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Do institutions think? If so, how do they do it? Do they have minds of their own? If so, what thoughts occupy these suprapersonal minds? Mary Douglas delves into these questions as she lays the groundwork for a theory of institutions. Usually the human reasoning process is explained with a focus on the individual mind; her focus is on culture. Using the works of Emile Durkheim and Ludwik Fleck as a foundation, "How Institutions Think" clarifies the extent to which thinking itself is dependent upon institutions. Different kinds of institutions allow individuals to think different kinds of thoughts and to respond to different emotions. It is just as difficult to explain how individuals come to share the categories of their thought as to explain how they ever manage to sink their private interests for a common good. Douglas forewarns us that institutions do not think independently, nor do they have purposes, nor can they build themselves. As we construct our institutions, we are squeezing each other's ideas into a common shape in order to prove their legitimacy by sheer numbers. She admonishes us not to take comfort in the thought that primitives may think through institutions, but moderrjs decide on important issues individually. Our legitimated institutions make major decisions, and these decisions always involve ethical principles.
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How Institutions Think
The Frank W. Abrams Lectures
THE FRANK W. ABRAMS LECTURES
Supported by a grant from the Exxon Educational Foundation and published by Syracuse University Press Stanley Hoffmann. Duties Beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethical International Politics. 1981. James C. Coleman. The Asymmetric Society. 1982. Guido Calabresi. Ideals, Beliefs, Attitudes, and the Law. 1985. Robert Dahl. Controlling Nuclear Weapons: Democracy versus Guardianship. 1985. Mary Douglas. How Institutions Think. 1986.
How Institutions
Think MARY DOUGLAS
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1986
Copyright © 1986 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244-5160 All Rights Reserved First Edition
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 ...
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Douglas, Mary Tew. How institutions think. (The Frank W. Abrams lectures) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Social institutions-Psychological aspects. 2. Cognition and culture. 3. Organizational behavior. I. Title. II. Series. GN479.D68 1986 306 86-5696 ISBN 0-8156-2369-0 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-8156-0206-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword vii
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Institutions Cannot Have Minds of Their Own 9
2
Smallness of Scale Discounted 21
3
How Latent Groups Survive 31
4
Institutions Are Founded on Analogy 45
5
Institutions Confer Identity 55
6
Institutions Remember and Forget 69
7
A Case of Institutional Forgetting 81
8
Institutions Do the Classifying 91
9
Institutions Make Life and Death Decisions 111
Bibliography 129
Index 141
DouGLAS earned her bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees from Oxford University. Early in her career, she did fieldwork in the Belgian Congo under the auspices of the International African Institute. She has been a lecturer in anthropology at Oxford and at University College of London, a reader in anthropology at the University of London and, later, professor of social anthropology there. In 1977 she came to America as Director for Research on Culture at· the Russel