Features of traditional society in the economic sphere. Traditional Society: Sociology and History
Society as a complex entity is very diverse in its specific manifestations. Modern societies differ in language of communication (for example, English-speaking countries, Spanish-speaking countries, etc.), culture (societies of ancient, medieval, Arabic, etc. cultures), geographical location (northern, southern, Asian, etc. countries) , political system (countries with democratic rule, countries with dictatorial regimes, etc.). Societies also differ in the level of stability, degree of social integration, opportunities for personal self-realization, level of education of the population, etc.
Universal classifications of the most typical societies are based on identifying their main parameters. One of the main directions in the typology of society is the choice of political relations, forms of state power as the basis for identifying different types of society. For example, in Plato and Aristotle, societies differ in the type of government: monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy. Modern versions of this approach distinguish between totalitarian (the state determines all the main directions of social life), democratic (the population can influence government structures) and authoritarian societies (combining elements of totalitarianism and democracy).
Marxism bases the typology of society on the differences in society according to the type of production relations in various socio-economic formations, primitive communal society (primitively appropriating mode of production), societies with the Asian mode of production (the presence of a special type of collective ownership of land), slaveholding societies (ownership of people and the use of slave labor), feudal societies (exploitation of peasants attached to the land), communist or socialist societies (equal treatment of all in ownership of the means of production through the elimination of private property relations).
Most stable in modern sociology is a typology based on the identification of egalitarian and stratified societies, traditional, industrial and post-industrial. Traditional society is classified as egalitarian.
1.1 Traditional society
Traditional society is a society that is regulated by tradition. Preservation of traditions is a higher value in it than development. Social order It is characterized by a rigid class hierarchy, the existence of stable social communities (especially in Eastern countries), and a special way of regulating the life of society, based on traditions and customs. This organization society strives to preserve the socio-cultural foundations of life unchanged. Traditional society is an agrarian society.
A traditional society is usually characterized by:
Traditional economics
The predominance of the agricultural structure;
Structure stability;
Estate organization;
Low mobility;
High mortality;
High birth rate;
Low life expectancy.
A traditional person perceives the world and the established order of life as something inextricably integral, sacred and not subject to change. A person’s place in society and his status are determined by tradition (usually by birthright).
In a traditional society, collectivist attitudes predominate, individualism is not encouraged (since freedom of individual action can lead to a violation of the established order, time-tested). In general, traditional societies are characterized by the primacy of collective interests over private ones, including the primacy of the interests of existing hierarchical structures (state, clan, etc.). What is valued is not so much individual capacity as the place in the hierarchy (official, class, clan, etc.) that a person occupies.
In a traditional society, as a rule, relations of redistribution rather than market exchange predominate, and elements of a market economy are strictly regulated. This is because free markets increase social mobility and change social structure societies (in particular, they destroy class); the redistribution system may be regulated by tradition, but market prices are not; forced redistribution prevents “unauthorized” enrichment/impoverishment of both individuals and classes. The pursuit of economic gain in traditional society is often morally condemned and opposed to selfless help.
In a traditional society, most people live their entire lives in a local community (for example, a village), and connections with the larger society are rather weak. At the same time, family ties, on the contrary, are very strong.
The worldview (ideology) of a traditional society is determined by tradition and authority.
Traditional society is extremely stable. As the famous demographer and sociologist Anatoly Vishnevsky writes, “everything in it is interconnected and it is very difficult to remove or change any one element.”
Opinions about the need (and extent) of transformation of traditional society differ significantly. For example, the philosopher A. Dugin considers it necessary to abandon the principles of modern society and return to the golden age of traditionalism. Sociologist and demographer A. Vishnevsky argues that traditional society “has no chance,” although it “fiercely resists.” According to the calculations of Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor A. Nazaretyan, in order to completely abandon development and return society to a static state, the number of humanity must be reduced by several hundred times.
The concept of traditional society covers the great agrarian civilizations of the Ancient East ( Ancient India And Ancient China, Ancient Egypt And medieval states Muslim East), European states of the Middle Ages. In a number of countries in Asia and Africa, traditional society is preserved today, but the clash with modern Western civilization significantly changed its civilizational characteristics.
The basis of human life is labor, during which a person transforms the matter and energy of nature into items for his own consumption. In a traditional society, the basis of life activity is agricultural labor, the fruits of which give a person everything necessary funds to life. However, manual agricultural labor using simple tools provided a person with only the most necessary things, and only under favorable weather conditions. The Three "Black Horsemen" terrified the European Middle Ages - famine, war and plague. Hunger is the most severe: there is no shelter from it. He left deep scars on the cultural brow European peoples. Its echoes can be heard in folklore and epic, in the mournful drawl of folk chants. Majority folk signs- about the weather and crop prospects. The dependence of a person in a traditional society on nature is reflected in the metaphors “nurse-earth”, “mother-earth” (“mother of the cheese earth”), expressing a loving and caring attitude towards nature as a source of life, from which one was not supposed to draw too much.
The farmer perceived nature as a living being that required a moral attitude towards itself. Therefore, a person in a traditional society is not a master, not a conqueror, and not a king of nature. He is a small fraction (microcosm) of the great cosmic whole, the universe. His work activity obeyed the eternal rhythms of nature (seasonal changes in weather, length of daylight hours) - such is the requirement of life itself on the border between the natural and the social. An ancient Chinese parable ridicules a farmer who dared to challenge traditional agriculture based on the rhythms of nature: trying to speed up the growth of cereals, he pulled them by the tops until he pulled them out by the roots.
A person’s attitude towards the subject of labor always presupposes his attitude towards another person. By appropriating this item in the process of labor or consumption, a person is included in the system public relations ownership and distribution. In the feudal society of the European Middle Ages, private ownership of land prevailed - the main wealth of agrarian civilizations. It corresponded to a type of social subordination called personal dependence. The concept of personal dependence characterizes the type of social connection of people belonging to different social classes feudal society, - the steps of the “feudal ladder”. The European feudal lord and the Asian despot were full masters of the bodies and souls of their subjects, and even owned them as property. This was the case in Russia before the abolition of serfdom. Personal addiction breeds non-economic forced labor based on personal power based on direct violence.
Traditional society developed forms of everyday resistance to the exploitation of labor on the basis of non-economic coercion: refusal to work for the master (corvée), evasion of payment in kind (quitrent) or cash tax, escape from one’s master, undermining social basis traditional society - an attitude of personal dependence.
People of the same social class or estate (peasants of the territorial-neighboring community, the German mark, members of the noble assembly, etc.) were bound by relationships of solidarity, trust and collective responsibility. The peasant community and city craft corporations jointly bore feudal duties. Communal peasants survived together in lean years: supporting a neighbor with a “piece” was considered the norm of life. Narodniks, describing “going to the people,” note the following features folk character, such as compassion, collectivism and readiness for self-sacrifice. Traditional society has formed high moral qualities: collectivism, mutual assistance and social responsibility, included in the treasury of civilizational achievements of mankind.
A person in a traditional society did not feel like an individual opposing or competing with others. On the contrary, he perceived himself as an integral part of his village, community, polis. The German sociologist M. Weber noted that the Chinese peasant who settled in the city did not break ties with the rural church community, but in Ancient Greece expulsion from the polis was even equated to the death penalty (hence the word “outcast”). The man of the Ancient East completely subordinated himself to the clan and caste standards of social group life and “dissolved” in them. Respect for traditions has long been considered the main value of ancient Chinese humanism.
Social status a person in a traditional society was determined not by personal merit, but social origin. The rigidity of the class and class barriers of traditional society kept it unchanged throughout his life. People to this day say: “It was written in the family.” The idea that one cannot escape fate, inherent in the traditionalist consciousness, has formed a type of contemplative personality, whose creative efforts are directed not at remaking life, but at spiritual well-being. I. A. Goncharov, with brilliant artistic insight, captured such a psychological type in the image of I. I. Oblomov. "Fate", i.e. social predetermination, is a key metaphor ancient Greek tragedies. Sophocles' tragedy "Oedipus the King" tells of the titanic efforts of the hero to avoid the terrible fate predicted for him, however, despite all his exploits, evil rock celebrates victory.
The daily life of traditional society was remarkably stable. It was regulated not so much by laws as tradition - a set of unwritten rules, patterns of activity, behavior and communication that embody the experience of ancestors. In the traditionalist consciousness, it was believed that the “golden age” was already behind, and the gods and heroes left examples of actions and exploits that should be imitated. People's social habits have remained virtually unchanged for many generations. Organization of everyday life, methods of housekeeping and norms of communication, holiday rituals, ideas about illness and death - in a word, everything that we call everyday life, was brought up in the family and passed down from generation to generation. Many generations of people have experienced the same social structures, ways of doing things, and social habits. Submission to tradition explains the high stability of traditional societies with their stagnant patriarchal cycle of life and extremely slow pace social development.
The sustainability of traditional societies, many of which (especially in Ancient East) remained virtually unchanged over the centuries, and the public authority of the supreme power also contributed. Often she was directly identified with the personality of the king (“The State is me”). The public authority of the earthly ruler was fueled by religious ideas about the divine origin of his power (“The Sovereign is God’s vicegerent on earth”), although history knows few cases when the head of state personally became the head of the church (the Anglican Church). The personification of political and spiritual power in one person (theocracy) ensured the dual subordination of man to both the state and the church, which gave traditional society even greater stability.
The concept of traditional society
In progress historical development primitive society is transformed into a traditional society. The impetus for its emergence and development was the agrarian revolution and the problems that arose in connection with it. social change in society.
Definition 1
A traditional society can be defined as a society with an agrarian structure, based on strict adherence to traditions. The behavior of members of a given society is strictly regulated by customs and norms characteristic of a given society, the most important stable social institutions, such as family and community.
Features of traditional society
Let us consider the features of the development of traditional society by characterizing its main parameters. The peculiarities of the nature of the social structure in a traditional society are determined by the emergence of excess and surplus products, which in turn indicates the emergence of grounds for education new form social structure– states.
Forms of government in traditional states are fundamentally authoritarian in nature - this is the power of one ruler or a narrow circle of elite - dictatorship, monarchy or oligarchy.
In accordance with the form of government there was also certain character participation of society members in the management of its affairs. The very emergence of the institution of state and law determines the need for the emergence of politics and development political sphere life of society. IN this period development of society, there is an increase in the activity of citizens in the process of their participation in political life states.
Another parameter of the development of a traditional society is the dominant character economic relations. In connection with the emergence of a surplus product, private property and commodity exchange inevitably arise. Private property remained dominant throughout the entire period of development of traditional society, only its object changed in different periods of its development - slaves, land, capital.
In contrast to primitive society, in traditional society the employment structure of its members has become significantly more complicated. Several sectors of employment appear - agriculture, crafts, trade, all professions associated with the accumulation and transmission of information. Thus, we can talk about the emergence of a greater variety of areas of employment for members of traditional society.
The nature of settlements also changed. Arose fundamentally new type settlements - a city that became a center of residence for members of society engaged in crafts and trade. It is in cities that political, industrial and intellectual life traditional society.
During the functioning of the traditional era, the formation of a new attitude towards education as a special social institution and nature of development scientific knowledge. The emergence of writing makes it possible to form scientific knowledge. It was at the time of the existence and development of traditional society that discoveries were made in various scientific fields and the foundation was laid in many branches of scientific knowledge.
Note 1
An obvious disadvantage of the development of scientific knowledge in this period of social development was the independent development of science and technology from production. This fact and served as the reason for the rather slow accumulation of scientific knowledge and its subsequent dissemination. The process of increasing scientific knowledge was linear and required a significant amount of time to accumulate a sufficient amount of knowledge. People involved in science most often did it for their own pleasure; their scientific research was not supported by the needs of society.
Traditional society
Traditional society- a society that is regulated by tradition. Preservation of traditions is a higher value in it than development. The social structure in it is characterized by a rigid class hierarchy, the existence of stable social communities (especially in Eastern countries), and a special way of regulating the life of society, based on traditions and customs. This organization of society strives to preserve the socio-cultural foundations of life unchanged. Traditional society is an agrarian society.
general characteristics
A traditional society is usually characterized by:
- the predominance of the agricultural way of life;
- structural stability;
- class organization;
- low mobility;
- high mortality;
- low life expectancy.
A traditional person perceives the world and the established order of life as something inextricably integral, holistic, sacred and not subject to change. A person's place in society and his status are determined by tradition and social origin.
In a traditional society, collectivist attitudes predominate, individualism is not encouraged (since freedom of individual action can lead to a violation of the established order, time-tested). In general, traditional societies are characterized by the predominance of collective interests over private ones, including the primacy of the interests of existing hierarchical structures (states, etc.). What is valued is not so much individual capacity as the place in the hierarchy (official, class, clan, etc.) that a person occupies.
In a traditional society, as a rule, relations of redistribution, rather than market exchange, prevail, but elements market economy are strictly regulated. This is due to the fact that free market relations increase social mobility and change the social structure of society (in particular, they destroy class); the redistribution system may be regulated by tradition, but market prices are not; forced redistribution prevents “unauthorized” enrichment/impoverishment of both individuals and classes. The pursuit of economic gain in traditional society is often morally condemned and opposed to selfless help.
In a traditional society, most people live their entire lives in a local community (for example, a village), and connections with the “big society” are rather weak. Wherein family ties, on the contrary, are very strong.
The worldview (ideology) of a traditional society is determined by tradition and authority.
Transformation of traditional society
Traditional society is extremely stable. As the famous demographer and sociologist Anatoly Vishnevsky writes, “everything in it is interconnected and it is very difficult to remove or change any one element.”
In ancient times, changes in traditional society occurred extremely slowly - over generations, almost imperceptibly for an individual. Periods of accelerated development also occurred in traditional societies ( shining example- changes in the territory of Eurasia in the 1st millennium BC. BC), but even during such periods, change was slow by modern standards, and upon its completion, society again returned to a relatively static state with a predominance of cyclical dynamics.
At the same time, since ancient times there have been societies that cannot be called completely traditional. The departure from traditional society was associated, as a rule, with the development of trade. This category includes Greek city-states, medieval self-governing trading cities, England and Holland of the 16th-17th centuries. Ancient Rome (before the 3rd century AD) with its civil society stands apart.
The rapid and irreversible transformation of traditional society began to occur only in the 18th century as a result of the industrial revolution. By now, this process has captured almost the entire world.
Rapid changes and departure from traditions can be experienced by a traditional person as a collapse of guidelines and values, loss of the meaning of life, etc. Since adaptation to new conditions and a change in the nature of activity are not included in the strategy of a traditional person, the transformation of society often leads to the marginalization of part of the population.
The most painful transformation of traditional society occurs in cases where the dismantled traditions have a religious justification. At the same time, resistance to change can take the form of religious fundamentalism.
During the period of transformation of a traditional society, authoritarianism may increase in it (either in order to preserve traditions, or in order to overcome resistance to change).
The transformation of traditional society ends with the demographic transition. The generation that grew up in small families has a psychology that differs from the psychology of a traditional person.
Opinions about the need (and extent) of transformation of traditional society differ significantly. For example, the philosopher A. Dugin considers it necessary to abandon the principles of modern society and return to the “golden age” of traditionalism. Sociologist and demographer A. Vishnevsky argues that traditional society “has no chance,” although it “fiercely resists.” According to the calculations of Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor A. Nazaretyan, in order to completely abandon development and return society to a static state, the number of humanity must be reduced by several hundred times.
Links
Literature
- Textbook “Sociology of Culture” (chapter “Historical dynamics of culture: cultural features of traditional and modern societies. Modernization”)
- Book by A. G. Vishnevsky “Sickle and Ruble. Conservative modernization in the USSR"
- Nazaretyan A.P. Demographic utopia of “sustainable development” // Social Sciences and modernity. 1996. No. 2. P. 145-152.
see also
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Traditional society
pre-industrial society, primitive society) is a concept that focuses in its content a set of ideas about the pre-industrial stage of human development, characteristic of traditional sociology and cultural studies. Unified theory T.O. does not exist. Ideas about T.O. are based, rather, on its understanding as an asymmetrical modern society sociocultural model than on generalization real facts the lives of peoples not engaged in industrial production. Characteristic of the economy T.O. the dominance of subsistence farming is considered. In this case, commodity relations are either absent altogether or are focused on meeting the needs of a small layer of the social elite. The basic principle of the organization social relations is a rigid hierarchical stratification of society, usually manifested in the division into endogamous castes. At the same time, the main form of organization of social relations for the vast majority of the population is a relatively closed, isolated community. The latter circumstance dictates the dominance of collectivist social ideas, focused on strict adherence to traditional norms of behavior and excluding individual freedom, as well as an understanding of its value. Together with caste division, this feature almost completely eliminates the possibility social mobility. Political power monopolizes within a separate group (caste, clan, family) and exists primarily in authoritarian forms. Characteristic feature THAT. it is considered either the complete absence of writing, or its existence in the form of a privilege of certain groups (officials, priests). At the same time, writing quite often develops in a language other than spoken language the vast majority of the population (Latin in medieval Europe, Arabic - in the Middle East, Chinese writing - in Far East). Therefore, intergenerational transmission of culture is carried out in verbal, folklore form, and the main institution of socialization is the family and community. The consequence of this was extreme variability in the culture of the same ethnic group, manifested in local and dialect differences. Unlike traditional sociology, modern socio-cultural Anthropology does not operate with the concept of T.O. From her perspective, this concept does not reflect real story pre-industrial stage of human development, but characterizes only it final stage. Thus, sociocultural differences between peoples at the stage of development of the “appropriating” economy (hunting and gathering) and those who went through the stage of the “Neolithic revolution” can be no less or even more significant than between “pre-industrial” and “industrial” societies . It is characteristic that in modern theory nation (E. Gelner, B. Anderson, K. Deutsch) to characterize the pre-industrial stage of development, terminology that is more adequate than the concept of “TO” is used - “agrarian”, “agrarian-literate society”, etc. .
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