The current issue of The Economist challenges “the illiberal left.” Among other related phenomena, “the espousal of new vocabulary … is affecting ever more areas of American life. It has penetrated politics and the press.” The magazine observes, perhaps a bit late, that “it is starting to spread to schools.” How can the wokes succeed in changing common terms to advance their ideological agenda? Governments certainly help with their indirect subsidies to universities if not their open support of woke causes.
In an appendix to his novel 1984 (published in 1949), George Orwell wrote, somewhat prophetically:
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English Socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
From fiction to reality, meet the word “societal.” It was apparently invented by a Minor Hugo (probably the pen name of Luke James Hansard), a utopian British communist and follower of Charles Fourier. (See Minor Hugo, Hints and Reflections for Railway Travellers and Others; or A Journey to the Phalanx [London, 1843], pp. 157 and 192.) The word really took off only in the 1960s and may have receded since.
As far as I can see, the word is mainly used in soft sociology and social activism. The Encyclopedia Britannica has no entry for “societal” but mentions the word twice in its article on sociology. The Dictionary of Sociology (Oxford University Press, 2014) only has an entry for “societal reaction,” referring to the specific theory of social deviance and control. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought (Blackwell Publishing, 2003) has no entry for the word. Perhaps it is used by ethnologists and anthropologists, but it does not seem to be frequent.
In general dictionaries, it appears as a non-technical word meaning the same as “social.” For example, the Oxford English Dictionary has an entry “societal,” defined as “Of or relating to society.”
My hypothesis is that the word is mainly used to convey the impression of something more scientific than the mere “social” of both common mortals and economists. Interestingly, it has also become popular in the corporate PR that bows obsequiously to woke fads by paying attention to the corporations’ “societal impact.” It is a favorite of the public health movement, which is trying hard to look scientific while eschewing the scientific analysis of economics. The term gives a scientistic look-and-feel to social balderdash.
Note that welfare economics has gone quite far in the analysis of society without using the term “societal.” Nobody speaks of, say, a “societal welfare function.”
There is no need for another word to say “social,” especially one that carries some baggage from 19th-century utopian communism. In his book The Fatal Conceit (University of Chicago Press, 1988), F.A. Hayek argued that many words related to discourse on society are part of “our poisoned language.” In the latter, he included the word “social,” but I suggest that “societal” (which Hayek may not have encountered) is worse given its scientistic look-and-feel.
READER COMMENTS
Roger McKinney
Sep 7 2021 at 12:57pm
Well said! If socialists cant win they want to make sure we cant communicate it.
Max More
Sep 7 2021 at 1:31pm
I’ve always greatly disliked “societal”. It immediately seemed like a way to make “social” and “collective” more intellectual and important. I think I first came across it when at university in the 80s. As you note, it seems to have declined in usage to some extent but, ironically, is kept on life support by woke corporations along with sociology departments.
“Societal” means much the same as the non-existent “general will”. It’s a dangerous concept. We could do with a term that refers to the collective but in a way that emphasizes that it’s nothing more than the collection of individuals and their individual preferences and choices.
Jose Pablo
Sep 7 2021 at 7:12pm
I still find Hayek’s argument regarding “social” in The Road to Serfdom very compelling (and amusing!):
“The primary conclusion to which a meticulous scrutiny of the word [social] and its meaning has led me, is the discovery that even so exceptionally potent a word as this can be incredibly empty of all meaning”
We will be much better off without the word “social” too. From a utilitarian perspective there should be little doubt it causes much more harm than good. It was the case in 1944 (see the results!) and it is even more the case now.
Jose Pablo
Sep 7 2021 at 7:21pm
The Economist article is very sad.
It is not only that humanity is not leaving behind the idea of coercion and the duty to obey, and the “we” as a ruler”. It is moving in the opposite direction!.
The “benevolent ruler” is more present now than at any other time in history. One can very easily imagine the Disney’s movies of the future, portraying a “good socially aware government” instead of a “good king”.
Same old, same old … there is something definitely hopeless in the very nature of the human being when it comes to his relationship with power.
Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan
Sep 7 2021 at 11:45pm
You may well be correct as to how and why “societal” is most often used. In my own first exposures, I took it to be used to refer more precisely to things as relating to a community as such, rather than more generally as relating to the establishment or use of institutions across persons, and my few uses of “societal” (now decades in the past) were thus.
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 8 2021 at 10:59am
Interesting point, Daniel, thanks. Two other well-known scholars told me the same. However, I could not find any written confirmation of this definition. And note that the “community as such” that you mention could naturally be interpreted as holist and scientistic (although not by you).
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