Page 107 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

84 Communication and Evolution of Society

For the preschool child, who is cognitively still at the stage
of preoperational thought, the sector of his symbolic universe
relevant to action consists only of individual, concrete, behavioral
expectations and actions, as well as consequences of action that
can be understood as gratifications or sanctions. As soon as the
child has learned to play social roles, that is, to participate in
interactions as a competent member, his symbolic universe no
longer consists only of actions that express concrete intentions,
(e.g., wishes or wish fulfillments); rather, he can now under-
stand actions as the fulfillment of temporally generalized be-
havioral expectations (or as violations of them). When, finally,
the youth has learned to question the validity of social roles and
norms of action, the sector of the symbolic universe expands
once again; there now appear principles in accordance with which
opposing norms can be judged. Dealing with hypothetical validity
claims in this way requires the temporary suspension of con-
straints of action or, as we can also say, the entrance into dis-
courses in which practical questions can be argumentatively clari-
fied.
In the succession of these three levels, actors and their needs
also grow stage-by-stage into the symbolic universe. At level I
the orientations that guide action are integrated only to the
extent that they can be generalized in the dimension of pleasure/
pain. Only at level II is the satisfaction of need mediated
through the symbolic devotion of primary reference persons, or
through social recognition in expanded groups, in such a way
that it is released from the egocentric tie to one’s own balance
of gratification. In this way, motives for action acquire the form
of culturally interpreted needs; their satisfaction depends on
following socially recognized expectations. At level III the quasi-
natural process of need interpretation, which until then de-
pended on an uncontrolled cultural tradition and changes in the
institutional system, can itself be elevated to the object of dis-
cursive will-formation. In this way, beyond already culturally
interpreted needs, the critique and justification of need interpre-
tations acquire the power to orient action.
The stages through which the child grows into the general
structures of communicative action have been described to a