Society
What can now be changed in order to enhance the evolutionary survival prospects of the ‘better’ societies? In pursuit of current solutions it would be a mistake to found the formulas for change only in derivations of the ancient, early modern and modern intellectual templates for how society should be politically organised with intentions, for example, to maximise liberty in pursuit of republican ideals. A solution implies a future. And any realistic appraisal of future possibilities requires an understanding of certain evolutionary fundamentals of society that have always existed, everywhere, in spite of the diversity of the political world and the frequent and radical changes which are the stuff of political history.
We should look at political regularities that predate the seventeenth century European political philosophies. Ideas played a role, but there were certain dull compulsions that can better explain the constitutional changes of that time. At the very least we should know the reasons why people had begun many centuries earlier to think scientifically about society. That they did so is a sign to us that they had hoped to use science and not ideological desiderata (perhaps motivationally equivalent to individualised freedoms) to reform a malfunctioning society or to preserve a good society. Probably they would have acted with common sense intentions. Combining the tools and resources of psychology, biology, anthropology and archeology the trails of the scientific approach to the maintenance or recreation of society can be tracked back even earlier to obtain insights into societal thoughts and action before recorded history, in the expectation of being able to identify the recurring pattern.
A broad approach is needed to confirm the existence deeply rooted and primitive problems that gave rise to fundamental yes-no binary formulas which were everywhere formulated with different tools, symbols and characteristics but always with the very same set of human motivations, purposes and structural priorities in pursuit of common interests. The corresponding sensory forces, which were rarely manifested cognitively as shared political knowledge, can still be detected in today’s societies even as their strength dwindles and fades, and they are likely to have foregrounded the solutions to problems of governance in the past. It is highly probable that they will remain at the forefront of successful societal governance in the future. In this respect it is perfectly true to say there can be nothing new in the world.
We will soon see why from early human time the forces at work in the backwards and forwards ‘rocking and rolling’ movements of the circle of society have required a particular relation of that circle to its central axis of governance, analogous to the proportionality of the wheel to the axle. However keenly we hope for changes in the governance dynamics of contemporary advanced societies, and regardless of our rational optimism or pessimism about technological possibilities for governance offered by machine intelligence, it finally becomes obvious, as it always eventually did in the past, that the calculable and controllable rocking-rolling motions of the wheels and axes of societal governance involve a finite range of means to ends that while they can be reimagined and renamed to suit the times (or the place) cannot ever be reinvented. True analysis of the present and a realistic prediction of the future presupposes this total history. Of most interest in that history is the continuity and universality of a limitable number of reasons for success or failure over the long term.
But this universal history of society must begin with some simple definitions of society, which serve to identify the conditions of its existence. The first condition is that society has a natural or spontaneous origin. It will have been constructed, crafted and to some extent mechanised over time, but we suppose that society has a natural purpose and meaning for people. We therefore begin as Aristotle did over two millennia ago. He lived in a period and place when there were still naturally simple forms of society existing alongside more mechanically crafted and organised societies. He assumed that governance in human interaction is natural, and the requirement of governance precedes even the individual and the family. Governance is a creative ingenuity that maintains social order in human interaction. Originally, governance could only be expressed through the natural hierarchies of age, sex, intelligence, physical strength, charisma, and connection to the gods. Yet the precondition of sustainable interaction was always governance. Governance long preceded ‘states’. In this sense we should not say, as Aristotle memorably did, that “the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual”. We can, however, agree with Aristotle’s observation that humans, since they are not “either beasts or a gods”, “are intended by nature to be governed”. In his world people were governed in the first instance “by nature”, with a purpose to establish good lives with stable households and communities, and to “acquire the arts” of hunting, agriculture, and war.
We cannot fix on a ‘stage’ when the first society comes into being. However, if societies are defined by governance they could conceivably have been as small and simple as the extended family. In the earliest societies governance evolved through animalistic or cognition-based forms of individual differentiation (age, sex, intelligence, physical strength, or charisma). Societies have been varied and more or less legitimate and compelling units of governance over time. Yet there is a social scientific meaning of society that has remained constant throughout history. A society is a combination of people living as one in bordered physical spaces, bonded by their knowledge of belonging together, and bound by common rules of social action. The society is perceived by people who live within it as being the only real forceful influence on their social actions. …
[to be continued]
by Michael G. Heller
It is a draft from the book I am now writing. The book title is yet to be finalised but possibly it will be called — The π of Society
Social Science Files displays multidisciplinary writings on a great variety of topics relating to evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.
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