Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. Sectio Philosophica.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

Pavel Fobel: Social-philosophical aspects of modernizing society

Modernization appears like a term of a social system's self-development, increasing complications in social interrelations and structures, differentiations in dealing with systems and complexity in its reduction.

2 The principle aim is the establishment of a functionally differentiated society with mutual systems of politics, law, science and so on. Naturally, from this point of view questions about the character of our society arise. In principle, the totalitarian society differs from a contemporary society in that it has different aims, different goals. Through the hierarchical order of its subsystems political power remains strong. Its position is monopolized here, government power is authoritative, directive ways of life are encouraged and political influence on all aspects of society is apparent. The social subsystems maintain much more independence and autonomous activity. Economic, political, and juristical sub-systems keep a much more independent dimension through their functions and general legality. By virtue of this autonomy the sub-systems are increased on the base of their own functions and they create a reciprocal influence simultaneously. Weber pointed out different functional necessities that are a premise of a system which will overcome communism when he said that "Either economics, politics or culture will work according to their own norms. Economic rationality, the autonomy of a political system, l'art pour l'art, or, on the contrary, the process of leaving the unified system will lead to a mixture of economic, political and cultural actions." It is very difficult to predict which of these will be effective, especially in societies which consist of a number of state formations and a complexity of national structures. This also depends on political factors such as the Czech liberalism and the Slovak anti-liberalism. Modern democratic systems must work on the functional differentiation principle. Autonomy exists according to advanced communication connections. Therefore the conditions for responsibility, self-control and self-organization abilities are formed. Modernization is not understood to be a purposeful, regulated system, but the ability to establish a social system with inter-effective sub-systems and the adaptation of the society to a new way of life, a new way of behavior. In theory, there is a natural base for prosperity and self-improvement. In this way, political, economic, spiritual and other sub-systems would not need to dominate or apply repressive tactics. 37