July 21, 2013
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Today's Confusing World
I am confused by the apparent confusion many (most?) of the Media Pundits seem to have about the present state of the world.
They express surprise and concern about world situations they see as unprecedented and unique, when in fact, these are long-standing or reoccurring events with obvious causality which have been know and described for decades. This confusion apparently stems from the strange belief that, for example, Economics drives Culture Change rather than the reverse.
Karl Marx did the world a great disservice when he proposed this and gave the world a simplistic explanation of why the poor were poor and downtrodden while the rich were rich and influential were running things. He saw the historic changes and development pretty clearly, but ascribed their causes backwards.
Historically, all cultures/societies/nations/civilizations change as they are impacted by changing real-world situations which they must deal with. Morally and realistically, all cultures deal with change within the limits of their Basic Value Set - those fundimental beliefs which guide their decisions on dealing with changing problems. Often and inevitably, the current value interpretations, no longer seem to solve the current cultural problems as the culture moves through time and is impacted by technical, scientific, or other unforeseen influences.
What happens then is that the cultural values are reinterpreted and reapplied through the Social Institutional Framework in such a way that they can more satisfactorily solve the Society's problems. The institutional Framework is most often divided into the five great universal institutions: Family, Education, Religion, Economics, and Government; each of which has part of the responsibility of applying the culture's value interpretations to solve the culture's problems.
No one of these institutions is primary, though is all cultures some are regarded as more important than others. These institutions do not drive society, they are the frameworks through which societies function. When culture/society changes, they change their interpretations. This culture change is always accompanied with social unrest which hashes out the new interpretations through general discussion and argument. Some culture members always demand more and more change while others demand a return to "The Good Old Days" with the older value interpretations. Neither of these extremes get their wish, the reinterpretation is always the result of compromise.
What direction do you think American Society should take: Embrace changes in such areas as Immigration, recognition of all sexual orientations, firearm ownership and use; or resist these new and radical changes in our fundimental lws and beliefs?
Comments (29)
I suppose most folks would honestly prefer to either embrace changes or resist them. I'd prefer to test them, evaluate how well those changes work on a small scale, and then try them on a larger scale if their success on the small scale warrants it.
Rather than comment on your question, I'll question your opening comment. Of course Media Pundits comment as if the current situations are unique, exciting, unprecedented, turning points, etc. Why? They're marketing NEWS and part of NEWS is NEW. They must claim that it is new or it isn't news. But they all really know that they are selling infotainment -- so every story either has to be interesting or important, or better yet, both. So how could it be otherwise? Do you think they'd really choose to bore, turn off, or insult their viewers by saying "Today is basically the same as yesterday. The stupid actions some people took yesterday have worsened ongoing situations in ways that anyone but obtuse idiots would have foreseen. The thoughtful actions that others have taken have mitigated various negative situations so that they are no longer as large of concerns, in fact, they're headed to healthy resolutions, so they're no longer even newsworthy."
Some media pundits do point out that an event or discussion society takes up today is a repeat of a similar event or discussion that was taken up in the past, sometimes for historical reference and at other times to bring up the message, those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it. Yet many don't and many sensationalize just about everything. There are changes we need to embrace, changes that are inevitable. Change takes a long time. When change finally arrives it suddenly seems like it's happening overnight but it's usually been decades, even centuries in the making.
I think the institutions you enumerated, Family, Education, Religion, Economics and Government, reflect a more recently arrived at (and stilll evolving) paradign than that which was in place just a few decades ago. We've seen a dissolution of tradtionally allied institutions that is unique to my knowledge. Family, religion and education were once so strongly interconnected that it was nearly impossible to separate the three. Economics and government are also natural "allies" and remain so. But education is now in the government camp; religion is in a state of free-for-all, and education is largely the cause. Education once served families but now serves economics. When parents and families lost control of education, they lost. Period. If we want people to feel comfortable with immigration, if we want people to be able to retain the freedom to own and use firearms, if we want people who are psychologically and sexually healthy, then parents and families had better get off their tukuses and take education back.
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well, an AntiChrist figure taking over the Presidency of the United States sure creates confusion - confusion being one of the profile points of said figure.
@AOK4WAY - Socrates_cafe is apparently describing the standard Sociological Institutional frameworks developed over the past century or so by sociologists describing culture and culture change. The standard analysis suggests that every culture that has ever existed has a cultural value system based on core or basic values that are interpreted through these frameworks to direct the solutions to cultural problems. e.g. the basic sexual, child-rearing, individual living problems of most cultures are organized through the Family Institutional framework; education of the young - however it is done, through the Education institutional framework, etc. However our children are born, nurtured, raised, and educated is the result of our institutionally directed interpretation of our basic values ( In the US and most western nations these include honesty, individualism, rationality, equality, liberty, among a few others - these basic values do not change, how they are interpreted and applied does).
@tychecat - Sociologists should stop wasting their time and study some real science... psychology for example. I hope the sarcasm was apparent but just in case, that was a (recovering psychology major) joke.Although those institutions exist as constructions in a theoretical sociological framework, I think it's important to remember that they're also real life concrete institutions that not only react to each other, but interact with each other and shape reality through that interaction. The point I was making is that the nature and balance of the relationships between them has changed as each of these institutions has become more firmly dominated by economics, which is to say profit. Whereas I once associated education with family, I now associate it with government and economics, and the nature of education and product of the educational system reflects that.
@AOK4WAY - Your point is well taken and is a pretty good example of what I think Soc was driving at. The Economic institutional framework is, as always, a fundimental part of our culture and like the other four frameworks constantly interacts with all the others. the confusion comes about when you ascribe dominance to any of the five. Marx though Economics dominated world history and was the driving force of civilization. He was working from incomplete historical data and following the lead of his idol. Hegel, saw history and civilization as the result of the dialectic struggle - which in Europe of the nineteenth century was certainly obviously economically changing as most major European basic values were being reinterpreted. Marx lived through a time of serious european culture change with value reinterpretation being ascribed through all five of the social institutions - just economics was the most obvious from his ( and Engles) viewpoint.
@tychecat - It might help if I define my understanding of what it means for one institution (or a combination of them) to subordinate another: For parents, the primary objective of the educational system is to educate children; as far as they're concerned, that should be obvious. That would be the desired relationship between the family institution and the educational institution in terms of a parent's understanding. But the primary objective of the educational system as far as corporations are concerned is to train a suitable workforce in order to ensure continuing profits; as far as they're concerned, that should be obvious. That would be the desired relationship between the economic institution and the educational institution.Now it gets a little tricky because we have to observe the facts on the ground to discern which of those two scenarios is playing out. Once we've done that, we can see which institution has successfully subordinated the other to its wishes, if any. So in the current relationship between the educational institution and the other social institutions, which one determines the direction the others will take, if any?By and large, I think we'll find that money is the primary motivation for pursuing an education in the first place, so that's one thing. The motivation for entering into the educational institution is actually based in the economic institution. Students are going to school so they can get jobs because that's what they're told a good education can do for them, and conversely that if they don't get an education they'll never "get anywhere". In short, we've been taught to pursue a high standard of living in economic terms by getting educated, and due to that, the economimc and educational institutions are inextricable linked in the minds of the people. It gets a little easier to determine subordination here, because all that's left is to ask ourselves what determines who is likely to get that job and who isn't. Obviously, those with the best prospects for employment are those who have the skills that employers need, and so it's natural that employers will determine what is being taught in the classroom.Of course none of this takes into account the complexity involved when we introduce another institution like government into the equation, and it doesn't consider the other ways in which education is subordinated to economics or their manifestations in society, but it does form the basis for an evaluation of what we're seeing in society and a further process of deduction to determine who really rules the roost. Who dictates and who responds... that's what I'm looking at here, and I hope that I've communicated that well. I'm a little out of my league in terms of familiarity with the academic concepts being discussed because my field of study was different, but I don't think my understanding is too badly flawed.Peace
@tychecat - Of course this is all much easier from a Christian perspective: For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (1Ti 6:10)
@AOK4WAY - "By and large, I think we'll find that money is the primary motivation for pursuing an education in the first place..." is a good example of the problem many people seem to have with social theory. Proving the truth of your statement as a general rule would be very difficult - as a matter of fact in most cultures it is not true and it is certainly not true for most scholars even in so capitalist a country as the US - and certainly not true of primary education, which has a far more fundimental goal - civilizing our young (not a particularly easy task, as I well know).The reason I keep referring to Marx is that he is the best known philosophic expounder of this notion and his viewpoint was flawed at its base. World history and economic development does not operate within an economic-dominated sphere. All of the social institutions operate together and all always influence each other. Each has its responsibility to define and apply the basic values and guide that part of the culture it defines. Religion, for example has in most cultures, the responsibility for setting moral standards and guidance and explaining the unknown or metaphysical. In Western history, religion as a social institution lost much of its influence when it "bet on the wrong horse" during the Enlightenment. Its misunderstanding of science led to a serious problem with its influence as a moral arbiter.
@tychecat - Once again, I understand that you're working from within a theoretical construct, but I can't enter into that discussion because I never studied the concepts you're talking about. I'm talking about real life. I don't think it's all that difficult to ascertain that money is the primary motivation for people to pursue an education. I just did a web search using the term "why get an education". Guess how education is most commonly promoted by educators and educational institutions themselves? Better job, better career, higher income. We've all seen the statistics (ad nauseam) that show the disparity between the incomes of educated versus uneducated people, so that comes as no surprise. There are other reasons given as well and I won't deny that, but money is the most commonly propounded reason for getting an education by educators and educational institutions themselves!Ask parents why they want their kids to be well educated. Ask students why they're pursuing a higher education. Surely a minority will express more idealistic motivations, but the majority will tell you that education is important to them because it opens doors to better paying jobs.In the U.S., the educational system over the past few decades has not civilized children, in fact it's done just the opposite, calling into question and devaluing the norms and values held by the majority in the society they live in, including those of their parents and grandparents. That isn't a process of civilizing, it's a process of revolutionizing. It doesn't serve society in its present form and it doesn't help children to work and live within it. Instead it causes a disconnect between recent generations and elder ones and dissolves cohesion between generations (read families) by encouraging youngsters to reject traditional norms in favor of a more "enlightened" (read permissive) society than the one their parents helped to build. That isn't a civilizing influence, it's rebellion, and the natural outcome is the disintegration of society. Why are social norms and values being called into question in educational institutions? Once again, the answer is money and profits. The root of all evil indeed. Traditional conservative norms, if observed and honored in a society, make it much harder to dupe people into buying things they don't need. A person who is thinking rationally will not allow want to govern their purchasing decisions, but will base those decisions on need. Advertising strategies seek to quiet the rational mind so that the impulsive, feeling mind can be manipulated and consumers can be persuaded to buy things they don't need, and advertisers and corporations have learned that violence and sexual imagery both have the desired outcome, that of bringing the feeling irrational mind to the fore and muting the reasoning, rational mind. Society did not approve of violence and sexual imagery at one time, and the educational institution was the tool used to devalue those societal norms and relegate them to a thing of the past so that they could be used to stimulate sales. Society has suffered for it. Violence is rampant, the most valuable institution of all, the family, has disintegrated and Americans overall do not enjoy the good standard of living they once did. All for more profit. Norms which protected society and civilization were destroyed in favor of norms that opened the door wide for advertisers seeking to gain access to the irrational feeling mind, and objections society had to their strategies were overcome via the educational system. Corporate hands in that system changed the system from within and from without via their hand in glove relationship with another institution, namely government.What you call the church is a different entity than what I think of as the church. The hierarchical, political institutions that use religion to buoy their arguments and agendas are not the church in my understanding. I'm a christian but I avoid all of those like the plague. The church is the set of people called out of any society (and all societies) into fellowship with God and each other in Christ. As an educated christian, I've never had any problem squaring science with scripture, in fact I find that as science advances and knowledge increases, especially within the body of the physical sciences, scripture is continually being validated and confirmed. This is true in every field: astronomy, geology, biology, and all the others. For instance, and it's not a very sophisticated example I know, but it serves to help make my point, it was once believed that men carried the seed of a child which was implanted into a woman and grew into a baby. Today, we know that it is the combination of egg and sperm that produces a baby, and furthermore that genetic material from both parents combines to form an entirely new being. The two certainly have become one flesh, just as scripture has said from the beginning, literally - that doctrine derives from the 2nd chapter of Genesis. .I don't really care about Marxism, capitalism, or any other economic (or political) construct. They're all the same thing to me. I have a roof over my head, I have food to eat, and I have everything else I need to live, all by the grace of God. I don't believe it's my right to have these things, but rather that they're all blessings from a loving God, so how wealth is created and distributed is of no import to me. The earth and the fulness thereof are the Lord's, and he will get his stuff to where he wants it without fail. The wealth I seek to possess and manage is in wisdom and understanding and life, not in dollars and cents. The dollar I had yesterday is worth less than a dollar today, but the wisdom I had yesterday is of even greater value today. As things, including the things that pass for "knowledge" change, eternal wisdom becomes more and more valuable. It's like the difference between standing on concrete or standing on sand that constantly shifts under and between your toes with each small wave that comes along. I perceive and undrstand what is happening all around me in concrete terms, and the understanding derived from that approach hasn't steered me wrong yet. The things I learned in college are, 25 years later, obsolete in great measure. The things I learn from God's word on the other hand have increased in value and spared me many a sad experience.Society is in a sad state of affairs, but my life is full of contentment and joy. You can't teach those things in a classroom and you can't bring about that state of affairs through any economic or political system. In my own humble opinion, of course.Peace to you. I've enjoyed our discussion a great deal, thank you very much for speaking with me!
One last thought, Tony:Your comment: "In the U.S., the educational system over the past few decades has not civilized children, in fact it's done just the opposite, calling into question and devaluing the norms and values held by the majority in the society they live in, including those of their parents and grandparents. That isn't a process of civilizing, it's a process of revolutionizing. It doesn't serve society in its present form and it doesn't help children to work and live within it. Instead it causes a disconnect between recent generations and elder ones and dissolves cohesion between generations (read families) by encouraging youngsters to reject traditional norms in favor of a more "enlightened" (read permissive) society than the one their parents helped to build. That isn't a civilizing influence, it's rebellion, and the natural outcome is the disintegration of society."Is a very good example of the confusion which comes with culture change - and as you well know, our culture is changing - and you don't much like the direction it's taking. Such a change takes place because of outside pressures and problems which are not well solved by our existing basic value interpretations - in this case those most obvious to you are changes in our economy - the shift from an agricultural/manufacturing based economy to one based on communication/service/technological development. Our Basic Values of Liberty, equality, hard work, individualism, etc remain in place - we still have them, but we are in the process of changing their definition and how they are applied. This means that our present world view and culture is very different from that of our parents and grandparents. In my case - one of my grandmothers was born in 1856 - think about the changes in the American way of life she saw (She died in 1944 when I was 14). Come to think of it, I've through some pretty wild culture change during my 83 years ! But despite all these changes, our culture is still very strong and viable - we are still the world leader in many areas and most of us live pretty well.
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