How do divided societies come about?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-8099.pcso.2023.196765Keywords:
Divided society, Inequality, Asymmetrical dependency, Sociocultural polarization, Inclusion and exclusion, StrangersAbstract
The paper looks at divisive forces in contemporary societies and it links them to the unfulfilled hopes of the revolutions at the beginning of modernity: the hopes for equality, freedom and fraternity/solidarity. There are, first, in the 21st century situation, persistent inequalities that emerge in all the function systems of society and become divisive as soon as there arises a discontinuous split in the distribution of rewards, a split that makes it improbable that someone might switch from one to the other side of a distribution. There are, second, strong, asymmetrical dependencies that are connected to an escalation of controls by which persons and groups control resources wanted by others and furthermore build up controls regarding the actions, communications, exit options and ways of perceiving the world being available to these other ones. The more control dimensions are implied in a specific social relation, the stronger and more pervasive asymmetrical dependencies become and then definitely separate in society those who exercise controls from those who are objects of control. There is, third, as a structure of division the rise of sociocultural polarization that creates a split between significant subcommunities of a society, on the basis of which communities perceive the members of other communities as strangers and as dangerous for the values and life forms one regards as essential for one’s own community. The paper finally explains these societal divisions by studying them as forms of inclusion and exclusion. Inequalities come from cumulations in the inclusion dynamics of function systems; asymmetrical dependencies emerge in institutions and groups that absorb persons that are being excluded from relevant participations; polarizations are based on reciprocal and totalizing exclusions by which communities define the members of other communities as radical ‘others’.
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Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Grant numbers 2021/02568-0;2021/12742-8
