Sects: In Sociology and Politics

Communications

In a footnote to his essay “Sects and Sectarians” (DISSENT, Autumn, 1954), Lewis Coser advises that he is employing a “typological procedure,” and that the political sect modeled in his study is a sociological construct, neither portraying in its entirety any particular sect, nor implying in its composition any value judgment. As colleagues of Coser, sharing his deep concern with the problems of socialism, we understand that it could not have been his intent to disclaim “resemblance to persons living or dead.” Yet his essay illustrates in its approach and methods the limitations of sociological techniques when applied to what are fundamentally political problems.

An examination of socialist sectarianism does indeed seem to us to be an essential undertaking. It is incontrovertible that what passes for a “socialist movement” in this country today consists almost entirely of sects, distinguished by greater, and rarely lesser, degrees of intellectual sterility and political impotence. But a “sociology of the sect” which does not mesh its analysis with the truly significant problem of the absence of a socialist movement limits the usefulness of its perceptions. If the sect is a caricature of a vital socialist movement, not only are its roots (withered!) still in the political soil that nourished the healthy plant, but its very malformation as a sect lies in some political development. It is this recognition that we find missing in Coser’s article.

By way of accenting the typological approach, Coser understates the role of ideology in the political sect. The sect consists of men cut off from society; it adheres to a “special set of rules of conduct”; and its ” . . . very structure, quite apart from its ideology, is likely to lead to a number of characteristic patterns of behavior.”

Exclusiveness, intolerance, persecution of heretics, tendency towards deindividualization (these are cited by Coser) are undoubtedly frequently the product of the sect’s narrowness. We are familiar with this, and from our own experience could easily enlarge on it. But how much importance should we attach to this? Is it decisive in understanding the role of the sect in political life?

Many, perhaps all, of the characteristics alleged to be peculiar to the Marxist political sect, can be found in other movements, organizations or social groups. Was the Nazi Party, let us say, noted for its toleration of heretics? The Salvation Army for its exaltation of the individual? Are our mass, loose political parties in the United States especially noted for their lack of bureaucratization? And shall we admire the intolerant, bureaucratic and conformist manner in which the leadership of the British Labor Party—a classic example of a non-sec...