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Sztompka Piotr – contemporary Polish sociologist. He systematized main conceptions of development, which are briefly presented in his book «Sociology of social changes. – Moscow, 1996». There, he gave the principal categories such as progress, social time, historical tradition and the most influental conceptions of historical development: classical evolutionism – idealistic conception of evolution of O. Comte; naturalistic conception of evolution of H. Spencer and materialistic conception of evolution of L. Morgan; sociological conception of evolution of E. Durkheim; co-evolutionism in the cultural anthropology and sociology. There are presented the theories of modernization and historical cycles as specific conceptions of development along with the criticism of conceptions of development, in particular, a disproof of «historicism» of K. Popper.
P. Szompka presents the own conception of historical development in the context of ideas as a historical force, activity of prominent persons as agents of changes, social movements as factors of social changes and revolutions as the peak of social changes. With the conception of A. Toffler, he grounds the refusal from the idea of progress with infinite number of the stages of growth, which was the basis for almost all theories of development in sociology in the XIX–XX centuries. Infinite industrial growth cannot be an actual purpose of the mankind. If to describe the historical development in terms of continuous wave motion, then the first and second waves are agrarian and industrial epochs, and the third is an attempt to create a new civilization with nonindustrial values based on the organic coalescence of nature and technique, which corresponds to direct needs of a single person.
The idea of progress as a purpose of development of the society is connected with development of the human psychics as a regular change of psychical processes in time, which is expressed in their quantitative, qualitative, and structural transformations. The development of psychics is characterized the irreversible character of changes, orientation (i.e., ability to accumulation of changes, «building on» of new changes over previous ones) and their regular character. The development of psychics is realized in the form of phylogenesis (establishment of the structures of psychics in the course of biological evolution of a species or the sociocultural history of the mankind on the whole and its separate ethnic, social, and cultural groups) and in the form of ontogenesis (formation of psychical structures during the life of a single organism).
To modernize – to change something in accordance with contemporary requirements and tastes, to renew130.
Toynbee A. J. (1889-1975) – English historian and sociologist. He advanced the conception of civilizational development, which has two degrees of continuity. One should distinguish continuity between sequential periods and phases in the history of the society and that as a connection of the very societies in time. Chapters of history of any single society remind sequential stages of the human experience. For example, the connection between one society and the other reminds relations between the parents and child. Civilizations develop due to a gust which leads them from a call through the reply to a further call: from differentiation through integration to a new differentiation. This process has no spatial coordinates because progress named growth presents a cumulative translational movement as mastering the external world and as the internal self-determination and self-organization. Growing civilizations differ from primitive societies by translational movement at the expense of the creative minority. Toynbee denied Spengler’s idea on that the development of a civilization can be compared with the development of an organism passing the phases of childhood, youth, maturity, and senility. To dogmatically assert that some term of existence is predestined to every society is the same that to demand that every play consist of the same amount of acts. The growth of a society is interrupted by a fracture as a consequence of the internal burst which implies the loss of the property of self-determination by the society. The governing minority creates a universal state, internal proletariat – ecumenical church, and external proletariat – groups of armed barbarians. In the history of decline of any civilization, one can find a rhythm of decay. The formation of an universal state is a symptom of social decay, and a next fracture will stimulate a final decay.
Transformation – mutually stimulating changes of the models of social action, on the one hand, and functioning the social institutions related to a intentional purposeful effect of nominal establishments (formal norms, procedures, or rules), on the other hand.
Vector of social development. Vector is the segment of a straight line of definite length and direction, which represents some magnitude characterizing not only by a numerical value but also by a direction (e.g., force, speed, etc.)131. In the context of the conception under study, it defines a direction of the social-historical development at nodal and cuspidal points. A nodal point is a synonym of the notion of attractor – limiting state such that, having reached it, the system cannot return to none of its previous states. A cuspidal point – synonym of the notion of bifurcation – corresponds to a branching of some old quality into a finite set of quite definite potentially new qualities. A vector can be conditionally «positive» directed to the side of progress or «negative», which characterizes a «regressive» development. The definition of the vector of social-historical development is one of the methodological tools used in creation of a working hypothesis for development of epochal cycles132.
Vygotsky Leonid Semenovich (1896-1934) – soviet psychologist. He advanced a doctrine about development of psychic functions in the process of the mastering, mediated by intercourse, of cultural values by an individual. Cultural signs (first of all, signs of language) serve a kind of tools. By operating them, the subject can affect others and forms the own internal world, whose basic units are meanings (generalizations, cognitive components of consciousness) and senses (affective-motivational components). Psychic functions given by nature («natural») are transformed into functions of the highest level of development («cultural»). By originating in direct contacts of a child with adults, the highest functions then root themselves in his/her consciousness. On the basis of this idea, there appears a representation about «the zone of nearest development» concerning the difference in the level of difficulty of problems solved by a child without assistance (actual level of development) and that under guidance of adults. Only that education is efficient which «runs ahead» the development133.
Instead of conclusion
The applied meaning of the presented conception is defined by the possibility of implementation of a social-historical prognosis. The problem of scientifically grounded prognostication, on the one hand, is very complex methodologically and, on the other hand, is also important both in political and social-economic contexts. A. Toynbee said: «The impossibility to define a final purpose of development implies the impossibility to exactly define a character of the very development» 134. As a methodological foundation of short-, middle-, and long-term prognoses, one can take the idea of formation of a universal epochal cycle. The use of this conception for futurological studies of the social-historical development at the global, regional, and national levels has certain peculiarities. However, first of all, we consider general regularities following from the proposed conception. It should be recognized that the largest methodological problem is created by a peculiar «migration» of the size of a subject under study. For example, assume that the influence of the subject «we» attains a maximum in the transient (co-evolutionary) phase of the epochal cycle as result of norms of «collectivistic moral» dominated in the previous involutionary period. Then, in the revolutionary phase of the cycle, the subject individualizes and the cohort of « revolutionaries» becomes so mass that it exceeds the demand of the society for «shakers» of bases.
In the involutionary period, the economy develops, as a rule, extensively at the expense of attraction of new irreplaceable resources. The evolutionary period of the cycle is defined by the tendency of intensive liberal development of the economy. The type of demographic reproduction also undergoes certain changes. For the involutionary period, it is characteristic the model defined by rather high rates of birth and mortality, and the traditional family occupies dominant social positions. But in the evolutionary period of the cycle, inversely, we observe that the tendency to a decrease in the levels of birth and mortality becomes defining. As a consequence, the society encounters the effect of «ageing» of the population. Egalitarian intrafamilial relations become stronger.
Of course, the proposed hypothetical scheme-prognosis can be only an illustration rather than the definition of all possibilities of the method. For example, in the political sphere, we can only say about the main tendencies of the future. Beginning from the boundary of our era (the epoch of Christ), the leading contradiction of social development is that between «the forms of religious and scientific consciousness». In this case, for countries of the West-European cultural area (modern advance-guard of the world-wide historical process), the dialectic overcoming of the mentioned contradiction occurred in the chronological frameworks of the epoch of Enlightenment. As for a new dialectic contradiction («moral – right»), it was overcome in these countries during the epochs of Modern and Post-Modern. Completing this historical period, the countries of the West Europe and North America meet a new epoch, whose content will be the contradiction between political and ordinary consciousness. Somewhat «shifted» (from the viewpoint of the global analysis, by 100-150 years) becomes the situation for the countries of the Central and East Europe and Asia, for which the contents of the epoch of Post-Modern will be still actual in the first half of the XXI century.
The change of tendencies laid in the basis of the prognosis will require the introduction of proper corrections in time. On the whole, the depth and detailed elaboration of a prognosis depend on the degree of progress in social sciences.
We have already noted that, on the global level, one can identify the completion of the involutionary stage of the eighth (the fourth one from the Christmas) epochal cycle, which sums up, on the whole, the development of the industrial civilization and «leads» the world to active vital activity according to the tendencies of the evolutionary period of the epochal cycle. Moreover, if this situation is characteristic, to a full extent, of the countries of the Asian-Eurasian megaregion, then the main tendencies of development of countries belonging now to the advance-guard of the world-wide historical process consist in their approaching to conditions of the formation of a post-industrial (informational) civilization. By using mechanisms of the newest technologies, they stimulate the creation of a global economic system. At the same time, at the threshold of the XXI century, we have observed an increase in the global inequality between countries of the core and periphery of the new system135.
Radical geopolitical changes in the 90s of the XX century transformed the system of international relations. After the disintegration of the USSR, the USA remained a single «universal» superstate and will conserve the dominant position approximately up to the middle of the XXI century. At the same time, by virtue of the development of new centers of force, a new anti-American block headed by Russia and China will be objectively formed. The international system, based on competition of many centers of force, stimulates numerous wars and generates nonstability.
The perspective of an open conflict between forces of globalization (West-European enclave) and agents of localization – presented by the European nationalism in the XX century and Islamic fundamentalism in the XXI century – can cast the world civilization into the condition of «new barbarism». This, probably, «corresponds» to the content of the transient (co-evolutionary) phase of the mankind and its final transition to the conclusive evolutionary period of the eighth (fourth) epochal cycle at the global level.
We expect different futurological fates for separate regions. For Eurasia, the tendency of completion of the formation of the «Great Europe from French Brest to Belorussian Brest becomes clear, though we do not exclude breakdowns in the process of European integration, in particular, those related to the problems of establishment of the common, external, and defensive policy of the European Community, to the fate of the common monetary unit «euro», and to the redistribution of the economic power in the frameworks of the trans-Atlantic community. Of great importance is the fate of Russia for the future of Eurasia.
The strengthening of federative unity stabilizes a situation in the region. Asia is overcoming the consequence of the financial crisis in 1997. At the same time, the competition between China, new nuclear states of Pakistan and India, and Japan, which makes its geopolitical possibilities to be stronger by the military-political alliance with the USA, will become sharper. Simultaneously, the absence of the Asian system of safety increases the nonstability generated by long-term conflicts such as the interstate India-Pakistan conflict or ethno-religious contradictions destroying Indonesia. Political contradictions can stop the tendency to the Asian economic integration, which will affect the plans of creation of the Asian-Pacific free trade zone till 2025.
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