Sharing, Nonsharing, and Social Life: Predictability
A key social function of sharing understandings is that they provide a basis for interaction. As noted in chapters 1 and 5 and as Parsons (1964 [1951]:27–28) and others have observed, group members must have at least some ability to predict one anothers' behavior if they are to continue in interaction with one another. However, the group members need not share every understand-
ing about everything to have this predictability. The existence of different understandings as concerns music, food, or sports need not interfere with social relations and usually will not, if the differences are not brought to the fore. The same is true of differences in views about the evaluation of and responsibility for the behavior of young people.
The absence of sharing of understandings can disrupt social life, of course, but the disruption is not automatic. One of the ways disruption can result is from those involved recognizing what they take to be serious differences between them. Such recognition hardly promotes confidence in one's ability to believe one can accept or even predict what they are likely to do. When differences are not displayed, this source of social disruption (but, of course, not all sources) deriving from this is diminished in its effects.
Concealing differences by avoiding the issues involving them is a way of promoting confidence, and denying the existence of these differences by asserting common understandings is another that is at least as effective. It is noteworthy that intergenerational relations came up in a public sort of way because of the interviews. I have not heard Swahili discuss these relations with fellow group members of different generations in public settings. Parents and children do this in private, of course, and the results are rarely to make relations between them easier. Since the interviews made it difficult to conceal differences, another route was taken by most participants in the study: the use of tokens implying a sharing of views when, from the point of view of guides for some kinds of action, they do not exist.
But tokens can accomplish something further. They actively indicate sharing. Predictability is essential to continued interaction, but it is not sufficient by itself. It is easy enough to predict the behavior of a hungry lion, but nevertheless one does not willingly interact with him. The anticipation of acceptable behavior in the areas of mutual involvement is also needed if interaction is to proceed. Tokens can, and in this case do, indicate the existence of the sort of sharing that supports this type of anticipation.
It is worthwhile to note that tokens can do this given either of two interpretations of them by those using them. On the one hand, they can be taken to indicate the actual sharing of the understandings they concern. Tokens, after all, are in many cases also guides. In the area of intergenerational relations, however, it seems likely that many members of both generations are aware that at least some of those who express the understandings in the interviews do not employ them as guides. In this case, the tokens can be taken to indicate a willingness to avoid the expression of behavior that is unacceptable even if understandings that would lead to such behavior are known to be present. In the land of the blind, as the proverb quoted at the beginning of this chapter advises, one does not really become blind. By closing a single eye, one partly feigns blindness, thereby signaling a willingness to make concessions and be agreeable with limited cost.
Despite the importance of tokens,[5] it is not my view that their existence is enough to explain how culture is able to serve as the foundation of social life, despite the absence of universal sharing or, even, complete sharing within statuses. Tokens are vital elements in social life, but so are some kinds of fairly extensive sharing of actual guides among members of the same status. The next chapter concerns some of the issues in this sharing among members of the same status.