UNIT 2.
SOCIETY AND INDIVIDUAL
SOCIAL ORDER OF THE STATE AND THE LIBERTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL
Ever since man first created societies there has been a dilemma
between the social order of the state and the liberty of the individual.
In nature man is completely free, acting without fear of legal or moral
consequence in acquiring whatever he desires. In societies such
behavior would lead to chaos as individuals warred against one
another, with the consequence of the stronger benefiting at the
expense of the weaker regardless of concepts of fairness or justice.
Laws are enacted and enforced by the state to ensure that no
individual’s desires impose upon the liberties of another. The nature of
man is to desire absolute liberty but societies must impose order to
keep such desires from robbing other individuals of their right to
liberty. Thus, a social contract is engaged in where a certain measure
of liberty is sacrificed for a certain measure of protection of other
liberties. Just for this reason, it is impossible for man to have absolute
liberty in society where social order rules.
The Ancient Greeks experimented with various forms of social order.
Aristotle’s view of liberty was a concept that encompassed (included,
covered) both the ability to rule and the willingness to be ruled.
According to Aristotle, liberty means equality for all individuals, i.e.
each should have access to the opportunity to rule. Liberty was
considered living as one so chooses, but within this harmony with the
social order.
Society has been viewed in different ways according to the view taken
of the relationship between society and the individual. A major conflict
in society and in literature is that between the individual and the
group, between the individual and his or her society. The mentioned
theme indicates the tension between the rights and needs of the
individual for full expression against the desire on the part of the
community for order and discipline. Society and the individual are
often at odds in fiction, and different writers will see that it is right
either for the individual to accede (agree, assent) to the norms of
society or for the individual to rebel against these norms as an
imposition (obligation, nuisance). Life throws the individual into the
moral dilemma of adherence (devotion, obedience) to duty or election
of free will to avoid it. We see that a majority of the individuals in
combat elect to follow duty as opposed to free will.
American people struggle to synthesize autonomy of the individual with fitting
into society. Despite individualism being a fundamental ideal of American
society, the "diffuse and anonymous authority of democracy" may not always
favor the autonomy of the individual” (Reismann). Deviant (different, divergent)
behavior refers to behavior that does not conform to norms, does not meet with
the expectations of a group or of society as a whole. Every institution that is of
benefit to society also poses risks to society including the risk that innocent
victims will die.
Greater public order lowers crime but limits individual rights. Laws
concentrating on individual rights tend to create public disorder and
high fear of crime. Oliver Wendell Holmes’ formulation of liberty is that
"each individual should have the maximum liberty consistent with the
equal liberty of all other individuals".
Those who support the primacy of individual rights over the maintenance of
order argue that the protection of society comes mainly through recognition of
the rights of the individual.
Georg Simmel believed that individuals were shaped by their position
and role in society. Each of the elementary selves that compose
society reflect the unity and structure of the processes that individuals
undertake, meaning that the structure of a complete individual is a
crystal clear reflection of the structure of a complete society.
The normative value which has shaped American society dating back to the
colonial era is individualism coupled with the requirement that Americans must
make something of themselves through work and through their contributions to
society.
MAN AND SOCIETY
The problem of man cannot be solved scientifically without a clear
statement of the relationship between man and society, as seen in the
primary collectivity—the family, the play or instruction group, the
production team and other types of formal or informal collectivity. In
the family the individual abandons some of his specific features to
become a member of the whole. The life of the family is related to the
division of labor according to sex and age, the carrying on of
husbandry, mutual assistance in everyday life, the upbringing of the
children and also various moral, legal and psychological relationships.
The family is a crucial instrument for the development of personality.
It is here that the child first becomes involved in social life, absorbs its
values and standards of behavior, its ways of thought, language and
certain value orientations. It is this primary group that bears the major
responsibility to society. Through the group the child, as he grows
older, enters society. It is essential that a person should feel himself
part of a group at his own wish, and that the group should voluntarily
accept him, take in his personality. A group generates public opinion,
it sharpens and polishes the mind and shapes the character and will.
Through the group a person rises to the level of a personality, a
conscious subject of historical creativity. The group is the first shaper
of the personality, and the group itself is shaped by society.
The individual is a link in the chain of the generations. His affairs are regulated
not only by himself, but also by the social standards, by the collective reason or
mind. The true token (symbol, mark) of individuality is the degree to which a
certain individual in certain specific historical conditions has absorbed the
essence of the society in which he lives.
Consider, for instance, the following historical fact. Who or what would
Napoleon Bonaparte have been if there had been no French
Revolution? It is difficult or perhaps even impossible to answer this
question. But one thing is obvious — he would never have become a
great general and certainly not an emperor. He himself was well aware
of his debt and in his declining years said: "My son cannot replace me.
I could not replace myself. I am the creature of circumstances." It has
long been acknowledged that great epochs give birth to great men.
What tribunes of the people were lifted by the tide of events of the French
Revolution-Mirabeau, Marat, Robespierre, Danton.
It is sometimes said that society carries the individual as a river
carries a boat. This is a pleasant simile, but not exact. An individual
does not float with the river - he is the turbulently flowing river itself.
The events of social life do not come about by themselves; they are
made. The great and small paths of the laws of history are blazed
(burned, flashed) by human effort and often at the expense of human
blood. The laws of history are not charted in advance by superhuman
forces - they are made by people, who then submit to their authority
as something that is above the individual.
The key to the mysteries of human nature is to be found in society.
Society is the human being in his social relations, and every human
being is an individual embodiment of social relations, a product not
only of the existing social system but of all world history. He absorbs
what has been accumulated by the centuries and passed on through
traditions. Modern man carries within himself all the ages of history
and all his own individual ages as well. His personality is a
concentration of various strata (sections, branches) of culture. He is
influenced not only by modern mass media, but also by the writings of
all times and every nation. He is the living memory of history, the
focus of all the wealth of knowledge, abilities, skills, and wisdom that
have been amassed (accumulated) through the ages.
Man is a kind of super-dense living atom in the system of social reality. He is a
concentration of the actively creative principle in this system. Through myriads
of visible and invisible impulses the fruit of people's creative thought in the past
continues to nourish him and, through him, contemporary culture.
Sometimes the relation between man and society is interpreted in such a way
that the latter seems to be something that goes on around a person, something
in which he is immersed (absorbed, occupied). But this is a fundamentally
wrong approach. Society does, of course, exist outside the individual as a kind
of social environment in the form of a historically shaped system of relations
with rich material and spiritual culture that is independent of his will and
consciousness. The individual floats in this environment all his life. But society
also exists in the individual himself and could not exist at all, apart from the real
activity of its members. History in itself does nothing. Society possesses no
wealth whatever. It fights no battles. It grows no grain. It produces no tools for
making things or weapons for destroying them. It is not society as such but man
who does all this, who possesses it, who creates everything and fights for
everything. Society is not some impersonal being that uses the individual as a
means of achieving its aims. All world history is nothing but the daily activity of
individuals pursuing (following) their aims. Here we are talking not about the
actions of individuals who are isolated and concerned only with themselves, but
about the actions of the masses, the deeds of historical personalities and
peoples. An individual developing within the framework of a social system has
both certain dependence on the whole system of social standards and
autonomy that is an absolutely necessary precondition (requirement) for the life
and development of the system. The measure of this personal autonomy is
historically conditioned and depends on the character of the social system itself.
Exceptional rigidity (firmness, strictness) in a social system makes it impossible
or extremely difficult for individual innovations in the form of creative activity in
various spheres of life to take place, and this inevitably leads to stagnation.
Let’s return once again to the simile of the river! The history of
humankind is like a great river bearing its waters into the ocean of the
past. What is past in life does not become something that has never
been. No matter how far we go from the past, it still lives to some
extent in us and with us. From the very beginning, the character of the
man-society relationship changed substantially (considerably,
significantly) in accordance with the flow of historical time.
The relationship between the individual and a primitive horde (crowd)
was one thing. Brute (basic, instinctive) force was supreme and
instincts were only slightly controlled, although even then there were
glimpses of moral standards of cooperation without which any
survival, let alone development, would have been impossible.
In tribal conditions people were closely bound by ties of blood. At that
time there were no legal relationships. Not the individual but the tribe,
the genus, was the law-giver. The interests of the individual were
syncretized with (coupled with) those of the commune. In the horde
and in tribal society there were leaders who had come to the force by
their resourcefulness, brains, agility (quickness, alertness), strength
of will, and so on. Labor functions were divided on the basis of age and
sex, as were the forms of social and other activity.
With the development of the “socium” an increasing differentiation of
social functions takes place. People acquire private personal rights
and duties, personal names, and a constantly growing measure of
personal responsibility. The individual gradually becomes a
personality, and his relations with society acquire an increasingly
complex character. When the society based on law and the state first
arose, people were sharply divided between masters and slaves, rulers
and ruled. Slave society with its private property set people against
one another. Some individuals began to oppress and exploit others.
Feudal society saw the emergence of the hierarchy of castes, making
some people totally dependent on others. On the shoulders of the
common toiler (worker) there grew up an enormous parasitic tree with
kings or tsars at its summit. This pyramid of social existence
determined the rights and duties of its citizens, and the rights were
nearly all at the top of the social scale. This was a society of
genuflection (kneeling, bowing), where not only the toilers but also the
rulers bowed the knee to the dogma of Holy Scripture and the image of
the Almighty.
The age of the Renaissance was a hymn to the free individual and to
the ideal of the strong fully developed human being blazing trails
(to develop or do something new and important) of discovery into
foreign lands, broadening the horizons of science, and creating
masterpieces of art and technical perfection. History became the scene
of activity for the enterprising and determined individual. Not for him
the impediments (weaknesses, disorders) of the feudal social pyramid,
where the idle (lazy, inactive, unoccupied) wasted their lives and
money, enjoying every privilege, and the toilers were kept in a state of
subjugation and oppression. At first came the struggle for freedom of
thought, of creativity. This grew into the demand for civil and political
freedom.
As a result of the bourgeois revolutions that followed, the owners of
capital acquired every privilege, and also political power. The noble
demand that had been inscribed on the banners of the bourgeois
revolutions — liberty, equality and fraternity (community,
brotherhood) — turned out to mean an abundance of privileges for
some and oppression for others. Individualism blossomed forth, an
individualism in which everybody considered himself the hub (center,
middle, core) of the universe and his own existence and prosperity
more important than anyone else's. People set themselves up in opposition
to other people and to society as a whole. Such mutual alienation (hostility,
isolation, separation) is a disease that corrupts the whole social system. The life
of another person, even one's nearest, becomes no more than a temporary
show, a passing cloud. The growing bureaucracy and utilitarianism in culture
considerably narrow the opportunities for human individuality to express and
develop itself. The individual becomes an insignificant cog (part, component) in
the gigantic machine controlled by capital.
The individual is free where he not only serves as a means of achieving
the goals of the ruling class and its party but is himself the chief goal
of society, the object of all its plans and provisions (necessities,
requirements, supplies). The main condition for the liberation of the
individual is the abolition (elimination, eradication) of exploitation of
one individual by another, of hunger and poverty, and the reassertion
of man's sense of dignity. This was the kind of society of which the
utopian socialists and the founders of scientific socialism dreamed.
The thinkers of the past, who were truly dedicated to the idea of benefiting the
working folk, pointed out the dangers of a system governed by the forces of
alienation(isolation, separation), a system in which some people live at the
expense of other people's labor, where human dignity is flouted (ignored,
disobeyed) and man's physical and intellectual powers drained (exhausted,
weakened) by exploitation.
In contrast to bourgeois individualism, socialist collectivism starts off from the
interests of the individual— not just the chosen few but all genuine working
people. Socialism everywhere requires striking (remarkable), gifted
personalities with plenty of initiative. A person with a sense of perspective is the
highest ideal of the creative activity of the socialist society.
A person's whole intellectual make-up bears the clear imprint (inscription,
stamp) of the life of society as a whole. All his practical activities are individual
expressions of the historically formed social practice of humanity. The
implements that he uses have in their form a function evolved by a society
which predetermines the ways of using them.
The wealth and complexity of the individual's social content are conditioned by
the diversity of his links with the social whole, the degree to which the various
spheres of the life of society have been assimilated (integrated, adapted) and
refracted (bent, altered) in his consciousness and activity. This is why the level
of individual development is an indicator of the level of development of society,
and vice versa. But the individual does not dissolve into society. He retains his
unique and independent individuality and makes his contribution to the social
whole: just as society itself shapes human beings, so human beings shape
society.
Synonyms
1. To accede - agree, assent
2. Imposition - obligation, nuisance
3. Adherence - devotion, obedience
4. Deviant - different, divergent
5. Token - symbol, mark
6. Blazed - burned, flashed
7. Strata - sections, branches
8. Amassed - accumulated
9. To be immersed - to be absorbed, to be occupied)
10. Pursue – follow, track
11. Precondition – prerequisite
12. Rigidity - firmness, strictness
13. Substantially - considerably, significantly
14. Horde - crowd
15. Brute - basic, instinctive
16. Agility - quickness, alertness
17. Toiler – hard worker
18. Genuflection - kneeling, bowing
19. Impediments - weaknesses, disorders
20. Idle - lazy, inactive, unoccupied
21. Fraternity - community, brotherhood
22. Hub - center, middle, core
23. Alienation - isolation, separation
24. Alienation - hostility, isolation, separation
25. Cog - part, component
26. Provisions - necessities, requirements, supplies
27. Abolition - elimination, eradication
28. Flouted - ignored, disobeyed
29. Drained - exhausted, weakened
30. Imprint - inscription, stamp
31. Assimilated - integrated, adapted)
32. Refracted - bent, altered
Words and Phrases
1. To enact - წერილობითი ბრძანების გაცემა, მიწერა; დაწესება.
2. Encompassed - გარშემორტყმული (adj.) გარს შემორტყმა (v.)
3. To accede - დათანხმება
4. To rebel - აჯანყება
5. Adherence - ერთგულება, თავდადებულება
6. Deviant - დევიანტური, გადახრილი, ანომალიური
7. Consistent - შეთავსებადი
8. To abandon - უარის თქმა, მიტოვება
9. Husbandry - მომჭირნეობა (სოფლის მეურნეობა, მიწათმოქმედება)
[Link] - განსახიერება, განხორციელება
[Link] nourish - კვება, ჭმევა
[Link] - მარცვალი; მარცვლეული, მარცვლეულობა
[Link] - სიმკაცრე, სიმაგრე;
[Link] - ურდო; ბრბო, ხროვა
[Link] glimpse - თვალის შევლება
[Link] - მუხლმოდრეკა
[Link] trail - კვალის მიგნება, კვალის მიდევნა; თრევა
[Link] - დაბრკოლება, შეფერხება
[Link] - დამორჩილება
[Link] - ძმობა, მეგობრობა
[Link] - სიუხვე, ბარაქა, დოვლათი
[Link] - მოტყუება, თაღლითობა
[Link] - გაუქმება, გაბათილება, მოსპობა.
[Link] - დამოწმება, დადასტურება
Translation
1. ბუნებით ადამიანი აბსოლუტურად თავისუფალია და მიზნის მიღწევისას იგი ხშირად
მოწმედებს კანონიერი ან მორალური შედეგებისგან დამოუკიდებლად.
2. ადამიანების ქმედებებს ხშირად მივყავართ ქაოსამდე, სადაც ძლიერი ყოველთვის
იმარჯვებს სუსტის ხარჯზე, განურჩევლად იმისა, თუ ვის მხარეს არის სამართალი.
3. ჩვენ ხშირად ვაწყდებით კონფლიქტს ინდივიდსა და საზოგადოებას შორის.
ინდივიდი ან ემორჩილება საზოგადოების ნორმებს, ან გამოდის ამ ნორმების
წინააღმდეგ და თავისუფალ ნებას ანიჭებს უპირატესობას.
4. საზოგადოებრივი წესრიგი ამცირებს კრიმინალის დონეს, მაგრამ ზღუდავს
ადამიანის უფლებებს. ინდივიდუალურ უფლებებზე კონცენტრირებული კანონი
საზოგადმოებრივ არეულობას იწვევს.
5. ყველა ინდივიდს საკუთარი პოზიცია და როლი აქვს საზოგადოებაში. თითოეული
ადამიანი წარმოადგენს იმ საზოგადოების სტრუქტურასა და მთლიანობის ანარეკლს,
რომლის შემადგენელი ნაწილიც თვითონ არის.
6. ოჯახს სასიცოცხლო მნიშვნელობა აქვს პიროვნების ფორმირებაში. ოჯახთან ერთად
ცხოვრებისას ინდივიდს უწევს კონკრეტულ თვისებებზე უარის თქმა, რათა იგი
გახდეს ოჯახის სრულფასოვანი წევრი.
7. ოჯახი სწორედ ის ადგილია, სადაც ბავშვი პირველად ერთვება სოციალურ
ცხოვრებაში, ითვისებს კონკრეტულ ღირებულებებს, ქცევის სტანდარტებს,
აზროვნებისა და ენის გამოყენების გზებს.
8. როდესაც ბავშვი იზრდება, ის, თავისი სურვილის შესაბამისად, საზოგადოების
სრულფასოვანი წევრი ხდება. საზოგადოება აყალიბებს პიროვნებას და თავად
საზოგადოებაც ყალიბდება პიროვნებების მიერ.
9. თითოეული ადამიანი ითვისებს იმ სტანდარტებს, რაც საუკუნეების მანძილზე
დაგროვდა და რაც ტრადიციებით გადაეცემა თაობიდან თაობას. იგი არის ისტორიის
ცოცხალი მეხსიერება, რომელშიც თავმოყრილია დროთა განმავლობაში
დაგროვილი ცოდნა, უნარები და სიბრძნე.
10. ურთიერთბა ინდივიდსა და პრიმიტიულ ჯოგს შირის დაფუძნებული იყო
ინსტიქტებზე, რომლებიც მხოლოდ ოდნავ კონტროლდებოდა, თუმცა მაშინაც
არსებობდა თანამშრომლობის მორალური სტანდარტების ნაპერწკალი, რომლის
გარეშეც შეუძლებელი იქნებოდა განვითარება.
11. ტომების შემთხვევაში, ურთიერთობა ინდივიდსა და საზოგადოებას შორის
დაფუძნებული იყო სისხლით ნათესაობაზე და არ არსებობდა კანონზე დაფუძნებული
კავშირები.
12. ტომის ლიდერი გამორჩეული თვისებების მქონე პიროვნება იყო, რომელიც
შრომით ფუნქციებს სქესის, ასაკის და უნარების მიხედვით ანაწილებდა.
13. საზოგადოებისა და ინდივიდის ურთიერთობის ფორმები დროთა
განმავლობაში შეიცვალა და ბევრად რთული გახდა.