Daniel Lerner

News and Notes Herzberg, standing by with pad and pen- his death. As Yeats said of another, he cil. "Don," he would say, "record that was "blessed and had the power to citizen's opinion." Soon thereafter a rally bless." We who shared that blessing live would learn that an informal, scientific a larger life because of it, and for this we pool of the citizens of River City had es- pray for him and remember him. tablished "Eighty-five percent support for Benton!" Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Senate One day the routine went slightly off. Benton approached a citizen, introduced himself, and was met with apoplectic rage. "You're Benton," came the unex- pected reply. "Why if satan himself was Daniel Lerner running I wouldn't vote for you." And as Of Dan Lerner's many contributions to the citizen stormed off Benton turned and the social sciences in the study of com- said, "Don, put him down as doubtful." munications, attitudinal research, and Never to call retreat: never to abandon methodology, it was his work in the field hope: such was Dean Hsrzberg's life and of development that was to receive the his lesson. The depth of his charity so dis- widest acclaim. His major contribution posed him: but hope went beyond dis- was The Passing of the Traditional So- position. It was an act of faith also, a pos- ciety: Modernizing the Middle East, first itive rejection of despair as the deadliest published by the Free Press in 1958 with of sins, political no less than spiritual. paperback editions beginning in 1964. "None of the above" was never his His ideas on development were subse- choice. We cannot conceive him going quently amplified in several papers, in- about the campus opining that he would cluding a long article he wrote for the In- not be voting for any of the candidates ternational Encyclopedia of the Social for president this year. Given only that Sciences called "Modernization: The So- there was more than a single choice, one cial Aspects," a chapter entitled "To- would be better than another, and he ward a Communication Theory of Mod- would choose the better. (Of this year— ernization," published in the book edited for he was careful about language—the by Lucian Pye, Communication and Politi- best!) cal Development, and an essay he wrote in a book he edited with his friend Wilbur And he would do it with a smile, for he Schramm in 1966 entitled Communica- had the playfulness of genius, and to a tion and Change in Developing Countries. point the gift of prophecy, which we in the normative range of academic pursuits The Passing of Traditional Society was persist in hoping might one day prove to among the more influential books on de- have been science! velopment published in the late fifties. It His last published writing appeared on was well received, widely read, frequent- the op-ed page of The New York Times ly cited and had considerable influence on on April 10 of this year. (He wrote books; subsequent studies of development. It but posters were his preferred medium!) was, and continues to remain, a basic There was, he suggested, a new national book for all graduate students in the de- party in the offing. Perhaps in the shell of velopment field. It represented a par- the Republican Party: certainly with Re- ticular approach, used a particular meth- publican leadership. Call it, he suggested, odology, and had a particular point of "The Party of 'Concern for America.' " view and while some have criticized Fourteen days later John Anderson an- these views and methodology in recent nounced his independent candidacy in al- years, they continue to remain an impor- most precisely the terms the Dean's arti- tant contribution of American social sci- cle had forecast. One isn't born with ence research to the sociology of devel- such skills; they are acquired only with opment. discipline and with time. Lerner's book begins with a parable con- Time, of course, ran out. This we will re- cerning a grocer and a chief in the village member and regret so long as our own of Balgat, eight kilometers outside of An- time holds. But our gratitude that he kara. The village was first studied by a lived is so much greater than the grief of Turkish scholar in 1950 who described it 132 PS Winter 1981 as a "barren" lifeless village, two hours ing to the question as to what he would by car on a dirt road. The village was run do if he were president, declared, "My by a Muhtar—a chief who believed in the God! How can you ask such a thing? traditional values of obedience, courage How can I ... I cannot . President of and loyalty who wanted his sons to grow Turkey . master of the whole world?" up to fight bravely "as we fought." The local grocer on the other hand was a very For Lerner the development of empathy different kind of person, though he was was the indispensable skill for people also born and bred in Balgat. While the moving out of traditional settings. "High chief was content, the grocer was rest- empathic capacity," he wrote, "is the less. He wanted a bigger grocery shop, a predominant personal style in modern so- nicer house, and better clothes. ciety which is distinctively industrial, urban, literate and participant." It is em- Lerner first visited Balgat in 1954. By pathic behavior that makes it possible for then the village was connected to the ci- individuals to adapt to new roles, learn ty by a paved road and it had a bus which new relationships, form new opinions." did the journey in only half an hour. There More broadly, he continued, "mobility is were now several grocers, but much to the primary process whereby moderniza- Lerner's lament, the old grocer was dead. tion is activated." He saw mobility as Elections were to be held and the chief having three dimensions: was the last Muhtar of Balgat. His sons had not gone to war—but had become The first was physical or spatial mobility, shopkeepers. The old grocer was gone, the movement from the countryside to but it was now the eldest son of the Muh- the city. The second was social mobility, tar who had become a grocer. One of the the movement upwards of sons and villagers said of the old grocer: "Ah, he daughters. And the third was psycho- was the cleverest of us all. We did not logical mobility or empathy. These demo- know it then, but he saw better than all graphic, sociological and psychological of us what lay in the path ahead. We processes resulted, according to Lerner, have none like this among us now. He in political participation. For Lerner, then, was a prophet." there was a linkage among urbanization, literacy, media participation and electoral Lerner returned to the village a number of participation. times to record its transformation. "The One of Lerner's singular contributions ancient village I had known," he wrote, was his attempt to show how dispropor- "for what now seemed only four short tionate developments contributed to in- years was passing, had passed. The Gro- stability. He showed that though Egypt cer was dead. The Chief—the last Muh- was more urbanized than Turkey it did tar of Balgat—had reincarnated the Gro- not have an adequate base for moderni- cer in the flesh of his sons." zation because of its low literacy. While Lerner used the parable to illuminate his Egypt's cities were full of homeless il- views of the modernization process in the literates who provided a ready audience Middle East. The study had been begun in for political mobilization in support of ex- 1950 by the Bureau of Applied Social Re- tremist ideologies, in Turkey, by con- search at Columbia. Lerner subsequently trast, the various indices of moderniza- analyzed the data from this survey con- tion in 1958 had kept pace with one ducted in six Middle East countries—Tur- another—rising literacy, urbanization and key, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and voting participation. On Lerner's scale Iran. The central concern of the survey Egypt ought to be twice as literate as was to examine how modern people Turkey since it was twice as urbanized emerged and to understand what made and since it was not, the imbalances ac- them modern. celerated social, political and economic disorganization. For Lerner the central dimension of a modern personality was "empathy" or Lerner was also among the earliest writ- "the capacity to see oneself in the other ers to emphasize the sequence of devel- fellow's situation." Traditional men, he opment and the ways in which one said, lacked this empathic quality. He il- change made possible another. Urbaniza- lustrated the viewpoint of the tradition tion, he argued, came first and this facili- minded by quoting the characteristic an- tated both the growth of literacy and the swer of a Turkish peasant who, respond- media. And the growth of the media in 133 News and Notes turn stimulated the growth of literacy. in Lerner's path quite explicitly, a contin- "Out of this interaction," concluded Ler- uity recognized in the dedication of his ner, "develops those institutions of par- book, explored the psychological dimen- ticipation (e.g., voting) which we find in sions of modernization. Inkeles subse- advanced modern societies." quently confirmed but also modified many of Lerner's findings. He reported Thus, the central thesis of Lerner's work that the city does not have a modernizing was the functional interdependence of effect since one can retain traditional elements in the modernization process— ways of living in urban ghettos.

Load more