Page 14 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

XV Translator’s Introduction

problems and methods of historical-hermeneutic reflection become
unavoidable.
The critical dimension of social inquiry is also cut short in
structural-functional analysis, for it does not permit a systematic
separation of the utopian, purposive-rational, and ideological con-
tents of value systems. According to Parsons, cultural values are
made binding for social action in institutions; the latter integrate
“value orientations’ and ‘‘motivational forces,” thus securing the
normative validity of social roles. Habermas found this construc-
tion overly harmonistic.

In the framework of action theory, motives for action are harmonized
with institutional values, that is, with the intersubjectively valid mean-
ing of normatively binding behavioral expectations. Nonintegrated mo-
tive forces that find no licensed opportunity for satisfaction in the role
system are not analytically grasped. We may assume, however, that
these repressed needs, which are not absorbed into social roles, trans-
formed into motivations, and sanctioned, nevertheless have their inter-
pretations. Either these interpretations “‘overshoot’’ the existing order
and, as utopian anticipations, signify a not-yet-successful group iden-
tity; or, transformed into ideologies, they serve projective substitute
gratification as well as the justification of repressing authorities... In
relation to such criteria, a state of equilibrium would be determined
according to whether the system of domination in a society realized
the utopian elements and dissolved the ideological contents to the ex-
tent that the level of productive forces and technical progress made
objectively possible. Of course, society can then no longer be conceived
as a system of self-preservation ... Rather, the meaning, in relation to
which the functionality of social processes is measured, is now linked
to the idea of a communication free from domination.!?

As these last lines indicate, the incorporation of historico-
hermeneutic and critical moments into the analysis of social sys-
tems bursts the functionalist framework, at least insofar as the
latter is understood on the model of biology. The validity of
functional analysis presupposes (among other things) that it is
possible to specify empirically the boundaries of the system in
question, the goal state the system tends to achieve and maintain,
the functional requirements for self-maintenance, and the alter-
native processes through which they can be met. This is the case