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Society as the joint life of people. “I and we – the interaction of people in society

The concept of society. We constantly encounter the word “society” in everyday life. In the media, in the speeches of scientists and publicists, Belarusian, Chinese, and American society is often mentioned. In history lessons they talk about ancient, medieval, bourgeois, modern societies, etc.

The word "society" has many meanings. It is derived from the word “common”, which means “joint”, “equal or obligatory for all”, “united, whole”. Society in this sense is understood as a certain group of people who have united to communicate and jointly perform some activity. Here the word “society” can be replaced with the words “organization”, “union”, “association” (society of book lovers, society for the protection of historical and cultural monuments, society for the protection of animals, joint stock companies etc.

Bearing in mind a specific stage in the historical development of mankind, they talk about primitive society, the society of the Enlightenment, and modern society. Close to this is the use of the concept of “society” to characterize the qualitative uniqueness of a particular organization of social life (“traditional society”, “consumer society”, “information society”).

In the broadest sense, society is a part of the material world that is separated from nature and interacts with it. Understood this way society represents a historically developing set of relationships between people that develop in the process of their joint activities. When discussing society, it is very important to clarify in what exact meaning this concept is used.

In the process of developing scientific knowledge about society, several main approaches have emerged that are used to study and explain it. First approach - naturalistic. It is associated with the development of natural science in the 17th – 18th centuries. Based on natural scientific views, many thinkers of the past argued that society and its structure are a kind of continuation of nature. The type of social structure was considered the result of the influence of the geographic environment and other natural factors on people's lives. In the XVIII century. This point of view was defended by the French thinker C. Montesquieu (1689-1755). IN Modern times Such views were held, for example, by the Russian historian L.N. Gumilyov (1912-1992). This approach is also manifested in the understanding of society as a special living organism.

Cultural-historical approach to the study of society is widely used in late XIX– early 20th century Its formation is associated with the development of such sciences as history, cultural studies, and anthropology. Within the framework of this approach, differences between natural and social processes are identified. The life of society here is seen as an area of ​​influence of moral, aesthetic and other spiritual values ​​that form the basis of culture. The creator of the theory of cultural and historical types of social life was the Russian scientist N.Ya. Danilevsky (1822-1855).



Special significance has a question about the integrity of society. Some thinkers believed that society was the simple sum of the people living in it. Society is formed in this case as a result of the addition of the abilities, behavior, and actions of many individual atoms. This approach arose in the philosophy of modern times. This was the opinion, for example, of the 17th century English philosophers T. Hobbes and J. Locke.

Other scholars viewed society as a whole and argued that it could not be reduced simply to the sum of individuals. This view of society is more fruitful because people are never really isolated “atoms.” But this approach gave rise to another difficult question: what is this unity of people, what is the integrity of society based on?

Many thinkers (the 19th-century German philosopher G. Hegel and others), answering this question, sought the basis for the integrity and unity of society in its spiritual life. This approach to understanding society can be called idealistic. History here is often seen as a process of movement towards the achievement of some higher spiritual goal.

There is also materialistic approach in understanding the foundations of social life. For example, the German thinkers of the 19th century K. Marx and F. Engels believed that the basis of the life of society is the activity of people, ensuring the satisfaction of their material needs. This activity is material production. Without denying the existence of ideological or spiritual motives in public life, the materialistic approach is based on the fact that the real material life of people determines their consciousness.



Materialistic and idealistic approaches to understanding the basis of social life are not just opposite, but in many ways complement each other, since in our life there really are both material and spiritual sides, motivating reasons for activity, and they are closely interconnected.

Basic forms of relationship between man and society. Society is formed by people who are connected with each other. They enter into certain relationships with each other and perform different types activities necessary for the life of society as a whole. Production activity is aimed, first of all, at creating objects necessary for life, at changing the natural environment and giving it qualities useful to people. It is also called economic activity. By engaging in production, a person contributes to the economic well-being of other people. At the same time, the well-being of each individual largely depends on the overall efficiency of the economy. To ensure this, a division of labor develops in society, many different production processes are carried out, which are serviced by banking, transport and other systems.

Important role Science also plays a role here, without which technical and generally economic progress is impossible these days. Modern economic activity is based on knowledge obtained primarily through scientific means. Research produces spiritual value - knowledge, but without it in our days it is no longer possible to effectively produce material goods. We are essentially entering the stage of a “knowledge society,” when people’s education and their ability to create new things that are useful to people become the main economic resource.

Science is a spiritual activity. Other types of spiritual activities are art, religion, morality. The results of these types of activities are not things, but knowledge, artistic images, moral ideals, ideas about the sacred, about the highest principles of life. Every person is not only a material, but also a spiritual being. He is inextricably included in the spiritual life of the society of which he is a member.

A person in the process of life is part of various communities of people. He is a member of a family, production team or creative association; he belongs to a certain age stratum, to a group of people with a certain education, to a national community. He may also belong to one or another religious community. An area of ​​social life related to the relationships between small and large groups people are called the social sphere.

The life of society needs management, which is carried out by government agencies. People's actions are subject to legal norms established by the state. Every person is a citizen of his own state and is included in the political and legal life of the country. This is another sphere of social life - political and legal.

All named here spheres of social life – economic, spiritual, social, political and legal– are significant for every person. All people participate in their functioning in one way or another. Of course, a person cannot simultaneously be a professional in many types of specialized activities. But in order to be a full-fledged member of society, it is necessary, in addition to mastering a certain specialty, to also know general organization life together people, its norms and rules, laws.

Socialization of personality. WITH socialization call the process of a person’s assimilation of a body of knowledge, norms of behavior, habits that allow him to live in society or, as they say, to be a full-fledged member of society.

Social connection permeates the entire life of every person, starting from his birth. A newborn is a helpless creature, and the parents care for it with love and care. This is also their social duty - after all, society continues to exist thanks to the fact that parents are replaced by their children. This means that children need to be raised and trained, to instill in them the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for independent life in accordance with the rules, demands and cultural traditions of society. Family and school are the very first, initial forms of connection between a person and society. They correspond to childhood and apprenticeship as the initial stages of human life. Of course, ties with family are not severed in the future, and studies are usually not limited to school. A person must acquire a profession and qualifications so that he can be involved in the social process of production and become a full participant in public life.

When talking about other people as individuals, we usually “try on” the expressed assessments or demands for ourselves. Understanding himself, assessing his personal qualities, a person outlines actions to develop his positive qualities or strengths, eliminating shortcomings. He looks up to someone, but doesn’t want to be like someone at all. Other people are like a mirror in which we try to examine our own traits. It is very important, however, how we treat other people and ourselves. English writer of the 19th century. W. Thackeray said: “The world is a mirror, and it returns to each person the reflection of his own face. Frown your brows and it will return your unkind look; laugh with it and it will be your joyful and kind companion.”

In the process of socialization, a person learns to perform various roles– in the family, at school, in communication with strangers, etc. A person respects himself depending on how other people who are authoritative for him treat him. That respect has to be earned. correct behavior, responsible performance of one's duties, maturity of positive personal qualities. Each person is not indifferent to what he personally is, i.e. what kind of person he is. Thinking and acting, accumulating life experience, a person changes as a person. Being an individual means being aware of what is happening and being responsible for what is done.

Theoretical material for preparing for the OGE in social studies

Man and society.

Society as a form of human life.

In a broad sense, society is a part of the material world isolated from nature, but closely connected with it, which consists of individuals with will and consciousness, and includes ways of interaction between people and forms of their unification, all of humanity.

In the narrow sense, society:

1. a circle of people united by a common goal, interests, origin (for example, a society of numismatists, a noble assembly);

2. a separate specific society, country, state, region (for example, modern Russian society, French society);

3. historical stage in the development of humanity (for example, feudal society, capitalist society).

Public relations- these are diverse forms of interaction between people, as well as connections that arise between different social groups (or within them).

Spheres (areas) of society– interacting parts of society, its main components.

Social norms - rules of behavior that were developed in accordance with the needs of society.

Functions of society:

· production of vital goods;

· systematization of production;

· human reproduction and socialization;

· distribution of labor results;

· ensuring the legality of the state’s management activities;

· structuring political system;

· formation of ideology;

· historical transmission of culture and spiritual values.

Main spheres of society:

· Economic sphere is largely decisive in relation to other areas. It includes industrial and agricultural production, human relations in the production process, exchange of products production activities, their distribution.

· Social sphere includes strata and classes, class relations, nations and national relations, family, family relations, educational institutions, medical care, leisure.

· Political sphere life of society includes state power, political parties, relationships between people associated with the use of power to realize the interests of certain social groups.

· Spiritual realm covers science, morality, religion, art, scientific institutions, religious organizations, cultural institutions, relevant activities of people.

All four spheres interact with each other. The basis for delimiting spheres of public life are basic needs person. Need- this is the state of a person, created by the need he experiences in objects and actions necessary for his existence and development and serving as a source of his activity, organizing cognitive processes, imagination and behavior.


Need groups:

· biological: needs for food, sleep, air, warmth, etc.;

· social, which are generated by society and are necessary for a person to interact with other people;

· spiritual: needs for knowledge of the surrounding world and the person himself.

Society is a dynamic system.

This means that:

1. This system, while changing, retains its essence and qualitative certainty

2. Society as a dynamic system changes its forms and develops

3. The connection between all spheres of society’s life follows from the integrity of society as a system

4. Super complex system

5. Multi-level (each individual is included in various subsystems)

6. Highly organized, self-governing system (the control subsystem is especially important)

Types of societies:

Traditional society is a concept denoting a set of societies, social structures, standing at different stages of development and not having a mature industrial complex. The defining production sphere of such societies is agriculture. The main public institutions are the church and the army.

Industrial society is a society characterized by a developed and complex system of division of labor with high degree its specializations, mass production of goods, automation of production and management, widespread introduction of innovations into production and people's lives. The defining production sphere of an industrial society is industry.

Post-industrial society- this is a society in whose economy, as a result of the scientific and technological revolution and a significant increase in household incomes, there has been a transition from the primary production of goods to the production of services. Information and knowledge become productive resources. Scientific developments are the main driving force of the economy.

From the very moment of his birth, a person is an integral part of interconnected and interacting social relations. He finds himself drawn into chains and series of interactions. The problem of his experience is no longer the recording of individual interactions, but contact with systems of interaction.

Even more complex interactions characterize the life of society, because society is a process and a product of interaction between people both with nature and with each other. Spiritual world people are organized through semantic (psychological, logical, moral-aesthetic and other) interactions.

Likewise, any society interacts with each other through the use of interaction, without which nothing would exist, while allowing the development of characteristics of the forms of human event, human activity and cognition. Exactly complex shapes interactions characterize the life of society. According to K. Marx’s definition, society is “the product of human interaction”

Interaction also contains a cognitive paradox. On the one hand, it manifests itself due to the “fitness” of the cognizing person into the situation, on the other hand, it indicates factors, forces and reasons that go beyond the scope of the cognitive situation, independent of the subject, causing the discrepancy between interactions and its detection by a person.

The given nature of interaction confronts a person with the need to take into account their objective properties, which do not depend on his cognitive attitude and its impact on the logic of things. This paradox of interaction is due to the fact that a person does not exist in individual acts of events with people and things, but in sequences, rows, and interweavings of such acts.

For homo sapiens, who arose historically, his consciousness, the world around us already represented the interaction of the fundamental principles - material and spiritual - as realities that exist outside and independently of the consciousness that perceives them and appeared to it at the same time. Such an idea can evolve historically, but in principle it retains its internal stability and comprehensive character, the tendency towards endless clarification, development and improvement, approaching the most correct understanding of the world and man himself, from the point of view of the “philosophy of interaction”, but never exhausting it .

The desire to see and find interaction everywhere, always and in everything corresponds to the objective nature of objects, things and phenomena - material and spiritual - and at the same time gives a person the most universal and correct orientation for comprehending the surrounding reality and himself, as well as for his behavior in society and in communication with other people.

The desire for interaction awakens, stimulates, develops and consolidates the best, generally useful, enduring human qualities, such as insight, tolerance, endurance, empathy, self-control, trust, compliance, mercy, kindness, etc.

In the socio-political sphere, an attitude towards interaction presupposes an understanding of the opposing position, other interests and needs, the known correctness of the other side, the ability to come to broader and more complex views, to an awareness of the priority of deeper, common interests that bring together and unite various positions.

As a result of interaction, the true victory is the victory of each side over itself, its limitations, narrowness and selfishness. Victory then becomes a mutual victory, and therefore internally strong and beneficial for both sides and, more broadly, for everyone who is in one way or another connected with the process of interaction between the opposing parties. in this case each other's sides or forces.

During interaction, the fundamental independence and certainty of each of the interacting parties is preserved. At the same time, each of them makes some concessions, which are ultimately mutually acceptable and mutually beneficial. However, true interaction is impossible with complete capitulation or complete intransigence of one of the parties. This applies to both the material and spiritual spheres of life, and to politics and culture.

Vision, hearing, touch, smell are the interactions between objects of perception and certain authorities feelings. Any movement in space is also the interaction of various physical bodies and humans with earth, water, etc. Being in any environment, physical bodies and a person interacts with it and with each other, even while at rest. Any relationship of a person to any object and actions with it constitute interaction with this object. Any human activity(material and spiritual) is the interaction between the performer’s plan and its real embodiment, during which their mutual coordination occurs. Interaction occurs in objects of living and inanimate nature on different levels their structure and various processes occurring in them. In a word, the phenomenon of interaction embraces the entire world around a person (material and spiritual) and the person himself.

Interaction as a real phenomenon and as a representation has actually always existed, if we take the emergence of homo sapiens as the starting point, but only in modern conditions there are the greatest historical and logical reasons to make interaction a truly leading and defining postulate of a special “philosophy of interaction”, truly comprehensive and fundamentally new, in comparison with all previous ones philosophical directions and concepts.

The true good and happiness of a person lies in his interaction, as complete, organic and fruitful as possible, with the surrounding world, material and spiritual, and with other people, and interaction with everything “unlike” and similar to himself, allowing a person to demonstrate his own capabilities and learn everything he needs and what is useful to him, received from the outside, constitutes the goal and meaning of human life.

Each interaction implies the individual's desire to achieve specific goals. The goals of the philosophy of interaction are understood as a state or result that does not yet exist, but which is intended to be achieved in the process of interaction with other objects.

The degree to which goals are achieved during interaction is called its effectiveness. The greater the degree of goals achieved, the greater the effectiveness. However, the goals may be different and unequal. In the legal literature, they are divided according to the degree of their importance into higher and lower level goals.

The characterization of interaction as a mutual change in the sides of the system, in which the movement acquires a “circular” character, also applies to any specific system of interacting phenomena. This particular system also acts as a "cause of itself", i.e. contains within itself the source of its own movement. The reason understood in this way coincides with the internal contradiction of this particular system.

Interaction is always concrete in the sense that it is always a relationship between the parties. A holistic system is defined, for example the solar system, the plant and animal kingdoms, human society, and certain socio-economic formations. The content of the interaction is determined by the nature of its constituent moments, the mutual change of which acts as a specific movement of the given system. Examples of such dialectical interaction can be any specific system, such as living organisms. Living organisms refract influences external environment through the specific organization of its body and the relationships of individuals of a given species. A striking example It is human society in its development based on specific social patterns that can serve as a self-preserving, self-reproducing and self-propelling system of interacting phenomena.

Separately, I would like to dwell on the current that appeared in the mid-20th century - namely, the “Philosophy of Interaction” (“bialism”). “Philosophy of interaction” proceeds from the fact that all real phenomena in the world, that is, existing outside and independently of their perception, at all levels and in any expression, represent the interaction of their inherent material and spiritual principles. The world is “binary”, not “monistic”. Both principles are primordial and sovereign. There is and cannot be any “primacy”, ontologically - genetic and structural-functional of one of them. One principle does not exist outside and without the other. It can dominate the phenomenon. Both principles constantly and inexhaustibly complement and mutually enrich each other. At the same time, they are able to partially transform into each other, strengthening one of the principles. At the same time, never anywhere, in anything or at any level will one of the principles completely transform into another.

Interaction is a process, the internal unity of which is realized in the continuous change of its elements and sides. The reproduction of a phenomenon based on the interaction of its own elements acts as its development (self-development). In a self-developing system, the reason for its existence ultimately turns out to be its own consequence. The chain of causes and actions is closed here not only in a “ring”, but also in a “spiral”. An example of this form of interaction is the system of interaction of economic phenomena, scientifically reproduced in Marx’s “Capital”.

Human theory and practice have a similar relationship of interaction. Theory is not only a consequence of practice. Emerging from practice and receiving in it an active stimulus for its development, theory has a reverse impact on practice.

However, a more careful analysis reveals that the “pure” interaction of the two is an idealization that leaves behind the “hidden” intermediaries: norms, stereotypes, orientations that go “beyond the boundaries” of direct contact. In the field of analysis of natural objects and systems, it is also necessary to take into account when characterizing the interaction various kinds temporary, ensemble, population dependencies that are not fixed within the framework of direct interactions. A person, therefore, finds himself drawn into chains and series of interactions. The problem of his experience is no longer the recording of individual interactions, but contact with systems of interaction.

Actually, this distinguishes the modern “non-classical” situation of cognition from the classical one, formed “around” a separate interaction of things, presupposing a separate subject with a separate act of recording the interaction. But the more noticeable this difference, the clearer it is that the definition of a cognitive situation by the scheme of an individual interaction was a kind of idealization, focused on the familiar and stable forms of human experience. The simplicity of the experience of human interactions turned out to be predetermined, conditioned, requiring explanations complementing ordinary experience.

Interaction contains a cognitive paradox. On the one hand, it manifests itself due to the “fitness” of the cognizing person into the situation, on the other hand, it points to factors, forces and reasons that go beyond the scope of the cognitive situation, independent of the subject, that determine the discrepancy between the interaction and its detection by the person.

It can be noted that such paradoxical interaction is due to the fact that a person does not exist in individual acts of events with people and things, but in sequences, rows, and interweavings of such acts. He constantly has to move from individual interactions to their connections and chains, and consequently, change his cognitive positions, means and tools. In fact, he needs to do this in order to see mediated interactions behind direct interactions, in order to master or create means that include him in systems of relationships broader than those that are directly given to him.

In the social field, an example of interaction would be direct communication between human individuals. Interaction is often identified with direct interaction.

Direct interactions reveal individual properties of objects, but cannot always characterize their features, the certainty of their inherent forms of movement. The concretization of ideas about types of movement, about special sets of interconnected objects, about their qualities is achieved by man through the creation of measuring instruments, concepts about measures, knowledge about categories of phenomena and ways of comparing them. This experience is consolidated in knowledge, which is usually called scientific.

The key question is the relationship between a person’s given situation of his existence and the need for a person to go beyond this givenness, to take this need into account in the characteristics of his existence. Interactions are the starting points of various kinds of cognitive situations insofar as they reveal shifts and changes in the states and movements of objects, in positions, actions and perceptions of a person. Interaction, “discovering” the properties of the objects included in it, at the same time indirectly determines the situation of cognition, fixes cognitive abilities the subject, his “placement” in the situation, his participation in the interaction, and therefore his own properties.

interaction society person philosophy

Founder Auguste Comte considered it about society, the space in which people’s lives take place. Without it, life is impossible, which explains the importance of studying this topic.

What does the concept “society” mean? How does it differ from the concepts “country” and “state”, which are used in everyday speech, often as identical?

Country is a geographical concept that denotes a part of the world, a territory that has certain boundaries.

- a political organization of society with a certain type of government (monarchy, republic, councils, etc.), bodies and structure of government (authoritarian or democratic).

- the social organization of the country, ensuring the joint life of people. This is a part of the material world isolated from nature, representing historically developing form connections and relationships of people in the process of their life.

Many scientists have tried to study society, to determine its nature and essence. The ancient Greek philosopher and scientist understood society as a collection of individuals who united to satisfy their social instincts. Epicurus believed that the main thing in society is social justice as the result of an agreement between people not to harm each other and not to suffer harm.

In Western European social science of the 17th-18th centuries. ideologists of the new rising strata of society ( T. Hobbes, J.-J. Rousseau), who opposed religious dogma, was put forward the idea of ​​a social contract, i.e. agreements between people, each of which has sovereign rights to control its own actions. This idea was opposed to the theological approach to organizing society according to the will of God.

Attempts have been made to define society based on the identification of some primary cell of society. So, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the family is the most ancient of all societies. She is the likeness of a father, the people are like children, and all those born equal and free, if they alienate their freedom, do so only for their own benefit.

Hegel tried to consider society as complex system relations, highlighting as the subject of consideration the so-called, i.e., a society where there is a dependence of everyone on everyone.

Great value for scientific understanding societies had the works of one of the founders of scientific sociology O. Konta who believed that the structure of society is determined by the forms of human thinking ( theological, metaphysical and positive). He viewed society itself as a system of elements, which are the family, classes and the state, and the basis is formed by the division of labor between people and their relationships with each other. We find a definition of society close to this in Western European sociology of the 20th century. Yes, y Max Weber, society is a product of the interaction of people as a result of their social actions in the interests of everyone.

T. Parsons defined society as a system of relations between people, the connecting principle of which is norms and values. From the point of view K. Marx, society is a historically developing set of relationships between people, emerging in the process of their joint activities.

Recognizing the approach to society as the relations of individuals, K. Marx, having analyzed the connections and relationships between them, introduced the concepts of “social relations”, “relations of production”, “socio-economic formations” and a number of others. Relations of production, forming social relations, create society, located at one or another specific stage of historical development. Consequently, according to Marx, production relations are the root cause of all human relations and create large social system called society.

According to the ideas of K. Marx, society is the interaction of people. The form of social structure does not depend on their (people's) will. Each form of social structure is generated by a certain stage of development of production forces.

People cannot freely dispose of productive forces, because these forces are the product of people’s previous activities, their energy. But this energy itself is limited by the conditions in which people are placed by the productive forces that have already been conquered, by the form of social structure that existed before them and which is the product of the activity of the previous generation.

American sociologist E. Shils identified the following characteristics of society:

  • it is not an organic part of any larger system;
  • marriages are concluded between representatives of a given community;
  • it is replenished by the children of those people who are members of this community;
  • it has its own territory;
  • it has a self-name and its own history;
  • it has its own control system;
  • it exists longer than the average life expectancy of an individual;
  • it is united by a common system of values, norms, laws, and rules.

It is obvious that in all the above definitions, to one degree or another, an approach to society is expressed as an integral system of elements that are in a state of close interconnection. This approach to society is called systemic. The main task of the systems approach in the study of society is to combine various knowledge about society into a coherent system, which could become a unified theory of society.

Played a major role in systemic research of society A. Malinovsky. He believed that society can be viewed as a social system, the elements of which are related to the basic needs of people for food, shelter, protection, and sexual satisfaction. People come together to satisfy their needs. In this process, secondary needs arise for communication, cooperation, and control over conflicts, which contributes to the development of language, norms, and rules of the organization, and this in turn requires coordination, management and integrative institutions.

Life of society

The life of society is carried out in four main areas: economic, social, political and spiritual.

Economic sphere there is a unity of production, specialization and cooperation, consumption, exchange and distribution. It ensures the production of goods necessary to satisfy the material needs of individuals.

Social sphere represent people (clan, tribe, nationality, nation, etc.), various classes (slaves, slave owners, peasants, proletariat, bourgeoisie) and other social groups that have different financial status and attitudes to existing social orders.

Political sphere covers power structures(, political parties, political movements) that control people.

Spiritual (cultural) sphere includes philosophical, religious, artistic, legal, political and other views of people, as well as their moods, emotions, ideas about the world around them, traditions, customs, etc.

All of these spheres of society and their elements continuously interact, change, vary, but in the main remain unchanged (invariant). For example, the eras of slavery and our time differ sharply from each other, but at the same time all spheres of society retain the functions assigned to them.

In sociology, there are different approaches to finding foundations choosing priorities in people’s social life(the problem of determinism).

Aristotle also emphasized important government structure for the development of society. Identifying the political and social spheres, he viewed man as a “political animal.” Under certain conditions, the policy may become decisive factor, completely controlling all other spheres of society.

Supporters technological determinism The determining factor of social life is seen in material production, where the nature of labor, technique, and technology determine not only the quantity and quality of material products produced, but also the level of consumption and even the cultural needs of people.

Supporters cultural determinism They believe that the backbone of society consists of generally accepted values ​​and norms, the observance of which will ensure the stability and uniqueness of the society itself. The difference in cultures predetermines the difference in the actions of people, in the organization of material production, in the choice of forms of political organization (in particular, this can be associated with the well-known expression: “Every people has the government that it deserves”).

K. Marx based his concept on the determining role of the economic system, believing that it is the method of production of material life that determines the social, political and spiritual processes in society.

In modern Russian sociological literature there are opposing approaches to solving problems of primacy in the interaction of social spheres of society. Some authors tend to deny this very idea, believing that society can function normally if each of the social spheres consistently fulfills its functional purpose. They proceed from the fact that the hypertrophied “swelling” of one of the social spheres can have a detrimental effect on the fate of the entire society, as well as underestimating the role of each of these spheres. For example, underestimating the role of material production (the economic sphere) leads to a decrease in the level of consumption and an increase in crisis phenomena in society. The erosion of norms and values ​​that govern the behavior of individuals (the social sphere) leads to social entropy, disorder and conflict. Acceptance of the idea of ​​the primacy of politics over economics and others social spheres(especially in a totalitarian society) can lead to the collapse of the entire social system. In a healthy social organism, the vital activity of all its spheres is in unity and interconnection.

If unity weakens, the efficiency of society will decrease, up to a change in its essence or even collapse. As an example, let's take the events recent years XX century, which led to the defeat of socialist social relations and the collapse of the USSR.

Society lives and develops according to objective laws unity (of society) with ; provision social development; energy concentration; promising activity; unity and struggle of opposites; transition quantitative changes in quality; negations - negations; compliance of production relations with the level of development of productive forces; dialectical unity of the economic basis and social superstructure; increasing the role of the individual, etc. Violation of the laws of social development is fraught with major cataclysms and large losses.

Whatever goals the subject of social life sets for himself, being in the system of social relations, he must obey them. In the history of society, hundreds of wars are known that brought huge losses to it, regardless of the goals of the rulers who unleashed them. Suffice it to recall Napoleon, Hitler, the former US presidents who started the war in Vietnam and Iraq.

Society is an integral social organism and system

Society was likened to a social organism, all parts of which are interdependent, and their functioning is aimed at ensuring its life. All parts of society perform the functions assigned to them to ensure its life: procreation; security normal conditions for the life of its members; creating production, distribution and consumption capabilities; successful activities all its spheres.

Distinctive features of society

Important distinctive feature society advocates him autonomy, which is based on its versatility, ability to create necessary conditions to meet the diverse needs of individuals. Only in society can a person engage in narrowly professional activities and achieve them high efficiency based on the existing division of labor.

Society has self-sufficiency, which allows him to perform main task- provide people with conditions, opportunities, forms of organization of life that facilitate the achievement of personal goals, self-realization as comprehensively developed individuals.

Society has a great integrating force. It provides its members with the opportunity to use habitual patterns of behavior, follow established principles, and subordinates them to generally accepted norms and rules. It isolates those who do not follow them in various ways and means, ranging from the Criminal Code, administrative law to public censure. Essential characteristic of society is the level achieved self-regulation, self-government, which arise and are formed within himself with the help of social institutions, which, in turn, are at a historically certain level of maturity.

Society as an integral organism has the quality systematic, and all its elements, being closely interconnected, form a social system that makes the attraction and cohesion between the elements of a given material structure stronger.

Part And whole as components unified system connected inseparable bonds between each other and support each other. At the same time, both elements have relative independence in relation to each other. The stronger the whole is in comparison with its parts, the stronger the pressure of unification. And on the contrary, the stronger the parts are in relation to the system, the weaker it is and the stronger the tendency to separate the whole into its component parts. Therefore, to form a stable system, it is necessary to select appropriate elements and their unity. Moreover, the greater the discrepancy, the stronger the adhesion bonds should be.

The formation of a system is possible both on the natural basis of attraction, and on the suppression and subordination of one part of the system to another, that is, on violence. In this regard, various organic systems are built on different principles. Some systems are based on the dominance of natural connections. Others rely on the dominance of force, others seek to take refuge under the protection of strong structures or exist at their expense, others unite on the basis of unity in the fight against external enemies in the name of the highest freedom of the whole, etc. There are also systems based on cooperation, where force is not plays a significant role. At the same time, there are certain limits beyond which both attraction and repulsion can lead to the death of a given system. And this is natural, since excessive attraction and cohesion pose a threat to the preservation of the diversity of system qualities and thereby weaken the system’s ability to self-develop. On the contrary, strong repulsion undermines the integrity of the system. Moreover, the greater the independence of the parts within the system, the higher their freedom of action in accordance with the potentials inherent in them, the less they have the desire to go beyond its framework and vice versa. That is why the system should be formed only by those elements that are more or less homogeneous with each other, and where the tendency of the whole, although dominant, does not contradict the interests of the parts.

The law of every social system is hierarchy of its elements and ensuring optimal self-realization through the most rational construction of its structure in given conditions, as well as maximum use of conditions environment to transform it in accordance with its qualities.

One of the important laws of the organic system — law to ensure its integrity, or, in other words, vitality of all elements of the system. Therefore, ensuring the existence of all elements of the system is a condition for the vitality of the system as a whole.

Fundamental Law any material system , ensuring its optimal self-realization, is the law of the priority of the whole over it components . Therefore, the greater the danger to the existence of the whole, the greater the number of victims on the part of its parts.

Like any organic system in difficult conditions society sacrifices a part in the name of the whole, the main and fundamental. In society as an integral social organism, the common interest is in the foreground under all conditions. However, social development can be carried out the more successfully the more the general interest and the interests of individuals are in harmonious correspondence with each other. Harmonious correspondence between general and individual interests can be achieved only at a relatively high level social development. Until such a stage is reached, either public or personal interest prevails. The more difficult the conditions and the greater the inadequacy of the social and natural components, the more strongly the general interest manifests itself, being realized at the expense and to the detriment of the interests of individuals.

At the same time, the more favorable conditions, which arose either on the basis of the natural environment, or created in the process of the production activities of people themselves, then, other things being equal, the general interest is to a lesser extent realized at the expense of the private.

Like any system, society contains certain strategies for survival, existence and development. The survival strategy comes to the fore in conditions of extreme lack of material resources, when the system is forced to sacrifice its intensive development in the name of extensive, or more precisely, in the name of universal survival. For survival purposes social system withdraws material resources produced most active part society in favor of those who cannot provide themselves with everything necessary for life.

Such a transition to extensive development and redistribution of material resources, if necessary, occurs not only on a global, but also on a local scale, that is, within small social groups if they find themselves in an extreme situation when funds are extremely insufficient. In such conditions, both the interests of individuals and the interests of society as a whole suffer, since it is deprived of the opportunity to develop intensively.

Otherwise, the social system develops after leaving extreme situation, but located in conditions inadequacy of social and natural components. In that case survival strategy is replaced by existence strategies. The strategy of existence is implemented in conditions when a certain minimum of funds arises to provide for everyone and, in addition, there is a certain surplus of them in excess of what is necessary for life. In order to develop the system as a whole, surplus produced funds are withdrawn and they concentrate on decisive areas of social development in in the hands of the most powerful and enterprising. However, other individuals are limited in consumption and are usually content with the minimum. Thus, in unfavorable conditions of existence the general interest makes its way at the expense of the interests of individuals, a clear example what is the formation and development of Russian society.