Mechanistic individualism versus organistic totalitarianism

Mechanistic individualism versus organistic totalitarianism In this article it is argued that the organistic world picture, when functioning as a world view, is associated with a totalitarian view o f social relationships, usually promoting the interests o f the state or the ethnic group as the interests which should dominate. This is illustrated by referring to the social ideas o f Hobbes, Rousseau, D.H. Lawrence and Mussolini. The mechanistic world picture, however, when functioning as a world view, is associated with individualism, according to which the individuals have a relatively independent existence; it suggests that justice and morality are the automatic products o f the equilibrating process. Cases in point: Hobbes, Adam Smith, Kant, Darwin, New-Classical and Monetarist economics. Finally (in Neo-Calvinist vein) it is argued that the application o f such worldviewish metaphors should be limited, so that justice can be done to both the differentiation o f social relationships and their integration.


Background
M ain thesis: Each extreme o f social thinking, individualism and totalitarianism bases itself on some idea o f ultimate reality: individualism is associated with a m echanistic p icture o f the universe (applied to social life), a n d totalitarianism with an organistic picture o f the universe.Such pictures becom e or are world views which determ ine a nd give m eaning to the behaviour o f p erso n s tow ard aspects o f the world interpreted in term s o f these pictures {in casu social reality), i.e. these pictures determine what reality "in essence" is, in totality and in detail (even when the picture itself is acknow ledged to be a metaphor).
It seems as if human beings, as beings with self-consciousness, continually return to the question o f "the meaning o f life" .Why do 1 live at all?Why shouldn't we all commit suicide?W ho am I with regard to other self-conscious beings?Why expect different behaviour from me than from lions?Pictures o f the universe play Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 an orientating role with regard to such questions: they provide metaphorical explanations o f "macrocosm ic" patterns; they also provide maps which guide human beings through life, and relate the individual human being to other possible beings, giving mankind a status and some aims.They can also serve to explain the peculiarities o f social structures and the relationship o f the individual towards them.
Although one can possibly picture the universe in an infinite number o f w ays, two pictures seem to have dominated W estern thought: an ancient one, according to which the universe is a living being (the organistic picture); and a m odem one, dating from the seventeenth century, viewing the universe as a machine (the m echanistic one).
Ancient people had no other way o f explaining the movements o f heavenly bodies than by modelling them according to self-moving things from within their horizon o f experience, i.e. living things (especially human beings).The universe thus came to be viewed as an eternal, and therefore divine living being, populated by smaller living beings, some eternal (the heavenly bodies; the " spirits"), some mortal or partially mortal (human beings, animals, plants; cf.Venter, 1996:1-5).
It was only after the advent o f apparently lifeless autom ata that W estern man could conceive o f the dynamics o f the universe in terms o f a different metaphor: that o f an automaton, with a creator god as its engineer and maintenance mechanic (Venter, 1992a: 190-198;cf. also Hooykaas, 1972:61 ff;Dijksterhuis, 1950).
From a physical point o f view the pictures have been functioning as m odels, in the sense that they are explanatory metaphorical standardisations (cf.Santema, 1978:2-26) w hich serve as frames o f reference for the understanding o f the physical interrelationships in the universe at large.Both pictures, how ever, have also been functioning as suggestive m etaphors, life maps and com passes, which guide individual and social praxis.They have, therefore, in fact becom e life-andw orld views, w hich determine norms, values, and the structuring o f social relationships, as Santema also noticed (1978:7ff).One could even say that from a scholarly point o f view, they provided (seemingly) successful w ays o f explanation, prediction and the determination o f regularities with implicit world views, and therefore show the characteristics o f what Kuhn called a "paradigm ", and some o f those he later included under "disciplinary m atrix" (Kuhn, 1975: 174fl).
It is not always easy to determine whether, for any specific adherent, the specific picture adopted functioned as only a m etaphor through which the world is m ade intelligible and meaningful, or whether the world is supposed to be a real living organism or a real machine.There may (proportionally) be more mechanistic thinkers w ho believed their descriptions o f the world ("machine", "mechanism," "equilibrium") to be only metaphors, while (proportionally) more organistic thinkers may have believed their metaphors ("organism", "organ", "alive", "growing") to be factual descriptions (i.e. that the world is "really" a living being).For my argument it does not matter much whether the adherent thinks the w orld to be "really" a machine/organism, or only " similar to" an organism/ machine.O nce a picture fu n ctio n s as a life-and-w orld view, it provides a kin d o f "deeper understanding" o f the world, a meaning content to our behaviour (whether contemplative or active), an "ought", which induces us to relate to the world as if it really " is" a machine or an organism.Thus the picture itself becom es an ultimate reality; a design which is (or pretends to be) simultaneously a structuring o f reality.
The tw o world pictures consciously or unconsciously amount to a designing o f reality in toto, and therefore to a confusion o f picture (metaphor, subjective construct), with reality, in the sense that they function as hermeneutic-heuristic outlines for the (re-)construction o f reality.H eidegger (1938:82-83) saw this (although limiting his critique to the subjective rationalism o f M odernity), when he stated: W here the world becomes picture, that-which-is in its totality is determined as the intended-by-man, which he therefore accordingly wants to bring before himself, and have in front o f him, and set before him.W orld picture ( Weltbild), essentially understood, therefore does not mean a picture o f the world, but the world understood as picture.That-which-is in its totality is understood in this context such that it is ju st and only that-which-is in as far as it has been set by the representing, re-establishing human beings.W hen w e arrive at a world picture, an essential decision about that-which-is in its totality is executed.The being o f that-which-is is sought and found in its being-represented (my translation -JJV; cf. also Venter, 1995:179-190).
K eeping H eidegger in mind, the questioning o f the world pictures could be done on two counts: firstly on their being constructs o f total reality (i.e.their "Archimedean point"-pretence) and secondly on their nonnative (world-viewish) social implications.I shall focus on the second, thereby tackling the metaphor from the angle o f its constructed reality.
The w eakness and strengths o f each o f the two dominant world pictures, as social models or standards o f explanation (disciplinary matrices) and behaviour (lifeviews), I hope to open up in the next few pages.I shall take issue with the way in which these world pictures, transformed into or functioning as world views, construct (social) reality in their own terms, and the ways in which both o f them determine intellectual leadership's thinking, and function as directive forces which cause pain and suffering.Given the fact that such world pictures vacillate in their roles from analogies (pictorial descriptions), and standards (models) o f Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 reality, to determinants o f thought (paradigms or disciplinary m atrices) (cf.Santema, 1978:1-26;Botha, 1986:374-383;1992:78-115) my use o f term s will move among these possibilities, as suits the context.M y focus will be on the social philosophies suggested by and constructed on the basis o f these world pictures; a theory o f metaphors, models, and/or paradigms is not intended in this essay.

Organism as societal structure
The organistic world picture suggests a holistic view o f the internal relation ships between entities', i.e. it tends to view individuals as parts o f a larger w hole, on which they are fully dependent for their life and well-being, in the same way that an organ or a member is dependent upon the living body o f which it is a part -it cannot be taken out, sw opped, or replaced at will.This suggests, therefore, that the individual is p a rt o f sm aller social structures, which in turn are p a rts o f larger ones, a n d that the larger ones (usually "states"), have rightful dom ination over the sm aller ones.It may even suggest that an elite leadership with some special (occult) relationship to the whole, rightfully occupies the political pow er positions.(In such views political and religious pow er structures will tend to support one another.)On this hypothesis, the conception o f the material universe as a living being in Plato's Timaeus may provide some explanation o f his totalitarian view s in the Republic.N ot only does he view the individual in a certain sense as a smaller replica o f the state, but he proposes totalitarian control over religion (poetry), family life, expression, and social status by a quasi-occult com munist elite.He tends to view social formations o f a non-state nature (such as economic production units, religious institutions, family life, the arts), as simply parts o f the political whole, to be subjected to the normative insights o f an intellectual elitea view which is still reflected in m odem "neo-platonist", organistic, political philosophies like Fichte's.

• H o b b es -th e sta te as a civ il person
Hobbes provides one o f the most interesting organistic approaches to questions o f social structure -interesting because o f its inconsistency, and its explicit treat ment o f the relationship between "smaller" social institutions and the state as one o f "part" versus "w hole" .Inconsistently with his mechanistic explanation o f the state o f nature, H obbes (1972a: 170) analyses civil society using the organistic key metaphors o f the "general will" and " civil person" : Now union thus made is called ... a civil person.For when there is one will o f all men, it is to be esteemed for one person; and by the word one, it is to be known and distinguished from all particular men, as having its own rights and properties.Insomuch as neither any one citizen, nor all o f them together ... is to be accounted the city.A city therefore ... is one person, whose will by the compact of many men, is to be received for the will of them all; so as he may use all the power and faculties of each particular person to the maintenance of peace, and for common defence.
The change o f metaphors (projected as a change from theory to practice) is not innocent.H obbes w rote the The Citizen earlier than w as planned in order to influence the debate on "the rights o f dominion and the obedience due from subjects", and to encourage citizens not to disturb the peace o f that institution aimed at their preservation (Hobbes, 1972a: 103).He summarily rejected, as partial views o f interest groups, the criticism that he had allocated too much pow er to civil authorities, taken away liberty o f conscience, and set princes above the law (Hobbes, 1972a: 105).He proves keen to show that the dictates o f right reason, as expressed in the law o f the land, actually express the law o f God, and are therefore in harmony with Christianity, thus neutralising the possibility that Christians may be more obedient to God than to their government.
The m etaphor is elaborated: the supreme pow er is like the soul, w here the will has its seat, while the council is like the head (Hobbes, 1972a: 188).Totalitarian consequences are drawn from it: other civil persons, like merchant companies, are subject to the will o f the city, which is supreme; the laws o f the land provide the correct interpretation o f rational religion.The supreme pow er is above the law, absolute, and cannot be dissolved by those who com pact it into being.To it belongs the sword o f justice, as well as o f war, the legislative pow er, the judicature, the naming o f magistrates, and the censure o f doctrine (Hobbes, 1972a: 173).W hatever H obbes's motives may have been: the basic metaphor of the state as a single living person, is used as foundational "argument" for an allencom passing and overriding state power.
• R ousseau: T he absolute will of the to ta lita ria n sta te In his D iscourse on Political Econom y, Jean-Jacques Rousseau used a wide repertoire o f m etaphors from the organistic world picture in his analysis o f government, with the same result as Hobbes.The (living machine) body politic has the sovereign as "head", laws and customs as "brain", com merce, industry and agriculture as "mouth" and " stom ach", public income as "blood", economy as "heart" and citizens as "body" and "members" .But it is also a moral being, possessed o f a (general) will, which is the source o f laws constituting justice (cf. R ousseau, 1916a:252-254).
Rousseau anticipates M ussolini's doctrine that the state makes the people; in fact, virtue is nothing more than the conformity o f all particular wills to the general will (Rousseau, 1916a:259-260).In virtuous people the heroic passion o f patriotism has been made subservient to public reason, and the citizens have becom e accustom ed to viewing their "individuality only in its relation to the body Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 o f the state ... and to be aw are o f their own existence merely as part o f the state" (Rousseau, 1916a:268).The state as permanent entity has the right to usurp the educational rights o f the transitory institution, the family (Rousseau, 1916a:269), as well as to intervene in the economy, with the aim to either maintain or change property distribution (Rousseau, 1916a:272-273).
These totalitarian government pow ers are founded in a totalitarian view o f the sovereign and the constitution, as described in the Social Contract.M orality is founded in law, which implies that the state has the right to uphold m orality by censorship preventing the com iption o f public opinion (Rousseau, 1916b, IV, vii).Rousseau w anted a (M achiavellian) civil religion based on the model o f ancient pagan state religions (continued adherence enforced by the threat o f capital punishment), and rejected any claim o f Christianity to fulfil this role, supposing it to be a spiritual slave morale which would leave the state without defence and divide the loyalty o f the citizen betw een the priest and the sovereign (Rousseau, 1916b, IV, viii).These totalitarian practices are directly related to Rousseau's basic organistic picture o f the state as H obbesian p erso n a ficta: 'Each o f us puts his person and all his pow er in common under the supreme direction o f the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each mem ber as an invisible part o f the w hole.'A t once, in place o f the individual personality o f each contracting party, this act o f association creates a moral and collective body, composed o f as many m em bers as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will (Rousseau, 1916b: 15).
Since the Enlightenment, firstly, reality becam e focused in man (man as the telos o f the universe, according to Kant) and reality and history becam e one.A living universe in this case is a hom o-centric universe.Secondly, since ancient times, the organistic world picture showed a tendency tow ards pantheism (even in quasitheistic philosophical systems like Neo-Platonism).This w as associated with magic: everything being alive usually m eant everything being " spiritual" and "divine" or "dem onic" to some degree.G radations o f spirituality implied a hierarchy, w hich, on a social level, leads to elitism, w hether o f a religious (esoteric), political (aristocratic) or gender (chauvinistic) nature.This w hole cluster o f ideas around the organistic picture can serve to (at least partially) explain the defence o f totalitarian and authoritarian regim es in the twentieth century.
• O rg a n istic holism in F ascism an d N azism M ussolini (1935:7-8), interpreting B ergson's organistic approach, stressed that the conception o f the state as a philosophy o f life is directly associated with an organic conception o f the world.The state is "divine", spiritual, transcends space and time, is universal, national, permanent and moral.The materially physical is individual, transitory, subject to natural law, ego-centric, short-lived.Life finds its true expression only in the state, which is conscience, consciousness and general will together -it creates the nation (M ussolini, 1935:9-12).Thus the fascist state assumes full control o f the heart o f the citizen: Fascism, in short, is not a law-giver and a founder o f institutions, but an educator and a prom oter o f spiritual life.It aims at refashioning not only the forms o f life but their content -man, his character, and his faith.To achieve this purpose it enforces discipline and uses authority, entering into the soul and ruling with undisputed sway (M ussolini, 1935:14).D.H. Lawrence shares both the world picture and its w idest consequences with Mussolini.M ysticism, occultism, elitism, racism, ethnicism are all expressions o f his organistic pantheism in the novel, The P lum ed Serpent.A ristocratic man, rooted in the living motherly earth and the fatherly, invisible, black sun behind the yellow sun, is here projected as divine ruler o f his fellow human beings -he com bines spiritualist mysticism with a "blood-and-soil" ideology (cf.further Venter, 1996:17fF).Attention may also be drawn to the theosophic origins o f German Nazism -showing the same basic tendencies -for example in the thought o f Lanz (who is supposed to have influenced Hitler; cf.Tresmontant, 1991:68 ff).The broad outlines o f these ideologies are summarised as follows by Stemhell (note the organistic base): The essential elem ent here is the linking o f the human soul with its natural surroundings, with the 'essence' o f nature, that the real and important truths are to be found beneath surface appearances.A ccording to many Volkisch theorists, the nature o f the soul o f the Volk is determined by the nature o f the landscape.Thus, the Jews, being a desert people, are regarded as shallow and dry people, devoid o f profundity and totally lacking in creativity ... The self-same themes are to be met in the nationalist ideology o f France: the Frenchman, nurtured by his soil and his dead, cannot escape the destiny shaped for him by past generations, by the landscapes o f his childhood, the blood o f his forebears.The nation is a living organism, and nationalism is therefore an ethic, comprising all the criteria o f behaviour which the common interest calls for, and on which the will o f the individual has no bearing.The duty o f the individual and o f society is to find out what this ethic may be, yet only those can succeed who have a share in the 'national consciousness' ... (S tem hell, 1979:337-338; italics mine -JJV).H eidegger's sympathies with Nazism was probably also based on a shared world picture.In his attem pt to develop a pre-Christian philosophy, he em barked on a "neo-platonist" search for the primitive ground o f being, which finds expression in authentic existence.This search excluded the idea o f a transcendent creator god from his seminarian days (cf.Tresmontant, 1991:460 ff).Thus all being can be conceived o f as saturated with the "divine" ground, which may be subject to forgetfulness, and therefore imposes the calling to search for it while " remaining" where you "are" .In his later w orks he identifies "essence" or " identity", expressed in language, as this "ground"-language being the archaic w ord which unifies the world quatemity: heaven versus earth and divine versus mortal.The physical aspect (sound, mouth, body) o f the expression o f the archaic w ord through man, is not conceived o f in terms o f the meaning-sound-dualism, but is considered as essential component o f language, through which we are bound to region and earth: In the tongue (dialect) every different landscape and therefore the earth speaks.The mouth is not simply a kind o f organ in the body represented as organism, but body and mouth belong in the stream and growth o f the earth, in w hich we, the mortals, flourish, from which we receive the thoroughness o f a rootedness in soil.Together with the earth we also certainly loose the rootedness in soil (Heidegger, 1959:205; my translation and italics -JJV).
South African A frikaner leaders, such as H.F. Verw oerd (m urdered prime minister and "architect" o f apartheid), N. D iederichs (former minister o f finance and state president), P.J. M eyer (who headed the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation), and some others who becam e influential professors in the social sciences in Afrikaans universities, studied in Germany in the W eimar era, w here they imbibed the organistic pantheism o f G erman nationalism (philosophically rooted in Fichte, Herder, Schelling and even Boehme), and developed social theories in which the ethnic nation ("volk") is exalted as the organic unit through which institutions and individuals become human and receive their meaning (M orphew , 1989:63-80).The dispensation which they had in mind for South Africa followed this basic tenet to its ultimate consequences: every ethnic nation had to have its own piece o f land, governed by its own people and its own institutions, which could only thrive within the ambit o f such nationhood.This w as the basis for the establishment o f ethnic universities, schools, the prevention o f mixed marriages, the homelands, et cetera.
" Volk" and state more or less coincided, and totalitarian "volk" becam e totalitarian state.

• T h em a tic sim ila rities am on g the tw en tieth cen tu ry au th ors
Twentieth century authors tend to relate hum an beings to one another in term s o f organically conceived social institutions such as the "nation ", the "state ", et cetera.In this respect they do continue the basic approaches o f H obbes's and R ousseau's organistic metaphorising o f the social scene, and the totalitarian consequences are undeniable.Twentieth century authors, how ever, go further, or rather, tend to revive ancient m ythological m odes o f thought ' , the rootedness in a motherly earth, the blood-and-spiritual bond with the forebears, the elitism based in the "occult" capabilities o f the aristocracy, are all reminiscent, not only o f G reek organistic thinking, but also o f pre-Hellenic Egyptian and Babylonian "political" theogonies.

. I n d i v i d u a l s a s m a c h i n e p a r t s
The mechanistic world picture initially served to explain the dynamics o f the physical universe on the basis o f a cultural product, the autom aton.Very soon, however, the picture w as transferred to other areas: first, to explain physiological processes, and later also social processes (cf.Venter, 1992a:191-198).
• T h e au to m ato n : indepen d en ce o f th e p a r t fro m th e w hole The mechanistic world picture significantly differs from the organistic one in its suggestions with regard to the part-whole-relationship: the parts o f a machine can (with relative ease) be removed, repaired, replaced, or used as spare parts for other machines.It thus suggests a relative independence o f the part from the whole (com pared to an organ or member in the organistic picture), and an aggregational view o f the whole, especially when it concerns social institutions.God can be ("Christianly") viewed as both engineer and mechanic, or (deistically) as only the engineer (leaving the "automaton" to its own autonomous contrivances).
• T h e new tonian m e ta p h o r o f g rav itatio n a l eq u ilib riu m After the initial metaphor, that o f the clock had (in discussions o f social problem atic) been replaced by the newtonian one o f gravitational equilibrium, a process-feature could be introduced into the picture: "machines" could now be seen as aggregations o f equilibrating (and disequilibrating) forces.This disclosed important possibilities for the historicising o f reality and the body politic in the eighteenth century: one could resist the idea o f the nanny-state, assuming autonomous individual citizens, each taking care o f his own interest, while the aggregation still functions according to strict natural laws o f progress by virtue o f equilibrating competition.H obbes, 1972b:41-42).
This mechanistic (metaphorical) dissolving o f the w hole into its generative constituent parts, produces a picture o f the state o f nature in w hich individuals (equal in right to everything), following their (conflicting) appetites (rather than reason), as well as striving for self-preservation, are in constant com petition or conflict with one another.But these prem ises also necessarily imply that such individuals will move into a civil state by contract aimed at self-preservation through the formation o f alliances (Hobbes, 1972a: 115-118).The com pact being made, a living being, the body politic, com es into being, and all the totalitarian consequences sketched above becom e operative.The alternative, therefore, is: either bellum omnium contra om nes, or a totalitarian and authoritarian security state.The first disjunct is supposed to eliminate itself, but can reappear if citizens become disobedient.
Bernard M andeville transformed civil society itself into the H obbesian state o f nature, suggesting that society flourishes as a result o f egoism (including crime), and that intervention, even in the form o f charitable schooling o f children, would be detrimental to its well-being.Smith views all social relationships in terms o f the m arket as model or standard.This presupposes that the individual human being naturally relates to others in a contractual (bartering) way: Society may subsist among men, as among different merchants, from a sense o f its utility, w ithout any mutual love and affection; and though no man in it be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a m ercenary exchange o f good offices according to an agreed valuation (Smith, 1976:86). 100 Koers 62(1) 1997:91-117

J J Venter
But such an utility-based social order is "futuristic" in Sm ith's view, since utility is only recognised by a mature, rational humanity.For the time being mankind is still in the emulation phase, in which the passion for out-shining others is dominant (Smith, 1976:16, 41 fT, 114fF, 145fF) (Smith, 1976:130-150).
In the context o f economics, Smith determines the basis o f self-interest by the Enlightenment historiographical method o f retrospective extrapolation (based on the law o f progress) -extrapolating to w hat man "originally" (or "naturally") is: a farming barterer who owns the full product o f his labour.The amount o f labour time invested in a product will therefore form the basis o f bartering negotiations; historical developments add the rent price o f land and the profits o f stock to this base (Smith, 1976:49-50).Individuals therefore (in an "original" sense) take care o f their own interests in terms o f the value o f their labour, and this provides the equilibrating forces which will move the market price in the direction o f the "natural" (equilibrium) price: The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices o f commodities are continually gravitating.Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below it.But whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this centre o f repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it (Smith, 1950:60; my italics -JJV).
Smith is as much a contractualist as H obbes and Rousseau; yet his view o f society as a totality differs radically from theirs: the market m etaphor -for him probably more than a metaphor -implies that society is a process o f continuously contracting individuals', the state is relegated to the status o f a protective framework for this process.
"Autom aton" here takes the function o f a model (a pictorial standard); but then a strongly representative model, intended to express a (for Kant) undeniable reality.history is subject to mechanical, causal laws.
The views regarding society o f M althus, Ricardo, and D arw in follow the same metaphorical pattern, based on the same mechanistic picture o f the world (cf.Venter, 1994:5-16), stressing the "autonomy" o f the "parts" -individuals or smaller groups, which, through competitive activities, act as m otor forces o f history.
• D a rw in 's m e ta p h o r o f n a tu ra l selection Darwin transferred the competition-equilibrium matrix, implied in the m etaphor o f "natural selection" (and he explicitly acknow ledges it to be a metaphor), to the study o f nature (in The Origin o f Species [1968] cf.Young, 1988;Venter, 1996: 13ff).H e also used this m etaphor in a normative sense, as a policy proposal regarding human population development, opposing family planning schem es, so as to ensure the continued progress o f mankind through the com petition o f individuals.For the moral and legal sphere, however, he m oderated the dem ands o f health and vigour in the individual (vis-a-vis social well-being), by presupposing another equilibrating process: that between altruistic and ego centric instincts (cf.Darwin, 1906:194, 945-946).He thus avoids the " social Darw inist" consequence o f summarily characterizing the com petitively successful .as the "civilized", "hard-working", or "morally good" (as w as done by Sumner, 1934, and others.)102 Koers 62(1) 1997:91-117 J.J. Venter One should not summarily conclude that all o f these thinkers were in fact insensitive to the "immoral" and/or " sociopath" implications o f the egocentric individualism they w ere preaching.They rather trusted the autom atism o f the equilibrium process to take care o f the interests o f " ju stice ", "sobriety", "honesty " on the basis o f real "merit

• T h e m a rk et m eta p h o r as the b asic m eta p h o r fo r the social scien ces
Equilibrium theorists, such as the N ew Classical and the M onetarist economists o f the past few decades, seem to put their trust exactly in this same automatic fairness and warranted morality o f the "market" mechanism -on condition that w e, like Adam Smith -accept the market m etaphor as the basic explanatory or predictive m etaphor fo r the social sciences.
To keep the competition-equilibrium structure w orkable as a standard approach (disciplinary matrix) which is supposed to provide economists with predictive laws, some very "unrealistic" assumptions had to be m ade, such as the availability o f perfect information (on costs, tastes, alternatives, for both producers and consumers), perfect competition, a perfect market.As irrationalism grew and the organistic picture regained some foothold, these assumptions have been challenged in different ways.In Keynesian economics uncertainty plays a pivotal role, and therefore the expectation o f equilibrium becom es problem atic (although Keynes still attem pts to use it; cf.Keynes, 1936;Torr, 1988:39-50).And according to Von Hayek the assumptions express no more than the a priori possibilities open to an individual in the market; it provides no analysis o f real competition processes, which are clouded by uncertainty, and at most, tend to co-ordinate the economic and social actions o f individuals.Von H ayek, however, retains the market metaphor for all o f society in terms o f a "methodological" (not: ontological) individualism, according to which the market functions as a hermeneutical process (cf.Von H ayek, 1949:33 54;93 ff;Venter, 1996:27fi).

• M o n eta rism
These innovations have not totally eliminated the competition-equilibrium matrix from the realm o f economics.In N ew Classical economics and in M onetarism (both high profile schools which have influenced policy making very strongly), it still holds sway.There are claims that are also applicable in -and in fact the best approach for -other social disciplines.
In Friedm an's version o f M onetarism, general equilibrium analysis is partitioned into different analyses o f specific problems, while the N ew Classicals tend to believe that everything depends on everything, and that therefore the partitioning o f problem s is invalid.They share, however, the basic tenets that economic agents are, to the limits o f their information, consistent and successful optimizers Koers 62(1) 1997:  (that they make most o f their opportunities and are therefore in equilibrium); and that agents hold rational expectations (i.e. they make no systematic errors in evaluating the economic environment ;Hoover, 1988:182-193).These tenets express the classical competition-equilibrium matrix in an irrationalist context: individuals act optimally for their own benefit, and w hat they do expect is what they should expect.In the N ew Classical school the automatism is so strong that institutional analysis o f even the business enterprise itself is rejected in favour o f treating it as a blackbox causal link between the actions o f individuals and price changes (M achlup, 1967:9).Importantly, in the M onetarist case, the validity o f these tenets is not limited to economics.The M onetarist, Karl Brunner, explicitly rejects a multidisciplinary approach to economic problems (including, as he calls it, the Keynesian "sociological perceptions o f non-market situations"), and w ants to apply the basic principles o f M onetarism to other social disciplines, as if economics provides the only valid social scientific approach (Klamer, 1985:183): W e reject, on the other hand, an escape into sociology which offers no relevant analytic framework.We maintain that socio-political institutions are the proper subject o f economic analysis.This entails an entirely different view o f the political institutions and their operation.The sociological view typically supports a goodwill theory o f governm ent and yields conclusions favouring a large and essentially unlim ited government.An application o f econom ic analysis, in contrast, alerts us to the fact that politicians and bureaucrats are entrepreneurs in the political market.They pursue their own interests and try to find optimal strategies attending to their interests.And what is optimal for them is hardly ever optimal for 'public interest' (B runner in: Klamer, 1985:186).
• F rie d m a n : P olitical m a rk e ts v ersu s econom ic m a rk e ts Friedman provides us with a simple exemplary analysis o f political markets versus economic markets, in an attempt to show that the political market is actually a less efficient system o f coordinating individual self-interest, w hich will take aw ay our individual freedoms, the more w e put our trust in it.A ccording to him the accepted distinction betw een the economic market as aimed at self interest and the political system as directed at public interest, is a myth -the latter actually only serves the self-interest o f the public servant (to be human, is to pursue self-interest).Secondly, exchange in the political market does not take place on the basis o f "one man one vote", for it actually functions on the basis o f weighted votes o f small interest groups, which determine a w hole package to be voted for on a "yes/no" basis, w hereas the economic market provides for a much freer and more equitable proportional voting system ("one man one dollar"), in which you get w hat you vote for (voting for every item separately).The essence o f a political arrangement is coercion; that o f a market arrangement is voluntary co-operation between people (cf.Friedman, 1976:6 fi).Friedman (1976:11 ff) views the equilibrating forces as moving parallel to another: if government spending increases on the insistence o f the electorate, without taxes increasing too (i.e. money is created ahead o f production), then this is balanced by a hidden tax increase called inflation.Increased government spending is also accompanied by increased government controls and security provisions o f all kinds, which is balanced by decreasing efficiency and freedom and increasing collectivism (Friedman, 1976).Friedman is prepared to invert this causal chain: any increase o f private, free enterprise, capitalism is accompanied by an increase in political freedom -in fact, individualistic free enterprise capitalism is a sine qua non for a free political system.Even social welfare in its broadest sense ("eleemosynary activity" -the establishment o f non-profit institutions like universities, libraries, hospitals, et cetera) flourish during periods o f decreasing government controls and increasing free enterprise, Friedman jubilates, on the basis o f what he sees as the results o f 19th century laissez-faire policies (Friedman, 1976:25 ff).Although Friedman seems to provide us with a strictly "positive" (rather than a "nonnative") analysis o f the economic-social reality, his analysis is clearly aimed at promoting "freedom", and is therefore normative in spite o f its pretences.These parallels show the grip which mechanistic thinking has on Friedman. Von Hayek (1949:30), as anti-collectivistic as Friedman can ever be, but rejecting such a purely mechanistic approach, could not find an automatic correlation betw een individual freedom and social equity; in fact, he accepts a trade-off between the two as unavoidable (cf.also Venter, 1996:39).
Initially, the mechanistic picture functioned as a m ethodological directive, by which the handling o f the "organs" o f H obbes's social organism was legitimized, ju st as if they w ere " independent" machine parts.This approach gave a kind o f "autonom y " a n d mutual antagonism to the "pa rts ", which was individualistic, at least in consequence.G ravitation theory disclosed the possibility o f a p ro cess like approach within the m echanistic picture, by which historical progress (including the automatic establishment o f justice and morality) could be modelled, on the supposition o f individuals in competition, given diseq u ilib ra tin g fo rces to prevent stagnation.In spite o f the collapse o f the faith in progress, and in spite o f criticism o f equilibrium theories, the disciplinary matrix o f self-interested individuals who create economic welfare as well as social welfare (and justice) through an equilibrating "market mechanism" , remains very strong indeed.In this tradition scant attention is given to the structures and functions o f different social institutions such as the business enterprise, the state, the family -its analytical Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 toolshed makes do with terms like "individual", "com petition", " self-interest", "market", "buy/sell", "equilibrium" .
Ironically, the deterministic general equilibrium approaches have been criticized for eliminating real com petitiveness from their theory.As the representations o f the competition-equilibrium matrix becam e more overtly mechanistic (especially as a consequence o f the "perfect"-assum ptions), its pow er to explain or describe the economic and/or social processes, qua processes, decreased.U nder such theoretical ideal conditions as represented under the "perfect"-assum ptions, the balance o f pow ers is immediate or permanent (or, more technically, takes place in mathematical time rather than Bergsonian durée), while in reality, "to com pete" involves surprise, novelty, innovation, and even dissembling over time (cf.Addleson, 1988:462-463).

• P rin cip le o f co m p etitiv en ess w ell estab lish ed in W estern cu ltu re
It is, however, noteworthy that the principle o f com petitiveness has been well established in W estern culture, also in the analysis o f social processes.Com petitive individualism has been transferred to com petitive nationalism, and it seems as if competition is no more simply a means, as in the eighteenth century, but rather something like a norm or an end.The "winning nations" are to be taken as norm by the "losers" in the Third W orld; the GA TT agreem ent opens up "free trade" all over the world; "com petitiveness" is the supposed answ er for a country's industries; at school, winning, whether in sports or in intellectual pursuits, counts, and coming second almost does not; "publish or perish" in the academic world is only an expression o f the competition motive as norm and does not necessary road to "quality" or "excellence" .
It is not all that rosy however: countries are flooding each other's m arkets with more or less the same products; Third W orld countries are forced to com pete on an unequal footing with First W orld countries, and becom e more and more indebted to them; the accentuation o f individual and particular interests tends to strengthen selfishness, and can be detrimental to creativity; human lives are losing their value as self-interest in the context o f a collapse o f values turns into outright egoism.

Perspective: Is there a way out?
The organistic world picture promotes a "w hole" versus "part" approach in the analysis o f social structures and processes.The interests o f the "w hole" take precedence over those o f the "parts", i.e. organistic thinking implies "holism" .It is not clear w hich criteria are used to identify important "w holes" (usually states, tribes, or ethnic groups or even " society") -it seems as if cultural, racial, pow er, and geographical considerations are taken into account without much critical investigation.W hatever differences there may be between "parts" and their "w hole" are easily forgotten as smaller institutions are usurped by the interests o f larger or stronger ones.The consequences are not only almost complete control over the lives o f individuals, but also o f associations which differ in their primary aims (or functions) from the primary aims (or functions) o f the "w hole" .This is totalitarianism.It can be o f a "majoritarian" orientation (like that o f Rousseau), or more authoritarian, as in Fascist or Nazi elitism -neither has any patience with religious, educational, artistic, sports, or other institutions viewing their roles as different from the aim o f the "w hole" .
The mechanistic picture rejects dominance by a supposed social "whole" .M echanists tend to view the encompassing, powerful institutions as aggregations o f individuals -a suggestion inherent in the relative independence o f a machine part from its machine whole.This view made it possible to combine individual autonomy with a deterministic view o f historical progress, in which justice, peace and moral decency could all be seen as the equilibrium product o f the opposing "gravitational" forces o f self-interest.
This world picture allows for much patience with the role difference o f smaller and less powerful associational forms, and w ishes to reduce the powers and functions o f the strongest one, the state.It assum es, however, a market totalitarianism, and trusts the "market" (i.e. the competition-equilibrium matrix) to solve the problem s o f justice, morality, peace, and social welfare.Efficiently successful "trading" is supposed to (always) leave the barterers better off than before!This trust discloses the capitalist values hidden behind the mechanistic metaphors and analytical patterns.Although economistic in its orientation, its analytical approach obstructs any sense o f institutional differentation.It is therefore unable to get a clear picture o f the ethical role o f the family, or the primarily justitial aims o f the state, vis-a-vis the profit aims o f the business enterprise.
Thus all other institutions become progressively disem powered with regard to self-interest as such, and egoism becom es the norm.

• C an an y lib era tin g m ediation b etw een the tw o w orld v iew s be effected ?
It can indeed be asked whether there is a w ay out o f this impasse; whether mediation between the two world views can be effected.A nother issue is whether these world views possibly include some valuable elements which could direct us in a direction away from both o f them?
The organistic picture seems to recognise the different functions o f different social institutions, but sublimates these into the aims and interests o f the whole.The adherents o f the mechanistic picture try to avoid the totalitarianism and authoritarianism which w e have found associated with the organistic approach, and allow for much more freedom o f the individual members o f "society" (and as a result o f this, for the freedom o f w eaker institutions).Yet the latter is no more Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 Mech 'nistic individualism versus organistic totalitarianism able than the organists to clearly outline the pluriformity o f social relationships, and allow for the freedom o f their functioning as social unities, for it represents "society" as a number o f configurations o f forces (where self-interest is the real motor force), neglecting the question o f "pow er" inequalities behind the forces, as well as the differences in social context in which these "forces" operate.
• P ictu re s as norm s: in tegration ism v ersu s isolation ism Furthermore, once any (single) picture is used to explain all o f reality and to give meaning to life (i.e. when a world picture is transformed into a world view, regardless o f w hether it functions for its author in a "real" or in a "m etaphorical" sense), it fulfils both a "factual" and "normative" role -in other w ords it encom passes both an " is" and an "ought" .In the present case this m eans that for both pictures the world (which includes human social life) both is (similar to) an organism or a machine, and ought to be treated as (similar to) an organism or a machine.
Thus the organistic world view is holistic both in a factual and in a normative sense.It contends that individuals and smaller institutions are (similar to) the organs o f an organic w hole, and that it is w rong or evil for us human beings not to live up to cur "part"-playing as "organs" o f the "organism " .It cannot but react negatively (crying " sedition", "treason" , "disloyalty") in response to any claims that a smaller/weaker social institution (say a school), might opt to follow aims differing from those o f " society" (which, now adays, is equated with the state, or the "nation").Especially nationalist political authorities are unreasonable in their demands that all institutions fall in line with "national" aims.Churches, sporting bodies, academ ic associations, need not, however, for example, limit their spheres o f influence to national boundaries.In terms o f its norm ative im plications, the organistic world view tends to (enforced) integrationism .
Equally, the mechanistic world view zigzags between " is" and "ought" .The representation o f the world as (similar to) a m achine/automat incorporates a characteristic o f m odem technology: the abstraction from a specific solution o f a specific problem by using "neutral" modular com ponents which (though limited by the purpose o f the particular machine), still have "a certain artificial independence" (Schuurman, 1980:15).Thus society is represented as consisting factually o f an aggregate o f (self-interested) forces; this is dialectically sw itched into prom oting self-interest as the basic norm for all social functioning.In contrast (and sometimes clearly in reaction) to organistic holism, it takes an isolationist stance, promoting a "private sector", individualistic approach with a strong econom istic slant to it.There is some recognition o f the right to freedom o f non-state institutions, but no thoroughgoing analysis o f their different institutional functions seem s to emerge after the fragmentation o f " society" into neutral machine components.
Von Hayek recognized something valuable in both pictures.He carefully and qualifiedly borrow ed metaphors from the organistic approach, given its sensitivity for structural unity.But he also appreciated the openness for freedom and the anticollectivism o f the mechanistic approach, and held onto this in the form o f a so-called "methodological individualism" (Venter, 1996:236).

• In stitu tion al plu rality
To avoid imitating Von H ayek's aw kw ard ride on tw o horses parting w ays, we should first enquire whether the two world pictures really cover the w hole field o f experience, as they pretend to, and whether they really (in "principle") form alternatives to be expressed in an exclusive disjunction.This difficulty is probably rooted in the fact that the two pictures have become world views -their limitations as only m etaphors have been forgotten, and they acquired authority beyond their legitimate applicability.
One can, o f course, model many aspects o f "reality" in terms o f mechanical metaphors (for example) the movement o f limbs in a body.The very existence o f organic chemistry and biochemistry tells us, however, that such metaphorising must have limitations.In the same way we can use biotic m etaphors to express ourselves about non-biotic matters, such as the "growth" o f the money supply, yet realizing that the applicability o f this metaphor is limited by the fact that human beings make decisions about the increase in the quantity o f money (which is clearly not the case with the growth o f an organism).Similarly one can also draw m etaphors from other fields o f experience.D arw in's metaphor o f (natural) " selection" (by his own admission) was drawn from human culture (the selection practices o f breeders); he had to supplement its lack o f a selection agent by metaphorising "com petition" into a natural process (an approach ridiculed by M arx as transferring the British economy into nature).Thomas Kuhn (1975) used the m etaphor o f "conversion" from the area o f religion, to describe the social behaviour o f the adherents o f a "paradigm" (another m etaphor probably drawn from grammar).

• O n e sin g le m eta p h o r cannot explain the in terrela tio n sh ip s o f all en tities
The plurality o f possible metaphors themselves point to something beyond language -the plurality o f possible relationships between human beings and w hatever is in their environment.Surely the relationship between husband and wife differs from their relationships to their expected baby, and this again differs from that o f the family doctor towards the embryo.Society has long ago recognized this difference, and therefore set limitations on the medical involvement o f doctors with their own family members.And doesn't the relation ship o f the sculptor toward a piece o f marble differ from that o f the person who sells it to him?O f course one can attempt to reduce both the latter relationships to their physico-chemical properties, but as Von Hayek has so clearly shown, one Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 will then be unable to make any specific sense o f these relationships, or o f any other cultural activity (Von Hayek, 1952:17fT;Venter, 1996:23Iff).Every human entity, from the moment o f conception, exists in such a plurality o f relationships -the Hobbesian state o f nature as a state o f isolated individuals was the product o f abstractive projection (as recognised by Hobbes himself, but forgotten by Rousseau).
The differences among these relationships disclose the possibility that they may be structured into different institutional forms.A group o f people playing football may found a club as an institutional form.The club will need capital assets (such as a playing field); has to establish itself as a " legal person" ; will need an administrative executive (chairman, secretary, etc.) as well as a team leadership (captain; vice-captain), and a trainer.A drama reading group, on the other hand, can get along by using a m em ber's living room and kitchen facilities, taking turns to organize meetings, but cannot get along without some intellectually developed minds.A state needs elaborate mechanisms for the protection o f its citizens' rights; a school only an organized teaching staff, children who w ant to learn, and a minimum o f administrative and physical infrastructure.
Once a single m etaphor is used to explain the functioning and interrelationships o f all entities, sensitivity for the differences among social relationships as well as the peculiar forms o f institutionalizing which they may assume, is lost.W hether intended as "reality" or as "only metaphor", both the mechanistic and the organistic world views are reductionistic in their representations o f social realitya reductionism which has worrying nonnative implications (as I attem pted to show above).The social modelling o f the two world pictures provide normative models which tend to cover the whole area o f social life, in all its forms.The mechanistic one tends to reduce all social forms to that one o f which the supposed analogy with a machine w as first perceived -inter-individual competition (o f which the market remains as the ideal type).The organistic one subjects all social forms to the interests and pow er o f the one perceived to be the most encompassing, and model them according to the relationship o f an organism to its organs.

• Swop the roles and see what happens
The secret, probably, is to find a theoretical way o f limiting the expansion o f such metaphors.One w ay o f going about this could be a kind o f deconstructive behaviour-swopping procedure, in which the institutional hierarchy within the ambit o f the metaphor is inverted.
In the ambit o f the organistic metaphor the state or the nation (and its aims) tends to have the upper hand; thus we can limit this metaphor by sw opping state behaviour with that o f a less powerful institution (such as a high school).In the ambit o f the mechanistic metaphor, the market dominates: w e can thus apply the normal behaviour o f (say) a married couple to a market situation, and vice versa.The examples may be ridiculously trivial, yet they illustrate the point: stretching their social implications to the limits by deconstructive behaviour-swopping, highlights the strange consequences o f these reductionist normative metaphors.

* The pain/suffering indicator
A second, more serious and less trivialising approach to limit the dangerous consequences o f misleading "is-ought" metaphors through the bridging o f the "isought" gap, can be found in the pain/suffering indicator.The interplay between "is" and " ought" in the two metaphors has already been noted.Accepting that the direct move from " is" to "ought" is invalid, it can still be argued that an indirect movement is possible -via the pain/suffering indicator.
Briefly: "suffering" implies "pain" (whether we use these w ords metaphorically or literally); but "pain" does necessarily imply "suffering" ." Pain" belongs to life's warning systems: when I touch a hot object, the pain I feel warns me to pull my hand aw ay before serious damage is done, i.e. before an antinomic situation replaces the regular one.(Acceptable punishment would then rather belong to the category o f pain than o f suffering.)Suffering may be described as the pain caused by a serious and long-term antinomic situation.
Thus, whenever a (supposedly) normative social m etaphor is seen to cause pain, we have an indication o f an antinomic situation present or approaching.I cannot feel the other's pain, therefore I have to take his/her/their communication o f pain seriously as an indicator that the "oughts" which govern my behaviour need adjustment.Undeniably Christ's maxim o f doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, opens up a world o f possibilities to swop shoes, imagining the consequences in terms o f pain and suffering, so as to discover when a situation may be or become antinomic.
How many millions have died because o f totalitarian regimes based on an organistic picture o f social life?How many may have starved or have been marginalised (and still are), under the assumption that competition will automatically care for justice (not to mention stress and depression as the diseases o f our time)?
• D ifferentation and in tegratio n Thus, over against the totalitarianistic holism o f the organistic world view, I would, in line with the Neo-Calvinistic tradition -for instance A. K uvper (1880), H. Dooyeweerd (1957), D.H.Th.Vollenhoven (1964), plead for acceptance o f the norm o f societal differentiation a n d juxtaposition (usually called " sovereignty in own sphere").
The mechanists are right -social differentiation is norm ative.But one can only avoid an isolationist (or even disintegrationist) concept o f differentation if the principles o f differentiation are not located via self-interest, but through a thoroughgoing analysis o f the possible forms the different human relationships may assume, determined by all the possibilities o f interacting with, or undertaking responsibilities and tasks in the "w orld" as environment.
Differentiation, in fa ct, implies an involving self-assertion, a n d not at all a separation o f institutional fo rm s.Societal institutions speak, each in its own way, to mankind.Academics produce intellectual ideas about the world at large in a scholarly way, and in fact need their academ ic freedom and institutional autonomy for responsible involvement conforming to the dem ands o f scholarly work.No state should be happy when churches, universities, sporting bodies, writers associations, all willingly submit to "national ideals", for this is an indication that these institutions do not care about their own tasks anymore, neither do they contribute freely and independently (in their own particular ways) to the well-being o f the state as their neighbour Some sporting bodies love to "separate" sport from politics, and some liberals believe in the separation o f church from state.It is clear that they should be independent from one another (authority-wise and regarding their tasks), but this cannot mean " separate" -at least not in the sense that the one can act as if the other does not exist, or as if the existence o f other institutions in its vicinity is not mirrored in its own composition and need not affect its choices.All o f the human-in-the-world problematic will (in any case) find expression in each social institution -the issue is only: how to actively take this problem atic into account in the functioning o f an institution.
The economic situation in a neighbourhood will find expression in the neighbourhood school, not only in the facilities available in the school, but also in the attitude which the school has towards the neighbourhood and to other institutions in it.A school in a poor neighbourhood might search for creative w ays o f teaching with minimal means, or involve the parents in the physical upkeep o f their school instead o f asking for more cash; it might focus in its teaching on the transfer o f skills which may prepare the children for early entry into the jo b market; it might even provide adult education programmes to improve parents' chances to find work.But if it w ants to keep up the pretence o f being a school, it cannot give up teaching children well, and it should resist attem pts from other institutions to instrum entalise it for jo b creation, or to prcach a national ideal (even the ideal to care for the poor).Yet it cannot and should not go about its educational task in isolationist terms.For, in the latter case, the expression o f the neighbourhood problematic will w reak havoc in the educational situation itself.(A trivial example which is everyday reality in Africa: children o f illiterate parents from a shanty town usually differ in their proficiency as well as their interest in reading, from those that come from middle class neighbourhoods with a neighbourhood library and w ell-educated parents; and teachers better take note o f this situation.) In more general terms: the norm o f integration holds in the latter case.This implies that social institutions should constructively ask themselves: how does the full human problematic o f our environment (which may be a Heideggerian "nearness" rather than only a physical neighbourhood) reflect itself within our specific differentiated task and what constructive demands does this make on the execution o f our daily task?
Should an institution neglect this norm, it will surely create tensions and suffering in its own membership.One example: the capitalist ethic remunerates winning as an indication o f "excellence" .For the travelling salesman this may mean being Koers 62 (1) 1997:91-117 compelled "voluntarily" to remain on the road aw ay from wife and children.It seems to be in his interest to submit voluntarily to the interest o f his em ployerthis is an isolationist (even disintegrationist) institutionalized demand, which causes suffering because it is not integration-sensitive.And the insensitivity is not something additional or accidental, but built into the very institutional form, which does not set fair standards o f a good day's w ork, but leaves it to subjective guessing in competitive circumstances.N o w onder the pendulum presently seems to swing in the direction o f integrationist holism!

Conclusion
To draw the lines together: Von Hayek has pointed out that totalitarian planners pretend to have an Archimedean point above their historical situation, giving them the encompassing knowledge o f society which makes totalitarian planning possible, i. e. they play God to their fellow human beings.Nobody can have such insights and knowledge; therefore Von Hayek prefers to leave social develop ments to the spontaneous generation and functional adjustment o f institutions; the interaction o f individuals in reaction to " market" indicators em pow er them incomparably more than any planner can do (cf.Von Hayek, 1952:91-102).
From a religious point o f view, Neo-Calvinists will probably applaud Von H ayek's criticism o f totalitarianism, but will have to ask whether his idea o f the spontaneous adjustment o f institutions (likened to the change o f aims with which a footpath may be used), does not leave them w ide open to instrumentalising by pow er formations other than the state, as is presently becoming practice among the so-called "N ew Right" (rightwing liberal) political groupings (cf.Vieux, 1994).The convergence o f spontaneous institutionalising in different cultures seems to point to a stable range o f different possibilities given in creation: playing, producing art forms, adoration, the providing o f food and shelter, education o f youngsters, caring for fairness, eating and drinking, producing offspring, intellectual thinking, building o f pow er formations.N eo-Calvinists will plead for respect for the own integrity o f these institutional possibilities, and will especially plead that pow er formations legitimise them selves in, and restrict themselves to the institutions in which they occur.The principle o f " sovereignty in its own sphere" simply appeals for stability in disclosing the potential o f creation, for the recognition o f human limitations as creatures coram D eo, and for the recognition that the powerful institutions are not better equipped to handle the affairs o f the non-powerful institutions; on the contrary, they will tend to use the less powerful for their own interests.This is what the norm o f differentiation actually wants to express.
114 Koers 62(1) 1997:91-117 J.J. Venter Finally: • The norm o f differentiation and the norm o f integration are not in a dialectical tension with one another.
• D ifferentiation simply means that the institution recognises its own specific task in a network o f relationships and continuously adjust its institutional form to improve the execution o f that task.
• Integration means the execution o f this task in a w ay which is sensitive for the specific contents o f the relationships in the network.
And this will sureiy be expressed in terms o f a multiplicity o f metaphors, o f which the metaphorical limitations have to be recognised.

•
A dam S m ith: th e eq u ilib riu m m e ta p h o r an d th e human m ind, m o ral life an d econom ic processes -th e m a rk e t m e ta p h o r It w as probably Adam Smith who first saw the applicability o f the equilibrium m etaphor to the human mind (1980), moral life (1976), and econom ic processes(1950).Both A dam Smith and Immanuel K ant shuttle betw een the organistic and the mechanistic w orld pictures.They cannot afford to finally let go o f the former: they share the Enlightenment faith in progress, and therefore presuppose a homocentric teleology o f nature, w orking in and through man, and using as its instrum ent the supposedly m echanical p ro cess o f com petition am ongst individuals a n d groups.This aspect becom es the dominant one, for "G o d 's" teleology can only be approached through the analysis o f human efficient causality -taken here in a fairly literal mechanical sense.
uses m etaphors reminiscent o f those o f Adam Smith in his analysis o f historical social formations under the guidance o f the teleology o f nature.Using the same retrospective extrapolation method, he uncovers the development Koers 62(1) 1997:91-117 . But even in the passionate emulation phase, progress is served by self-interest, "intuited" by the (hedonistically conceived) sense o f agreeability or disagreeableness.In the face o f H utcheson's rejection and M andeville's cynical acceptance o f self-interest, Smith elevates it to the motor o f welfare, at a level midrange betw een the social and the unsocial passions.Self-interest is m oderated by the judgm ent o f the im partial spectator -a proto-freudian internal, supposedly objective super-ego, which executes judgem ent under the guidance o f agreeability, according to the rules o f prudence (longterm self-interest) and justice (social interest).In this way Smith hopes to avoid conventionalism (accepting that the individual becomes a moral creature only through society), as well as arbitrary, individualistic sentimentalism . Conflict and competition are, as in H obbes, the forces which necessitate the establishment o f communities, and, in the end, o f a world community or league o f nations in which rationality and eternal peace would reign.K ant's view o f social history is an explicit formulation o f the doctrine o f the balance o f pow er, starting with autonomous individuals, tlirough smaller communities and national states, to end up with the league o f nations:All wars are, therefore, so many attempts (truly not in the intentions o f the people but in those o f nature), to establish new relationships among states ... until in the end, in part by the structuring o f the best possible legal order, in part by communal external agreement and legislation, a situation is established w hich maintains itself analogously to civil society, ju st like an automaton.The barbarous freedom o f the already established states ... necessitates that our species find, in addition to the in itself salutary resistance o f many states, a law o f equilibrium ...

*
Imagine organizing a school primarily according to the principles o f law and order using a military mode o f training, the youngsters carrying arms and doing the drill, organizing themselves into political parties struggling to gain the upper hand; the principal and staff being elected by the children according to the principles o f multi-party democracy.Will this provide for a balanced process o f enculturation, which schools normally stand for?N eed I stretch the imagination to include the possibility o f such a school becoming a mini-state in a neighbourhood?(For some South-Africans this may be a nightmarish rem inder o f recent historical reality.)Imagine establishing a state in con formity with the normal educational principles o f a high school, treating all citizens as schoolboys and girls; the head-of-state following the decision making processes, aw ards and punishments o f school principals; the cabinet handling the electorate as so many classrooms full o f schoolgoing children.
* Imagine a marital relationship constructed on the basis o f Adam Smith's exchange o f good offices rather than benevolence: Hubby: "Honey, like a w ine'n dine tonight?" Honey: "O 'course, but what d 'ye have in mind?"Hubby: "Oh, nothing much ... a quiet little place like Spartacus's Greek Cuisine; they have nice smalls, you know; good food; nice music ..." Honey: "1 didn't mean that.I mean what returns do you hope to get from your investment?" Hubby: "Not much this time, you know ..." Honey: "OK! you may touch my knees; but you know I get a headache if you go any higher."Hubby: "Well!If you get that headache tonight, I still have the option o f popping in at Clare's.She doesn't get headaches!"Honey: "Do you want me to w ear that dress with the thighhigh slit?" Hubby: "Now w e're getting somewhere.Competition always produces quality, whether service or product ..." (Do we need to construct an example o f a buyer treating a shop assistant in the way spouses relate to one another?)