Page 187 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

164 Communication and Evolution of Society

new stage of development can—insofar as they are at all com-
parable with the old ones—increase in intensity. This seems to
be the case, at least intuitively, with the burdens that arise in the
transition to societies organized through a state. On the other
hand, the perspective from which we make this comparison is
distorted so long as we do not also take into account the specific
burdens of prestate societies; societies organized along kinship
lines have to come off better if we examine them in the light of
the kinds of problem first typical of class societies. The socialist
battle-concepts of exploitation and oppression do not adequately
discriminate among evolutionarily different problem situations.
In [certain] heretical traditions one can indeed find suggestions
for differentiating not only the concept of progress but that of
exploitation. It is possible to differentiate according to bodily
harm (hunger, exhaustion, illness), personal injury (degradation,
servitude, fear), and finally spiritual desperation (loneliness,
emptiness )—to which in turn there correspond various hopes—
for well-being and security, freedom and dignity, happiness and
fulfillment.

Excursus on Progress and Exploitation
I have tried to bring the basic institutions with which we can (to
begin with) circumscribe principles of social organization—fam-
ily, state, differentiated economic system—into relation with
historical progress via developmental stages of social integration.
But evolutionarily important innovations mean not only a new
level of learning but a new problem situation as well, that is, a
new category of burdens that accompany the new social formation.
The dialectic of progress can be seen in the fact that with the ac-
quisition of problemsolving abilities new problem situations come
to consciousness. For instance, as natural-scientific medicine brings
a few diseases under control, there arises a consciousness of con-
tingency in relation to all illness. This reflexive experience is
captured in the concept of quasi-nature { Naturwitchsigkeit|—an
area of life having been seen through in its pseudo-naturalness is
quasi-natural. Suffering from the contingencies of an uncontrolled
process gains a new quality to the extent that we believe ourselves
capable of rationally intervening in it. This suffering is then the