was interested in it, but also Moot member Walter Moberly (another friend of Polanyi’s) had been given the
article by Polanyi and, on his own initiative, recommended it to Oldham.38 Polanyi’s publications and his
interests in the late thirties and early forties thus seem to have had enough affinity with interests of Moot
members to attract attention.
Polanyi was officially invited by Oldham, on May 2, 1944, to be a guest at the June 23-26 Moot
meeting to be held in a rural setting near Horsham.39 Polanyi acknowledges in a letter to Mannheim that he in
fact owed this invitation to Mannheim (No. 248). In regard to this invitation, Mannheim rather generously
compliments Polanyi for being so articulate about a perspective markedly different from Mannheim’s own
views. In this compliment are visible both Mannheim’s respect for “the Moot” and his confidence in the
importance of “the cross fertilization of Ideas” at this stage of history :
When I suggested that you should be invited to the Moot, I only obeyed my conscience, which
told me that a meeting will be enrichment to you and to them. I believe too much in the
creative power of a real discussion as to be afraid of rival views. The next period in history
is one of the cross-fertilization of Ideas—so important after a phase of dogmatism.
Personally, I felt I can trust you. I believe in you and know that you deeply mean what you
say.40
The discussion at the June 1944 meeting certainly appears to have again covered some of the same
territory that Mannheim and Polanyi covered earlier in their April 1944 meeting at Mannheim’s home and in
their succeeding correspondence. Eric Fenn’s notes on this meeting indicate that H. A. Hodges provided two
papers “dealing with the Christian attitude in and to the collective commonwealth.”41 T. S. Eliot, although he
did not attend the meeting, wrote a letter commenting on Hodges’ papers, which Oldham read to the group in
the first session of the June meeting . Fenn’s notes report that the session was lively and that Polanyi, even though
this was his first Moot meeting, was outspoken and at odds with Hodges and Mannheim:
In the preliminary discussion, arising out of the reading of Eliot’s letter and the working out
of an agenda for the meeting, the chief point was a direct challenge by Michael Polanyi to the
presupposition of Hodges’ paper and Mannheim’s position in regard to Planning. Polanyi
did not think that planning was as decisive, or as new, or as sweeping as seemed to be assumed
. . . . He maintained that western society showed a steady process throughout the Middle Ages
and up till the present day. The dramatic departure was the Russian Revolution, which was
not merely an economic revolution but a sudden “going mad” in the moral and intellectual
sense. The civilised society had always been able to draw from its own tradition the power
to extricate itself from social difficulties and clear up its messes. The Russian Revolution said
that all history was wrong and had to be rolled up and begun again.
There was some preliminary discussion of this view, chiefly between Polanyi and Mannheim,
and at the end of the meeting Polanyi was asked to elaborate his thesis in the form of a paper
for the next meeting of “the Moot.”
The English were aware that the State had asserted control over virtually every aspect of life during the First World War. The introduction of conscription had stripped everyone of the illusion that Nineteenth century liberalism could be reestablished. Moreover, the vehemence of British propaganda- in which philosophers participated- put paid to any notion that speech and thought could or should be 'free'. Kipling had been mocked when he published 'the Islanders' in 1902. By 1916 most of the 'muddied oafs' and 'flannelled fools' had been mown down on the Western Front. No plutocrat could keep his Estate out of the clutches of the Territorials or the girls of the Land Army. Total War had shown that England had followed the path of Wentworth, not Pym or Hampden.
This report of an exchange in the preliminary discussion was likely the reason that the other guest at
this June meeting (i.e., other than Polanyi), Philip Mairet, reported in a letter 25 years later (1969) that he
remembered, from 1944, a “ding-dong battle between Polanyi and Mannheim, the latter being taken by surprise
at Polanyi’s demonstration of the intuitive and traditional element of all vital scientific discovery.”43 Also the
30
twelve pages of notes on the several sessions of this Moot meeting make clear that Mannheim often is interested
in and confident about social planning and Polanyi holds, as Fenn summarized his views in one session, “in a
complex society it was necessary to rely more on individual initiative than in a simpler society.”44
But this sort of managerial entrepreneurialism was displayed by Oppenheimer!
Fenn’s
summaries of Polanyi’s views clearly suggest that Polanyi linked his criticisms of planning with comments on
the Russian Revolution and his larger account of the development of modern history as the following summary
shows:
The notion of planning rested in XIX century science taken up with such thinkers as SaintSimon and Marx, and bearing fruit in the Russian Revolution. In 1917 there were none of
the modern techniques (wireless, aeroplanes, bombs, etc.). There was only the deep
inspiration of men who thought they could take the place of God; that it was their duty to
command the good of mankind.
In 1917, it was by no means clear that 'God' would be replaced. There would be redistribution of land and, hopefully, a compromise peace. The military threats faced by the Bolsheviks pushed them down a more extreme path. But, in 1944, many thought that if only Lenin's successors had kept the 'New Economic Policy' and no Collectivization had occurred then Russia would have remained what it had been outside the Cities.
Kojecky suggests that almost from the formation of “the Moot” there was a tension in the group
between thought and action. By 1940, Mannheim was a Moot member who made “an appeal for decisiveness,
and an active order, in strong terms, urging that a revolution from above must be initiated.” 46 Although he did
not want to insist upon this slogan, Mannheim wrote,
The Germans, Russians, and Italians are more advanced than we are in the techniques of
managing modern society, but their purposes are wrong and even atavistic. We may look to
elite groups in our society, e.g, the Moot, or enlightened Civil Servants, to use these
techniques for different ends. The new techniques constitute a new opportunity and a new
obligation. We want to mobilize the intelligent people of goodwill in this country who are
waiting for a lead. At the same time there must be a popular movement to back what the elites
are doing. You cannot build up a great movement without the dynamism of social
leadership.
I think this shows Mannheim's ignorance of England. Churchill was all the leader anybody needed. Elite groups had to get their paws dirty like the common ruck. There were a few Colonel Blimp types who might want to throw their weight about. But as Powell & Pressburger (who was Hungarian) showed in their 1943 film, they had better pipe small or know the reason why.
The records of “the Moot,” as well as other Eliot writings of this period, make clear that Eliot
temperamentally as well as intellectually balked at Mannheim’s activism. Kojecky summarizes Eliot’s views
by saying “in general, Eliot was attracted rather by the idea of an intellectual than a directly political form of
action.”48 In the early forties, Eliot is wrestling with questions about thought and action, about the nature of
post-war culture and the structure of society, and particularly about the ways in which Christian beliefs and
31
values should shape public life. What is happening in Moot discussions is clearly central to Eliot’s effort to
develop his social philosophy.49 In June 1943, Hodges prepared a paper for “the Moot” titled “Politics and the
Moot” that Kojecky describes as “in many ways a defence of socialism” that came close to suggesting that
continuing discussions in “the Moot” are in fact an evasion of responsibility.50 Eliot seems to have been jolted
by Hodges’ paper, since he sent to Oldham five letters that were concerned with issues about the role of “the
Moot” and these were circulated. The following is a part of the first letter:
Now it seems to me very doubtful whether the Moot, by the nature of its composition, is fitted
to frame any sort of “programme” to which all the members would spontaneously and
wholeheartedly adhere with no qualifications to blunt its force. We are actually people of as
dissimilar backgrounds and activities as we could be and still have the common concern for
Christianity and Society that we have. Hardly any two are even of exactly the same brand of
Christianity. This variety is what has given the Moot its zest, and even its cohesion; it is what
. . . has made this association, over a number of years, and bringing with it an unexpectedly
deep and genuine sense of loyalty and kinship with the other members, so very fecundating.
If it has made as much difference to everyone as it has to me, it has justified itself fully. But
I am not sure whether these benefits are compatible with the fruits of collective effort to
change the world, which we are so often adjuring ourselves to cultivate.51
This is perfectly sensible. One could be a High Church Tory but only if politically you played possum. Eliot's long residence in England had taken him in the opposite direction to Pound.
Eliot did not attend either the October 1943 meeting of “the Moot” nor any of its meetings in 1944,
in January, June and December. However he provided material that was used in most of these meetings in the
form of letters to Oldham that were either pre-circulated or read to the group by Oldham.52 It was apparently
Eliot’s letter criticizing Hodges’s views that touched off the June meeting’s disagreements between Polanyi and
Hodges and Mannheim. It is also, however, Eliot’s hand in Moot affairs that shapes a component of Polanyi’s
participation in the December 1944 Moot discussion. Eliot wrote a paper for the December meeting titled “On
the Place and Function of the Clerisy.” In September of 1944, Oldham wrote Polanyi that Eliot was going to
write this paper for the December meeting and had requested that Polanyi and Mannheim be the respondents.53
Polanyi wrote a letter of response of about 1200 words to Eliot’s paper, which he sent to Oldham on 16 October
194454 and to Mannheim later in the month.55 After reading Polanyi’s response, Mannheim wrote a much longer
response letter56 and both were circulated with Eliot’s paper, and Eliot’s short responses to both Manneheim
and Polanyi, to Moot members as part of the material for the December 15-18, 1944 Moot meeting.57
It seems rather clear that Eliot chose his respondents carefully. His social vision is in tension with that
of Mannheim, but Eliot likely anticipated that Polanyi’s views also would be in tension with views of
Mannheim. Like Mannheim, Eliot had corresponded with Polanyi and was at least somewhat acquainted with
Polanyi’s views even before he had the opportunity to read Fenn’s notes on the June 23-26, 1944 Moot meeting.
In early June of 1944, Polanyi inquired about publishing a book on “Science and Human Ideals” with Eliot at
Faber and Faber Publishers.58 A mutual friend provided Eliot with a copy of Polanyi’s essay “The Autonomy
of Science.” which Eliot reports that he read “with great pleasure and approval.”59 Eliot indicates he is
impressed with Polanyi’s essay and other Polanyi essays that he has seen and to which Oldham has referred.
VI. Moot Papers of Eliot, Polanyi and Mannheim
32
Although we cannot here extensively review the contents of this interesting set of Moot papers, some
comments are in order. Eliot’s paper, as its title suggests, focuses on the role and function of the “clerisy,” a
term which he has apparently borrowed from Coleridge which points to an elite whose members have
distinguished themselves by training. Undoubtedly, “the Moot” discussants recognized Eliot’s paper as one
more thread in the general fabric of common Moot discussions about postwar reconstruction and, specifically,
their own role in that reconstruction. “The Moot” itself might be thought of as a “clerisy.” Eliot argues that the
clerisy originates the ideas and defines the sensibilities that are operative in a given culture at a give time. He
ponders the links and distinctions between the clerisy and classes in a society. He identifies differences between
types of clerics (intellectuals and emotives) and ponders the implications for society when too many clerics are
unemployed; he speculates about a hierarchy within the clerisy and outlines ways different clerics promulgate
particular ideas. Certainly, one current that runs through this essay concerns whether the clerisy can be expected
to take concerted action of the sort Mannheim and others seem to have advocated for “the Moot”:
The point is, however, that we cannot ask for any common mind, or any common action, on
the part of clerics. They have a common function, but this is below the level of conscious
purposes. The have at least one common interest—an interest in the survival of the clerisy.
. . but they will have no agreement on how to promote this. Agreement, and common action
, can only be by particular groups of clerics. When clerics can form a group in which
formulated agreement is possible, it will be due to affinities which distinguish them from
other clerics.60
Eliot ends his essay with four sets of questions that he apparently wants his respondents and Moot discussants
to address. Most of his questions concern how the term “clerisy” can be made more useful and meaningful, but
his last set of queries concerns whether the culture of Britain is declining in quality.
Polanyi’s response to Eliot is a very positive one, although he does not try directly to address the
questions that Eliot posed at the end of his essay. Instead, Polanyi says he wants “to define my own position
with respect to it [Eliot’s position] so as to make clear the points at which Eliot’s remarks seem most helpful
to me.”61 Polanyi begins by emphasizing that the heritage of the West is carried forward by the clerisy through
what he terms “personal transmission”62 :
in the modern West there exists and is being passed on from one generation to the next a great
heritage of the mind: religion and law, hundreds of branches of science and thousands of
technologies, history , philosophy, economics, and the whole wealth of language and music,
paintings, poetry, etc. Most of this heritage can continue to live only by a process of personal
transmission. If any part of it is not actively and creatively cultivated for a period of, say, 50
years – and successive new generations are not initiated to it – its secret is lost and it falls into
petrification if not complete oblivion – from which it can be recovered only by the exceptional
event of rediscovery.
The observant Ashkenazi Jew represented the very opposite of a 'clerisy'. Yet, a 15 year old trained only in Rabbinic lore could, despite poverty, very quickly take his place in the front rank of British academia. This was more than 'personal transmission'- you can climb the Himalayas and become a Tibetan monk or Yogi. What the Jews had preserved was something essentially ethical founded in mutuality and wholeness and integrity of being.
The first function of the clerisy is to keep the mental heritage alive and
to hand it on to its successors.
Polanyi then suggests that the scope of knowledge in modernity is broad and this means that growth of
knowledge continues only because there are today “specialist clerisies” such as that in the world of science.
33
Each domain of knowledge has such a specialist clerisy which is a
miniature society of experts whose function is to supervise the apprenticeship of novices, to
preside over the discussions of mature members and pronounce a verdict on their achievements or at least to clarify their professional standing, to sanction (or deny) the professional
character of their products and attach grades or valuation to these as they are being handed
out to the wider public. I have outlined this structure for the clerisy of science in an essay “The
Autonomy of science” [sic.] and I am glad to see that Eliot’s study suggests some new
elements to be included in a generalised description of specialist clerisies.
Polanyi contends that a specialist clerisy such as that in science
collectively possesses knowledge and collectively conducts processes of thought which no
individual could even remotely attempt to possess or to conduct. It is literally an embodiment
of thought; if you damage it you impair thinking; if you reduce it you narrow down truth. The
internal organisation of each clerisy must be such as to give scope to its internal necessities
of growth.
Polanyi calls a specialist clerisy “a dedicated society” that is defined by its service to purposes that have
been received by way of tradition and are believed to be good. A specialist clerisy is thus “an expression of faith
in its particular realm.” This faith “consists in the acceptance as good of certain traditional skills, values and
insights forming together a traditional inspiration.” But Polanyi points out that there is a tension within a
specialist clerisy between the accepted and the new:
Each generation of a living civilisation must accept the overwhelming majority of thoughts
as handed on to it; but at the same time it has to exercise criticism and make rational changes.
There is a continuous clash of authority and revolt, of old and new inspiration.
Polanyi claims that there is no simple way to resolve conflicts and in a sense “the clerisy is at every moment
literally in the hand of God and to this extent again society as a whole is in the same position”:
There is no one to decide then; each generation must decide certain points ultimately by force.
It must keep the cranks and fools in check and must risk to starve many an unrecognised
genius in the process of doing so. This is where each generation is left to itself—to hark back
to the original inspiration of our civilisation; to its own conscience and to God.
Polanyi ends his response to Eliot by proclaiming that the life of the clerisy has bearing on three issues
concerned with “ultimate power, ultimate truth and liberty.” The presence of clerisies makes clear that there are
“social structures which are powerless radically to change their purpose, function and laws of growth because
they can continue to exist only so far as they remain dedicated to the tradition of which they are guardians,
expositors critics and promoters.”
Judaism has done something more than survive. No doubt, it has its clerisies. But, surely, it is the entire community which is involved in a project of establishing psychological wholeness and ethical integrity?
It is interesting that post-War English clerisies- Religious, Judicial, Naval, Imperial, etc, were ready to abandon long cherished traditions in the name of utility. Even 'the firm'- i.e. the Royal family- could re-invent itself.
About the “problem of ultimate truth,” Polanyi says that a human being can
understand and improve the world only “by attaching his faith to some parts of the heritage which then serve
him as a guide.” This means that by maintaining faith,
truth can be pursued by a definite process of collecting experience and of interaction with
34
the opinion of the clerisy.
Every time we affirm any kind of validity (truth, beauty, etc.) we express by
implication certain amount of faith in a part of the common mental heritage and also
some reliance on the clerisy in charge of it. Thus every recognition of truth contains both
a spark of faith and an element of social loyalty.
Polanyi’s final point touches on his political philosophy and sounds very like comments made in both The
Contempt of Freedom and his letters to Mannheim:
So long as clerisies live there is a rightful ground to stand up against oppression by the State,
because to the extent that the State upholds the realm of clerisies its powers are ipso facto
restricted.
This is the opposite of what happened in post-war England. Clerisies saw that they lost prestige if they were seen to be dependent on the State. Thus English judges relinquished the right to use 'contempt' proceedings. This was not mere cowardice in the face of Press Lords and rabid Tory demagogues. It was a necessary step to secure the respect of the populace. This is also why the law has been made more and more easy to understand. Judges now write with great lucidity and show a mastery of the facts of the case. It is frequently the case that an expert in a given field finds some new insight or felicity of expression in a judgment on an arcane matter.
What is visible in Polanyi’s response to Eliot’s paper are themes that are developed in his later
philosophy; these themes are also nascent or to some degree articulated in other essays in the late thirties and
early forties. Polanyi’s interest in tradition, in specialization, in novel knowledge or discovery are part of his
essay “The Autonomy of Science” (1938), Science Faith and Society (1946), Personal Knowledge (1958) and
are treated in many other publications such as “The Republic of Science” (1962) which brings all these themes
together in a mature statement. Eliot’s reflection on the clerisy seems to have served primarily as a vehicle for
Polanyi to begin pulling together the different threads in his emerging philosophy. Certainly, there is some
affinity with some points in Eliot’s discussion but Polanyi moves beyond Eliot’s concern with reframing
Coleridge’s ideas about the clerisy to understand the contemporary cultural situation and “the Moot” itself. In
fact, when Polanyi sent his response to Eliot’s paper to Mannheim on October 23, 1944, he identified what he
had written as containing “in very rough form the summary of the philosophy at which I am aiming by my studies
of the scientific life.”63 He proposes to Mannheim that he “agree to my suggestion and accept the outline of
ideas as stated in the letter to Oldham as the groundwork of my proposed introductory essay” (No. 254).
Mannheim’s response to Eliot’s discussion of the clerisy makes an effort to address the many questions
that Eliot posed at the end of his essay. He suggests that Eliot’s term would be more useful if Eliot distinguished
it from somewhat comparable terms in the sociological and philosophical literature, including “intelligentsia”
as he used it in Ideology and Utopia. Mannheim suggests that Eliot is really referring to an elite within the elite
with the term “clerisy,” since what Eliot is most interested in is people who have the mental capacity to break
with convention. Convention breakers are important in dynamic societies, but Mannheim suggests Eliot’s
analysis is too simple if he thinks class is always a force against change while a clerisy is a force for change.
Mannheim spends much of his space discussing how new ideas are disseminated in society. He implies that Eliot
has a certain disdain for popularization, but Mannheim thinks those who “bring ideas into circulation”64 are
important:
This is why I think it is a mistake to consider those who express the real substance on a simpler
level as publicity agents only. Those who succeed in the great venture of being genuine on
the lower levels of communication, contribute at least as much to the preservation of culture
as those who keep the existing fires burning in small selected circles.
35
This was a golden age when even Sociologists could speak plainly!
In the third section of his response, Mannheim responds not only to Eliot’s paper but also to Polanyi’s
response to Eliot. This is a section in which Mannheim reflects on the “promotion of culture” and particularly
the role that tradition plays in such promotion. Mannheim identifies Polanyi’s response as an “important
contribution” of which he offers only one criticism:
If the things I have said so far are taken together, the real clerics are not only united on that
abstract level of promotion of culture but their interplay is bound to lead to a new pattern. I
mean a new pattern but not a new organisation. At present this pattern is only in the making
because most of them who can see the need for a clerisy are on the defensive. This is my
criticism of Michael Polanyi’s otherwise very important contribution. He only sees the
tradition aspect of culture, and gives expression only to the panic which so many of us
experience when we see the danger that the little groups which handed over through
generations their intimate experiences and specific skills are bound to be swept away by the
vulgarising and organising tendencies of mass society.
Mannheim here seems to be criticizing Polanyi’s notion of tradition as one that is more like Eliot’s—tradition
is distinguished from vulgar popularization.65 But Polanyi’s response to Eliot does treat both the conservative
force of tradition and the challenge of new knowledge. To anybody who has read Polanyi’s later thought,
Mannheim seems somewhat to miss the mark. Polanyi argues that respect for innovation and creativity is part
of the tradition of science at least.
Mannheim goes on to make clear how important he thinks the rediscovery of tradition is; he refers not
only to his own earlier writing about the importance of closed groups but emphasizes the importance of personal
transmission (Polanyi’s term) and the need to integrate different levels of the clerisy:
The re-discovery of the significance of tradition is certainly very important and the
exploration of the conditions under which tradition may survive should become one of the
central themes of sociology. In this connection I wish to emphasise once more the needs for
the existence of closed groups in which new ideas find time to mature before they are thrown
into the open market. I still think that this type of exclusiveness is a precondition for
creativeness in culture, but today I should like to add to this that the maintenance of culture
is only one aspect of the story. The existence of small nuclear groups where tradition is
transmitted through personal contacts is vital, but it is equally important that these groups
should communicate with each other through personal contacts. Just as St. Paul saw his task
in developing communication between Christian communities in order to keep inspiration
alive in an expanding world it is even more important for us to invent the equivalent to writing
epistles, to establish forms of real mooting beyond what organisation can do in this respect.
A new type of clerisy will only develop if such a living web in a horizontal and vertical
direction will unite them. Living contacts between the higher and lower clerics is as
important as deep level understanding between the clerics of different nationalities. Thus,
apart from the invention of new forms of popularisation the establishment of new forms of
personal contacts between living groups and individuals who have the powers of inspiration
is the outstanding task.
Mannheim seems to think one important factor in the emerging highly organized mass society is the need “to
36
find a remedy against the detrimental effects” of more organization and this he terms “planning for freedom”:
Planning for freedom means so to organise that the organisation itself should establish within
its own cosmos those rules and unwritten laws which protect the solitary thinker, unorganised
thought, the attempt at transcending established routine, and conventionalisation against the
impact of the stereotyped mind. How this is to be done cannot be answered at this stage.
Concrete experiences have to be collected and careful descriptions of lost battles of
spontaneous minds in their struggle against the vested interests of routine, established in the
name of which the clerisy can protect if injustice or victimisation occurs. As it is one of the
essentials of democracy that it not only admits minorities and non-conformists (in the
broadest sense of the word) but ascribes creative significance to them, it is equally important
that it should defend those minorities on whose constructive co-operation the life of culture
depends; culture as life and not as a routine and organisation.
The irony here is that Mannheim and Polanyi belonged to a minority which the British, for the first time in its history, decided to place immigration restrictions on some thirty years previously. Indeed, six years previously, at the Evian Conference, the 'democracies' showed no enthusiasm whatsoever for admitting Jewish refugees.
Polanyi outlived Mannheim- killed, his wife said, by Ginsberg- and thus got the last word.
Polanyi’s 1951 review of
Mannheim’s Freedom, Power and Democratic Planning was titled “Planning for Freedom.” Although this is
a short review with praise for Mannheim’s intellectual prowess, it ends on this note:
A sweeping mind whose power to assimilate and reformulate was unsurpassed in its time is
present on every page. Yet in the end the process of ‘planning’ on which the book dwells so
persistently remains altogether obscure. All kinds of social reform that have been practiced
for centuries are comprised under this designation and it is not apparent what, if anything, is
38
to be added to them in a ‘planned society’. But in spite of such deficiencies that may be
unavoidable in a posthumous work, the book will remain an important source for the study
of Mannheim’s thought which has woven itself widely into the intellectual fabric of our
Age.78
Polanyi’s 1952 review of Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge is also short and it focuses on Mannheim’s
optimism about the outcome of struggle in history between groups with conflicting interpretations. Pointing
to the ways in which communism “crushed the free interplay of ideas on which Mannheim relied,”79 Polanyi
says history has not justified Mannheim’s optimism. He then turns again to his criticism of Mannheim’s view
that minds are determined by historical forces:
But even as this outcome of history refutes Mannheim’s optimism it bears out his analysis
of the modern mind which, having consented to regard its own mental processes as
determined by the existing social structure, has renounced any standing from which it might
pass judgment on an act of violence which transforms the social structure. In the pursuit of
his false hopes, Mannheim has explored this fatal situation, which he calls “our fundamental
trend towards self-relativisation”, more persistently than any other writer has done. While
we no longer share his delusions we shall continue to profit from his penetrating account of
a dilemma in which we remain deeply entangled
Polanyi died in 1976. Little remained of the 'traditional' England Mikes had poked fun at. The satire boom of the Sixties had buried the Victorian values which Hungarian emigres had admired. Koestler was sure England was doomed. Yet, like Judaism, it has adapted and flourished. Communism was a God that failed though no doubt its clerisies- like other clerisies- didn't get the memo.
As for tradition, the Sufis assert that the 'khirqa' (cloak) demanded of the preceptor is superior to that which he awards the acolytes. Better yet, is that dervish cloak demanded of the self. Humility, alas, is the essence of tradition which tradition defends against.
