Society as a social system. Society as a complex dynamic system - Knowledge Hypermarket

SELF-CHECK QUESTIONS

1. What does the term "system" mean?

The word "system" of Greek origin, means "a whole made up of parts", "a set". Thus, each system includes interacting parts: subsystems and elements. Connections and relations between parts of the system are of primary importance. Dynamic systems allow various changes, development, the emergence of new and the withering away of old parts and the connections between them.

2. How do social (public) systems differ from natural ones?

Social systems have distinctive features from natural ones. First, society as a system is complex, since it includes many levels, subsystems, and elements. In other words, society is a complex system of systems, a kind of supersystem.

Secondly, a characteristic feature of society as a system is the presence in its composition of elements of different quality, both material (various technical devices, institutions, etc.) and ideal (values, ideas, traditions, etc.). For example, the economic sphere includes enterprises, vehicles, raw materials, industrial goods, and at the same time economic knowledge, rules, values, patterns of economic behavior, and much more.

Thirdly, the main element of society as a system is a person who has the ability to set goals and choose the means of carrying out their activities. This makes social systems more changeable and mobile than natural ones.

Changes in the state of the natural environment, events in the world community, in the international arena are a kind of signals to which society must respond. Usually it seeks to either adapt to changes in the environment, or to adapt the environment to its needs. In other words, the system responds to signals in one way or another.

3. What is the main quality of society as an integral system?

The main quality of society as an integral system lies in the fact that any system, be it technical, or biological, or social, is in a certain environment with which it interacts. Changes in the state of the natural environment, events in the world community, in the international arena are a kind of signals to which society must respond. Usually it seeks to either adapt to changes in the environment, or to adapt the environment to its needs. In other words, the system responds to signals in one way or another. At the same time, it implements its main functions: adaptation; goal achievement, i.e. the ability to maintain its integrity, ensuring the implementation of its tasks, influencing the natural and social environment; maintenance of the sample - the ability to maintain its internal structure; integration - the ability to integrate, that is, to include new parts, new social formations (phenomena, processes, etc.) into a single whole.

4. What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment?

Any system, whether technical (a unit with an automatic control system), or biological (animal), or social (society), is in a certain environment with which it interacts. The environment of the social system of any country is both nature and the world community. Changes in the state of the natural environment, events in the world community, in the international arena are a kind of signals to which society must respond. Usually it seeks to either adapt to changes in the environment, or to adapt the environment to its needs. In other words, the system responds to signals in one way or another. At the same time, it implements its main functions: adaptation; goal achievement, i.e., the ability to maintain its integrity, ensuring the implementation of its tasks, influencing the natural and social environment; maintenance of the sample - the ability to maintain its internal structure; integration - the ability to integrate, that is, to include new parts, new social formations (phenomena, processes, etc.) into a single whole.

5. What is a social institution?

A social institution is a stable form of organizing joint activities of people to meet a certain social need.

6. Describe the main social institutions.

The main social institutions are: the institution of family and marriage, political institutions, primarily the state, economic institutions, institutions of education, science and culture, institutions of religion.

7. What are the main features of a social institution?

The main features of a social institution are:

The social institution is fixed by a system of legal and moral norms, traditions and customs that regulate the corresponding types of behavior;

The presence of institutions equipped with certain material resources necessary for any type of activity;

Any of the institutions is integrated into the socio-political, legal, value structure of society, which makes it possible to legitimize the activities of this institution and exercise control over it;

A social institution stabilizes social relations, brings coherence into the actions of members of society. A social institution is characterized by a clear delineation of the functions of each of the subjects of interaction, the consistency of their actions, and a high level of regulation and control.

8. What is the meaning of institutionalization?

Institutionalization, from the point of view of sociology, is the process of establishing a social institution. The significance of this process is very great in the life of society and the state, because we are surrounded by various kinds of institutions that help us in the process of life. And when society feels the need to create some new institution (institution) endowed with certain socially significant functions, the process of creating this institution begins, including it in the already existing system of institutions.

TASKS

1. Using a systematic approach, analyze Russian society at the beginning of the 21st century.

Russian society at the beginning of the XXI century. society was fragmented by numerous wars and economic difficulties, because of which the revolution of 1917 occurred.

2. Describe all the main features of a social institution using the example of the institution of education. Use the material and recommendations of the practical conclusions of this paragraph.

A social institution is an organized system of connections and social norms that combines significant social values and procedures that meet the basic needs of society. Any functional institution arises and functions, fulfilling this or that social need.

Each social institution has both specific features and common features with other institutions.

The features of the institute of education are:

1. attitudes and patterns of behavior - love of knowledge, attendance

2. symbolic cultural signs - school logo, school songs

3. utilitarian cultural traits - classrooms, libraries, stadiums

5. ideology - academic freedom, progressive education, equality in education

Education is a social subsystem that has its own structure. As its main elements, educational institutions can be distinguished as social organizations, social communities (teachers and students), the educational process as a type of socio-cultural activity.

3. The collective work of Russian sociologists says: Society exists and functions in diverse forms... The really important issue is to ensure that society itself is not lost behind special forms, and forests behind trees. How is this statement related to the understanding of society as a system? Justify your answer.

From this statement it is clear that society exists and functions in diverse forms, "that is, society, while remaining a society (preserving its essence), can still change. Here, signs of society as a system are clearly visible.

4. In 2011, a sociological survey was conducted to find out whether citizens trust public institutions. 20% expressed confidence in the head of state, 11% in the government, 8% in the army, 4% in law enforcement agencies, and 13% in the church. The fact that they do not trust anyone was stated by 37% of the respondents (poll by Romir, 10/11/2011). How do you think these results can be explained?

Such results of a sociological survey can be explained by the fact that Russian society at the beginning of the 21st century. very often she turned to various public institutions for help, but did not receive any help, so they rely only on themselves and most do not trust anyone.

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SELF-CHECK QUESTIONS

1. What does the term "system" mean?

2. How do social (public) systems differ from natural ones?

3. What is the main quality of society as an integral system?

4. What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment?

5. What is a social institution?

A social institution is a stable form of organizing joint activities of people to meet a certain social need.

6. Describe the main social institutions.

7. What are the main features of a social institution?

The main features of a social institution are:

- a social institution is fixed by a system of legal and moral norms, traditions and customs that regulate the corresponding types of behavior;

- the presence of institutions equipped with certain material resources necessary for any type of activity;

- any of the institutions is integrated into the socio-political, legal, value structure of society, which makes it possible to legitimize the activities of this institution and exercise control over it;

- a social institution stabilizes social relations, brings coherence into the actions of members of society. A social institution is characterized by a clear delineation of the functions of each of the subjects of interaction, the consistency of their actions, and a high level of regulation and control.

8. What is the meaning of institutionalization?

Russian society at the beginning of the XXI century. society was fragmented by numerous wars and economic difficulties, because of which the revolution of 1917 occurred.

2. Describe all the main features of a social institution using the example of the institution of education. Use the material and recommendations of the practical conclusions of this paragraph.

A social institution is an organized system of connections and social norms that integrates significant societal values and procedures that meet the basic needs of society. Any functional institution arises and functions, fulfilling this or that social need.

Each social institution has both specific features and common features with other institutions.

The features of the institute of education are:

1. attitudes and patterns of behavior - love of knowledge, attendance

2. symbolic cultural signs - school logo, school songs

3. utilitarian cultural traits - classrooms, libraries, stadiums

5. ideology - academic freedom, progressive education, equality in education

3. The collective work of Russian sociologists says: Society exists and functions in various forms. The really important question boils down to not losing society itself behind special forms, forests behind trees. How is this statement related to the understanding of society as a system? Justify your answer.

From this statement it is clear that society exists and functions in diverse forms, that is, society, while remaining a society (preserving its essence), can still change. Here, signs of society as a system are clearly visible.

Source:

Detailed solution paragraph § 2 on social science for students in grade 10, authors L.N. Bogolyubov, Yu.I. Averyanov, A.V. Belyavsky 2015
http://resheba.com/gdz/obshhestvoznanie/10-class/bogolubov/2

What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment

Robert Merton makes the main emphasis of his theory on the development of the idea of anomie. His attention to a greater extent was focused not on the fact of harmony and stability of society, but on deviation, deviation from the norms. According to his point of view, the possibility of anomie exists in the very structure of society. The main cause of anomie is the contradiction between "culturally determined ends" and "institutionalized means". Accordingly, harmony in society depends on the integration of cultural goals and the stability of norms.

The works of Niklas Luhmann continue the tradition of structural-functional analysis, while the scientist's attention is focused on two things - the relation of the system to the environment (and here he relies not so much on the tradition of sociology, but on the studies of L. von Bertalanffy) and on the study of the mechanisms of reflection or "autopoexis "("autopoesis"). In the process of development, the system, interacting with the environment and becoming more complex, develops a mechanism of self-reflection (the social system implements this in the institutions of law and politics), which removes the natural "tremere" of the system, directing its natural fluctuation to equilibrium, to the optimal state, in other words, the nominal mechanism autopace in increasingly complex societies ensures integration and stabilization.

So, a systematic approach opens up the possibility to explore society as a whole. At the same time, one should not focus on the “determining” factor, but explore the integral interaction, determine the structure of the object and the nature of the relationships in the structure between the elements and the structure with the environment. The achievements of systemic sociology open up the possibility of comprehending society both from the point of view of a stable invariant and from the point of view of a dysfunctional (anomalous) contradiction. Systemic sociology also reveals a mechanism for overcoming systemic contradictions and achieving balance and an optimal state through the autopace function. In this case, it becomes possible to both understand and expect the action of the object.

The object of this study is society, Russian society, as a complex integrity. The approach to its study will follow from the systemic paradigm. In this case, Russian society will be considered as a certain social system.

The problem posed in our study, which requires study, is the resistance of public consciousness to innovations that are the result of convergence with Western society. "Western society", in our understanding from a geographical point of view - the modern countries of Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia; from the economic point of view, developed countries, excluding Japan; from the political side, countries where power is based on the principle of pluralism; on the ethical side, a country where the morality of Protestantism, having been transformed into everyday morality, ensured the formation of the "spirit of capitalism."

The main goal of our study is to identify the specifics of the Russian social system, its invariant, further reflection of which can serve to search for social tools, methods that can, without violating the integrity of the system, serve as "gateways" of convergence.

§2. THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION. SOCIETY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE SYSTEM APPROACH

GENERAL (PHILOSOPHICAL) APPROACH TO THE CONCEPT "SOCIAL SYSTEM"
Original definition

Auguste Comte in the 19th century formulated the basic paradigm of sociology: the social must be explained from the social on the basis of positive knowledge. This thought contains in embryonic form what in the 1920s took a new form and began to be understood as a systematic approach. Systems theory as a methodology for understanding society, which was formed mainly by the 60s, has now acquired, thanks to the works of R. Merton, T. Parsons, K. Levi-Strauss, N. Luhmann and a number of their other followers, the quality of a generally recognized established approach . The peculiarity of this approach is the study of society as a system, as an interconnected integrity.

· Complexity. The system is a complex formation with a variety of elements;

· Integrity. The complementary "work" of the elements ensures the coherence and unity of the whole complex;

· Relationships and relationships of elements. Integrity and complementarity, or "support" by the elements of each other and common unity, is carried out through the mechanism of interaction, interconnections, acting as a condition for integrity;

Structural. A certain system of elements, the order of their interaction;

The dependence of elements on the whole. The actions of the elements, and sometimes their morphology, are determined by the system.

· Confrontation, difference from the environment. The system can be considered as opposition to the external, i.e. the system turns out to be possible as an integrity that resists the environment.
Substance (“soul”) and substratum of the system

In our opinion, a striking example of solving a cognitive problem in determining the noumenon is the work of L.N. Gumilyov, who successfully “revealed” the noumenon of the ethnos, turned the ethnos-in-itself into an ethnos-for-us, having developed the theory of passionarity. L.N. Gumilev for the first time and very successfully applied a systematic approach to the study of society (in particular, "ethnos"). A similar methodological attempt is made by A.S. Akhiezer.

Arnold Toynbee, seeking to understand world civilization as an integrity, as its connection with the cosmos and God, the outside world (i.e. as a system in relationship with the environment), shows that the physical substratum of civilization (social system), which is in constant motion, is characterized in space-time parameters. Substance or spirit reveals the fate of civilization (or the meaning of its movement).

Source:
What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment
What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment Robert Merton makes the main emphasis of his theory on the development of the idea of anomie. His attention was mostly focused not on the fact
http://www.textfighter.org/raznoe/Sociolog/zahar/otnoshenie_sistemy_k_srede_sistema_obschestva.php

What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment

social system- a certain integral formation, the main elements of which are people, their norms and connections.

Social institutions- sustainable forms of organization of joint activities of people to meet a certain social need.

1. Society is a highly complex system, and in order to live in harmony with it, it is necessary to adapt (adapt) to it. Otherwise, you cannot avoid conflicts, failures in your life and work. The condition for adaptation to modern society is knowledge about it, which gives the course of social science.

2. It is possible to understand society only if its quality as an integral system is revealed. To do this, it is necessary to consider various sections of the structure of society (the main areas of human activity, a set of social institutions, social groups), systematizing, integrating the links between them, the features of the management process in a self-governing social system.

3. In real life, you will have to interact with various social institutions. To make this interaction successful, it is necessary to know the goals and nature of the activity that has taken shape in the social institution of interest to you. This will help you to study the legal norms governing this type of activity.

4. In the following sections of the course, which characterize individual areas of human activity, it is useful to revisit the content of this paragraph in order, based on it, to consider each area as part of an integral system. This will help to understand the role and place of each sphere, each social institution in the development of society.

From the work of the American sociologist E. Shils "Society and Societies: Macrosociological Approach".

So, we are convinced that society is not just a collection of united people, original and cultural collectives, interacting and exchanging services with each other. All these collectives form a society by virtue of their existence under common authority which exercises control over territory demarcated, supports and enforces more or less common culture. It is these factors that transform a set of relatively specialized original corporate and cultural collectives into a society.

Questions and tasks for the document

1. What components, according to E. Shils, are included in society? Indicate to which spheres of life of society each of them belongs. 2. Select from the listed components those that are social institutions. 3. Based on the text, prove that the author considers society as a social system.

1. What does the term "system" mean? 2. How do social (public) systems differ from natural ones? 3. What is the main quality of society as an integral system? 4. What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment? 5. What is a social institution? 6. Describe the main social institutions. 7. What are the main features of a social institution? 8. What is the meaning of institutionalization?

1. Using a systematic approach, analyze Russian society at the beginning of the 21st century.

2. Describe all the main features of a social institution using the example of the institution of education. Use the material and recommendations of the practical conclusions of this paragraph.

3. The collective work of Russian sociologists says: “Society exists and functions in diverse forms. The really important issue boils down to not losing society itself behind special forms, forests behind trees. How is this statement related to the understanding of society as a system? Justify your answer.

“Man is a social being, and the highest cause of his life, the final goal of his efforts lies not in his personal fate, but in the social fate of all mankind.”

V. S. Solovyov (1853-1900), Russian philosopher

Source:
What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment
§ 2. Society as a complex system. Chapter 1. Man in society. Social science grade 10. Bogolyubov
http://xn--24-6kct3an.xn--p1ai/%D0%9E%D0%B1%D1%89%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0 %B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_10_%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81_%D0%91%D0%BE %D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8E%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B2/2.2.html

What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment

All social systems can be classified on the same basis as other types of systems.

Fourth, by the nature of their laws, social systems are probabilistic and deterministic. In probabilistic systems, their components can interact in an indefinite number of ways (for example, a society at war). Deterministic systems have a well-defined interaction outcome (eg legal, legislativea).

Along with the functions of the social system associated with maintaining order and development, there is a direction in sociological theory that formulates the concept of a social system, i.e. her possibilities. There are extracts of opportunities (attracting resources), regulatory (regulating the behavior of individuals and groups), distributive (distribution of status positions and material goods), as well as attributive, i.e., ensuring that they hear protection in society.

From a systemic point of view, society is a collection of people interconnected by joint activities to achieve their common goals.

The starting cell of society is living acting people, whose joint activity, acquiring a more or less stable character, forms society. Thus, the individual is the elementary unit of society.

Society is a collection of people who carry out joint activities and enter into relationships. People are the main element of the structure of society, and the source of their unification and further formation in society is social interaction. What is a society, whatever its form? A product of human interaction,” he wrote. Charles. Marx. Pitirim. Sorokin also believed that society does not exist "outside" and independent of individuals, it acts as a "system of interacting units, without which, outside of which it is unthinkable and impossible, just as any phenomenon is impossible without its constituent elements" connection of people, community, solidarity and unity.

Society is a universal way of organizing social ties, interactions and relationships of people that are formed on some common basis. Emil. Durkheim saw the basis of the sustainable unity of society in the "collective consciousness" according to. Max. Weber, society is the interaction of people, which is the product of social1, that is, actions oriented towards other people. Talcott. Parsons defined society as a system of relations between people, the beginning of which are values and norms.

From point of view. Carla. Marx, society is a set of relations that develop between people, emerging in the process of their joint activities.

Common to all approaches is the consideration of society as an integral system of elements that are in a state of close interconnection. This approach to society is systemic. The main task of the system approach in the study of society is to combine various knowledge about society into an integral system that could become a unified theory of society.

An important feature of a social system is integration, which is a process and mechanism for combining parts. The process of system development reflects one more of its properties — structuredness. Structure, i.e. The internal structure of the system is determined by the composition and ratio of elements. In interaction with the external conditions of its existence, the system is able to change its structure. Such systems are referred to the category of found bottoms, which are capable of self-organizing.

In addition, any system, despite its integrity, can be considered as a component of a higher order system. At the same time, any component of the system is a system of a lower order. B. This shows another property of the system - hierarchization and multilevelness. Hierarchically constructed relationships of people represent the structure of society. Society, like any living system, is an open system that is in a state of continuous exchange with the environment (exchange of matter, energy, information).

An important feature of the social system is also the presence of a goal that determines the structure of society and the laws of its functioning. Society must have a higher degree of organization than the environment. In order to preserve itself as an integrity, it must satisfy the needs of people who have an objective and at the same time historically changeable nature, the degree of satisfaction of needs (material, social, spiritual) is the most obvious proof of the effectiveness of the functioning of society as a system. If the minimum satisfaction of needs is not achieved, then society can disintegrate and perish, which is a "managerial catastrophe", since society has not coped with managing the processes of people's activities.

So, society as a system functions, has a teleological nature, that is, it strives to achieve a goal that is specified from a set of sub-goals. A society may not think about the goal, it was started incorrectly, denied, but it still acts as an integral self-governing system of cybernetics - the informational aspect of considering society lies precisely in the fact that the subject of management on the basis of information about the environment and society forms a co - Mandi of the control object, sends a kind of "signals" (direct connection) and receives information about the results and?? compliance with the goals (reverse port ok) - the fate of society as a system depends on this. Thus, the main features of society as a social system are: integrity, integration, openness, structuring, hierarchization and available awn of the cili.

What are the components of a social system?

Social systems are systems of the highest degree of complexity, with many components, an extraordinary wealth of relationships between them, between the system as a whole and the environment. The social system, as in notes. Talcott. Parsons, is, first of all, a system of interactions (interactions) of individuals, where each participant is both an actor (has a specific goal, ideals, attitudes, etc.), and an object that other actors are looking at, and he at the same time, individuals are both living organisms and personalities, and belong to certain cultural systems.

All human society, for. T. Parsons, can be considered as one large system of human action, in which the most common subsystems of this action (behavior) can be distinguished: the organism, the personality, the social system, the stem, and the cultural system. With this approach, each of the three systems of action of individuals (behavioral: organism, culture, personality) constitutes a part of their environment or, more precisely, one of the environments of the social system surrounding them. Beyond them is the environment of the action system itself (cosmic, physical, organic environment).

The main components of the social system are:

The human component - given that the specificity of the social system is based on a community of people, then its core is precisely a person as a social being capable of conscious goal-setting, which acts in the system of social relations, acting as a member of a certain group, layers; social process social, political and spiritual processes that have a progressive or regressive orientation, affecting the state of the system and subsystems, objects involved in the orbit of economic and social life, objects of a "second nature" (buildings, equipment, means of communication and control); spiritual component - ideas, theories, cultural and moral values, rituals, traditions.

Individuals interact with other people, uniting in communities. The collective, the environment carry out a systemic impact on the individual, and he, in turn, has a reverse effect on other members of the social group. As a result, this community of people becomes a social system, an integrity that has systemic qualities, that is, qualities that none of the elements included in it separately have.

Based on the structural elements, we can give the following definition: a social system is an orderliness of individuals, groups, things, processes that interact in a certain way and form integrative qualities that are not inherent in its components separately. The structure of the social system is formed by individuals who occupy certain social positions (statuses) and perform social functions (roles) in accordance with the set of norms and values accepted in society.

Types of social structures:

an ideal structure that binds together beliefs, beliefs, ideas;

normative, including values, norms, social roles accepted by society;

organizational, determines the way of interconnection of positions or statuses and determines the nature of the repetition of systems;

random, consisting of elements that are included in its functioning and are currently available

The ideal and normative structures form a block of cultural structure, while the organizational and accidental structures form a societal structure. Regulatory and organizational structures are a single whole, and their elements are of strategic importance. Ideal and random structures can cause both positive and negative deviations in the behavior of the system, resulting in certain mismatches and dysfunctions.

The structure of the social system, as a functional unity of the totality of elements, is regulated only by its authoritative laws and regularities, depends on its own power determination. : firstly, maintaining the balance of elements within the system, secondly, restoring functions in case of violations, thirdly, directed changes in the elements and the structure itself.

The control process is considered to have taken place if the command is transmitted by the subject and its perception by the object. Social systems are both a subject and an object at the same time (it has a control system and a controlled system).

In a social system, systems of a lower level are distinguished:

technical system - equipment, technical means;

technological system - rules and norms of functioning in the material and spiritual spheres;

organizational - instructions; which significantly affects the technical and technological systems, allows rational use of technological and technical means, areas;

the economic system is the unity of economic and financial processes and connections;

social system - a set of social relations formed as a result of joint activities; together with. The economic system determines the goals of material and spiritual production, policies, forms the principles and methods of their organization.

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Therefore, a person is a universal element of all social systems, since he is necessarily included in each of them.

Like any system, society is an ordered integrity. This means that the components of the system are not in a chaotic disorder, but, on the contrary, they occupy a certain position within the system and are connected in a certain way with other components. Hence. the system has an integrative quality that is inherent in it as a whole. None of the components of the system. considered in isolation, does not possess this quality. It, this quality, is the result of the integration and interconnection of all components of the system. Just as individual organs of a person (heart, stomach, liver, etc.) do not have the properties of a person. likewise, the economy, the health care system, the state and other elements of society do not have the qualities that are inherent in society as a whole. And only thanks to the diverse connections that exist between the components of the social system, it turns into a single whole. i.e., into society (as thanks to the interaction of various human organs, a single human organism exists).

The connections between subsystems and elements of society can be illustrated by various examples. The study of the distant past of mankind allowed scientists to conclude that. that the moral relations of people in primitive conditions were built on collectivist principles, i. That is, in modern terms, priority has always been given to the collective, and not to the individual. It is also known that the moral norms that existed among many tribes in those archaic times allowed the killing of weak members of the clan - sick children, the elderly - and even cannibalism. Have the real material conditions of their existence influenced these ideas and views of people about the limits of the morally permissible? The answer is clear: no doubt they did. The need to jointly obtain material wealth, the doom to an early death of a person who has broken away from the race, and laid the foundations of collectivist morality. Guided by the same methods of struggle for existence and survival, people did not consider it immoral to get rid of those who could become a burden for the team.

Another example may be the relationship between legal norms and socio-economic relations. Let's turn to known historical facts. In one of the first codes of laws of Kievan Rus, which is called Russkaya Pravda, various punishments for murder are provided. At the same time, the measure of punishment was determined primarily by the place of a person in the system of hierarchical relations, his belonging to one or another social stratum or group. So, the fine for killing a tiun (steward) was huge: it was 80 hryvnias and equaled the cost of 80 oxen or 400 rams. The life of a smerd or a serf was estimated at 5 hryvnias, i.e. 16 times cheaper.

Integral, i.e. common, inherent in the whole system, the qualities of any system are not a simple sum of the qualities of its components, but represent a new quality that has arisen as a result of the interconnection, interaction of its components. In its most general form, this is the quality of society as a social system - the ability to create all the necessary conditions for its existence, to produce everything necessary for the collective life of people. In philosophy, self-sufficiency is seen as the main difference between society and its constituent parts. Just as human organs cannot exist outside the whole organism, so none of the subsystems of society can exist outside the whole - society as a system.

Another feature of society as a system is that this system is self-governing.
The administrative function is performed by the political subsystem, which gives consistency to all components that form social integrity.

Any system, whether technical (a unit with an automatic control system), or biological (animal), or social (society), is in a certain environment with which it interacts. The environment of the social system of any country is both nature and the world community. Changes in the state of the natural environment, events in the world community, in the international arena are a kind of "signals" to which society must respond. Usually it seeks to either adapt to changes in the environment, or to adapt the environment to its needs. In other words, the system responds to "signals" in one way or another. At the same time, it implements its main functions: adaptation; goal achievement, i.e., the ability to maintain its integrity, ensuring the implementation of its tasks, influencing the natural and social environment; maintenance obra.scha - the ability to maintain their internal structure; integration - the ability to integrate, that is, to include new parts, new social formations (phenomena, processes, etc.) into a single whole.

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Social institutions are the most important component of society as a system.

The word "institute" in Latin instituto means "establishment". In Russian, it is often used to refer to higher educational institutions. In addition, as you know from the basic school course, in the field of law the word “institution” means a set of legal norms that regulate one social relationship or several relationships related to each other (for example, the institution of marriage).

In sociology, social institutions are called historically established stable forms of organizing joint activities, regulated by norms, traditions, customs and aimed at meeting the fundamental needs of society.

This definition, to which it is expedient to return, having read the educational material on this issue to the end, we will consider, based on the concept of "activity" (see - 1). In the history of society, sustainable activities aimed at satisfying the most important vital needs have developed. Sociologists identify five such social needs:

the need for the reproduction of the genus;
the need for security and social order;
need for means of subsistence;
the need for knowledge, socialization
the younger generation, personnel training;
- the need to solve the spiritual problems of the meaning of life.

According to the above needs, the society also developed activities, which, in turn, required the necessary organization, streamlining, the creation of certain institutions and other structures, the development of rules that ensure the achievement of the expected result. These conditions for the successful implementation of the main activities were met by historically established social institutions:

institution of family and marriage;
- political institutions, especially the state;
- economic institutions, primarily production;
- institutes of education, science and culture;
- the institution of religion.

Each of these institutions brings together large masses of people to meet a particular need and achieve a specific goal of a personal, group or public nature.

The emergence of social institutions led to the consolidation of specific types of interaction, made them permanent and mandatory for all members of a given society.

So, a social institution is, first of all, a set of persons engaged in a certain type of activity and ensuring in the process of this activity the satisfaction of a certain need that is significant for society (for example, all employees of the education system).

Further, the institution is fixed by a system of legal and moral norms, traditions and customs that regulate the corresponding types of behavior. (Remember, for example, what social norms regulate the behavior of people in the family).

Another characteristic feature of a social institution is the presence of institutions equipped with certain material resources necessary for any type of activity. (Think about which social institutions school, factory, police belong to. Give your examples of institutions and organizations related to each of the most important social institutions.)

Any of these institutions is integrated into the socio-political, legal, value structure of society, which makes it possible to legitimize the activities of this institution and exercise control over it.

Consider the main features of a social institution on the example of such an important institution of society as the family. First of all, each family is a small group of people based on intimacy and emotional attachment, connected by marriage (wife) and consanguinity (parents and children). The need to create a family is one of the fundamental, i.e. fundamental, human needs. At the same time, the family performs important functions in society: the birth and upbringing of children, economic support for minors and the disabled, and many others. Each family member occupies his own special position in it, which implies appropriate behavior: parents (or one of them) provide a livelihood, run household chores, and raise children. Children, in turn, study, help around the house. Such behavior is regulated not only by intra-family rules, but also by social norms: morality and law. Thus, public morality condemns the lack of care of older family members about the younger ones. The law establishes the responsibility and obligations of spouses in relation to each other, to children, adult children to elderly parents. The creation of a family, the main milestones of family life, are accompanied by traditions and rituals established in society. For example, in many countries, the marriage ritual includes the exchange of wedding rings between spouses.

The presence of social institutions makes people's behavior more predictable and society as a whole more stable.

In addition to the main social institutions, there are non-principal ones. So, if the main political institution is the state, then the non-main ones are the institution of the judiciary or, as in our country, the institution of presidential representatives in the regions, etc.

The presence of social institutions reliably ensures regular, self-renewing satisfaction of vital needs. The social institution makes connections between people not random and not chaotic, but permanent, reliable, stable. Institutional interaction is a well-established order of social life in the main spheres of people's life. The more social needs are met by social institutions, the more developed the society.

Since new needs and conditions arise in the course of the historical process, new types of activity and corresponding connections appear. Society is interested in giving them an orderly, normative character, that is, in their institutionalization.

In Russia, as a result of the reforms of the late twentieth century. appeared, for example, such a type of activity as entrepreneurship. The streamlining of this activity led to the emergence of various types of firms, required the issuance of laws regulating entrepreneurial activity, and contributed to the formation of relevant traditions.

In the political life of our country, institutions of parliamentarism, a multi-party system, and the institution of presidency arose. The principles and rules of their functioning are enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and relevant laws.

In the same way, the institutionalization of other types of activity that have arisen in recent decades has taken place.

It happens that the development of society requires the modernization of the activities of social institutions that have historically developed in previous periods. Thus, in the changed conditions, it became necessary to solve the problems of introducing the younger generation to the culture in a new way. Hence the steps taken to modernize the institution of education, which may result in the institutionalization of the Unified State Examination, the new content of educational programs.

So, we can return to the definition given at the beginning of this part of the paragraph. Think about what characterizes social institutions as highly organized systems. Why is their structure stable? What is the importance of deep integration of their elements? What is the diversity, flexibility, dynamism of their functions?

PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS

1 Society is a highly complex system, and in order to live in harmony with it, it is necessary to adapt (adapt) to it. Otherwise, you cannot avoid conflicts, failures in your life and work. The condition for adaptation to modern society is knowledge about it, which gives the course of social science.

2 It is possible to understand society only if its quality as an integral system is revealed. To do this, it is necessary to consider various sections of the structure of society (the main areas of human activity; a set of social institutions, social groups), systematizing, integrating the links between them, the features of the management process in a self-governing social system.

3 In real life, you will have to interact with various social institutions. To make this interaction successful, it is necessary to know the goals and nature of the activity that has taken shape in the social institution of interest to you. This will help you to study the legal norms governing this type of activity.

4 in the subsequent sections of the course, characterizing individual areas of human activity, it is useful to re-refer to the content of this paragraph in order, based on it, to consider each area as part of an integral system. This will help to understand the role and place of each sphere, each social institution in the development of society.

Document

From the work of the contemporary American sociologist E. Shils "Society and Societies: A Macrosociological Approach".

What is included in societies? As has been said, the most differentiated of these consist not only of families and kinship groups, but also of associations, unions, firms and farms, schools and universities, armies, churches and sects, parties and numerous other corporate bodies or organizations which, in in turn, have boundaries that define the circle of members over which the appropriate corporate authorities - parents, managers, chairmen, etc., etc. - exercise a certain measure of control. It also includes systems formally and informally organized on a territorial basis - communities, villages, districts, cities, districts - all of which also have some features of society. Further, it includes unorganized aggregates of people within society - social classes or strata, occupations and professions, religions, language groups - which have a culture that is more inherent in those who have a certain status or occupy a certain position than in everyone else.

So, we are convinced that society is not just a collection of united people, original and cultural collectives, interacting and exchanging services with each other. All these collectives form a society by virtue of their existence under a common authority, which exercises its control over the territory marked by boundaries, maintains and propagates a more or less common culture. It is these factors that transform a set of relatively specialized original corporate and cultural collectives into a society.

Questions and tasks for the document

1. What components, according to E. Shils, are included in society? Indicate to which spheres of life of society each of them belongs.
2. Select from the listed components those that are social institutions.
3. Based on the text, prove that the author considers society as a social system.

SELF-CHECK QUESTIONS

1. What does the term "system" mean?
2. How do social (public) systems differ from natural ones?
3. What is the main quality of society as an integral system?
4. What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment?
5. What is a social institution?
6. Oxapacterize the main social institutions.
7. What are the main features of a social institution?
8. What is the meaning of institutionalization?

TASKS

1. Using a systematic approach, analyze Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century.
2. Describe all the main features of a social institution using the example of the institution of education. Use the material and recommendations of the practical conclusions of this paragraph.
3. The collective work of Russian sociologists says: "...society exists and functions in diverse forms... A really important issue is to ensure that society itself is not lost behind special forms, and forests behind trees." How is this statement related to the understanding of society as a system? Justify your answer.

Society is heterogeneous and has its own internal structure and composition, including a large number of social phenomena and processes of different orders and different characteristics.
The constituent elements of society are people, social ties and actions, social interactions and relationships, social institutions and organizations, social groups, communities, social norms and values, and others. Each of them is in more or less close relationship with others, occupies a specific place and plays a unique role in society. The task of sociology in this regard is, first of all, to determine the structure of society, to give a scientific classification of its most important elements, to clarify their interconnection and interaction, their place and role in society as a social system.
It is precisely due to its structure that society qualitatively differs both from an arbitrary, chaotic accumulation of people, and from other social phenomena that have their own ordered structure, and, consequently, a different qualitative certainty. The social structure largely determines the sustainability and stability of the whole society as a system. And since, as already noted, society is not a simple sum of individuals, their connections and actions, interactions and relationships, but an integral system, such an association gives rise to a new, integral, systemic quality that cannot be reduced to a qualitative characteristic of individuals or their sum. Society as a social system is a social organism that functions and develops according to its own laws.
So, we will highlight some of the systemic features of society that are most significant for sociological analysis:

1. integrity(this internal quality coincides with social production);

2. sustainability(relatively constant reproduction of the rhythm and mode of social interactions);

3. dynamism(change of generations, change in the social substratum, continuity, slowdown, acceleration);

4. openness(the social system preserves itself due to the exchange of substances with nature, which is also possible only if it is in balance with the environment and receives a sufficient amount of matter and energy from the external environment);

5. self-development(its source is within society, it is production, distribution, consumption based on the interests and incentives of social communities);

6. spatio-temporal forms and ways of social life(masses of people are spatially connected by joint activities, goals, needs, norms of life; but the passage of time is inexorable, generations change, and each new one finds already established forms of life, reproduces and changes them).
Thus, Society as a social system in sociology is understood as a large ordered set of social phenomena and processes that are more or less closely interconnected and interact with each other and form a single social whole.
In sociology itself, the structure of society is considered from various angles. So, in the case when a deterministic (causal relationship) of social phenomena and processes, their subordination is revealed, society is usually considered (for example, in Marxist sociology) as an integral system that includes four main areas - economic, social, political and spiritual ( ideological). In relation to society as a whole, each of these spheres of social life acts as its subsystem, although in a different connection it itself can be considered as a special system. Moreover, each previous of these systems has a decisive influence on the subsequent ones, which, in turn, have an opposite effect on the previous ones.
In another connection, when the character and type of social ties come to the fore, society as a social system includes the following subsystems: social communities (groups), social institutions and organizations, social roles, norms and values. Each of them here is a fairly complex social system with its own subsystems.
In terms of the level of generalization of the material, the sociological study of society as a social system includes three interrelated aspects: a) the study of "society in general", i.e. the allocation of universal universal properties, connections and states of society (in close connection with social philosophy and with its leading role); b) the study of specific historical types of societies, stages of development of civilization; c) the study of individual specific societies, i.e. societies of real-life countries and peoples.
In general, the consideration of society from the point of view of a certain social system is largely determined by the tasks that are set for the corresponding sociological research.

As an independent science, scientists have always tried to understand society as an organized whole, highlighting its constituent elements. Such an analytical approach, universal for all sciences, should be acceptable for a positive science of society as well. The attempts described above to present society as an organism, as a self-developing entity with the ability to self-organize and maintain balance, were, in fact, an anticipation of the systems approach. The systemic understanding of society can be fully discussed after the creation of L. von Bertalanffy's general theory of systems.

Social system - it is an ordered whole, which is a collection of individual social elements - individuals, groups, organizations, institutions.

These elements are interconnected by stable ties and as a whole form a social structure. Society can itself be considered as a system consisting of many subsystems, and each subsystem is a system at its own level and has its own subsystems. Thus, from the point of view of the systems approach, society is something like a nesting doll, inside of which there are many smaller nesting dolls, therefore, there is a hierarchy of social systems. According to the general principle of systems theory, a system is much more than just the sum of its elements, and as a whole, due to its holistic organization, has qualities that all elements taken separately did not have.

Any system, including a social one, can be described from two points of view: first, from the point of view of the functional relationships of its elements, i.e. in terms of structure; secondly, from the point of view of the relationship between the system and the external world around it - the environment.

Relationships between system elements supported by themselves, no one and nothing directed from the outside. The system is autonomous and does not depend on the will of the individuals included in it. Therefore, a systemic understanding of society is always associated with the need to solve a big problem: how to combine the free action of an individual and the functioning of the system that existed before him and by its very existence determines his decisions and actions. If we follow the logic of the systemic approach, then, strictly speaking, there is no individual freedom at all, since society as a whole exceeds the sum of its parts, i.e. is a reality of an immeasurably higher order than the individual, measures itself by historical terms and scales that are incomparable with the chronological scale of an individual perspective. What can an individual know about the long-term consequences of his actions, which may be contrary to his expectations? It simply turns into "a wheel and a cog in the common cause", into the smallest element, reduced to the volume of a mathematical point. Then it is not the individual himself that falls into the perspective of sociological consideration, but his function, which ensures, in unity with other functions, the balanced existence of the whole.

Relationship of the system with the environment serve as a criterion for its strength and viability. What is dangerous for the system is what comes from the outside: after all, inside everything works to preserve it. The environment is potentially hostile to the system, since it affects it as a whole, i.e. makes changes to it that can upset its functioning. The system is saved by the fact that it has the ability to spontaneously restore and establish a state of equilibrium between itself and the external environment. This means that the system is inherently harmonious: it tends to internal balance, and its temporary disturbances are only random failures in the work of a well-coordinated machine. Society is like a good orchestra, where harmony and concord are the norm, and discord and musical cacophony are the occasional and unfortunate exception.

The system is able to reproduce itself without the conscious participation of the individuals included in it. If it functions normally, the next generations fit into its life activity calmly and without conflict, begin to act according to the rules dictated by the system, and in turn pass these rules and skills on to the next generations. Within the framework of the system, the social qualities of individuals are also reproduced. For example, in the system of a class society, representatives of the upper classes reproduce their educational and cultural level by raising their children accordingly, while representatives of the lower classes, against their will, reproduce their lack of education and their labor skills in their children.

The characteristics of the system also include the ability to integrate new social formations. It subordinates to its logic and forces to work according to its rules for the benefit of the whole newly emerging elements - new classes and social strata, new institutions and ideologies, etc. For example, the nascent bourgeoisie functioned normally for a long time as a class within the "third estate", and only when the system of class society could no longer maintain an internal balance did it break out of it, which meant the death of the entire system.

System characteristics of society

Society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles that define the structure of social interactions. Social roles are organized into various and which make up the second level of society. Each institution and community can be represented as a complex, stable and self-reproducing systemic organization. Differences in the functions performed by social groups, opposition to their goals require such a systemic level of organization that would support a single normative order in society. It is realized in the system of culture and political power. Culture sets patterns of human activity, maintains and reproduces the norms tested by the experience of many generations, and the political system regulates and strengthens the ties between social systems through legislative and legal acts.

The social system can be considered in four aspects:

as the interaction of individuals;
as a group interaction;
as a hierarchy of social statuses (institutional roles);
as a set of social norms and values that determine the behavior of individuals.

A description of the system in its static state would be incomplete.

Society is a dynamic system, i.e. is in constant motion, development, changes its features, signs, states. The state of the system gives an idea of it at a particular point in time. The change of states is caused both by the influences of the external environment and by the needs of the development of the system itself.

Dynamic systems can be linear and non-linear. Changes in linear systems are easily calculated and predicted, since they occur relative to the same stationary state. Such, for example, is the free oscillation of a pendulum.

Society is a non-linear system. This means that the processes occurring in it at different times under the influence of different causes are determined and described by different laws. They cannot be put into one explanatory scheme, because there will certainly be changes that will not correspond to this scheme. That is why social change always contains an element of unpredictability. In addition, if the pendulum returns to its previous state with 100% probability, the society will never return back to some point in its development.

Society is an open system. This means that it reacts to the slightest influence from outside, to any accident. The reaction manifests itself in the occurrence of fluctuations - unpredictable deviations from the stationary state and bifurcations - branches of the development trajectory. Bifurcations are always unpredictable, the logic of the previous state of the system is not applicable to them, since they themselves represent a violation of this logic. These are, as it were, crisis moments of a break, when the usual threads of cause-and-effect relationships are lost and chaos sets in. It is at the points of bifurcation that innovations arise, revolutionary changes take place.

A non-linear system is capable of generating attractors - special structures that turn into a kind of "goals" towards which the processes of social change are directed. These are new complexes of social roles that did not exist before and are being organized into a new social order. This is how new preferences of the mass consciousness arise: new political leaders are put forward, rapidly gaining popular popularity, new political parties, groups, unexpected coalitions and unions are formed, there is a redistribution of forces in the struggle for power. For example, during the period of dual power in Russia in 1917, unpredictable rapid social changes in a few months led to the Bolshevization of the soviets, an unprecedented increase in the popularity of new leaders, and ultimately to a complete change in the entire political system in the country.

Understanding society as a system has undergone a long evolution from the classical sociology of the era of E. Durkheim and K. Marx to modern works on the theory of complex systems. Already in Durkheim, the development of social order is associated with the complication of society. The work of T. Parsons "The Social System" (1951) played a special role in the understanding of systems. He reduces the problem of the system and the individual to the relationship between systems, since he considers as a system not only society, but also the individual. Between these two systems, according to Parsons, there is an interpenetration: it is impossible to imagine a system of personality that would not be included in the system of society. Social action and its components are also part of the system. Despite the fact that the action itself is made up of elements, outwardly it acts as an integral system, the qualities of which are activated in the system of social interaction. In turn, the system of interaction is a subsystem of action, since each single act consists of elements of a culture system, a personality system, and a social system. Thus, society is a complex interweaving of systems and their interactions.

According to the German sociologist N. Luhmann, society is an autopoietic system - self-differentiating and self-renewing. The social system has the ability to distinguish "self" from "others". It reproduces and defines its own boundaries separating it from the external environment. In addition, according to Luhmann, a social system, unlike natural systems, is built on the basis of meaning, i.e. in it, its various elements (action, time, event) acquire semantic coordination.

Modern researchers of complex social systems focus their attention not only on purely macrosociological problems, but also on questions of how systemic changes are implemented at the living standards of individuals, separate groups and communities, regions and countries. They come to the conclusion that all changes occur at different levels and are interconnected in the sense that the "higher" arise from the "lower" and again return to the lower, influencing them. For example, social inequality stems from differences in income and wealth. This is not just an ideal measure of income distribution, but a real factor that produces certain social parameters and influences the lives of individuals. Thus, the American researcher R. Wilkinson showed that in cases where the degree of social inequality exceeds a certain level, it affects the health of individuals by itself, regardless of actual well-being and income.

Society has a self-organizing potential, which allows us to consider the mechanism of its development, especially in a situation of transformation, from the standpoint of a synergistic approach. Self-organization refers to the processes of spontaneous ordering (transition from chaos to order), formation and evolution of structures in open non-linear media.

Synergetics - a new interdisciplinary direction of scientific research, within the framework of which the processes of transition from chaos to order and vice versa (processes of self-organization and self-disorganization) in open non-linear environments of the most diverse nature are studied. This transition is called the phase of formation, which is associated with the concept of bifurcation or catastrophe - an abrupt change in quality. At the decisive moment of the transition, the system must make a critical choice through the fluctuation dynamics, and this choice occurs in the bifurcation zone. After a critical choice, stabilization occurs and the system develops further in accordance with the choice made. This is how, according to the laws of synergetics, the fundamental relationships between chance and external limitation, between fluctuation (randomness) and irreversibility (necessity), between freedom of choice and determinism are fixed.

Synergetics as a scientific trend arose in the second half of the 20th century. in the natural sciences, but gradually the principles of synergetics spread to the humanities, becoming so popular and in demand that at the moment synergetic principles are at the center of scientific discourse in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge.

Society as a social system

From the point of view of a systematic approach, it can be considered as a system consisting of many subsystems, and each subsystem, in turn, is itself a system at its level and has its own subsystems. Thus, society is something like a set of nesting dolls, when inside a large nesting doll there is a smaller nesting doll, and inside it there is an even smaller one, and so on. Thus, there is a hierarchy of social systems.

The general tenet of systems theory is that a system is understood as much more than the sum of its elements, as a whole that, through its holistic organization, possesses qualities that its elements, taken individually, do not have.

The relations between the elements of the system are such that they are maintained by themselves, they are not directed by anyone and nothing from the outside. The system is autonomous and does not depend on the will of the individuals included in it. Therefore, a systemic understanding of society is always associated with a big problem - how to combine the free action of an individual and the functioning of the system that existed before him and determines his decisions and actions by its very existence. What can an individual know about the long-term consequences of his actions, which may be contrary to his expectations? It simply turns into a “wheel and cog in the common cause”, into the smallest element, and it is not the individual himself that is subjected to sociological consideration, but his function, which ensures the balanced existence of the whole in unity with other functions.

The relationship of the system with the environment serves as a criterion for its strength and viability. What is dangerous for the system is what comes from the outside, since inside the system everything works to preserve it. The environment is potentially hostile to the system because it affects it as a whole, making changes to it that can upset its functioning. The system is preserved, as it has the ability to spontaneously restore and establish a state of equilibrium between itself and the external environment. This means that the system gravitates towards an internal balance and its temporary disturbances are only random failures in the work of a well-coordinated machine.

The system can reproduce itself. This happens without the conscious participation of the individuals included in it. If it functions normally, the next generations fit into its life activity calmly and without conflict, begin to act according to the rules dictated by the system, and in turn pass these rules and skills on to their children. Within the framework of the system, the social qualities of individuals are also reproduced. For example, in a class society, representatives of the upper classes reproduce their educational and cultural level by raising their children accordingly, while representatives of the lower classes, against their will, reproduce in their children a lack of education and their labor skills.

The characteristics of the system also include the ability to integrate new social formations. It subordinates to its logic and forces to act according to its rules for the benefit of the whole newly emerging elements - new classes, social strata, etc. For example, the emerging bourgeoisie functioned normally for a long time as part of the “third estate” (the first estate was the nobility, the second was the clergy), but when the system of class society could not maintain an internal balance, it “broke out” of it, which meant the death of the entire system.

So, society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles that define the structure of social interactions. Social roles are organized into institutions and communities that constitute the second level of society. Each institution and community can be represented as a complex system organization, stable and self-reproducing. Differences in the functions performed, opposition to the goals of social groups can lead to the death of society if there is no such systemic level of organization that would support a single normative order in society. It is realized in the system of culture and political power. Culture sets patterns of human activity, maintains and reproduces the norms tested by the experience of many generations, and the political system regulates and strengthens the ties between social systems through legislative and legal acts.

Society as a social system. Society as a complex dynamic system - Knowledge Hypermarket

What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment

§2. THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION. SOCIETY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE SYSTEM APPROACH

GENERAL (PHILOSOPHICAL) APPROACH TO THE CONCEPT "SOCIAL SYSTEM" Original definition

What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment

What are the connections and relations of society as a system with the environment

System characteristics of society

Society as a social system

GENERAL (PHILOSOPHICAL) APPROACH TO THE CONCEPT "SOCIAL SYSTEM"
Original definition