Functions of the social system. Social system and its environment
| Read the text below with a number of words missing. Choose from the proposed list of words (phrases) that you want to insert in place of the gaps. “The social system is constantly changing: new elements appear, old ones become more complex or disappear. There are two forms of __________ (A): evolution and revolution. Scientists call __________ (B) the gradual process of the emergence of increasingly complex social formations. In the process of __________ (C), the social system is in an unstable state, the balance of social forces is disturbed. An important question is about __________ (D) social changes and the factors that cause them. The idea that changes in the world occur in the direction from lower to higher, from less perfect to more perfect, gave rise to the idea of __________ (D). As a result of this social phenomenon, society is moving to a higher level of material __________ (E) and spiritual development. The words in the list are given in the nominative case. Each word (phrase) can only be used once. Choose sequentially one word after another, mentally filling in each gap. Please note that there are more words in the list than you need to fill in the gaps. | ||
The table below lists the letters that represent the missing words.
The self-development of society and a person has a certain vector, which is associated with the concepts of progress and regression. In the history of philosophy, these concepts were most often evaluated from polar positions. A number of thinkers were convinced of the existence of progress in society and saw its criterion in the growth of science and reason, in the improvement of morals. Others emphasized the subjective aspects of progress, linking it to the growth of the ideals of truth and justice. An opinion was expressed regarding the falsity of the very idea of progress ... Many associated progress mainly with the spiritual factors in the development of society, the growth of faith in every person, the humanization of interpersonal relations, the strengthening of the positions of goodness and beauty in the world. Accordingly, regression rose as a movement in the opposite direction, as a triumph evil and injustice, the disunity of people and their subjugation to some kind of anti-human force.
In ancient times, changes in society were understood as a simple sequence of events or as a degradation compared to the past "golden age". In Christianity, for the first time, an idea appears about the non-historical goal of society and man, about the "new heaven and new earth."
In the Marxist concept, social progress was associated with the steady development of the productive forces of society, the growth of labor productivity, the liberation from the yoke of the elemental forces of social development and the exploitation of man by man. The ultimate goal and criterion of progress was the evolution of man as a harmoniously developed personality. Regression was interpreted by Marxism as the movement of society in the opposite direction, the cause of which is reactionary social and political forces. In the 20th century. with the emergence of global problems of mankind and the growth of instability in the world as a whole, the criteria for social progress begin to change. The concept of the progress of society and history is increasingly associated with the development of the bodily and spiritual characteristics of man himself. Thus, such criteria as the level of maternal and child mortality, indicators of physical and mental health, a sense of satisfaction with life, etc. are proposed as integral characteristics of the progressive development of society and a person. No type of progress (in the economic, socio-political and other spheres of society) can be considered as leading if it does not affect the life of every person on the planet. On the other hand, the share of responsibility of each person for everything that happens in society, for the movement of history in the desired direction, is sharply increasing.
(V. Kokhanovsky)
Was there a unity of views of thinkers on the criteria of social progress in the history of philosophy? Explain your answer based on the text. What two factors, according to the author, have influenced the change in the criteria for progress in the modern world?
The author connects progress with various spheres of society. Do you think there is progress in the spiritual and moral sphere? Formulate your point of view and give three arguments in support of it.
Below is a list of terms. All of them, with the exception of two, characterize the concept of "agrarian society".
1) Traditionalism; 2) collectivism; 3) factory; 4) religion; 5) big family; 6) services sector.
Find two terms that “drop out” of the general series, and write down the numbers under which they are indicated in the table.
it is a holistic system, multifaceted education. (B) Politics plays the most significant role in the development of society. (C) The thinkers who gave priority to the economic sphere of public life were mistaken. (D) In the recently published philosophical dictionary, several articles are devoted to the concept of "society". (E) Among the authors of the entries in the dictionary are not only philosophers, but also sociologists and economists.
Determine which positions of the text have
“The social system is constantly changing: new elements appear, old ones become more complex or disappear. There are two forms of _______(A) - evolution and revolution. Scientists call _________(B) the gradual process of the emergence of increasingly complex social formations. In the process of _________ (B), the social system is in an unstable state, the balance of social forces is disturbed.
An important question is about _________ (D) social changes and the factors that cause them. The idea that changes in the world occur in the direction from lower to higher, from less perfect to more perfect gave rise to the idea of _________ (D).
As a result of this social phenomenon, society is moving to a higher level of material ________ (E) and spiritual development
orientation
social change
needs
evolution
information
7 progress
8 social revolution
9 welfare
GOOD PEOPLE, HELP PZHL IF IT'S NOT DIFFICULT, 65PKTThe social structure of society is not fixed; vibrations and movements constantly occur in it, i.e. it is characterized by social mobility. Social mobility is a change by a social group or individual of their social position. The term "social mobility" was introduced into sociology by P. A. Sorokin, who considered social mobility as movement along the social ladder in two directions: vertical - movement up and down, horizontal - movement at the same social level. During periods of social change, there is mass group mobility. In stable periods, social mobility increases at the time of economic restructuring. In this case, education is an important "social lift" that provides upward mobility. Social mobility is a fairly reliable indicator of the level of openness or closeness of a society. In modern society, social mobility gives rise to the phenomenon of social marginality. Marginality is a concept that characterizes borderline, intermediate, cultural phenomena, social subjects and statuses ... Marginalization implies a break, loss of objective belonging to a certain social community without subsequent entry into another community or without full adaptation in it. A marginal is a person who is related to two different groups, without completely belonging to either of them ... The subjective idea of a marginal about himself and his objective position are contradictory: he is placed in a situation of struggle for survival. Therefore, a marginal personality has a number of characteristic features: anxiety, aggressiveness, unjustified ambition. The social behavior of the marginal creates difficulties both for the person himself and for the people who communicate with him. For a long time in sociology marginality was assessed negatively. Recently, sociologists have changed their attitude towards it, seeing a positive side in this social phenomenon. (Minaev V.V., Arkhipova NI., C1. Based on the text, indicate the feature that determines the essence of social mobility. What (according to P.A. Sorokin) are the main directions of social mobility? C2. Under what two social conditions, according to the authors , education is an important "social lift"? Explain any of these conditions. C3. Whom do the authors call marginal? Define and give three examples of marginality based on the knowledge of the social science course and the facts of public life. C4. Recently, as the authors note, sociologists have seen a positive side in marginality. Specify three manifestations
Instruction
A dynamic system is a system that is constantly in a state of motion. It develops, changing its own features and characteristics. One such system is society. A change in the state of society can be caused by influence from outside. But sometimes it is based on the internal need of the system itself. The dynamic system has a complex structure. It consists of many sublevels and elements. On a global scale, human society includes many other societies in the form of states. States constitute social groups. The unit of a social group is a person.
Society constantly interacts with other systems. For example, with nature. It uses its resources, potential, etc. Throughout the history of mankind, the natural environment and natural disasters have not only helped people. Sometimes they hindered the development of society. And even became the cause of his death. The nature of interaction with other systems is formed due to the human factor. It is usually understood as the totality of such phenomena as the will, interest and conscious activity of individuals or social groups.
Characteristic features of society as a dynamic system:
- dynamism (change of the whole society or its elements);
- a complex of interacting elements (subsystems, social institutions, etc.);
- self-sufficiency (the system itself creates the conditions for existence);
- (the relationship of all components of the system);
- self-management (the ability to react to events outside the system).
Society as a dynamic system consists of elements. They can be material (buildings, technical systems, institutions, etc.). And intangible or ideal (actually ideas, values, traditions, customs, etc.). Thus, the economic subsystem consists of banks, transport, goods, services, laws, etc. A special backbone element is . He has the ability to choose, has free will. As a result of the activity of a person or a group of people, large-scale changes can occur in society or its individual groups. This makes the social system more mobile.
The pace and quality of changes taking place in society can be different. Sometimes the established orders exist for several hundred years, and then changes occur quite quickly. Their scope and quality may vary. Society is constantly in development. It is an ordered integrity in which all elements are in a certain relationship. This property is sometimes called the non-additivity of the system. Another feature of society as a dynamic system is self-governance.
Man belongs to the animal kingdom and is subject to biological laws; moreover, as a bodily-material formation, like any kind of matter, it is subject to material and energy influences. But a person has thinking, speech and a complex structure of mental and emotional activity, which we call consciousness. People are able to realize the fact of their existence, put forward and realize life goals that correspond to the system of their value systems. There are biological instincts in human behavior, but they are controlled by the laws of the human community. The behavior of animals is rigidly programmed by a system of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes, which does not give them the opportunity to go beyond their biological nature. No matter how complex the behavior of an animal may seem to us, it remains an instinctive-biological behavior.
Let us turn to confirm the example of the life of a man who has great authority in philosophical anthropology. We mean Immanuel Kant. From birth, he was so weak and sickly that his viability caused great doubt among those around him. Kant, on the other hand, was able to organize his life in such a way, so rigorously follow the principles he himself formulated, that he not only lived for eighty years, but also set an example of the most devoted service to science.
On the other hand, natural inclinations contribute to the intellectual development of people, largely determine their propensity for creative forms of activity. Thus, in understanding man, it is important to avoid two extremes: "biologization" and "socialization" of human nature.
And yet it cannot be argued that a person has two independent entities. The essence of man is one, and it is formed by a combination of supernatural properties, thanks to which we overcome our biological certainty. Free will, which manifests itself in the ability to choose one's destiny, the path of one's life, is the main and basic of these human properties. The meaning of a person's life is precisely to overcome or try to overcome all resistances and circumstances on his own, by the effort of his will, realizing his life program. In this case, a person becomes really free, because he is able to dominate external circumstances and conditions.
(V. Kuznetsov, K. Momdzhyan and others)
The analysis of social systems carried out above was primarily of a structural-component nature. For all its importance, it allows you to understand what the system consists of, and to a much lesser extent - what is its target setting and what the system should do to achieve this goal. Therefore, the structural-component analysis of a social system must be supplemented by a functional analysis, and the latter, in turn, is preceded by consideration of the interaction of the system with its environment, because only from this interaction can the functions of interest to us be understood.
Society belongs to the so-called "open systems". This means that for all its relative isolation and autonomy in relation to the external, the social system experiences the active influence of the natural and social environment, exerting its active influence on it at the same time, either in the order of feedback, or in the order of own initiative. After all, society belongs to the category of special, adaptive-adapting systems, i.e., unlike biological systems, it is able not only to adapt to the environment, but also to adapt it according to its needs and interests.
And since society is an open and, moreover, adaptive system, its functions can only be adequately understood in the context of its interaction with the environment. In the course of all further analysis, the natural environment will be understood as that part of the universe that is in contact with society and is largely drawn into the orbit of its activity. Inside it, the so-called. “humanized nature”, or noosphere (from the Greek “noos” - mind), as it was named with the light hand of V. I. Vernadsky, and then Teilhard de Chardin. “The biosphere,” Vernadsky wrote, “transferred, or rather, is moving into a new evolutionary state—into the noosphere, is being reworked by the scientific thought of social humanity”1. The social environment for a given social system, a given specific society, is all other social systems and non-systemic social factors with which it is in various types of interaction.
It is very important to take into account that the types of external influences themselves can be very different, differing from each other not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively. It seems appropriate to classify these species.
- 1. The impact on the social system of other, organically unrelated systems, as well as disparate non-systemic phenomena. Here we meet with the maximum approximation to the absolutely external, which does not exclude (and perhaps that is why it presupposes) sometimes extraordinary and even catastrophic results of interaction.
- 2. Interaction of the "external environment - social system" type, which is, as a rule, a more stable and orderly type of interaction compared to the first one. This stems from the circumstances that both the natural environment and the social environment change relatively slowly under normal conditions, thereby creating the prerequisites for a stable, long-term, lasting adaptation of the social system to its external environments. Another characteristic feature of this type of interaction is the adaptive impact of the social system on its natural and even social environment. What prevails (adaptation to the environment or its adaptation to one's healthy and unhealthy needs) depends on the characteristics of a particular stage of interaction. For example, the dialectics of the interaction of society with its natural environment has developed in such a way that the adaptive function, which has been developing almost exponentially over the course of many centuries, taking nature “into hands”, has led at the present stage to a breakdown in the adaptive abilities of society.
The interaction of social systems included as elements in a more complex integrity. For each of the systems participating in this interaction, all the others in their totality act as its intrasystem environment. The essence of this type of interaction, its fundamental difference from the first two are well formulated by W. Ashby: “Each part has, as it were, the right of veto for the state of equilibrium of the entire system. No state (of the whole system) can be a state of equilibrium if it is unacceptable for each of the constituent parts acting in the conditions created by other parts.
The above typology makes it possible to better understand the origin and direction of the functions carried out by the social system. After all, each of these functions arises and is formed in connection with the need for the social system to respond appropriately to repetitive (usually in a certain algorithm) signals and irritations of the natural and social, including the internal, environment. At the same time, most of the most important functions owe their existence primarily to influences from the external environment, it is under the decisive influence of these influences that the correlation of the relations of each element of the social system with its intrasystem environment takes place. Of course, there are cases of intra-system mismatch, but they still remain in the background.
