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illustrates, irrespective of whether those ideas are held or articulated by the
people whom the institutions in question comprise . But no matter; the
failure of this proof, if such it is, does not necessarily invalidate the book.
If it be ideas which make or unmake us, let us look at the good ideas
which could save us, and at the manifestations of the bad ones which are
destroying us, in that order-which is to read the book back to front, a
practice which is perhaps more rational in Panaceas for the Times than in
crime novels. Generically , it seems that our salvation lies in pluralism.
Nisbet invokes the authority of William James for the contention that we
live in a pluralistic universe , and adds that normally we also live in a
pluralistic society (though at the moment it is alas in decline and in peril).
He does not distinguish between a pluralism which repudiates attempts at
intellectual unification or even coherence, and a pluralism which encour–
ages a multiplicity ofassociations or power centers in society, with a view to
avoiding tyranny . My own impression is that we have far too much of the
former kind of pluralism, though we can probably hardly ever have too
much of the latter. Nisbet's own pluralism breaks up into four distinctive
cons t ituents:
1. Functional autonomy. This is:
the ability of each major function in the social order
to
work with the
maximum possible freedom
to
achieve its own distinctive ends. What
applies
to
school or universi ty should apply also
to
economy,
to
family ,
to
religion, and
to
each of the other great spheres of society .
This sounds like a variant of laissez-faire, applied not to economic enter–
prises, but to entire spheres of social life. Though there is an admission that
"perfect autonomy is scarcely possible, or even desirable perhaps," as a
general ideal this seems odd . Functional specificity is a very modern trait,
and even in modern society, it is only very imperfectly achieved. Are we
to
damn all those traditional societies whose institutions are so often multi–
purpose ones? It is odd to find a conservative-minded sociologist, or
perhaps a sociologically-minded conservative, such as Nisbet, saying some–
thing which seems to imply such a recommendation.
2 . Decentralization. An ideal not very much in dispute, perhaps .
Though one wonders whether Nisbet is determined enough in pursuit of
the social factors which underlie centralist trends, and whether he is not too
willing to blame it on "a passion in the political clerisy during most of this
century" adding that this clerisy "is increasingly becoming but another
word for the Federal government today." There is in his thought a deep
distrust of government in Washington, which may rather flatter the
