Gods and Monsters: The Scientific Method Applied to the Human Condition - Book II Page 9
Chapter 5:
Evolution and progress of historical structures and human progress
The philosophical concepts of the human nature and of what we call the structural reality historic, clearly indicate the need to understand the causes of the historical evolution, its real trend, and if such evolution entail, or less, an human progress and social, effective. With the series of essays that we are publishing we are delineating, therefore, a conception of the historical evolution in capable of fully responding to the criteria of scientific approach.
It is necessary to apply the concept of progress at the human nature. The scientific analysis, manifests in its two aspects of progress: of individualisation and socializing.
The epicureans have refused to accept the philosophy of history, typical of Greek culture: the theory of cyclicity historic. They theorized a progress of the human condition: created, namely, a positivistic philosophy and materialistic. However, they did not dare talk of progress in act, projecting in the future.
The theory " illuminist" gave a critical judgment to the various societies that follow one another, implicitly recognizing the shortage on the plan: human and social.
John Bury, as the thinkers "romantics", he had thought to be able to adapt the Vico's theory to the theory of progress, considering that the cyclicality not carryovers humanity, periodically, to the starting point, but that the movement of the society purchases an ascent to spiral. In reality: there is no return to the exact point of departure only if science does not regress of everything in the feudal stage, but retains some elements of progress of knowledge accumulated in the previous merchant phase. Occurs, in this case, a substantial return to the starting point on the plan: social, economic and cultural, but an advancement on the cognitive plane, or scientific, that justifies, albeit to a limited extent and selective, the idea of an evolution at upward spiral (1).
With the so-called “Romance" (which included the “idealism” and “positivism”), with the progress term, is was meant the historical evolution, as succession progressive indefinitely (up to conceive: periods of “apparent regression”, as a condition to the next advancement). The history has assumed, according to them, positive qualities: “reason absolute, infinite Spirit”, considered capable of self-determination, without the human intervention. They, unfortunately, did not see, in this, an element of irrationality and inhumanity.
The theory “romantic” had judged in an equally positive way every type of society, being cultrice of the evolution in itself, they regard as the expression, or the essence, of progress. The concept of progress it is applied to all fields: technology, the development of production (identified in an improper manner, with economic development), the tenor of life, industrialization, the politics, life ethics, philosophy, up to scientific research and, in general, to all aspects of life associated (2).
Morgan had stated that the theory of a global evolution (or channeled in a single direction) of human society, it can consider be scientifically proven on the basis of the study “exhaustive of man and of his conquests” (3). If, for global evolution is meant an evolution substantially convergent and concretized in an actual progress, in consequence of the succession of the various structural universes, it can be considered acceptable this conception. It is not obvious, however, that all peoples follow or have followed the same succession of structural universes. In addition, you have evidence of periodic regressions, according to a cyclicity well defined and ascertained. These regressions are part of the evolution of the universe structural statual. This shows how the historical structures are extraneous to the human nature. The same Morgan stated to find, in the eighteenth century, examples of Tribal organizations in Europe, and precisely in Ireland and Scotland (4). In the twenty-first century there are not examples less numerous of this phenomenon. These are, mostly, examples of survivals of structures pre-statual in the structures statual, but, also, of attempts to return to the structures pre-statual on the part of peoples that from millennia live, by now, in structures statual. This is to be ascribed to the general conservatism of those who love the traditions and at the rejection of so-called “civilization” represented by the structures statual, considered less “civil” and more inhumans of the same structures (or structural universes) pre-statual. Therefore, the identification of the “historical evolution” with a progressive direction of human history, is a concept: false, misleading and contrary to the actual human condition in reality structural historical, also because it does not distinguish between the historical evolution, structural evolution, structural progress and human progress.
John Bury had stated that the theory of the progress involves of consider the historical evolution: as a movement in a direction desirable. He had perceived as there are, instead, clear symptoms of an evolution in the opposite direction to what is desirable. Had stated that the theory of progress implies that the historical process is a necessary result of human nature, and not deriving from an external will, because the latter does not guarantee nor the continuity nor the final outcome, except of grant to this external will, of the quality of “Providence”. Bury stated that the doctrine of progress, understood as the conception of an advancement unlimited in the future, is proper of the “modern age” (or better of merchant phase of the historical cycle, that it is part of the “ages”, defined by academic historians: “medieval - modern - post – modern”) (5). In reality: the theory of progress belongs essentially at the time of the crisis of the merchant phase: this is because the thrusts in the sense of a new phase feudal must find a moral justification and social. The theory of progress does not emerge, in fact, if there is an regress toward a new feudal phase. In this case, since it occurs a partial conscience of regression, imminent or in progress (as it was in Rome in the following centuries to the II of the Vulgar Era) you need hide theoretically.
The historic structures, in their evolution, determine the following consequences on human reality:
a differentiation, growing, of type:
individual,
social,
cultural;
a skills of communication interpersonal to overhangs, not always growing and, finally, a integration decreasing of the individuals in the social structures. The fact that the interpersonal communication skills grow, with the growth of differentiation interindividual may give the impression that we need to increase further the second to fully implement the first. In reality, the differentiation interindividual has reached a such level, whereby, is just such differentiation at prevent further growth of the communicability. It is, therefore, evident as that, to realize a interpersonal communication satisfactory, it is necessary to strive to increasing equality, of a type different from that made by the structures pre-statual (where you create a growing equality, but in the irrationality). J. J. Rousseau had stated that the communication follows a gradual progress, due to the lack of expressive means and for the lack of needs or incentives to achieve such progress (6). We can say that, measured on the basis of the progress communicative, it has real social progress, be it structural or less. A qualitative leap in interpersonal communication will lead to a qualitative leap the human condition, beyond the historical structures. Rousseau had attributed to aspects that can be improved (and therefore, at the present of the imperfection) of the human being, the unhappiness caused, in reality, by historical structures (7).
A certain tendency of the psychoanalysis Freudian contemporary, as psychoanalysis Lacanian, defines the unconscious as the equivalent of what we call the structural reality, interiorised, considering the structural reality in its evolution. These psychologists consider the non-membership, or unintegrated, in this evolutionary reality (which define: the “symbolic”), as folly, also called “imaginary totality of the self". In this, they do not deviate from the twentieth-century philosophy: Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Adorno. With the term “the principle” indicate: animal naturalness, from which it is necessary to emancipate the child, through the natural p
owers parental, which involves the sexual repression, since we are in the presence of structural reality. The structural reality historical is conceived as an inevitable passage in the process progressive of the humanity, even at the level of the life cycle of the individual. The Lacanian psychoanalysis he theorized a general neurosis or sociality disturbed, since it is characterized by the refusal of the perception of the “wishes of the others”, and since it is limited to perceive the demand of others, being these “desires”: otherness or foreignness compared to the subject. The “neurosis” would be therefore, the condition of the human being, in the reality structural. Who escapes this “neurosis” precipitates in the “anguish”, deriving from the “perception of the desires of the other”, and in depression, characterized by sufferings self-destructive. The sociality not neurotic is based on the coexistence of “tendencies” of the individuals with the similar “tendencies” of the others. The degree of satisfaction of the need of sociality not directly dependent on the social reality in act, but by what the subject manages to express, in relationship with others. However, the ratio that each individual is able to establish with the others cannot prescind from the degree of sociality of those with which it interacts. Therefore, the social nature of the subject is strongly conditioned by the sociality of the people with which the subject interacts. In this way the subject itself draws, besides the conditioning, the necessary hooking with the degree of manifestation of the average of the being, of time or of the social reality, where the subject lives. The sociality of the individuals is measured in relation to the ability to build and maintain interpersonal relationships deep and balanced, where the balance is intended as: the absence of any form of oppression and subjugation. The depth of interpersonal relationships will be measured by the degree of reciprocal communication, whose maximum intensity will be such as to allow to avoid the elements of oppression and subjugation.
Karl Marx had stated that the structural evolution represents a “process of individualization”, through which it is realized the individuality, from a primitive condition as gregarious. In fact, the passage, or metamorphosis, among those that we have defined: universes structural historicals, outlines a progressive growth of the “individualization” of human beings, in contrast with the primitive indistinguishability between the subjectivity of the individual and the objectivity of the collectivity. In this sense we can speak about progress, in relation to the historical evolution, with the progressive alternation of the various structural universes (8).
Luigi Pareyson stated that the truth creates “commonality”, and that the society consistent with the authentic human nature is feasible only between “similars” and between “people (or, better, between individuals), cannot exist in the mass” in which there is no real community because there is no singularity (9). “The true community is similarity: deepening of personality and singularity, not their denial”. The creation of the true “commonality” is considered, by Pareyson, necessary to overcome evil within humanity, forced within a “task”, extraneous to the “nature” (10). The individualisation progresses, therefore, parallel to the grow of sociality, and both are essential to qualify the authentic human progress.
The new man, predicted by Marxism, when Marx spoke of the realization of the “communism”, is in contradiction with the entirety of the ideology itself monist and immanentist, created by Marx. If, in fact, the human being was not other that the “product of history”, not you would see how this can be overcome, nor how it can create a “new man”, self-conscious and able to transcend said historical reality. This, would imply a contradiction implied by the story itself, which would prevent the its functioning. However, such a conception does not seem to be only a necessary element in the completion of its ideology. Derives, also, from the conviction of Marx according to which the evolution comes from a force or endogenous element of each evolutionary stage. The overcoming of one stage, it would be a necessity, manifested, when that given stage enters in contrast with itself. This conception is totally unfounded: contradictions implied of an any phenomenon, would be able to hinder the its existence or the occurrence. The element that generates the exceeding a given evolutionary stage can only be outside, as a manifestation of contradiction between that level of evolution, and a human nature that has generated that level of evolution, as a means of their own evolution and it requires the overcoming, when that level of evolution is no longer suitable for the purpose. The “new man”, then, that will allow the overcoming of the structural reality historic will be the human being, to who will be coming to boredom the repetitive evolution of the universe structural statul. This growing mismatch will be generated by a cognitive level, only indirectly generated by statual society (and not element of this). This mismatch is manifested in various forms and is in the process of becoming general despair, also highlighted by the spread of drugs. Due to a lack of external conditions to the transcendence of structural reality, there would be the disintegration of the same statual structural reality. The absence of a concrete and realisable prospect of overcoming of structural reality structural statual, will would lead of humanity toward self-destruction.
Part II:
Philosophy of the being between historical reality and human nature