Hugo Otto Engelmann (September 11, 1917 – February 2, 2002) was an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
sociologist,
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
and
general systems
''General Systems: Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research'', known as ''General Systems'', is the first annual journal in the field of systems science initiated in 1956, and initially edited by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Anatol Rap ...
theorist. Throughout his work he emphasized the significance of
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
.
Biography
Born September 11, 1917, in
Vienna
en, Viennese
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, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
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, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, Engelmann arrived in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in 1939, just two weeks before
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out in Europe. Having fled first to
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
and later to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
as a result of the
German annexation of Austria
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Greater Germany" ...
in 1938, he worked as a laborer in the fields of France until he was able to sail to America, as recorded in ''Journey Into a New Life''.
Following graduate school at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
he taught at
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
in East Lansing, at the
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscons ...
, and at
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. Towards the end of the 1950s he was among the first members of the
Society for General Systems Research
The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is:
:"to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their ...
. He was the first editor of the ''Wisconsin Sociologist'' 1960-62, then again in 1965-70. In 1963 Engelmann was president of the Wisconsin Sociological Association. He is named in
Austrian Social Scientists in Exile 1933-1945.
In the 1960s Engelmann regularly participated in civil rights marches and was a strong advocate for racial and gender equality at a time when neither could be taken for granted even at universities. In the early 1970s one of his papers - an analysis of bussing and neighborhood schools—was quoted in a successful desegregation suit of
Milwaukee Public Schools initiated by
Lloyd Barbee
Lloyd Augustus Barbee (August 17, 1925 – December 29, 2002) was an American lawyer and politician who worked for civil rights. He led the effort to integrate the Milwaukee Public School system. He was a Democrat.
Early life and education
...
.
From 1969 until he retired ''Professor Emeritus'' in 1989 he taught, wrote, and traveled throughout the US and Europe. Retirement did not change much. He continued his active correspondence with colleagues and former students for 30 years and more. He remained active in sociology until his death on February 2, 2002, in DeKalb, Illinois.
His wife Ruth is author of ''Leaf House: Days of Remembering''. Their son John is a lawyer and was sometimes a co-author of Engelmann's articles.
Work
For most of his life he was first and foremost a sociologist. Ethnicity and religion were distant runners up. He was a strong supporter of intellectual freedom, equal rights, civil liberties, and workers. That spirit is evident in the first ''Wisconsin Sociologist'' journal—today called ''Sociological Imagination''. It insisted it was "a journal of communication, published cooperatively by its contributors, under the auspices of WSA Wisconsin Sociological Association. Communications may cover any subject matter of concern to social scientists in their respective roles as scientific workers, teachers, and professional employees."
About injustice he had this to say, "...when we restrict the behavioral development of others, we are depriving ourselves of interactive opportunities, and limit our own development. Thus, we can say in a very real sense that 'Whatsoever we shall do unto the least of them, we shall have done to ourselves.'"
Population Expansion and the Social System
Through billions of small-scale social interactions society changes in piecemeal ways and often in contradictory directions. Still, the overall thrust of social change can be discerned. In his 1967 paper "Population Expansion and the Social System," Engelmann outlined his basic theory. As the world's population increases people interact with each other more and more frequently due to crowding, migration, and travel. Freedom declines, power exercise at first increases but later abates (see also Engelmann and Cash, 1981),) and violence becomes boundless.
Beyond a certain point totalitarian power structures eclipse authoritarian ones. Sheer amounts of interaction transform vertical power structures into horizontal ones as more and more people exercise power over each other. In "Orwell, Modern Thought, and Totalitarianism" Engelmann drew a stark distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian societies. "Authoritarian police officials aiming at outward compliance suppress activities considered undesirable. Totalitarian leaders look for inner conviction expressed in positive enthusiasm or contrite confession."
Other 1960s papers
In his paper "A Sociohistorical Perspective for East European Developments" he made his point even more forcefully, "While totalitarianism derives from psychological rigidity, authoritarian rule depends on external enforcement of regulations through power exercise."
His anthropological views were laid out in "The Activity Bias of Ethnography and the History of Society" (1960). Researchers are prone to focus on the physical manifestations of people's activity, such as pottery, tools, or weapons, but ignore their experiential patterns. As technology becomes more and more developed researchers all too often conclude that society is increasing in complexity. They ignore the possibility that activity expands at expense to experiential intricacy.
Engelmann's historical perspective was especially evident in "The European Empire: From Charlemagne to the Common Market" (1962). The geographic similarity between Charlemagne's Empire and that of the Common Market almost twelve-hundred years later was attributed to similar phases of migration patterns. Like the outward expansion of Charlemagne's forces, a similar pattern was noticed in the Common Market. Even Charlemagne's capital, Aachen, is a mere 75 miles from NATO headquarters in Brussels. Matthew Omolesky, in his 2009 article about the European Union, "Between Rome and Byzantium," cites Engelmann's observation about the geographic similarity between the Common Market and Charlemagne's Empire too.
A recurring theme in Engelmann's work refers to professional manipulators engaging others in activity for its own sake regardless of its nature or consequences. In his last paper, "Science under Siege", he warned of two sorts of religion edging their way into science. The first is the supernaturalist view, the sort of view held by Creationists. The second is more subtle. It is the naturalist view. Advocates of either notion urge us to believe things that cannot be put to the test. Whether God created the heavens and the earth in six days or whether there are parallel universes have nothing whatsoever to do with science no matter how gladly true believers would have it so. Central to all science is the testable hypothesis. If it is not there, we are not talking about science.
Sociology of knowledge
Great theories generate numerous testable hypotheses. Engelmann's theory was very successful in that regard. His hypotheses were on target whether about aggression, random violence, cultural closure, anti-intellectualism, diminishing freedoms, or scientific viewpoints. In the late 1960s when riots were common place and everyone blamed everyone else, Engelmann sought answers to questions no one else was asking. Statistically speaking, how do groups emerge? In terms of probability how can they persist? The questions involve two mathematical curves. One represents the likelihood that a subgroup of a specific size will emerge; the other is the probability that it will persist. The product of the two curves provided the answer for the
one-third hypothesis The one-third hypothesis (OTH) is a sociodynamic idea—advanced by Hugo O. Engelmann—that asserts that a group's prominence increases as it approaches one-third of the population and diminishes when it exceeds or falls below one-third of the popu ...
in 1967. Those groups most likely to emerge and to persist are the ones that amount to one-third of the total population, whether they be ethnic enclaves in the city, students protesting in the streets, social movements coming to the fore, or local governments on the rise.
Most intriguing was Engelmann's concept central to almost all his hypotheses. Both the intensity and complexity of an average individual's behavior cannot increase simultaneously. As one goes up the other goes down. Twenty-three centuries after Aristotle we find an explanation for his assertion, "If we take intense delight in one thing, we cannot do anything else at all." We also find that behavioral intensity increases with rising interaction frequency even as complexity declines. Therein lies the source of both power exercise and the widespread approval of it in modern times.
Engelmann's sociology of knowledge carefully distinguished between total relativism and intellectually adequate work. In other words, “…ideas limited by one’s own social position will be biased…Engelmann argued that scientific observations (and laws) are societally invariate--true across the entire society.”
In Engelmann's office hung two photos, one of
Martin Luther King Jr., the other of
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
. Each in his own way underscored the fact that society is a network of direct and indirect interactions. Their views on society, which were very similar to those of Engelmann, became many years later the source of an article by one of his former students called "The Preacher and the Physicist".
[Johnson, Warren R. 2001. “The Preacher and the Physicist.” ''UMUC Social Sciences Newsletter,'' Term II 2001-2002, pp. 7-8.]
See also
*
Interaction frequency In sociology, interaction frequency is the total number of social interactions per unit time. Interactions, or what Georg Simmel in his pioneering work called Wechselwirkungen, are the basis for society itself, according to Herbert Blumer.
Overvi ...
*
One-third hypothesis The one-third hypothesis (OTH) is a sociodynamic idea—advanced by Hugo O. Engelmann—that asserts that a group's prominence increases as it approaches one-third of the population and diminishes when it exceeds or falls below one-third of the popu ...
Publications
Engelmann wrote six books and at least fifty articles, a selection:
* 1953. ''Methodological and Philosophical Bases of Social Scientific Theory''. Dissertation University of Wisconsin, Madison.
* 1956. ''The evaluation modality test''. Psychometric Affiliates.
* 1957. ''A systemic dynamic approach to social theory''.
* 1966. ''Theoretical Sociology: Its Bases and Place in Modern Science''.
* 1966. ''Essays in Social Theory and Social Organization''. W. C. Brown Book Co.
* 1969. ''Sociology A Guided Study Text''. Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co.
* 1976. ''Marx as an Upper-class Ideologist.''
* 1980. ''Behavior, Interaction, and Social Organization''.
* 1993. ''Problems of Sociological Inquiry''.
* 2002. ''Journey into a New Life''.Carmel, IN, Simudell Publishers.
References
External links
* Johnson, Warren R. 2001. The Preacher and the Physicist, UMUC Social Sciences Newsletter. Term II 2001-2002, Heidelberg, Germany.
* Nelson, James K. 1998
Milwaukee School Desegregation in the 1960s University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
* Omolesky, Matthew. 2009
Between Rome and Byzantium.''Europe 2020''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engelmann, Hugo
1917 births
2002 deaths
American sociologists
Northern Illinois University faculty
American systems scientists
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty
Writers from Illinois
Writers from Wisconsin
20th-century American anthropologists
Austrian emigrants to the United States