To understand this affirmation that we are not in a period of rapid transformations of background but rather in a stagnation period or at least of very slow changes in social structure, we can make a comparison with the so-called "era of medieval obscurantism". Thus, one might say that while it is true that many authors argue that the Middle Ages was not a time of total recoil of knowledge and Western Culture, is very common the tendency to identify this period, ie the Middle Ages, with a period in which prevailed a very slow change in their structures and social institutions. Considering for a moment that this momentary hypothesis may be true, we might make an analogy of this situation with the current development of our societies throughout the world. That is, we can say that we are in a period of relative stagnation respect, for example, the advancement of fund of our social institutions. A period of stagnation or paralysis in which there are no significant structural transformations or are very lows.
Some of the Reasons that Lead to Talk of a Very Specific Type of Social Stagnation in Actuality
There are many reasons that can lead us to propose a stagnation of the current institutional dynamic or a low or scarce apparition of elements that may significantly change our social structure. Some of these reasons are only details, however, they are extremely crucial to the planning and development of social life. Details like the fact that the current political parties continue to operate with organizational structures of one hundred years ago (Rocafort: 2013), or the fact that we continue to have the requirement of a national identification to prove citizenship, because by the absence of such a document certifying the status of legal citizen, a person can get to be unprotected and deprived of fundamental rights, mainly in health and education (Suárez-Navaz: 2007).
Now, we must say that some other reasons that can be cited for speak of a stagnation of the current social structure, make alluding to extremely encompassing paradigms and in force, some since a long time ago. Among those reasons we mention, first, the fact that the understanding of the State and its structure is still today very set to the conception with which became operational this entity in the world does little more three centuries. In other words, rarely we refer to the State as an entity still in construction, and for this reason the whole dispute and reflection on its changes or transformations, has focused on the form in which should be directed, this is, whether the State should be socialist or capitalist. Moreover, it must be said that we live today under the paradigm that politics is a matter of a preselected group of people and confuse the very exercise of the political with the activity of politicians, for this reason the group of politicians can concentrate excessively the monopoly of the mechanisms and decisions of the governability.
There are many more reasons that compel us to speak of a stagnation, but only these few reasons mentioned, have made a long time that society is immersed in a very concrete and specific model of global geopolitical organization that deprives us of a deliberative culture and a participative democracy.
The Notion of "Event" of the Philosopher Claude Romano and the Rethinking of Social Structures
I said in previous lines that according to Claude Romano (1999), Western thought has always shown a very limited conception of the event and of time itself. Firstly, Romano draws our attention to the fact that in the West we say that things change because they have time, or that change in the time. Of this form, the change is reduced to a mere accident that is unified and understood by spatial relations, this is, the change is reduced to a simple causal apprehension. The time, thereby, or as we usually see this profound issue, is simply something that appears in things, and if we do not see it them clearly appear, the curiosity no awakens us and we can not think or evaluate it of one or another way. Now, a structure or a social system are difficult to imagine how concrete things, hence there a great difficulty to link structures or systems with somehow of temporary understanding. So that there may be social structures which are stagnant or delayed with respect to its most superficial transformations, spatial connectivity or the rapid flow of information, by way of example, and as perhaps may to be happening now.
Claude Romano also speaks us since his acontencial hermeneutics and since his philosophy (although in him this point is quite focussed on the individual event as an opportunity for life), about of this particular topic of time and transformations. This philosopher tells us that to cause of the concept of time we have, we see only superficial changes or modifications, but not apparitions. That is, our eyes are a little blind for the apparitions of things and not for transformations of the same. For this reason the human being of our societies often tends to have a great fear or distrust to the great social changes. We must say, at this point, there is considerable literature in sociology about social change, about of its causes and about of its triggers but not about of the way society perceives time with and without changes, and how this relates to the living itself. In fact, may that this has prevented us from seeing a little the stagnation or delay or the structural paralysis in which likely we are living today.
In conclusion it may be that since the social sciences we are needing of a much broader way to contemplate time, a new form which may include a little more the phenomenic and ontological complexity of the events. It may, likewise, that we are needing of a sociology of time.
Bibliography:
- Frankel,B.(1989): Los utópicos postindustriales. Valencia: Edicios Alfons el Magnànim. Institució Valenciana d’Estudis i Investigació.
- Gomes Christianne y Elizalde Rodrigo, (2009). Trabajo, tiempo libre y ocio en la contemporaneidad: Contradicciones y desafíos, En: Polis, Revista de la Universidad Bolivariana, Volumen 8, Nº 22, 2009, p. 249-266.
- Moral Jiménez, (2009). Ocio bifronte en una sociedad postindustrial. Análisis psicosociológico de las tendencias emergentes, Boletín de Psicología, No. 96, Julio 2009, 47-65.
- Remondino, Georgina (2012). Blog y redes sociales: un análisis desde las tecnologías de la gubernamentalidad y el género. Athenea Digital, 12(3), 51-69.
Why Are the Laws Unequally Distributed in the Society?
Laws are being manipulated every day by those who wish to participate in the game of power, which is, as is well known, a social dynamic of great importance and highly competitive aspects, within Western Society. A dynamic, besides, highly exclusive. The laws therefore not join us within valorative frames of order, they do not establish cooperation among people of this world or tend toward a genuine closeness, or at least not in these current days that run and as primary goal or social function. The laws rather serve today, in large part, for establish hierarchies and social stratifications. Its most ethical face is, of course, the legal and superficial mechanisms that serve to protect the more basic human rights, but what really makes the current implementation of the law, after all, and in the most structural aspect the contemporary world, is to legalize the social difference between people.
Laws, States and a Limited Ethic in the Juridical Ambit
Today it is understood that the laws are precepts or juridical norms intended to guide or control human behavior. In our modern history, we find that the laws have been used for the full consolidation of many States. Although, truth be told, if we look in more detail, we find that the laws have served with more accurately to the objetives of very specific groups within those States. In this sense, the juridical aspect has served mainly, to the interests of some very concrete groups that formed political parties with great rooting and a social dominance, groups that have channeled through of the legal and constitucional dimension, the citizen participation to achieve thereby a certain social articulation (Fisher: 2012). The laws have been used thus for deprive more and more to the citizenry of the general exercise of politics, and everything in order to achieve a limited sense of unity or nation. The most bad thing is that we have the following fact: the human being in society is and be will always, an intrinsically political being, but this important human dimension (this is, the political dimension) is concentrated today, through the exercise of the state, in very specific groups.
But, beyond of this recent historical importance of laws in the modern States, it is very usual considerer that the intrinsic finality underlying in the legal and juridical mechanisms, is ensure the peaceful coexistence and respect for the condition human. One finality very laudable and extremely important but very delimited. Delimited because the laws, in its more ethical face, seek in particular prevent or solve disputes or prevent at all costs the mistreatment of human dignity, this is, laws seek to avoid that are transgress certain conditions that are considered universals. In other words, laws, especially regarding the rights, are guided by what in this essay, I closure under the slogan of "ethics of transgression" or an ethic that seeks to avoid transgression, but not avoid certain structural problems.
Of this form, to take one example, in the first International Congress on Universal Justice and Criminal Justice, held in Madrid from 20 to 23 May 2014, the main concern was just this, the human condition, something definitely very laudable and worthy of praise, but a little delimited. And I say delimited, because current laws do not care about ensuring order, coherence and stability of human relationships. It is true that since the focus that today we have, the laws worry, in terms of rights, by the most universal conditions of our human family. So the range of questions that arise is: where are the rights of farmers around the world front to the multinationals? Where are the rights of migrants in an irregular situation in a particular State can not ensure a good education or access to health? Where are juridically inscribed all those concrete and everyday situations that cause certain inequality and that deal, about the same human relationships in a competitive environment? Only the existence of poverty is, in itself, an injustice, and laws endorse it. Much we can then say in a situation where there is poverty and the competitive conditions do not allow to get a job.
But beyond of the delimited focus of the actual laws, which nevertheless, I consider fundamental and necessary, although the ethical aspect of the human dimension only expresses in rights, the fact is that laws are not used today in the same manner and under the same conditions for all groups human. In the section that follows I will expose three brief reasons that according to my current analysis, are responsible of fact that the laws are unevenly distributed in society, I repeat, makes use of them equally and not all the world obtains from them, this is, of the laws, the same usufruct. No wonder, that today several authors as Iker Barbero, call our attention on the fact that the camp of the law, for example, is manipulated daily by those with greater resources and influences (Barbero: 2010).
Why Are the Laws Unequally Distributed in the Society?
Cause 1: The first cause of why laws are unevenly distributed in society, and why not tend these (this is, the laws) in its current approach to greater understanding between people, according to my own impressions of the case, refers to the lack of infallibility interpretative underlying in the symbolic aspect since the laws are a purely human affair. In this regard, it is said that the "law as human creation acquires specific characteristics of man, therefore, it is likely to contain their desires, expectations, beliefs, fears, values, and of course, also their defects" (Arguedas, 2006).
Moreover, laws cannot give account of all reality, hence it is very common that in many aspects of human life, exist gaps or voids of law, which represent human complexity, or the lack of a normative system within of the juridical dimension. Around this point, it is said that "The existence of gaps may be due to any reason attributable to the legislature (subjective gap) or the aging of law as a result of social evolution (objective gap)" (Arguedas: 2006). As a result of the above, we find that the law can never be complete, and that those who design the existing normative aspects, do their labor in specific negotiating frameworks and since certain logical cognitive. All this without mentioning in detail that many times there may be norms that contradict one another, something that happens very often, and in these areas, always will tend to be, for example in a legal dispute, the group with more capabilities and social capital, the group that is imposed.
Cause 2: The second cause I want to mention refers to cultural factors. This, it is necessary to say, is an extremely complex issue whose proper analysis is beyond the immediate and purely reflexive and divulgative purposes of this article. However, I will summarize the issue saying that many times, depending on the context, legal justice operates in one way or another according to the characteristics of a person, or rather, according to how they are socially constructed characteristics of a person. To put a somewhat general example, someone may be accused of a crime or be considered criminal, almost by the mere fact of being a man, or being a person of color or having one or another feature associated with it.
Thus, it happens often that regulatory standards are generalized to become in cultural criminalization, this, due largely to the fact that the laws currently more than maintain order, respect, support and understanding among all people, what they want is to protect certain possessions in very specific cases. Of course, with this scenario, there are many human groups in present day, that claim to be supporters of some or other specific legal protection but with certain particularistic purposes, while on the other hand, in a world with legal empties and delimited approaches of law, today, appear all kinds of activisms struggling by one or another reivindication.
Cause 3: This cause that I want to expose briefly refers to structural reasons. In a previous article I wrote entitled, "The temporary stagnation of social structures", I spoke about the fact that today is likely that we live in a time of stagnant of social dynamics, this, despite the overpowering advances in the field of mediated communication. And thus, many of the explanatory aspects mentioned in that text apply to this cause. For example, The fact that today are the politicians and not the citizens, those who have concentrated the instruments of governance, and that the State it has stopped or stalled, in large part to cause, of a very old confrontation between economic ideologies, are some of those aspects.
To these two aspects, we could also add a key structural factor, which is responsible of most of inequality in the planet: the fact that reigns in the world an unequal international division of labor and of the productive sectors, an division that makes that few companies can manage the global economy and fewer than a hundred people in the world can have more money than million people at a time. A situation that goes against the laws of economics, because is likely the crisis that began in late 2007, tried to curb this situation by itself, as a self-regulatory, however, is well known that the IMF and the government United States, among other important social entities, gave bailouts (or bonds of advantage) to larger companies for keep perpetuating the status of neoliberal things, instead of letting companies assume their own falls and their own responsibilities, and of this form, destine those resources to other projects.
Finally, I must say that the more entrenched structural situation is the power, wich, today, unfortunately, is guided for our principal value, this is: "competitiveness". Around this issue, we must remember that power seems to be being disputed today by a sector with very little tolerance, of right and conservative. A sector that speaks, among other things, of make war against terrorism, even when terrorism no it is an ideology but a tactic of war (a tactic that obviously we must to despise). On the other hand, we have an sector of left and advocate for social justice, a sector of society that contradicts itself when makes pacts with the most oppressive companies of private sector or when, for ensure the success of a policy, restricts freedoms. Yes, the power seems to be being fought mainly between those two positions, but the truth is that the power is an issue that is very ingrained in every aspect of modern human life. Power is even in our current laws. Thus, the laws have become an unbridgeable distance within what unites us.
Bibliography:
- Arguedas Minaya, Maikol, (2006), Los vacíos de la ley y los métodos de integración jurídica.