reference: THE MEANING OF SOCIETY[分享]

angeikimUID：4857

THE MEANING OF SOCIETY

Rough notes from Dr. Alston's Economics 1740, Economic History of the U.S., Weber State University

The following statement is taken from Alston's book, The Individual vs. the Public Interest (1982, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 37-38 (Chapter 3, "The Rise of Individualism" is available on Alston's Web Site and the entire chapter is required reading in the class).

"Society must be understood as a combination of functional, cognitive, and cultural systems. Functional systems include market, political, institutional, and familial processes and deal with the production and consumption of goods, the provision of services, the waging of war, and the administration of justice and education. Cognitive systems organize values to guide choice among alternatives. A unique combination of functional, cognitive, and cultural systems defines and distinguishes a society."

"The society changes as any element within it changes and the process of change is constant. Values are preached and rejected, technology is altered, roles are achieved. Change creates stress, but adaptation and adjustment make possible continuity (and perhaps a temporary stability). Thus, a society may experience significant change in its functional system through a political or technological revolution, yet still maintain its essential quality. The force that holds it together, that gives society meaning, in spite of change, is ideology."

"An ideology is a way of looking at the world that is shared by members of a group; it connects individual precepts to those generally held in the society and provides the group a base for consensus."

"Ideological change on a large scale is revolution. There is a significant difference between the evolutionary change that constantly marks society, and revolutionary change that literally transforms the society into something new, something not previously experienced by the individuals within it. Such revolutionary change comes about when the cognitive, cultural, and functional systems have accumulated so much change, together or independently, that they are no longer commensurate with the ideology that served to interpret them. When the problems confronted no longer seem capable of solution within the existing systems of information organization -- then comes revolutionary change."

"Such revolutionary change took place between the medieval period and the modern [in Western societies, at least]. And through that change we came to see the world differently. The change is usually described as the rise of individualism; it was also a move from a traditional to a market system. In any terms, however, the alteration of Western society was fundamental and pervasive."

TO SEE WHAT ALSTON THINKS HAPPENED SINCE THE FIRST TRANSFORMATION, SEE PP. 187-190 IN HIS BOOK "The Individual vs. the Public Interest"

Alston uses a diagram that embodies the foregoing concepts. He offers the student a "heuristic model" of SOCIETY in the form of a triangle - with social imperatives (cultural) on one side, the institutional (functional) aspects on another side, and the cognitive umbrella on the third side.

SOCIETY: Functional, Cultural, and Cognitive SYSTEMS

Cognition (the top of the triangle) is interpreted to be the understandings that help people recognize the difference between what "is" versus what "ought" to be. In German it is expressed by the term "Weltanschauung."

The left side of the triangle lists the social imperatives: group, values, status, role, authority, ideology. The latter is the most important and is understood by Alston as an "imposed gift" from society - a pair of glasses through which one views and understands the world and reality. Alston probably gave his famous "Baby - "What's that?" lecture at this point. (If he didn't, ask him to do so - it is an important component of his Weltanschauung.)

On the bottom of the triangle Alston lists the functional imperatives of society:

Norms: rules governing activity and behavior; moral statements and sets of expectations and obligations.

Norms cluster to make "roles"

A role "set" defines the individual

Groups match similar persons and interests

Groups interact through institutions and institutional complexes.

Institutions are organized, as needed and appropriate, at the community, local, state, nation, world (U.N.) levels.

For purposes of understanding, Alston introduces the concept of an historical transformation (historical revolution; massive development) by comparing traditional and modern, mature, industrial society. His lectures parallel the first few chapters in the Heilbroner and Milberg text. (Heilbroner has been a great influence on Alston's thinking about this topic, as too was Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation.

Groups: In the "traditional" society we find no sense of individualism; economic relationships are subordinated to family, religion, and political considerations. In the "industrial" society we find a sharp sense of individualism; the typical person asks "what's in it for me?" Numero uno - the "I, me, mine" generation, etc.

Values: In the "traditional" society we find people guided by custom sanctioned by long-run fatalism - a feeling that one cannot change the situation. In "industrial" society there is a tendency to stress individual market prowess; material differences; emphasis on real time (present) "want" gratification.

Status and Role: In the "traditional society" individuals are prisoners of social role expectations; the society has a close-knit character; there is lack of mobility and lack of alternatives. In "industrial society" we find, to a certain extent, more flexibility, although mobility is likely horizontal, not vertical except for a few (used as Horatio Alger examples).

Authority: In traditional society we find authority centered in the hands of land owners and "priests" - ecclesiastical leaders and the military class. In "industrial society" we find authority centered in the hands of monopoly capitalists; interest groups, the military-industrial complex; Alston says that politicians (often listed as centers of authority), for the most part, become "captured" and irrelevant.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------