83
TOWARDS A NEW DEFINITION OF FOLK
Uli Kutter
Universit~t Gbttingen, Germany
Odi profanum vulgus.
Horace.
It could be said that a discussion of the definition of folk is merely
a quarreling about labels. However, I think the may that this concept is
defined reveals a good part of the methodology used in approaching the sub-
ject.  There are numerous definitions and descriptions of folk, but appar-
ently none of them works as well as would be desired, since what we should
understand by folk is still a problem in our day. This paper is an attempt
to describe a workable definition of folk in psychological terms.
It is useful in the pursuit of the definition of the term folk, to
look first at how folk is used in the daily language. In German, as well as
in other languages, Volk has the meaning of populus as well as vulgus, in the
sense of "the common people" (des gemeinen Volkes). In addition to this it
can also mean, in an historical-political sense, an entire nation. Horace,
with his odi profan  'vulgus, was among the first to stress the vulgarity and
the negative sides of the folk, such as their lack of education and individu-
ality.  Friedrich Schiller, a German poet, through his revolutionary
Wallenstein--a drama concerned with the problem of progress and self-
realization--speaks of the essence of folk as the "eternal past" (das ewig
Gestrige). Here we find a hint of the relation of folk and tradition.
Johann Gottfried Herder and the Romantic Movement saw in the folk the ideali-
zation of the human being. The folk were innocent, genuine, simple, close to
life and nature; not defiled by the state and by corruption. Jean Jacques
Rousseau had a similar opinion:  he wanted to educate the folk (by this he
meant mainly peasants) because he believed that this stratum had to save the
rotten and corrupted "court society."  In the Romantic Movement, the idea of
folk was almost equal to the desired Blaue Blume or at least its manifestation.
At the same time the confusing terms Volksgeist and Volksseele as
creative powers were introduced and the discipline of Volkskunde suffered for
a long time under these concepts. It went so far that Hegel made the
Volksgeist a principle of historical, philosophical, psychological and meta-
physical significance in his philosophy. In an illegal, anti-fascist periodi-
cal in 1934, Bertold Brecht suggested that the term "population" should be
substituted for "folk."
After this short selection of subjective, personal and historically
determined definitions and evaluations of the concept of folk, we have to
face the question of an objective and scientific definition of folk. Hoffmann-
Krayer, with his first lecture at the University of Basel in 1902, started a
long and confusing discussion on the principles of Volkskunde and folklore
with his formula that folk is vulgus in populo. M. Haberlandt and H. Naumann
held a similar opinion, namely that folk is the lower stratum. Naumann in
particular built his whole theory of the "sunken culture-goods" (gesunkenes
Kulturgut) on this concept. R. Weiss, only partially opposed to Naumann's
84
theory, modified it by adding the theory of the "lifted primitive good"
(gehobenes Primitivgut).
One of the first critics of Hoffmann-Krayer and his vulgus in pulo
theory was A. Strack, who maintained that the educated person is as much a
part of the folk as is the uneducated. He stated in the Hessische Blkitter
fur Volkskunde (1902:162):
Wenn in den vornehmsten Hotels, wo das Vulgus h6chstens in Gestalt von
Stiefelputzern verkehrt, die Zirmmernummer fehlt oder die Frau Geheimrat X.
in einer Gesellschaft Nervenzuf~lle bekommt, wiel 13 zu Tische sitzen  . .
oder das Frankfurter Bauamt unter Zustimmung des Magistrats, den Wdnschen
der Hausbesitzer Rechnung tragend, die Hausnummer 13 in verschiedenen
Strassen ausfallen l~sst, so wird sich die Volkskunde mit all diesem
geradeso befassen wie mit den im Vulgus an die UnglUckszahl sich
knupfenden Vorstellungen.
Already Strack understood by folk any group influenced by tradition. However,
it was a long time until this thought became common: that folk is not only
vulgus or the lower stratum of a nation.
In Europe the lower stratum was considered identical with the peasant-
ry, the most conservative part of a nation. Also in Latin America the term
folk was generally applied to rural groups. Two representatives of this
application in relation to Latin America are Robert Redfield and George
Foster. Foster (1953:163) makes it clear that in his opinion, "a folk society
is not a whole society, an isolate, in itself.  It is a 'half-society,' a part
of a larger social unit (usually a nation) which is vertically and horizon-
tally structured." Foster sees the folk as preindustrial and nonurban. Folk
culture, as Foster defines it, will disappear with the progress of industri-
alization.  In addition, Foster denies that folk culture exists in countries
like the United States, Canada, England and Germany.
Does this mean that in these countries the folk lives in something
other than its culture or that there is no folk at all? Foster's definition
might be a nice model, but it is not a very useful model. It does not work
or at least is of no great help in dealing with any of the aspects of real
people, since it is, by Foster's own admission, a theoretical abstraction, de-
scribing an isolated part of the continuum and not a structural one, drawn
from-data about actual societies. Furthermore, if we examine his criteria for
including or excluding given communities, we see that it is the past of the
community which is the crucial point--in other words, his category of folk is
historical and not structural. This is why his type of folk is becoming in-
creasingly rare. If he had formulated this theory a few centuries ago he
would have had ample time and opportunity to use it. Unfortunately his theory
has its own built-in death knell and his folk are dying out. It cannot help
anthropologists or folklorists deal with all the other people of the world.
Another weak point in this description is, in my opinion, that it does not
lead to investigation of the mutual Influences between folk culture and the
surrounding urban society. Right now we have the possibility of observing
formative factors and powers in Latin America, where industrialization seems
to be in progress. A method of study involving both continuity and change
seems to me to be more proper for studying folk culture than the study of a
historical community which has already been formed.
However, it is not my purpose just to write a polemic against Foster's
definition of folk culture. It seems that his paper has not had a very fruit-
ful influence on American anthropology and folklore. The dilemma is especial-
ly difficult for folklore, because this discipline reveals in its name, its
subject. If folk is what Foster says it is, then this discipline is already
condemned to death before it has even really matured.  In addition to this,
there is then no place for folklore in societies such as the United States or
Germany, since they have no folk and no folk culture. We actually do find
very few attempts to investigate phenomena which should be covered by anthro-
pology or folklore, such as Hallowe'en and other holidays, popular culture,
etc.  (There has been work in American folklore in general, but mostly oral
literature.) Each of the disciplines which should be concerned with these
contemporary and largely urban traditions, and I am thinking especially of
anthropology, folklore, sociology and social psychology, manages to exclude
them from its domain by limiting its scope by definitions such as Foster's.
Does this mean that customs such as Hallowe'en are not a part of American
culture or even of folk culture? Many scholars thus carefully avoid dealing
with things like this and prefer to escape to areas and countries where by
one definition or another they can find folk or primitive cultures.
As one can see, we do not gain much be defining folk in a sociologi-
cal way, as all the above-mentioned scholars have done. By splitting a
society into two or more strata, of which one or even none is folk, we narrow
the scope and the object of the discipline. We abolish every kind of urban
folklore, campus folklore, and many other types. The sociological definitions,
which define folk as almost equal to peasant, were very often criticized, but
never really revised or changed. In order to keep the discipline of folklore
as folklore, and not as peasantlore, we have to attempt to redefine the con-
cept of folk.
A few of the young American folklorists, notably Alan Dundes, have
taken a major step toward a useful definition of folk in folklore. He will
study as a folk group "any group of people whatsoever who share at least one
common factor." It does not matter what the common factor is; it could be
occupation, language, or religion, but it is important that the group will
have some traditions. However, to him the main traditional part of folklore
is the nature of the lore and not the folk. My criticism would be that we
have to stress the traditionality of the particular group in the relation to
a larger frame (e.g. nation), and that the lore, not only that which is orally
transmitted, is only one of the possible expressions of a traditional group.
(This still leaves the question "What is tradition?" open so that every schol-
ar should find a reasonable way to confine the time span of tradition in re-
gard to his study; it could be five years, one generation, or even more.)
The real break with the traditional definition of folk in the sociological
way came--as I see it--with Richard Weiss and his book Volkskunde der Schweiz
(1946) and Hermann Bausinger and his book Volkskultur in der technischen Welt
(1961).
Folklore deals with Expressions, and expressions are created by human
beings and their psychic attitudes. Thus, it seems very unsatisfying or even
wrong to define the subject of folklore in a sociological or geographical way.
It should be defined in a psychological way or, at least, it should be de-
scribed in relation to psycho-emotional patterns of a culture or a society.
86
The definition of a lower stratum because of particular psychic attitudes
(such as primitivity, associative thinking, lack of individuality,ahistorical
thinking, etc.) seems to be impossible since every human being has more or
less of these characteristics.
This means that we can no longer draw the borderline through a ration
to separate folk from non-folk; we must draw this line through every single
humn being and split him up into two areas of psychic-mental behavior. One
would be the area common to a group of people or a Gemeinschaft based on any
kind of tradition, or in other words, this would be the "folk" in every sin-
gle person. The other area would be the non-folk, individual part.   So we
have in every man two parts, long ago recognized:  he is an individual as
well as a zo     Politikon
The consequence of this is that folk is no longer a social group, but
a way of behavior. The sociological definition divided the upper class or
populus from the folk or lower class, or vulgus. The psychological defini-
tion divides the single person into an upper stratum of individual attitudes
and the area of individual culture on one hand, and on the other, into a
lower stratum of folk attitudes and the area of folk culture, which he shares
with all or many of his society. The balance between the two areas is differ-
ent in different persons, but we can categorize them into groups according to
this balance as objects for folklore research, such as miners, students, peas-
ants, teenagers, beatniks, Californians, etc.
Let me illustrate this with the following image: folk culture could
be a sea. Everybody stands in it, but at different points and at different
depths. One stands in the water up to his neck and another person only up to
his toes. The person who is up to his neck in this sea of folk culture has a
smaller area of individual culture; he is more determined and influenced by
the folk culture than the person who participates only with his toes in the
folk culture. The latter category could be said to contain the highly edu-
cated elite because they have to try to be objective--historical and free from
traditional values; whereas the folk is ahistorical and influenced by tradi-
tion as a factor for regulating daily life, customs, beliefs, etc. On the
other hand, everyone participates in the folk culture, even if it be only by
using a manifestation of the folk culture such as the language with its pat-
tern of thinking and feeling. 'The main characteristic of the "folk area" of
an individual would be the adhesion to tradition and to several communities
(Geme inschaften).
In every man then is a continuous tension between "folklike"
(volkstUmlich) and individual behavior. This is manifested in the products
and the components of a particular culture (tales, folk art, folk music,
jokes, etc.). That which is primarily a psychological problem when we con-
sider individuals, turns to a problem of folklore in the extended sense when
we consider the community. Also this tension between "folkliket and individ-
ual behavior is exactly the relationship between folk culture and the summed
individual culture (fine arts, fine music, poetry, philosophy, etc.).
The elements of folk culture are the manifested drive of the common
man for a community (Gemeinschaftsbindung) and the manifestations of the
"eternal past," i.e. the adherence to and the determination by tradition and
87
its values. Hoffmanr-Krayer labeled this as Gesamtindividualitgt and Naumann
calls it the primitive Gemeinschaftskultur (naturally both meant it in refer-
ence to their own vulgs in populo theories).   In the Anglo-American scholar-
ship one of these determinating factors--the eternal past--is clearly revealed
by calling those things with which folklore deals, "popular traditions" and
"traditional beliefs, legends and customs." This does not mean that folklor-
ists and cultural anthropologists should be exclusively historically orien-
tated; on the contrary it means that they must investigate the tension between
the traditional and progressive elements in the modern community and its new
man ifestat ions.
In consideration of all this, R. Weiss (1946:11) defined the disci-
pline of Volkskunde (it also could be valid for folklore): "Volkskunde is
the discipline dealing with the folklife. The folk life consists of the
mutual relations between folk and folk culture, as far as the mutual relations
determined by Gemeinschaft and tradition." With the definition, we no longer
have to escape with romantic lamentations to the last peasants somewhere, who
are condemned to die; this definition of folk even enables us to study the
folk in our highly developed cultures, consisting of many overlaid strata,
because in these cultures too, the factor of Gemeinschaft and tradition is an
extant, formative power.
We have to look then at two things: at the folk and at the products
of a modern folk culture. As the single person is faced with many different
cultural products, the folk is faced with the folk culture. The relation and
the correlation between man and product, between folk and folk culture, are
the folk life.
How this definition could be applied and how one should work with it
can be illustrated with the phenomenon of folk belief and folk knowledge.
The folk belief and the folk knowledge form the world view (Weltanschauung)
in a culture. These two phenomena--folk belief and folk knowledge, as parts
of folk culture, correspond to religion and science as parts of culture.
Religion has two parts in every individual: the individual belief in
the upper stratum and the folk belief in the lower stratum. The individual
belief is nothing else than the personal religious experience. The folk
belief is piety and superstition with its categories of animism and magic.
Everybody combines both parts in differing ratios.
The knowledge of the folk is the individual knowledge that comes from
an independent scientific recognition based on tradition-free   thinking, and
common knowledge or popular knowledge with a good deal of error or misunder-
stood scientific results. These misunderstood results can also lead to a
belief in magic, so that we have here a link between belief and knowledge.
Each man can only be a specialist in one area; if he wants to know something
else he has to believe what somebody else, a specialist in the field, found.
However, in order for him to understand it, it has to be popularized and
simplified, and very often it is still misunderstood, mainly because of trans-
mission by mass media such as television, newspaper, radio, magazines, etc.
Therefore folk knowledge is also not up to date; it is several years or dec-
ades behind actual scientific standards.
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In the field of religion and science every man has his two areas of
attitudes and sources, the individual and the folklike. (Here again we have
a tension and this tension is released in the form of cultural expressions.)
By this I mean a peasant, as well as a worker or a professor in fine arts,
does not usually understand in general or in detail the most recent results
and achievements in atomic physics or space technology. He knows something
about it, but this could not be called scientific knowledge or understanding;
it is in fact a simplified knowledge.  In the end one must find out what the
folk--not in the traditional sociological sense--knows about it, or what the
folk knowledge on that topic is., in order to understand folk culture.
The purpose of this paper is to propose that we should define folk in
a psychological manner, since everyone combines two attitudes in his person-
ality: the folklike and the individual. (With the individual parts deal
many disciplines:  Music, Arts, Literature, etc.) The relationship of these
two factors in an individual is usually shown by his place in a group in a
society. By accepting this definition, anthropology, folklore, and Volkskunde
would have a redefined frame of folk culture and its investigation. Also the
scholars in these disciplines could relay their worried attempts to find and
record the traditions of the last vanishing peasant groupsO  We could then
pay our full attention to the factors that form folk culture, folk life and
folk world view, which constantly arise out of the conflict of tradition and
technical progress. By doing this we would be able to gain results that help
us understand culture and human beings of the late twentieth century. As
long as we have the sociological definition, the vulgas in populo, or have
the dying peasant society as the subject of the discipline, we gain only very
limited results, because we are doing mainly historical reconstruction, where-
as we could be a social science with the characteristic of understanding the
present.
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a
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