3.3 Long-term developmental processes as an unintended consequence of human action
Jiří Šubrt, paper “Long-Term Developmental Processes As an Unintended Consequence of Human Action: Some Theoretical and Methodological Questions of Historical Sociology,” presented at the conference Imaginaries in Intercultural Perspective. The international conference on Johann P. Arnason’s 80th birthday, held at the Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria, March 21, 2021.
A characteristic feature of Elias’s sociological thinking is a figurational approach and a processuality (Arnason 1987). His research interest is attracted by processes of continuous, long-term change. What is especially important is that these are processes which take place unintentionally and are unplanned. These are processes that nobody wanted or intended but which still exist and significantly affect our lives. Another feature of these processes is their persistence, that is, the stability of the direction that some processes have taken for many centuries. However, according to Elias (1977), the fact that a particular process has taken place in a certain direction, does not mean that it must do so in the future. Therefore, we should not talk about the necessity of any development but about possibilities and probabilities. Shifts of different kinds and intensities occur simultaneously, during which, time changes in one direction can create space for changes in the opposite direction (e.g., the prevailing process of integration may be accompanied by a partial disintegration, or on the contrary, the dominant process of disintegration may lead to a new type of reintegration).
In opposition to historical sociology, we may put a different type of sociological thought, which is today often promoted as a kind of
mainstream approach. It is a direction referred to as social constructivism and is linked to the use of qualitative methodology (Berger and Luckmann [1966] 1989). Many members of the sociological community, who today exclusively favour this second conception of sociology, share (often as a kind of concealed assumptions) certain ideas, which should, at this point, be very briefly examined. One such widespread idea is the notion of individuals. It is inherent in human nature to have individual plans, intentions, and goals (as if originally) in our heads, and then plans that, as they come into contact with other individuals, begin to gain ground and are put into practice. Another assumption is that social reality begins to form – as if from nowhere – when two individuals coincidentally come together, start a conversation, from which it seems like something is created that is higher than its sub-elements and which we call the ‘social order.’ The third popular idea—which is compatible with the previous two—is that all, even the most complex social units, can be viewed and explained as if assembled and bound from individual micro-situations (which are usually interpreted as conversations). In the course of their operation, they take place in mutual negotiation, within which the construction of social reality takes place. Accordingly, speaking is considered the main human activity, and conversation is referred to as the main tool for maintaining social reality (Berger and Luckmann [1966] 1989, 152 ff.).
One of the problems of the perspective that we have just described is that it is anchored in the micro-level of social reality, therefore it lacks adequate theoretical and methodological tools to capture and explore topics and phenomena at the macro-social level of reality. We can show what these topics and phenomena are by going through a simple list of concepts that are most often encountered in historical sociology. These include civilisation, culture, religion, city, region, empire, state, world system, politics, production, social stratification, law, army, science, globalisation. These terms express holistic content which, in system-oriented sociology, is expressed by the notion of social systems (see for example Wallerstein’s ‘world capitalist system’ [Wallerstein 1974–89; 2011]). It should be added that sociology is very fond of forgetting that extra-individual social reality also includes various phenomena of a material nature and associated technologies and procedures. These are sources of material and energy important for humanity in forms such as: reproduction, the production of tools, the means of movement, destruction and protection, instruments used to expand human thought capacities, memory and communication, things preserving value and wealth, and
objects of a symbolic and aesthetic nature. There are, however, also the waste products of human activities which can potentially pose a threat to human life. Furthermore, Anthony Giddens (1985: 236–54) points out that sociology mostly creates its theoretical models in a stable state and ignores the reality that the character of contemporary societies is substantially the result of conflicts that societies have undergone in the last century.
In contrast with sociology, which has a tendency to reduce all human action to communicative action, meaning speech acts, we can argue that, from the point of view of historical sociology, we can distinguish at least eight distinct areas of action, which include: 1) biological reproduction, 2) social reproduction, 3) work and exchange, 4) the exercise of power and management, 5) intellectual activity, 6) legal action, 7) efforts to surpass ourselves, 8) games (Šubrt 2019). In practically every area we can identify social processes that take place at the micro, meso, and macro-social levels. However, not all these areas are equally important and significant for individual social sciences. From the point of view of historical sociology which is oriented on macro-social phenomena and long-term developmental dynamics, the three areas that Ernest Gellner denotes with the expressions Plough, Sword and Book (1988) (work, struggle, and production of knowledge), are essential. Undoubtedly, we can agree with Gellner that these three types of activities are the basic structure-forming forces of human history.
Although in contemporary sociological literature the opinion can be found that all macro-social phenomena can be in principle explained as large entities composed of micro-social phenomena, we believe that this idea is problematic, because, with respect to the holistic perspective, social entities cannot be explained by the nature of micro-social units themselves (meaning human individuals, their actions and interactions). Phenomena at the macro-social level arise: a) as a result of actions by human collectives (human groups or masses); b) under the influence of certain individuals whose actions have a broad impact and can affect social reality on a large scale (such as religious leaders, prominent politicians, military leaders, industrial and business magnates, top artists, etc.) and c) as a reaction of a systemic nature to movements and changes at this level (Šubrt 2020, 112–17). In specific cases, these three causes are interrelated.
In pursuit of the question of where the specificity of phenomena on macro-social level lies, we have to focus primarily on case (c), in which these phenomena manifest themselves in response to the systemic nature