No. 020 Radical Dimensions of Modern Systems Theory: Temporary structures, Parallel structures , underground structures, and conflict structures. T. R. Young
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of the TRANSFORMING SOCIOLOGY SERIES of the RED FEATHER INSTITUTE for ADVANCED STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY |
Radical Dimensions of Modern Systems Theory:
A Theory of Temporary structures, Parallel
structures,
underground structures, and conflict structures.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we have provided a theory of social change deriving from the assumptions of modern systems theory. Generally, social change occurs when there is mismatch between system and environment. Change is negative asset to the system when mismatch is increased; a positive asset when reduced. In either case there is a directional political bias to the theoretical model which depicts the situation. Four change technologies are identified as well as the social conditions which provide the milieu in which each may be predicted. Temporary structures are found in nonvariety seeking systems as an ad hoc technology of change. Parallel structures are found when social systems are closed to vareity, are repressive; and at the same time do not preclude internal or external migration. When the above conditions obtain in conjunction with whole system repression and where people cannot leave the system, underground structures may be predicted as the technology of social change. The availability of some form of power to the underground permits one to predict the emergence of conflict structures by which to transform that society. Ultrastable societies take the form of morphogenetic cybernetic systems. Where the environment is very unstable, a science of futurology is a necessary adjunct by which to seek quality variety in timely fashion. The role of intending human beings in social change is emphasized.
INTRODUCTION: The variety of articles and essays on the
conservative bias in that form of systems theory known as structural-functionalism has
proliferated in the past ten years. For good reasons, both empirical and ideological,
social scientists in the West are dissatisfied with a conservative systems approach
involving, even as it has, the writings of some of the most respected of our predecessors
and our peers. The work of Pareto, of Parsons, of Radcliff-Brown, of Davis and Moore as
well as Robert Merton, has not and cannot be accepted as the zenith of sociological
understanding to be taught to naive American students as the way the world works.
Yet systems analysis and systems theory is basically sound and has proven of value in those sciences which do not directly promote one social order over another as natural and given. This quandary has been resolved in principle by the recent writings of Walter Buckley and others. In a number of places, Buckley has presented work, his own and others which clearly specifies the differences between social systems organized as stable entities and those organized as ultra-stable systems (see Glossary). In these works, an ultra-stable system is one which seeks and incorporates change as a matter of routine. This view of stability, that is an ultra-stability, effectively opposes the conservative bias in old systems theory and permits of a radical perspective in systems theory. Although this latter statement may be taken by some to reverse the bias in social theory from conservative to radical, this is not the case. As I will show below, both political biases of the social theorist can be supported by modern systems theory. The central point upon which to focus here for the ideologue is that, in modern systems theory (M.S.T.), the support to be found in systems theory for change or for non-change depends upon the relationship between system and environment. In the sections which follow, I will present the four logically possible modes of relationship between system and environment as well as spell out the meaning of each mode for social change; thereby one will find the basis of support in M.S.T. for given political orientations. Of the four modes of relationship, we shall see that two are politically neutral, one is supportive of a conservative bias and one is supportive of a radical bias for relevant social change (Table 1).
Order, Environment, and the Second Law
The basic postulate in M.S.T. centers around the second "law" of thermodynamics which states that all structures tend to their most probable state.(Note) Particularly, this means that all social systems tend to their most probable state. The most probable state of any given social system is random array of elements. Thus, in a sociology class of 35 students meeting Monday at 9 a.m. in room 121, the most probable state is that the 35 students will appear in random fashion, at different locations, in different times, prepared to discuss anything under the sun if prepared at all. It is an exceedingly improbable event the 35 and only that 35 students would meet at 9 a.m. and only 9 a.m., in only that room, to discuss sociology and only that. How it is that such improbabilities routinely occur arises as more than a rhetorical question; it is a fundamental question. The answer lies in the field yet to be developed in systematic form, still less applied to social systems even if social systems are the major form of irreversible thermodynamic entities--that of Irreversible Socio-Dynamics.
To make a long story short, the ability of an irreversible thermodynamic entity to maintain structure depends upon its ability to transfer order from the environment and convert it into order in the system. One should note that order here has the same technical meaning as improbability and its equivalent, negentropy. The ability of an irreversible thermodynamic entity to transfer order depends in turn upon two factors) a) the presence of an entropy segregating apparatus and b) the degree of match between system and environment. Entropy can be segregated (and order obtained) if and only if the system is within match limits of its environment. Thus the Catholic Church, the U.S.A., the Masonic Lodge, General Motors, as well as other social systems can be maintained as systems if and only if these are matched to the characteristics of a population base. Concretely, social systems are maintained if and only if behavior sets do not appear randomly as between person sets. Behavior can be segregated with person set A behaving this way and person set B that way when the segregating apparatus is effective.
In the case of a factory as a social system, improbable states of association will continue as long as recruiting occurs (segregation apparatus number 1), as long as training occurs (S.A. #2), as long as task allocation occurs (S.A. #3), as long as task enactment occurs (S.A. #4), and as long as the product of the factory is within match limits to the larger environment. While there is no ultimate guarantee or even necessity for social systems to survive, if they do, it is because they are matched to their environment, because they do transfer order from their environment, and do convert it into order in the system. However, what we are interested in this paper is what happens when social systems have developed and are faced with the question of social change. It is now appropriate to consider the four logically possible political orientations between system and environment and to make an exegesis of the political meaning of these relationships to social change.
Stability and Ultrastability
For heuristic purposes, we can compose our discussion as if environment were either exclusively and uniformly stable or exclusively and uniformly unstable. The same condition can be assumed for the social system in question. Under these conditions, we can distinguish the four orientations to social change in Table 1 below. In this Table, one can note that for each theoretical orientation, there is a favoring political bias as regards the response of the system to social change. This political bias derives from a systems theoretical principle which can be stated as "for any system to survive as a discrete entity, it must remain matched to its environment" (see Principles of Irreversible Socio-Dynamics Theory appended).
In Cell 1 of the table below, if the system is stable in a stable environment, then that form of social organization has the following characteristics: a) It is matched to its environment; b) It is transferring order from environment to system on a routine and adequate basis; c) It contains sufficient stored variety by which to cope with the expected exigencies in the environment; and d) social change is a negative
Political Bias for Social Change in Modern Systems Theory
| System Characteristics | |||||||
| Environmental Condition |
Stable | Unstable | |||||
| Stable |
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| Unstable | |||||||
asset to the system should it exceed a certain minimal requirement. As a concrete case, the Karamojo area of Northeast Uganda can be taken. The surround is a dry but adequate environment with some grains, some game, some water and some social isolation. The indigenous peoples have developed technologies in hunting, cooking, socializing, and recreation which match the environmental structure. Sufficient order from the vegetation supports the animal population. Sufficient order in the animal life supports the population. Sufficient population increment is socialized to the normative order of the society and a social order emerges as a discernible level of systems organization and operation. Such variety in the environment as appeared either had no meaning for the various transferral technologies or else sufficient variety is contained within the system but which to cope with changes in grain yield, animal yield, or climatic irregularities. Exogenous changes in social forms, sexual norms, child rearing norms, or recreation norms are used as negative cases in point by which to socialize and to re-affirm tradition. The last form of variety serves as the required negative examples for socialization purposes and as such constitutes the certain minimal necessary variety mentioned above.
In Cell 1, change has no directional political bias. It is largely undesirable in that it would increase mismatch between system and environment and thereby impair the transfer of order. Since it is found to be folly when change is systematically pursued, no effective political base arises within the society arguing routinely for change whether by word or by deed. The next situation is different, however.
In Cell 2, deviation in one or more crucial forms of social technologies for segregating or transforming order threatens to impair the transfer of order between system and environment. Coercive technologies are invented as well as confirmed by means of which a conservative orientation is upheld. Generally, a religious rationale for system conservation is asserted. The practice develops by which variety in the system is defined as error, sin, crime, madness, folly, evil, or as corrupt. The wisdom of the fable, the folk myth, the horror story all converge to socialize young people to an extremely conservative political orientation. Centuries of experience attest to the negative value of social change in a stable environment; especially that change which is introduced by outsiders from an entirely different environment. This folk wisdom has become entrenched and is currently an integral part of the sociology of knowledge of a world accustomed to more stable times.
A different situation is exemplified in Cell 3, however. This cell depicts the situation for the greater portion of societies today. A strong and pervasive bias toward a radical reconstruction of all social systems presently exeunt is embedded in this portion of systems theory. Since the 17th century, technological changes in the production of economic goods have occurred to the point that, for most societies, an unstable environment is a routine contingency. However, the ideologies and political responses to change evolved over millennia still are found in the warp and weave of social knowledge. At the same time the liberated and alienated sectors of the society progressively compose a power base by which to assert new social forms and new ideologies. The culture of control is mistakenly trusted to be effective even as it was in times gone by. The controls become more oppressive while yet less effective and the system fluctuates between extremes of destruction and rebuilding with a net loss in synergy each time.
In Karamojoa, a concrete case can be found to embody the situation presented in Cell 3. An irreversible change occurred in the area which has permanently altered the environment of the indigenous people. Kidepo National Park, Lipan Controlled Area, North Karamojoa Controlled Area, Central Karamojoa Controlled Area, Matheniko Game Reserve, South Karamojoa Controlled Area, and De Basien Animal Sanctuary have been established in the past few years. This change was designed to transform Karamojoa district into a new mode of economic production: capital formation via the tourist trade. The old mode of economic production, while it served the peoples of Karamojoa, did not generate capital for the state to subsidize national and international capitalism. This constitutes an irreversible environment change. While the people resisted the new system of production, helicopters, machine guns, and land rovers used by a military apparatus enforced the change. The game which made up the major food item in the diet of the Karamojoan is no longer available. Zebra, Antelope, Ostrich, and Elephant can no longer be hunted on a level commensurate with survival. New food practices, new economic activity, new social roles and new ideologies must be introduced or the social system will collapse. This has already happened with the Ik people and it will happen to the other tribes if variety is not available.
The political bias here is clearly supportive of a conversion from a stable system of the sort implicit in the formulations of conservative social theorists to an ultrastable equilibrium more compatible with the "radical" social theorists exemplified by Marx, Marcuse, Mao Tse Tung, Mills, and Buckley. But the transition from a variety-closed system to a variety-seeking system is a tumultuous one indeed. Four specific change technologies can be predicted in the situation described in Cell 3. They are temporary structures, parallel structures, underground structures and conflict structures. We will return to a discussion of Cell 4 and ultrastability after the following presentation of a modern systems theory of social change.
Social Change Technologies
What is of most interest to the theorist of social change, aside from whether change is likely to occur or not, is an understanding of what kind of social change is likely to occur under what kind of social conditions. In this section, four kinds (technologies) of social change are predicted, each to occur under one of four different situations. Together they constitute a sort of Guttman scale of social endeavor to activate change. Briefly we can say that in stable social systems which are enveloped in an unstable environment, one can predict the formation of change structures generally. The first and empirically most frequent responses by peoples to an understanding that mismatch between system and environment is present is the formation of a temporary structure by which to reduce mismatch. The first condition which gives rise to ad hoc change structures is the fact that the system is a stable system defining change as evil, corrupt, or madness. If we add to the above, the additional condition of social repression of change activity, one can predict parallel structures instead of temporary change structures to constitute the major type of change technology. If we add still another condition to those of stability and repression, that of restriction of movement, one can predict the emergence of underground structures. If we add availability of power to those forced underground, then the underground structures can be predicted to convert into conflict structures. These above embody four kinds of change technologies which have appeared in increasing number in the past four centuries. The general prediction is that these change technologies will continue until societies make the transition to the situation depicted in Cell 4; that of ultrastability between system and environment. We can now proceed to a more detailed discussion of each change technology.
Temporary Structures: For social systems constructed to close off variety, adventitious social change occurs as an experiment in coping with mismatch. Given such a system, the routine technologies of control come to bear on the experiment and to damp it out as "noise in the system." Given this process; deviation and deviation reduction in an unstable environment, one can predict the emergence of temporary social structures by which to shelter, experiment, defend, and urge the adoption of the new practice as a means of which to counter the variety newly appearing in the environment. A temporary structure may produce rematch and, if so, is ordinarily dismantled. An ultrastable system is lacking if the change technology disappears when the mismatch is reduced. Temporary structures in stable political, economic, religious and educational systems are so numerous that their existence scarcely requires documentation. It is part of the routine of life in contemporary society to take part in temporary change structures.
Parallel Structures: If the environment is stable, if there is mismatch, if the system closed to variety, and if temporary structures are forbidden, then one may predict the emergence of parallel social structures. Parallel churches develop where the church is hostile to change; parallel schools where the traditional school cannot be changed) parallel economic systems where the existing systems are ultraconservative.
In modern times, the Protestant church arose as a parallel structure to the repressive Catholic church; the U.S. developed as a parallel political structure when the British system of governance could not be changed. Socialism and Communism arose as parallel structures when monopoly capitalism closed off relevant change in the marketplace. In our own time parallel forms of family life, the communes, have arisen. Free schools abound in the United States in response to the restrictive universities and alternative churches are proliferating in response to dull, uninspiring, and bureaucratic churches.
Parallel structures are usually effective but costly change technologies; societies in which they are found have the advantage of a regular source of variety but the structural redundancy in the system is possible only in a relatively rich environment. In a situation where an existing system is close to maximum yield from environment, such redundancy puts excessive demands on the environment. But sometimes parallel structures are impossible. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, a population cannot physically depart from given social forms and parallel structures are excluded as possible change technologies.
Underground Structures: In many societies, withdrawal from a given established institution is not possible nor it is possible to organize an alternative to a poorly organized social form. Given this double contingency one can predict the formation of underground structures as a change technology. In prisons, in asylums, in concentration camps, in military dictatorships as well as other repressive societies, an adequate change mechanism is unavailable to those most troubled by the mismatch and, unable to move to new systems, people form a secret, alternative life discretely hidden from "official" view. The persistence of underground structures is dependent upon a number of variables, chief of which seems to be the degree of oppression exercised by the traditional authorities and/or the power base available to the discontents. In prisons, convents, asylums, and in cities, where it is impossible to move out for structural reasons; physical, economic, or symbolic coercion, a rich creative underlife develops in which its members find some relief from the oppressive and limiting elements of the officially given social life world.
Conflict structures: The history of modern societies is a history of conflict, it is a history of a series of cataclysmic readjustments of societies out of match with their times but organized to obstruct peaceful change. Under conditions of mismatch and repression, coercion has succeeded in preserving those societies which otherwise would have followed the holy Roman Empire into oblivion. While not all conflict leads to a better match between system and environment, conflict is indispensable as a change technology until social systems are organized to seek, test, and incorporate variety on a routine basis.(Note)
The experience in underdeveloped countries, where oppressive elites with the aid of capitalist arms and troops have effectively precluded relevant social change, has given rise to the formation of a wide variety of conflict structures ranging from the clandestine meetings of academics in Spain to the Liberation Fronts in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These structures passed through the alternate forms of change technologies without significant success. In all of these areas, temporary political and economic organizations arose until dismantled by the police power of the state. In all these countries, parallel structures are not possible. In all of these countries, underground structures existed as a mode of surviving in a hostile climate. In all of these societies, adequate power bases were fashioned by which to oppose the repressive regime.
Generally, underground structures do not become opposition structures until reduced to extremes or until equipped with sufficient power to make confrontation a realistic alternate. The usual course is for underground structures to remain quiescent and sub rosa. A number of difficult prior conditions appear necessary: a communication network; a plausible social analysis; a plausible program; an effective leadership; unusually bizarre incidents of repression; a sense of community; and one or more power bases even if they are well short of parity with the authority in power.
In recent years, underground organizations have been able to mount a campaign of opposition with very limited resources by applying these points of vulnerability in the international area. Acts of international terrorism can be understood as a change tactic in closed society in mismatch with some characteristics of its population base. The kidnapping of Dr. Claude Fly by the Tupermaros of Uruguay exemplifies such a situation. The hijacking of U.S.A. aircraft has been, in some instances, an attempt to embarrass the U.S. in world opinion by revolutionary Blacks. The actions of the F.L.Q. of Canada represent a situation where there is minimum vulnerability while the acts of the Arab terrorists represent a situation where the chance of success is greater in that the U.S. and Europe are very interested in Arab oil.
When conflict structures fail and they often do, even so they often lead to incorporation of change procedures within the larger system far more frequently than to the earlier conservative posture. There is the well known phenomena of the backlash but this is typical of the confrontation phase rather than subsequent phases. And where conflict structures succeed, often ultras/ability is more a distant promise than an immediate result. But, one can generalize that the overall evolutionary trend is toward ultrastable forms of social organization. Herein is the revolutionary dimension in modern systems theory) it provides a plausible theoretical analysis by which to sustain a radical movement.
Ultrastability, Cybernetics, and Futurology
A social system can be ultrastable if it is capable of controlling either the organization of its own structure or the organization of its environment. Under both conditions, mismatch between system and environment can be constrained and the transfer of order continued. This is the situation depicted in Cell 4 of the paradigm above. A social system capable of doing either necessarily takes the form of a cybernetic system. The basic components of an ultrastable cybernetic society include a) some sort of monitoring apparatus for gauging mismatch, b) some sort of location apparatus for identifying the source of mismatch (usually a system defect but occasionally, a change in the relevant environment), c) a source of variety by which to counter the change or to adjust to it, d) a control apparatus by which to incorporate the alteration, and e) an evaluation apparatus by which to gauge its efficacy.
One can note in the above passage the extraordinary importance of quality information flow to the system. In a cybernetic society, loss of information is a negative asset at crucial times. Structures which interfere with information flow are obstacles to survival. In traditional societies, the same structures which constrict information flow; that is to say stratification, age, sexual and ethnic differentiations all become pathologies in an ultrastable system in so far as they impede the timely flow of quality information about changes in the system and environment or impede the search for quality variety.
A well organized cybernetic society is ultrastable if it can generate and store adequate variety in the system by which to counter or adjust to the variety in the environment. This statement derives from Ashby's Law which holds for every change in the environment, there must be at least one change in the system since only variety can "destroy," i.e., cope with variety. Futurology comprises just that change technology by which a system can best obtain quality variety in timely fashion. In days gone by, the turnaround time for processing data through a cybernetic system of the form described above was measured in years, decades, centuries, and millennia. As the rate of change of environment of social systems increases, the turnaround time for seeking and incorporating relevant variety declines to a matter of years, months, days, and even seconds. The delay in information turnaround can be countered by a science of futurology which can predict a change in system or environment before it happens, which can construct computer simulations of alternative futures among which to select as a counter to the present future; can evaluate the efficacy of alternative future by gaming them out in computer runs; and can instantly retrieve them as contingencies arise.
Not only does futurology permit of ultras/ability in an irreversibly unstable environment, but the advent of mass media technology in conjunction with social survey technology together with computer based data banks permit citizen participation in public policy matters thus minimizing the deleterious effect of traditional constraints on information flow. Stuart Umpelby and Valeria Lamont, among others, are working on such a computer based citizen participation change technology called Plato IV at the University of Illinois.
At present, large scale corporations, especially international organizations, have a virtual monopoly over the science and services of futurologists. The Defense Department of the United States has fostered the development of futurology in its attempt to perfect the technology of warfare of the future. There are better uses for futurology than imagined by military or by international managers. A future dominated by large scale international corporations bolstered by the U.S. Defense Department is an unacceptable future. If the science of futurology is to be used for ultrastability, large scale organizations and the American military machine must be constrained.
Social Change and Human Understanding
In the discussion above, the progression of change technologies from internal adjustments to conflict and radical transformation follow a general pattern. In relating social change and the various technologies by which it occurs to modern systems theory, there is the possibility that one might infer the operation of "natural" laws as the underlying dynamic giving rise to that progression. However natural laws do not make revolution) people do. It is the consciousness of human beings that their society is out of match with their needs (keep in mind that the immediate environment of a social system is a human population) that gives rise to organization for change and it is the vision of human beings which give direction to the change efforts. Judgment and human experience provide the basis for an understanding that one form of change is likely to be ineffective and another necessary.
A second qualification to the progression described in the earlier section is necessary as well. One could infer from that discussion that social change is automatic; its form contingent upon objectively existing characteristics of the system in question. However, the depressing fact is that change is not automatic; it awaits the moment of insight and outrage on the part of the oppressed. Sometimes, insight and outrage is aborted and a social system which is abusive of the human condition continues. Usually, a coercive technology is the instrument by which social revolution is aborted--but that coercive technology itself is organized and used insightfully by understanding human beings aware of the threat to their privileged position.
If we can agree that all social reality; class systems, coercive systems, family, church and work systems depend, ultimately, upon the intentionality of human beings reifying epistomological categories and, by so doing, transforming them into ontological categories, it should be clear that the process can be reversed. It is always possible to terminate the ontological character of social categories by sheer force of will by some human beings. However, social relationships mediate to obstruct that reversal as do coercive technologies. Nevertheless, social change, unlike physical change, can be quite discontinuous. Overnight Gods are forsaken, ties of family love are put aside and cherished modes of distribution are abandoned. In floods, tornadoes, and in wartime, solidarity and community are instantly reassembled and the harm done to the human spirit by generations of privatized life in class-based societies is temporarily repaired.
Again, none of this is automatic; all social change must be mediated through intending subjects if it is to be social change. The question is how to demonstrate to those oppressed that an ontological category previously reified can, in fact, be dereified and transformed into another, more affirmative category of social relationships. One cannot be optimistic here; in India, in Spain, in Puerto Rico and in the United States both quality of life and quantity of life variables reflect the effects of a poorly designed social system out of match with a significant portion of its population base. The final product of social change reflects not only insight and organization by a revolutionary group but also the power and determination of a repressive elite. The role of the radical systems theorist in all this is to document the mismatch between social system and human environment in relevant terms; to emphasize the reification process and to affirm the possibility of dereifications; to help make judgments about which change technology is appropriate and necessary; to help people make sense of their experience deriving from the trust placed in them by the public in providing them with a specialized education. The point of all specialized education is not private gain but public welfare. Social scientists as well as system theorists default upon that trust and deny reciprocity when they put their science to privatized use. Modern systems theory has a built-in radical dimension which provides the theorist with a vision and an impulse toward social change. It is incumbent upon the systems theorist to share that vision and to act upon that impulse.
NOTE: This paper was written long before Chaos and Complexity theory developed...its major points continue, I believe, to be helpful to sociological knowledge but, today, I would and have modified any theory of change to respond to the concept of non-linearity in both production and reproduction of society...see the Chaos Theory HomePages
GLOSSARY
Principles of Irreversible Socio-Dynamic Systems(Note)
NOTES
REFERENCES
