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From International Socialism, No.26, Autumn 1966, p.37.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Quest for Fellowship
Ferdynand Zweig
Heinemann, 30s.
Ferdynand Zweig has not been trained as a sociologist. In this book, which reads at first like an SCM pamphlet, he is attempting two tasks. The first of these is an academic autobiography with some interesting sidelights on the organisation of the academic institutions in our society. It is here that Zweig displays a refreshing honesty. The wonder he manifests as he discovers the most elementary techniques of social investigation is, however, not a little distressing. One feels mat a decade or so could have been saved by introducing the author to any of the simple methodological works on the subject. Ostensibly the book is about alienation, or rather about attempts to analyse the causes of the phenomenon and suggest ways to eradicate them. Zweig is, in fact, dealing with the problem of feeling for one’s fellows, one’s work, and for the ideal goals of one’s society. Marx of course discussed this problem at length. Capitalism had, he said, replaced the reciprocal rights of feudal society with a cruel and exclusive cash nexus. Durkheim, Weber, Tönnies and many others have dealt with this problem. For Tönnies and Durkheim and the community studies’ group in Britain today this is a central concern. Has Zweig anything new to contribute that is also valuable? I think not. There are many exceptionally tedious pages devoted to trivia from interviews, albeit in many and varied places. There are chapters on The Theory of Social Class which would be worth inclusion in a general reader on sociological theory but which are sadly out of place here. Zweig’s principal fault is that he falls into the error of reducing social phenomena to psychological ones: thus, ‘The dual classification of society is one of the oldest approaches satisfying deep urges to see everything in terms of dialectics, as the struggle between good and evil.’ The most common failing of the men and women Zweig has interviewed is a ‘sense of inferiority.’ I am not at all sure what this means and fail to see the usefulness of the remark. When all aspects of this book are considered it is perhaps the honesty rather than the perception of its author which stands out.
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Last updated on 17.12.2007