Custom

An Essay on Social Codes

Ferdinand Tonnies

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351523899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Customs & Traditions
• Index: Social Sciences

In Custom, Ferdinand Tonnies illustrates the relationship of custom to various aspects of culture, such as religion, gender, and family. Tonnies argues that all social norms are evolved from a basic sense of order, which is largely derived from customs. As such, custom refers to the ideal, and the desirable, and it mediates subjective aspects of social life. Tonnies makes observations in Custom that are just as true today as when they were written over a century ago. The pivotal idea in Tonnies work is the observation that custom, like its individual counterpart habit, has three distinct aspects: a fact--an actual way of conduct; a norm--a general rule of conduct; and a will. The analysis, extended into the field of collective behaviour, helps to explain how far custom can be regarded as a manifestation of a common will. Custom is a classic contribution in the grand canon of law and society scholarship. Moreover, the volume introduces several key elements of Tonnies' work focusing on broader sociological thought, which benefits both the theoretical understanding of law as an object of social science reflection, as well as provides empirical insights into the roles of law in society.

Custom: An Essay on Social Codes

The word Sitte is a synonym for habit and usage, for the transmitted and for tradition, but also for fashion, practices, and the like. Those words which designate habit tend to be interpreted as if their content were essentially unequivocal. Actually, speech (unconcerned with more profound distinctions) blends the most diverse meanings. I find that habit, to examine this most general expression, has a threefold meaning, namely:

1. The meaning of a simple fact of an objective nature. In this sense, we speak of the habit of rising early, of going for a walk at a certain hour, or of taking an afternoon nap. We mean nothing more than that one is “used to” doing so, he does it regularly, it belongs to his way of life. But it is easily seen that this meaning shades over into

2. The meaning of a rule, a norm, which a person establishes for himself. Thus we may say “he has made it a habit” and, in the same sense, “he has made it a rule for himself” or even a “law,” and we mean that the habit operates like a law or like a “precept.” One follows it; one regards the habit as a binding command, a subjective creation which, however, has objective form and validity. The precept is applied to behavior. A commandment itself can be imagined as prescriptive, demanding, commanding. Thus habit also becomes

3. Expressive of volition or of a will. This is the least noted meaning, but actually the most note-worthy. But if habit is the will of a man, it can only be his own (personal) will. In this sense, the terms which refer to habit as “second nature” and to men as “creatures of habit” are significant. It is, indeed, a psychic disposition which sets into motion and pervades a certain action. And this is will in its most pronounced aspect, as a resolution or a “firm” intention. Will ever has its roots in “wishing.” It is so closely related to it that in speech both words are used synonymously. Thus we say “will” where we can only mean “wish.” But wishes originate in sentiments, in elementary relations through which the organic creature reacts to his surroundings, positively with pleasure and negatively with aversion, accepting and rejecting, desiring and detesting. Habituation—that is, habituation conceived of as a characteristic of an individual—also belongs to sentiment.

As a rule, what one is accustomed to becomes thereby quite “bearable”; he even loves and is attached to most of it. He wants to preserve and keep it all the more naturally, the more it is dear and valuable to him for other reasons. Habit not only alleviates suffering, trouble and labor; it also compels one to certain conduct and action. It is equivalent to need. To be sure, habit dulls one against enjoyment. It modifies pleasant as well as unpleasant sensations. It is a condition of equilibrium of the soul. Established habits imperceptibly change into the instinctive. What we do habitually we do “involuntarily” just as we involuntarily make gestures, movements of welcome and of repulsion which have never been taught to us but in which we are skilled “by nature.” They spring from the instinct of self-preservation and from emotions which stem from it.

However, what we are accustomed to do, we have had to learn and practice first. It is precisely the practice, the frequent repetition, which eventuates in our finally doing it as if by itself—reflexively, quickly and easily, as the tight-rope dancer walks on the rope because he is accustomed to do so. Thus habit or usage is partly the reason why a man is able to do something at all, and partly why he achieves something with relatively small effort or attention. But being accustomed to doing something is not only the basis for our being able to do it, but also for our actually doing it. It works in the way of a stimulus and, as has been said before, as a need.

The “power of habit” has often been depicted, frequently praised, and often lamented. As with a magic force, it draws the drunkard or gambler at a certain hour toward his accustomed place in the club or inn. His itching, vexatious desires (all the more vexatious the more they have become habitual) are appeased when he holds the accustomed mug or accustomed “book of four Kings” in his hands. But the principle is identical to that which facilitates the art of the tightrope walker or the pianist. Practice eases the will; it paves its path. It intensifies our wishes as it strengthens muscles and nerves. It overcomes resistance, and friction, and precisely because of practice a “passion” may become a dominant, indeed a forceful despot.

As habit is essential to vice, it is essential to virtue as well. Aristotle has strongly emphasized this point. Habit not only strengthens our good inclinations, encouraging and challenging us in our struggle against the base, but it supports those motives which are weak but beneficial for the individual or for his society. Above all it hardens us, the spirit, like the flesh, enabling people to resist and to bear hardship, and making them willing to do so. Every educator knows the high value of habit in this regard. But for all this, we do not find that the element of will is recognized in habit.

What is “will” as we understand it here? Not inclination per se—as stated above, habit is also inclination—but inclination insofar as it has assumed the form of thought. For only man is capable of willing, and human will is always thought. Thus habit, insofar as it is will, is immersed in thought so to speak, and it presents itself as the thought “I will,”—that is, as a free decision. Nevertheless, the “annoying” habit can be the deciding power, the decisive one, in spite of that consciousness of freedom.

Habit propels the alcoholic even if he normally believes that he acts freely, believes that he could “do otherwise” and undoubtedly would be declared “responsible” by any psychiatrist or judge. Indeed it is his action that he wills, but not the deliberation and the decision. The latter are perhaps still combined with and influenced by the opinion that the body needs “refreshment” or “relaxation,” perhaps even with the firm purpose of being moderate this time. The real and essential will is not what lies on the surface of consciousness. These are only the busy servants and messengers who pave his way while the sovereign sits unseen in his coach. The real and essential will is habit—that is, will which has become lord and master through practice.

Opinions are, as a rule, dependent upon habit, and conditioned and prompted by it. But they can certainly also extricate themselves from habit and elevate themselves above it. They do so when they become principles or convictions. As such they assume a firmness which can break habit and overcome it. The firmness of “faiths,” in the familiar religious sense as a certain trust, is a primitive form of firm will. Thus, while habit and opinion are generally rather compatible with one another, there also lies the germ of conflict and struggle. Thought tends to become the ruling element in the mind, and in this fashion man becomes more human.

But I am not going to discuss here the manner in which habit extends further and deeper into will. I only mention this in order to lead to the concept of custom as essentially social-psychological, in analogy to the basically individual- psychological concept of habit. The words “usage” and “custom” embrace the threefold meaning of mere fact, of norm, and of the will which sets the norm. As I see it, the discussions of custom have not, up to now, recognized this threefold meaning, and thus have not been able to distinguish them from each other. I have almost exclusively held to the second meaning, to custom as a norm.

The famous jurist, Rudolf von Jhering, has devoted an intensive study to custom in the second volume of his work, Der Zweck im Recht. Indeed, this present book contains repeated references to Jhering’s study. Jhering, too, understands “habit” as a social phenomenon, and conceives of it as the mere actuality of established general behavior. He defines “custom,” on the other hand, as a socially binding validation of habit which was combined with it. Language, he asserts, discerned the command of custom but not the command of habit.

But it so happens that the idiom “habit” refers to the individual, and “custom” to the commonwealth, the people, and that commandments are always understood to be social. Furthermore, with reference to the plural—“customs”— Jhering thinks that this strict distinction is not observed. Among the customs of people about which travelogues inform us, “customs” may be obligatory as well as non-obligatory, “mere usages, the observance of which is optional—thus, in our way of speaking, not instances of custom but of habit.”

Jhering’s contribution in making this distinction is valuable, but he is here as elsewhere in error about the idiom. Even the singular, “custom,” is continually used to indicate a mere matter-of-fact practice, in which there is nothing obligatory implied. For example, we say it is the custom in England to pay by check, or “in the Middle Ages it was frequently the custom for men and women to bathe together,” or “the use of the bicycle has generally become a custom.”

In these cases, no one would ever dream of maintaining that any urgency existed because of the custom. On the contrary, it is commonplace—when this is the meaning—to say “custom wants,” “custom demands,” and even Jhering uses these ways of expression. Hence we may also say, in the second of the above-quoted examples, “custom permits that the sexes bathe together.” We perceive immediately that the word has an entirely different meaning here. That meaning is one of authority or of a powerful will, for only he who has “a say about something” can give permission.

But if we talk of customs in the obligatory sense as of facts, then this meaning evidently lies between mere actual practice and authority. We talk of actual norms, of valid rules, of customs as if they were laws. Wundt, to whom we are indebted for an astute discussion of custom, has put this most striking meaning literally at the base of his theory. For example, he thinks that “sordid custom” remains custom as long as the character of a binding norm is at all attached to it.

I maintain, on the other hand, that the sociologist must in the first place study and isolate custom as a highly important form of social will. He must perceive and analyze social will in analogy to individual will. The same meaning which “will” in the ordinary individual sense has for individual men, “social will” has for every community or society, whether they represent themselves merely as loose relations or as associations and organizations.

And what does the meaning of “social will” involve? I have indicated the answer to this in my discussion of habit, and here make the generalization that social will is the general will that serves to order and regulate individual will. Every common will can be understood as expressing a “thou shalt” and, insofar as an individual or an association of individuals addresses this “thou shalt” to itself, we perceive its autonomy and freedom.

A necessary consequence of this, then, is that the individual at least tries to maintain his will against opposing dispositions and opinions, and the association against opposing individuals, however such resistance may be expressed; and that they have the effect of urgency, of “bringing pressure to bear”—and this is essentially independent of what means are available. At least in the social sense, means vary from persuasion through praise and disgrace to actual force and penalty, the latter also being expressed as physical constraint. “Custom turns into the most obstinate, overwhelming power.” (Schmoller.)

If we impute a will to custom, thus personifying it, this is not a precise way of speaking. Custom cannot be imagined without people who want what custom wants. Who are these people? Colloquial language answers this question when it refers to custom as “folkways.” The “folk” is represented as the creator of custom. Who is this “folk”? The “folk” is a mysterious being, not easy to comprehend. It is almost easier to feel what the “folk” is, than to conceptualize it. For we do not really understand it if, following the (German) dictionaries, we define it as “the totality of mass of people; the totality of the so-called lower classes; the totality of people of one language.”

The word “folk” must be given still another, more particular meaning. I daresay that it connotes not only the living, but also the dead, and those to be born. Indeed, it especially connotes the combination and the unity of these three levels— a community wherein the dead by far outnumber the living, since they are composed of limitless numbers of generations. No one can presume statistically to comprehend the individuals who, in this sense, belong to a “folk” because they have once belonged to it; for what has been will always more easily be regarded as existing than what will be.

We believe that we behold something infinite and unlimited, and a touch of the sublime drifts toward us from the past. Only this meaning explains why we presume to know what “folk” is, and yet can barely describe what we mean when speaking of folk stories, folk tales, and folklore. In more recent times the words “folk spirit” and “folk soul” have also developed from this same meaning. “Folk custom” as we shall understand it here belongs to the latter just as “will” otherwise belongs to the soul and to the spirit.

If we speak of the custom of a country, we no doubt think more of what is actually done, practiced, or performed, than of the will which lies behind it and at its basis. Thus one says, as in Faust: this is not the usage of the land. For we use the term “usage” almost exclusively when we think of mere facts. “Usage” in the singular case can hardly be given the meaning of a legislative will. In the German language a distinction is made between Gebrauch (usage) and Brauch, which approaches the meaning of custom. Brauch was formerly used by German students’ fraternities to indicate what is now called Komment, or the written rules of conduct.

All historical books and travelogues tell us of the manifold and diverse customs and usages in various countries and at different ages. A philosophical inquiry, confronted with this diversity and confusion, must raise the question: Where does the one-ness, the common-ness and the essential nature of custom lie, which must be comprehended in all this diversity? And from this question the following problem arises: Can the essential substance of custom as a configuration of the general will be developed from its manifestations? For form and content together comprise the essence of a thing which we understand as the object of a concept. The following essay will principally be concerned with the solution of this problem.

***

According to its form, custom as general will is essentially concerned with itself. Every will is directed toward self-preservation, the will of the people to the life of the people, and hence to the welfare of the people. We note that the word “well” recalls “will.” But, as we said before, the will of the people is more a general will in distinction from and in contrast to individual will, insofar as it wants to order, regulate, and establish. In its essence, the will of the people is also a necessary and logical will in distinction from and in contrast to fortuitous will, which is determined by affect, passion, moods and whims. I have introduced the term Wesenwille as the will that corresponds to this concept, and I am retaining it although it has as yet found almost no acceptance. In this concept, reason and will are one. Habit is an expression of individual Wesenwille and custom an expression of social Wesenwille.

Just as habit plays a decisive role in individual life, as man calls habit “his nurse” and accuses it of being a tyrant, so we know that custom enjoys a superabundant power in the life of peoples and nations. We know that where law and the executive power of the state compete with custom, custom often proves itself to be superior, and that it is always held to be older and more sacred.

We can thus understand custom as a sort of legislative will, but we know that it is not—like the latter—formulated through a resolution, be it of an individual ruler or an assembly. Rather it is formed through habit and out of practice: it is based on tradition. Therefore, it points toward the past. The fact that our forefathers held it “this way” and practiced it, will always be given as the decisive reason why we, too, should hold it this way and follow the same practice.

In this sense the Romans coined the expression “mores majorum”—the customs of ancestors—and a German song says, “Be true to your forefathers’ sacred customs.” The main idea is not that our ancestors wanted or demanded it, but that it is required because they have done it. It...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Preface
• Introduction
• Custom: An Essay on Social Codes
• Biographical Notes