Ludwig Gumplowicz | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Polish: Ludwik Gumplowicz 9 March 1838 |
| Died | 19 August 1909(1909-08-19) (aged 71) |
| Alma mater | University of GrazUniversity of Vienna, Austria |
| Known for | Social Darwinism Syngenism Division of labor |
Ludwig Gumplowicz (9 March 1838 – 19 August 1909) was a Polish sociologist,jurist,historian, andpolitical scientist, who taughtconstitutional andadministrative law at theUniversity of Graz.[1]
Gumplowicz was the son of a Jewish carpet and porcelain manufacturer, Abraham Gumplowicz. Gumplowicz is considered to be one of the founding fathers of sociology across German-speaking countries. While living under theAustro-Hungarian monarchy, he witnessed many violentanti-Semitic conflicts between ethnic groups, which influenced his sociological theories of social conflict and explaining social phenomenas later on in life.[2] His contributions to the fields ofsocial science,political science, andjurisprudence allowed these fields to expand under the lens of Gumplowicz's applications of sociological generalizations. In all three areas, he was a straightforward and vivacious writer who excelled in controversy. He was well known for his skepticism of the permanence ofsocial progress and his belief that the state emerges from inevitable confrontation rather than unity or divine inspiration.
As a child of a Polish family of Jewish origin, Gumplowicz grew up in a family that was part of a progressive Jewish group that advocated for a comprehensive social assimilation program for all Jews. Before the outbreak of theJanuary Insurrection of 1863, the Gumplowicz family's home was one of the outposts of conspiracy. During the Insurrection, it had become a lodging place for vulnerable youth and a refuge for the wounded. Ludwik's father, Abraham, assisted in the insurgency's planning, and his two older brothers fought alongside him.[3] Ludwig Gumplowicz and his wife both converted toCalvinism to escape prevailing antisemitism.
Judaism was always present for Gumplowicz and his family while growing up. Therefore, the well-being of the Jewish people was essential to him. Even though his father, Abraham Gumplowicz, tried to assimilate into the community of Krakow, Jews were often seen as second-class citizens. This brought Gumplowicz many obstacles that he had to face as a Jew. He wrote several articles in which he attempted to bring attention to the issues of antisemitism and the emancipation of the Jews.
He then went on to study at the universities ofKraków andVienna and became a professor ofpublic law at theUniversity of Graz in 1875. He and his wife, Franciska, had two sons. In 1875, Gumplowicz began studying law at theJagiellonian University inKraków. He then went to study inVienna for a year returning to Kraków to receive a doctoral law degree.[4] He culminated in the foundation of the first Sociological Society in Graz. In 1860, he began his journalistic career. From 1869 to 1874 he edited his own magazine theKraj (theCountry). Then in 1875, at the age of thirty-seven, he entered theUniversity of Graz as a lecturer in the science of administration and Austrian administrative law.[5] In 1882, he became anassociate professor, and in 1893 a full professor.[6] Gumplowicz then retired from academia in 1908.[5]
As a Polish intellectual, he felt a sense of imminent doom in his homeland, the strangeness of a foreign world, and then nostalgia for their homeland, and gradually became appreciated in his adopted country, though largely going unnoticed by his own compatriots.[3] By rejecting orthodox jurisprudence in favor of establishing sociology that had yet to be widely accepted in Austria and Germany, he remained an outsider and at odds with university circles after years of studying and teaching his beliefs.[4] He would frequently stress hisPolish andJewish roots, further isolating him from university circles.
Ludwig Gumplowicz's first sociological work wasRace and State (1875) which was later changed toThe Sociological Idea of the State, (1881) then changed toGeneral State Law ("Allgemeines Staatsrecht") (1907).[5] His other works include theOutlines of Sociology, Austrian State Law, The Race Struggle, Sociological Essays, Sociology and Politics, and others, and have been translated into other foreign languages. Gumplowicz left a huge literary legacy, with 190 works to his name, not to mention the scores of papers and reviews he wrote in Polish.
Gumplowicz became interested in the problem of suppressed ethnic groups very early, being from aJewish family and coming from Kraków, a city of the formerPolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was firstpartitioned and later as theFree City of Krakówannexed byAustria-Hungary.[citation needed] He was a lifelong advocate ofminorities in theHabsburg Empire, in particular, theSlavic speakers.[1]
After the republic of Cracow dissolved, the National Polish Independence movement was created, which the young Gumplowicz became a part of. This movement fought for the right to nationalself-determination of Poland. Gumplowicz was a young successful lawyer and committed to the movement. He took part in the uprising against Russia in 1863 and was an active member. During that time, he published the democratic magazineKraj(the country) from 1869 until 1874.
Gumplowicz soon became interested in the later form ofsociology of conflict, starting out from the idea of thegroup (then known asrace). He understood race as a social and cultural, rather than a biological phenomenon. He stressed in every way the immeasurably small role of biological heredity and the decisive role of the social environment in the determination of human behavior. While attaching a positive significance to the mixing of races, he noted that pure races had already ceased to exist.[7]: 85
He saw thestate as an institution which served various controllingelites at different times. In analysis, he leaned towardsmacrosociology, predicting that if the minorities of a state became socially integrated, they would break out in war. In his 1909 publication,Der Rassenkampf (Struggle of the Races), he foresaw world war. According to Gumplowicz, a state that overlapped in scope with a country and was associated with the nation in people's imagination started to take on the role of a social agent.[3]
Division of labor
In Gumplowicz's view, every state imposes a system of labor division by force; as a consequence, social classes emerge, and conflict rises among the classes. Rather than creating laws based upon fairness, laws are decided by victories in class battles. In the same way that culture is a result of affluence, and leisure is made possible by conquering, higher civilization owes its existence to battles with those of lower classes. Gumplowicz rejected the idea that taking welfare measures or even social planning could preserve civilizations from eventual destruction, taking into account history to be a cyclical process.
During his life, he was considered aSocial Darwinist, mainly because of his approach to society as an aggregate of groups struggling ruthlessly among themselves for domination.[7]: 83 Nevertheless, he did not deduce his conceptions directly from evolutionary theory and criticized those sociologists (Comte,Spencer,Lilienfeld) who employed biological analogies as an explanatory principle. At the same time, he shared the naturalistic conception of history and considered humanity a particle of the universe and nature, a particle governed by the same eternal laws as the whole.[1]
Gumplowicz was most known for the idea of syngenism.[8] It is a combination of moral, physical, economic, and cultural elements that have been blended in varying amounts across time and among various social groupings. Consanguinity was the primary link in the groupings, but as the world evolves, economic and mental pressures became increasingly significant.[9] Gumplowicz defines syngenism as "That phenomenon which consists in the fact that invariably in associated modes of life, definite groups of men, feeling themselves closely bound together by common interests, endeavor to function as a single element in the struggle for domination.” Human beings, according to Gumplowicz, have an inherent propensity to form communities and create a sense of unity. He called thissyngenism (syngenetic). Syngenism is a term used to describe a society with a distinct culture that develops a sense of belonging as a whole, as well as a sense of brotherhood in the sense that they are of the same species.[3]
His political beliefs and his polemic character attracted many Polish andItalian students, making his theories important in Poland, Italy, and other crown states (todayCroatia,Czech Republic). But the fact that he published his works inGerman meant that he was also an important figure in German-speaking countries.Gustav Ratzenhofer was the most prominent of those influenced by him. Gustav Ratzenhofer was the sociologist which Gumplowicz thought most highly of.[5] PhilosophersCarlo Cattaneo,Friedrich Nietzsche, and Gustav Ratenhofer were all men that Ludwig Gumplowicz had shared similar ideas. Although they were all different from one another, they shared the same goals and point of views. Their shared goal was of reevaluating social moral values. These social moral values were seen by society to be permanent and unchangeable. This was what brought these men to their shared aim of studying social norms and groups to help redefine the principles by which people live.
[10] Gumplowicz had another disciple inManuel González Prada. Prada lived in Peru and found Grumplowicz's theories on ethnic conflict useful for understanding not only the Spanish conquest ofQuechua peoples during the sixteenth century but also how the descendants of the Spanish (and other European immigrants) continued to subordinate the indigenous peoples. Most striking in this regard isGonzález Prada’s essay"Our Indians" included in hisHoras de lucha after 1924.[11] Brazilian essayistEuclides da Cunha also acknowledges Gumplowicz's influence in the preliminary note to his influential studyOs Sertões (1902), an in-depth analysis of the 1896-1898War of Canudos between Brazil's Republican government and the residents ofCanudos in the backlands ofBahia.[12]
In his publication,The Outlines on Sociology (1899), Gumplowicz reviews the works of Comte, Spencer, Bastian, and Lippert. He also reviews the relations of economics, politics, the comparative study of law, the philosophy of history, and the history of civilization to the science of society.[13]
Sociologists influenced by him wereGustav Ratzenhofer,Albion W. Small,Franz Oppenheimer. The social scientistsÉmile Durkheim,León Duguit,Harold J. Laski, and others elaborated Gumplowicz's view of political parties as interest groups.[14] Also influencedErazm Majewski and Mieczyslaw Szerer.[4] His theories were also highly influential among the first conflict theorists and inspired early theoretical work on the governance on multiethnic states.[15]
A criticism of Gumplowicz's work is that he presents a rather narrow interpretation of the nature of social phenomena. He placed a large emphasis on social groups as well as the sociological investigation of their conflict as a unit. In doing so, Gumplowicz minimized the importance of the individual and magnified the coercion and determination that is excepted by the group to the individual. This was further than other sociologists, such as Durkheim, Sighele, LeBon, or Trotter went.[16]
Critical authors likeJerzy Szacki have stated that Gumplowicz's influence was undoubtedly aided by the fact that his scholarly work took place outside of the time's major intellectual centers, as well as the fact that his more intriguing theories about his sociological method were more thoroughly developed by other theorists, such as sociologism byDurkheim and conflict theory byMarx.[3]
Gumplowicz defined sociology as the science of society and social laws. He devoted his life to the study of relations common to social classes and groups. He was a seeker of truth and went through many obstacles in his journey of studying social events. He goes on to write the popular quote: “No chemist would ask whether oxygen did well in uniting with hydrogen, or whether it is right in mixing with quicksilver. No astronomer would ask, whether the moon, in appearing between sun and earth is worthy of praise or blame-but no historian could be found who would consider it unjustified to judge about the "right" or "wrong" action of King X or Minister Y; who would refrain from praise or blame in the conception of any action whatever.”
On 19 August 1909, Ludwig Gumplowicz and his wife, Franciska, both committed suicide by poison.[17] Gumplowicz was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 1907, and his health was failing, as was Franciska's health. In a letter, he wrote"we are both thinking more of the other side (an's Jenseits denizen), and life is a burden to us." As such, they both ended their life together, ending the pain of Gumplowicz' cancer.[5] Gumplowicz's death was deeply shocking to the world. His influence as a great thinker, writer, philosopher, jurist, historian, and sociologist has changed the course of sociological history. The students of Gumplowicz often referred to him as an angel with a great soul and a magnificent thinker. In his honor, a sociological society was created in the city ofGraz after his death. Gumplowicz was highly looked up to by many philosophers and sociologists and they emphasize their appreciation for his journey of seeking the truth and ideas.
