Page 188 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

165 Historical Materialism

negative of a new need. Thus we can make an attempt to interpret
social evolution taking as our guide those problems and needs that
are first brought about by evolutionary advances. At every stage of
development the social-evolutionary learning process itself gen-
erates new resources, which mean new dimensions of scarcity and
thus new historical needs.
With the transition to the sociocultural form of life, that is,
with the introduction of the family structure, there arose the
problem of demarcating society from external nature. In neo-
lithic societies, at the latest, harmonizing society with the natural
environment became thematic. Power over nature came into con-
sciousness as a scarce resource. The experience of powerlessness
in relation to the contingencies of external nature had to be inter-
preted away in myth and magic. With the introduction of a
collective political order, there arose the problem of the self-
regulation of the soctal system. In developed civilizations, at the
latest, the achievement of order by the state became a central need.
Legal security came to consciousness as a scarce resource. The
experience of social repression and arbitrariness had to be bal-
anced with legitimations of domination. This was accomplished
in the framework of rationalized world views (through which,
moreover, the central problem of the previous stage—powerless-
ness—could be defused). In the modern age, with the autonomi-
zation of the economy (and complementarization of the state),
there arose the problem of a self-regulated exchange of the social
System with external nature. In industrial capitalism, at the latest,
society consciously placed itself under the imperatives of economic
growth and increasing wealth. Value came into consciousness as
a scatce resource. The experience of social inequality called into
being social movements and corresponding strategies of appease-
ment. These seemed to lead to their goal in social welfare state
mass democracies (in which, moreover, the central problem of
the preceding stage—legal insecurity—could be defused). Fin-
ally, if postmodern societies, as they are today envisioned from
different angles, should be characterized by a primacy of the
scientific and educational systems, one can speculate about the
emergence of the problem of a self-regulated exchange of society
with internal nature. Again a scarce resource would become the-