Cross-border Operation in Civilization: The Talcott Parsons’ Civilization Reading
Rudyard Kipling’s The Ballad of East and West begins with the verses “Oh, East is East, and West is West,/ And never the twain shall meet.” As an eschatological proof of the never-ending divide between East and West, these lines are often cited by writers and journalists in an international crisis. The current crisis is a product of a bigger problem, while actuality is rediscovering the heritage of a selfish, violent, and agressive past. Many concepts, such as civility, civilization and modernization, come into play in an evolutionist discourse that categorizes and differentiates social differences and predicts that an ideal society will survive over time. Social evolutionism may not be a basic form of explanation today as it was in the nineteenth century. It reminds us of our zoological origins, our colonial sins, and the ruins of history. Contemporary thought, shaped by the discussion of the end of history, the end of ideology, or the end of the meta-narratives has been distilled from the dualities of old–fashioned philosophies (East-West, barbarian-civilized, irrational-rational, etc.). A recent popular trend is to confess the sins of old social scientific accounts. So, the apocalyptic atmosphere in the subsequent verses of poems can be felt in radical criticisms of post-modern approaches to modern civilization. How can debates on civilization still be in the forefront of the individual or collective, even though all the crimes of civilization have been revealed? Why do we remember where we are in civilization when there is a small hitch in our daily lives? Why is it still important to determine the distance between civilizations when the communication revolution has removed distance between people and turned the world into a “global village” (unity/conflict)? In this paper, we will try to deal with the reconstruction of the concept of contemporary civilization in the context of Talcott Parsons’ reading of civilization. The fact that the United States became the new central country of the world after World War II necessitated the re-reading of world history in line with current developments. The thought of Talcott Parsons, who formulated the Fordist-Keynesian welfare society model as a general system theory, did not only shape the advanced capitalist societies; at the same time his understanding of history, which treats civilizations as a relay runner for contemporary society, is an essential reference for modernization theorists in the description of non-Western social structures. First, we will consider Parsons’ social system theory, which regards modern social structure and relationships as the ultimate goal that past civilizations were trying to achieve. We will then try to address his views on the social evolution and civilization process. Parsons’ teleological reading of historical civilizations in order to explain the problem of change as one of the questions that structural-functionalism leaves unanswered suggests that social change is caused by an internal influence that arises from non-adaptation to physical and natural conditions. This reading, which legitimizes relations of power among societies as a “theodicial necessity” in a sense, is an inspiration to the “modernization theory” of the wide field of application in the non-Western world during the Cold War period. It is especially important that this theory, which was developed in the post-1960s political climate (although some of its representatives and basic views lose their old influence) is based on the actual civilization assumption.
Sınır-Ötesi Bir Uygarlık Operasyonu: Talcott Parsons’ın Uygarlık Okuması
Rudyard Kipling 1889 tarihli Doğu Batı Baladı’na “Ah Doğu Doğudur, Batı da Batı; bu ikisi asla bir araya gelmeyecektir” (Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet) mısraları ile başlar. Sonraki mısralarında Doğu ve Batı arasındaki bu uçurumun mahkeme-i kübra’ya kadar kapanmayacağını belirten bu şiir, uluslararası herhangi bir krizde bazı köşe yazılarında yeniden hatırlanır. Aktüalite bencil, şiddet düşkünü ve saldırgan bir geçmişin kalıntılarını gün yüzüne çıkarırken yaşanan krizin aslında daha büyük bir problemin ürünü olduğu vurgulanır: uygarlık problemi. Bilindiği üzere uygarlık, uygarlaşma, muasırlaşma, modernleşme gibi yakın anlamlı birçok kavram toplumsal farklılıkları tasnif edip tipleştiren ve zaman içinde ideal bir toplum türünün hayatta kalacağını öngören evrimci bir söylemle iç içe geçmiştir. Bununla birlikte toplumsal evrim düşüncesinin, günümüz uygar insanına, unutmaya çalıştığı hayvansal kökenlerini, sömürgeci günahlarını ya da geçmişteki hezimetlerini hatırlattığından 19. yüzyıldaki cazibesini kaybettiği de bir gerçektir. Tarihin, ideolojinin veya meta-anlatıların sonu hakkındaki söylemlerin şekillendirdiği çağdaş düşüncenin, eski tarih felsefelerinin ikiliklerinden (Doğu-Batı, barbar-uygar, irrasyonel-rasyonel) arınmaya çalıştığı bir sır değildir. Hatta günümüz insan bilimlerindeki en popüler trendlerden birinin, eski toplumsal açıklamaların işlediği günahları açığa çıkarmak olduğu söylenebilir. Post-modern yaklaşımların modern uygarlıkla yaptığı radikal hesaplaşma ise adeta şiirin müteakip mısralarının haklılığını selamlar. Fakat eski tartışmalarının içindeki tüm rahatsızlıklar ortaya dökülmesine rağmen, uygarlık problemi neden hâlâ bireysel kanılarımızı yönlendirmekte ve toplumun gizli gündem maddesini oluşturmaya devam etmektedir? Gündelik hayatımızda ufak bir aksaklık ortaya çıktığında neden her seferinde uygarlık seviyemizi hatırlarız? İletişim devrimi insanlar arasındaki mesafeleri kaldırarak dünyayı “küresel bir köy” haline getirmişken neden uygarlıklar arasında geçilmez sınırlar varmış gibi hissederiz? Bu çalışmada “dünya tarihinin” çağdaş bir yorumu olan 1940 sonrası uygarlık/uygarlıklar formasyonu Talcott Parsons’ın tarih okuması bağlamında ele alınacaktır. Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin savaş sonrasında dünyanın yeni merkez ülkesi haline gelmesiyle, dünya tarihinin ve uygarlıkların da bu güncel gelişme doğrultusunda okunmasını gerekli görüldü. Fordist-Keynesgil toplum modelini genel bir sistem kuramı olarak formüle eden Talcott Parsons’ın düşünceleri, yalnızca ileri kapitalist toplumların güncel hayatını biçimlendirmekle kalmadı. Onun geçmiş uygarlıkları, çağdaş toplumun ortaya çıkışındaki bir bayrak yarışçısı olarak gören tarih anlayışı, Batı-dışı toplumsal yapıların açıklanmasında, modernleşme kuramcıları tarafından asli bir referans kaynağı olarak kullanılmıştır. Toplumların geçmişten bugüne değişimlerini ele alan bu muktedir uygarlık yorumunu üç başlıkta inceleyeceğiz. Öncelikle savaş sonrası süreçte çağdaş toplumsal yapı ve ilişkileri geçmiş uygarlıkların asli gayesi olarak gören Parsons’ın sistem kuramını, ikinci olarak orta döneminde kaleme aldığı toplumsal evrim ve uygarlık süreci hakkındaki görüşlerini ele almaya çalışacağız. Yapısal-işlevselciliğin yanıtsız bıraktığı sorulardan biri olan değişim problemini açıklamak adına tarihsel uygarlıklara yönelen Parsons’ın teleolojik okuması, toplumsal değişmenin fiziksel ve doğal koşullara adapte olamamaktan doğan içsel bir etkinin sonucu olduğunu ileri sürer. Bu iddia tarihsel farklılıkları ölçülebilir ve kıyaslanabilir bir niceliğe indirgediğinden Batıdışı uygarlıkların toplumsal yapı ve kültürel özgünlüklerini kapitalist sistemin soyut mantığı ile bütünleştirmeye olanak tanır. Bu sosyolojik okumanın dışarda kalanların içeriye nasıl ve ne ölçüde dahil edileceğine dair belirlediği kuramsal yol haritası, Soğuk Savaş dönemi uluslar arası ilişkilerde, en azından bir taraf için, reddedilmez bir armağandır. Bu bağlamda çalışmada üçüncü olarak toplumlar arasındaki iktidar ilişkilerini sistem dışı bir unsur bir anlamda “zorunlu kötülük” olarak meşrulaştıran bu okumanın soğuk savaş sürecinde Batı-dışı dünya için kullanıldığı güncel bir uygulama alanı olarak “modernleşme kuramını” ele alacağız. Nitekim 1960 sonrası siyasal iklimde varlık kazanan bu kuramın, temsilcileri ve temel görüşleri eski nüfuzunu kaybetmesine rağmen, temel kabullerinin günümüz uygarlık tahayyülünü biçimlendirmeye dolaylı olarak devam etmektedir.
Contemporary Origin for Social Universals
Immanuel Kant argues that universal morality depends on a morality principle that everyone will act upon. Such a moral concept, rooted not in divine grace but in practicality, refers to the universality of the community in which morality lies, even though it does not give a clear view of what behaviors are acceptable or pleasurable. If the first step of the tradition of enlightenment is to get rid of the limit of space and time with a transcendental leap, the second step is to explain the world with information (anthropology) that accepts itself as the only criterion. The universal nature of man is a universalized nature through historical and social processes. It can be said that this (contingent) rule did not deteriorate in the order of the new society that rose after the Second World War. In the aftermath of 1945, when the world was seeking to heal the wounds of two deadly wars, structural-functionalism aimed to develop an understanding that would solve both the solving of crisis of society and carry the “historical burden of the white man.”
As a scientific statement of middle-class unconscious concerns, the turning point of structural-functionalism was 1938, when it was set down in the first edition of The Structure of Social Action. As some crises bring new opportunities to surpass the boundaries of the conventional understanding of the world, there will be a turning point for all new ideas in the following process. After the war, a new need for social science motivated Parsons and his canonical reading. The work, which was grounded in the social scientific heritage of the 19th century, offered a sociological paradigm of lessons learned from positivist and idealist misconceptions. Parsons was trying to update the optimistic self-confidence of the 19th-century world, which compares civilizations and explains its own supremacy, while at the same time receiving the creative discourse of classical sociology as a starting point for the new era. Although putting the absolute objectivity of natural sciences into social phenomena is the greatest dream of sociology, it was necessary to wait until after the war for a nation-centered institutionalization process that dissolved different ethnic and interest groups in the category of citizenship. The bureaucratization of economic, political, and other spheres made it possible to consider the sui generis thing called society as a general “system” (Parsons, 1979, p. 830), which defines the elements as the abstract sum of their relations with each other and with the whole.
Parsons argues that social systems are composed of three sub-systems: “coordinated,” “intertwined,” and “integrated” with social relations by reducing individual differences to a minimum: the social system, the cultural system and the personality system. The social system, in which individuals learn to fulfill the social roles and social expectations provided to them, is the product of a one-way functioning, not an interaction process, contrary to Mead’s hypothesis. The cultural system has a (re-production) function that allows the ideal balance to be adopted by every new member of the collectivity. The cultural system consists of cognitive symbols that produce objective judgments, descriptive symbols that produce aesthetic judgments, and moral-legal symbols that produce value judgments about phenomena, and it tries to overcome the natural inequality between people with a purpose and consensus. It is the process of devoting the individuals included by the personality system that aims to be a mature member of human society. According to Parsons, According to Parsons, individuality can only be established as the ability to capture the needfunction balance, as determined by the system. In this context, personality refers to the individual’s social status as the degree of internalization of normative standards.
Civilization Reading of the Contemporary Evolutionist
“Who reads Spencer now?” Young Parsons begins The Structure of Social Action with these words (Parsons, 2015, p. 39). According to him, for a new paradigm that explains social relations in the context of an integrated system, Spencer was involved in the evolution of social theory because he represented a backward stage. The new generation of sociologists also claim that Parsons, like Spencer, who imposed his interpretation as the advanced stage of the disciplinary sociological tradition, made an “old fashioned evolutionism” (Pope et al., 1975, p. 230). Is the evolution of Parsons and his followers entirely different from Spencer’s evolutionism? Yes and no. It is difficult to reconcile the two approaches on a common theoretical basis. One of these approaches saw society as a necessary condition for survival, while the other regarded a biological requirement as a random outcome. On the other hand, these two interpretations of social evolution interlock the teleological beliefs about the fate of civilization with the cultural pessimism of contemporary historians. There is nothing surprising about the fact that concern for withdrawal and disintegration was spread during the two inter-war periods, and that civilization has been restructured with the closure and protection instinct. The “Zeitgeist,” of which Parsons was a member, also thought of the earlier crises as the beginning of a new, perpetual phase that escaped the unnecessary weight of civilization.
Parsons concentrates more on topics related to historical evolution and the historical formation of modern society in his later studies. As a comparative reading, The System of Modern Societies regards the contributions of different civilizations to the development of the modern social system, while the failure of the universal system to meet the demands is seen as a reason to withdraw from the stage of history. The System of Modern Societies summarizes the concept of society as a system that Parsons operates works such as Social System (1951), Family Socialization and Interaction Theory (1955), and Economy and Society (1956) in his mature period.
Parsons classifies pre-modern civilizations into primitive, archaic, and intermediate stages, while the civilization of Greek and Israeli societies defines them as double beds. Parsons treats primitive societies as a negative category since man’s maturation is regarded as a construction of a symbolic order. Parsons deals with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations that he called archaic societies as the second ring of the evolutionary process. The distinction between the ruling and the ruled and the centralization of power take these societies up one level in the evolutionary order. On the way to the modern system as defined by Parsons are the Chinese, Indian, Islamic and Roman civilizations, which are defined as intermediate in the final step. These societies, which greatly differ between physical conditions and social order, have prepared the substructure of the idea of the social system by evolving an abstract state from God’s anthropomorphic acceptance. For Parsons, the formation of a valued community (believers or civilizations) in which political competence is gathered in a single center, is one of the greatest contributors to the social evolution of intermediate civilizations. Greek and Israeli civilizations, the cradle of civilization, have contributed more than the post-potentially subsequent eras, even though they have fallen behind in terms of time, more than the periods following the sprouting of a universal system.
Real Politics of Civilization: Modernization Theory
Immediately after the war, nations and states were re-divided, and reorganized in order not to repeat the small apocalypses of the previous decades. The application of the Marshall Plan to non-Western societies, or the United Nation’s report on the economic development of underdeveloped countries, meant that there was a trans-national discourse that emphasized the importance of the development of nonWestern societies in the new period. The efforts of the World Bank to develop underdeveloped societies, the establishment of “neutral” financial institutions such as the International Cooperation Agencies, IA (1960), OECD (1961), the African Development Bank (1961), the Asian Development Bank (1966) imply that an institutional and systematic aspect, rather than the old colonial ambitions, would be effective in the modernization of the non-Western world. In the post-war period, similar to the Parsons and its civil and administrative functions, modernization theorists were to assume an international role after 1970.
Parsons’ macro-theory has great advantages for modernization theorists. It is not necessary to move a system that develops in its own naturality to a separate physical-historical scene, and it is necessary to cope with local complications. We think it would be useful to outline the modernization theories of Daniel Lerner and Marion J. Levy Jr, who have studied two different regions of Parsons’ civilization, in this section. As one of the classics of literature modernization, The Passing of Traditional Society (1958) aims to explain the process of modernization in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Iran, what Parsons referred to as the Islamic Empire. According to Lerner, the book has a unique value because it brings together two enterprises: a modernization theory and an empirical data set. The path leading to a level of institutional organization from ideological conflicts is a social hierarchy based on an emerging economic structure, a political regime based on democratic participation and representation, and a culture with secular and rational norms. According to Lerner, one of the main parameters of modernization is the level of use of mass communication and tools. Marion Levy Jr. was the first to make modernized societies a research object of structural-functionalism. The Family Revolution in Modern China (1947), which combines the concept of a structured functional society with a comparative method, is one of the primary references to both Levy’s first text and modernization theory. Levy notes that there is a far-reaching continuity relation between the relatively modernized and relatively non-modernized societies, and he defines the concept of modernization as penetration of the “universal” patterns of modernity to different structures and the ability to change them.
