Does civil society matter?
Kajal Bandhyopadhyay explores the many dimensions of it
Civil Society
Dr. Rangalal Sen
Tapan Prokashon
A proof of widespread charlatanism in Bangladesh is how we go by shallow and superficial ideas about important issues. One may easily place the example of our handling of the concept of a civil society. Civil society is what we nowadays mention off and on. Very recently one typically important person here came to call it 'evil' even. It is difficult to pinpoint when this phrase came to acquire wide currency in our country, but once it settled in, nobody looked back before using it to mean this, that and what not.
As far as I remember, NGOs and some related political quarters introduced the term during the early nineties in vague and unclear meanings, and that they did to conceal the truth of their failure in solving important problems in the running of the state. Civil society has been offered here also as an alternative to the political class, thus misleading people and luring them into confusion and false optimism. This may have connection with the rapid development of the concept of civil society on a global scale after the fall of the communist system and that again may be a part of the neo-liberal strategies linked to what is known as the Washington consensus. Studies have also been published, which deal with unresolved issues regarding the use of the term in connection with the impact and conceptual power of the international aid system. So, finally, the mystery of a sudden introduction of this concept in very loose and vague meanings can be said to be connected with the character of our state and its rulers who were unsuccessful and refused to admit that.
An attempt to correct the situation of confusion about civil society has recently been made by Prof. Rangalal Sen, who has come up with a full-length book in Bengali on civil society and some related issues. The main component of Prof. Sen's remarkable elaboration of the concept of "civil society" is his introducing us to the ideas of the pioneering Scottish thinker Adam Ferguson. As he informs us in the introduction to Civil Society, he could collect a copy of a core book in the area of civil society or the whole subject of sociology, Essay on the History of Civil Society with the help of his daughter, Papia, studying at Arizona University in the USA. As some of us may know, Adam Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society is an epoch-making book. We may also know that Adam Ferguson created this classic work in sociology in 1767. He was a leading thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, and was a friend of Adam Smith and David Hume. Born in 1723, he succeeded Hume in 1757 as librarian to the faculty of advocates, and in 1764 was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh. He resigned from his professorship in l785, and in l792, published his collected lectures under the title, Principles of Moral and Political Science. He died on February 22, 1816.
A philosopher and historian, Adam Ferguson occupies a unique place in eighteenth-century Scottish thought. A man of energy and verve, he made important contributions to social and moral theory, political philosophy and to the study of history. Reared in the highlands of Scotland, he lived most of his life in the enlightenment world of Edinburgh, participating in the city's social clubs and in the broader public and intellectual life of his nation. Renowned for An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), he also wrote pamphlets on political issues, published works of moral and political philosophy, authored a multi-volume history of the Roman Republic and composed numerous manuscript essays. Distinguished by a moral and historical bent, his work is framed within a teleological outlook that upholds the importance of action and virtue in the emerging commercial society of the eighteenth century.
Rangalal Sen has dealt with the topic of civil society in three essays here, namely "Civil Society: Adam Fergusoner Prathom Prostabona", "Civil Society: Plato Theke Rousseau" and "Rashtra Ebong Civil Society: Prasango Ekusher Panchash." In the first of these essays, we find Prof. Sen elaborating on Ferguson's distinct and characteristic ideas that led him finally to arrive at an idea of the margin of civil society over civilization or society. He points out that Ferguson's importance as a thinker rests on his recognition of the important role played by society in shaping human values. Ferguson particularly rejected any notion of a "state of nature" in which men lived as individuals before society was established. Being a social animal, man was conditioned by necessity, habit, language and familial or societal guidance. Societies as a whole, Ferguson asserted, are dynamic, following a pattern of change from "savagery" to "barbarism" to "civilization." Like individuals, they learn from and build upon the past. Different societies may, however, reflect particular characteristics based on factors such as geography or climate. Ferguson's ideas are thus shown to have a materialistic bent. And then Ferguson rather celebrates contradiction to be the guiding force of history.
Prof. Sen has thus placed the historical perspective of the idea of 'civil society,' placed it as one socio-political phenomenon related with society that went before and composed the perspective of the rise of state in the history of mankind. The concept of societas civilis is Roman, and was introduced by Cicero. The political discourse in the classical period places importance on the idea of a 'good society' in ensuring peace and order among the people. The question of safeguarding private property definitely was a crucial motivator in all talks about peace, order and civility. The philosophers in the classical period did not make any distinction between the state and society. Rather they held that the state represented the civil form of society and 'civility' represented the requirement of good citizenship. Moreover, they held that human beings are inherently so rational that they can collectively shape the nature of the society they belong to. In addition, human beings have the capacity to voluntarily gather for the common cause and maintain peace in society. By holding this view, we can say that classical political thinkers endorsed the genesis of civil society in its original sense.
John Locke developed a concept similar to Hobbes's, regarding the political condition in England. That was the period of the Glorious Revolution, marked by the struggle between the divine right of the Crown and the political rights of Parliament. Rarely can a society by-pass this kind of conflict, and this led Locke to forge a 'social contract' theory, of a limited state and a powerful society. Both Hobbes and Locke had thus set forth a system, in which peaceful coexistence among human beings could be ensured through social pacts or contracts. What is important is that their attempts to explain human nature, natural laws, the social contract and the formation of government had challenged the divine right theory. In difference from divine right, Hobbes and Locke claimed the human capacity to design political order. And, this idea had a great impact on the thinkers in the Enlightenment period. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant also argued that people are peace-lovers and that wars are the creation of absolute regimes. As far as Kant was concerned, this system was effective to guard against domination of a single interest and check the tyranny of the majority. And, in Bangladesh, we sometimes find consideration of such roles to be played by civil society.
What Dr. Sen doesn't come to place in his book is how G.W.F. Hegel completely changed the meaning of civil society, giving rise to a modern liberal understanding of it as a form of market society as differently from institutions of nation-state. Unlike his predecessors, he considered civil society as a separate area, a "system of needs", that stood for the satisfaction of individual interests and private property. Hegel held also that civil society had emerged at the particular period of capitalism and served its interests: individual rights and private property. Being an area of capitalist interests, it would be characterized by conflicts and inequalities within it. Constant surveillance of the state is, therefore, imperative to sustain moral order in society. Hegel thus came up with the idea of the state as the highest form of ethical life, and also that the political state has the capacity and authority to correct the faults of civil society. Alexis de Tocqueville, however, on the basis of comparison between despotic France and democratic America, contested Hegel, attributing opposite weight on the system of civilian and political associations against liberal individualism and centralized state. Thus, Hegel's perception of social reality was moderated by Tocqueville, who saw a difference between political society and civil society.
And, this was the conception that Karl Marx carried forward. As Marx saw it, civil society was the 'base' where productive forces and social relations worked, whereas political society was the 'superstructure'. He agreed with the idea of the link between capitalism and civil society and that the latter represents the interests of the bourgeoisie. The state also, as superstructure, therefore, protects the interests of the dominant class; it ensures the domination of the bourgeoisie. Marx thus rejected the idea of the positive role of state Hegel put forth. He rejected the role of the state as a neutral negotiator or arbitrator. Marx considered both the state and civil society as tools and instruments of the bourgeoisie, and wanted them to wither away.
Then this all-negative view about civil society, in a further turn, was worked upon by Antonio Gramsci. And, nowadays, we find in Bangladesh some echoes and reflections of Gramsci's views. First of all, and differing with Marx, Gramsci did not consider civil society as all-colocated with the socio-economic base of the state. Gramsci located civil society rather in the political superstructure. He indicated, however, a crucial role of civil society as a contributor to the cultural and ideological force required for the survival of the hegemony of capitalism. And, so, in stead of viewing it as a problem, as in Marx's thoughts, Gramsci viewed civil society as an instrument of crisis-mangement.
Professor Rangalal Sen has included a number of essays that touch upon the bearings of these other viewpoints from which the question of civil society can be looked at, particularly in Bangladesh. Bangladesh's historic Language Movement, Liberation War, struggle for democracy here, etc., are definitely some of them. Others are there. Actually in the third most important essay in the book, "Rashtra Ebong Civil Society: Prasango Ekusher Panchash," Prof. Sen has taken exactly this scope, and placed many of the historical and theoretical contexts and debates we have placed above.
A book with better-grounded discussions on the very important topic of 'civil society' has not perhaps yet been written or published in Bangladesh.
Professor Kajal Bandhyopadhyay teaches English literature at Dhaka University.
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