not too long posting

Friends,

Regarding your debate on the questions of "militancy", I'd like to post
you my writing on world-system theory reconsideration - dated 1991.

Best wishes: Gabor Varnai

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The World-System Perspective in Budapest, Hungary
Paper for Decision Preparing Activities


Budapest, 1991.



Introduction
        In contemporary Hungary the phase in the process of the so-called
change of system involving the transformation of institutions and power
structures is nearing its end. However, one specific phase of this
transformation process termed "change of system" that occurs in the deep
and is apparently invisible has only just begun. The majority of the
phenomena which we shall undoubtedly encounter, reflecting drastic or
less drastic change of trends are, as yet, uninvestigated and unexamined
and, moreover, the necessary empricial methods are only available in
their experimental form. Since the importance of these phenomena which
occasionally become irrational is extremely great we consider their
deeper and long-term analysis highly immportant. The present project
considers its main objective the formulation of certain questions,
rather than a deeply coherent material, which will be part of a later
research programme.

Autonomy and fundamentalism
        The research programme fulfills two functions. On the one hand it
coordinates the activities outlined below in the section that concers
with the implementation of the world-system methodology for the
questions to be solved in Budapest and its region, and sets them into a
wider persepctive, and on the other, it provides their logical,
conceptual and analytical background, as well as an interpretational
framework. Moreover, it outlines a further specific research area,
namely the investgation of the critical and manifest critical points of
the social transforamtional processes. The units of research are
continuously changing, overlapping and multiple units because we view
man as a communicative creature living in the section of groups, rather
than as an individualistic or collectivistic being. Consequently, the
units of research would
range from local communities to regional units extending well beyond
national boundaries.
Thomas Marshall and Brian Turner's theory distinguishes four concentric
circles of human rights: civic, political, social and the
communications. This model can only be accepted as valid in the case of
an overall law consciousness; however, the phenomena investigated by us
appear to lie well below this level. In the light of what we have said
formerly the decisive criterion is the hierarchic and grid-type nature
of communications since in the case of hierarchic ingroup and outgroup
communications there evolves a mass opinion, whilst in the case of
grid-type communications we witness a tested public opinion. In the case
of the first we cannot speak of a law consciousness, but the negative
phenomena characterizing a fundamentalistic cycle evolve and survive in
consequence of various manipulation forms, whilst in the second case
these phenomena do not evolve or their significance is diminished. In
reality, of course, we are dealing
with a concrete mixture of these two extremes and thus we will work with
several methods and on several different levels.


The axioms, definitions and hypotheses of research
        (a) A society cannot be described as a closed system, but only as an
open system
consisting of permanently transforming interrelated systems which can in
their quasistationary phase (in which they reproduce themselves
unchangedly) be regarded as closed.
        Csanyi (in his book: General Theory of Evolution, Budapest, 1979) based
his system on the difference between classical and rational
thermodynamics. In the case of closed systems the (reproductive) cycles
ranging from basic information quantums to society are based on the
principle of greatest probability, i.e. on maximum disorderedness,
whilst in the case of an open system on the principle of least
probability, i.e. on maximum orderedness. In the case of an open system
there is defined outside the system also a "source", a "sink" and other,
"outer" systems which are related to the "own" system, and can thus
avoid each other, conflict , unite or
divide, or create a section, etc. The closed system is a subcase of the
open system, in the quasistationary phase of the cycle. Since our
research will focus on a social situation in a non- quasistationary
cycle, but at the time of a change of cycle, the above axiom is greatly
taken into consideration.
        (b) Transformation and relation are relativistic, i.e. social units
and the processes of social transformation are interdependent.
        Wallerstein's concept on world social science may be seen as the
application of
Einstein's theory of relativity. The research units of world social
science are at all times dependent on the processes under investigation.
Accordingly, the nation, for example, is only a relevant research unit
in the case of certain contexts, or in the case of circular social
processes (e.g. national market, identity), whilst in other cases it is
irrelevant (e.g. in terms of certain local communication schemata,
cultural value systems, symbolic imagery of the universe or actual
capital, prestige and labour market). The theme of our research would
demand that we concentrate on several units simultaneously, and not only
on the nation but also on the physical- segregational and symbolic
boundaries, as well as on the larger units extending beyond the borders
of the country.
        (c) This interdependence exists in a time-space continuum which has a
known province, consisting of the known loci and the known past/future,
and an unknown province.
        Man lives not in an abstract space-time continuum, but in a specific,
personal,
experienced space and time transformed by him. This is always in the
present and "here". His personal space-time continuum consists of cycles
which, as seen in the foregoing, are interrelated. The indivisible
internal core, central point and the world beyond the boundaries of the
known world, the beginning and the end remains always unknown,
irrespective of whether we view this from a cosmological point of view
or in terms of the creation and apocalyptical myths of the mythical
universe. The real universe, however, is continuously expanding and
integrates newer and newer cycles of the symbolic one and transcends its
own boundaries, in other words, man is not a degenerative creature, but
is capable of transmutation. Considering that presently the most
important issues are the permeability of world-wide, European, national,
group and personal borders, we can rightly consider our axiom correct.
        (d) The boundaries of the known and unknown province lie in different
spaces and times in terms of personal and social units.
        Bolyai rejected an axiom from Euclid's geometry, and thus Euclidian
geometry became a restricted part of Bolyai's geometry. According to
Bolyai several lines can be drawn parallel to a given line through a
point not on the given line, with the parallels within a specific sector
meeting. Applying this analogy to social space and time, the here and
now, i.e. the tangible reality is not point-like, but sector-like in
nature. In other words, past and present, here and now (near and far)
can be divided into two parts: the part lying within the province, i.e.
the known, and the part lying beyond it, i.e. the - yet and still -
unknown. Since man is a communicative creature, i.e. he voices his
opinion and it becomes a (political) volition, and he is, at the same
time a
"border-zone" creature, living not simply in groups but in the section
of groups, we will be examining phenomena ranging from the personal to
the political sphere segmented in space and of a sector-like nature in
time. At present, at a time of a change of cycle, when issues of past
and future, internal and external (ingroup and alien outgroup) are
raised very sharply indeed, and forms of manipulation (demagoguery,
imdoctrination, propaganda, mystifications) are becoming stronger, and
the "unknown" is being expropriated, this axiom must be considered.
        (e) The boundary is not definite, i.e. the relation between the viewer
(researcher) and the viewed object (social phenomenon) can only be
described with probability statements.
        According to Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle the observer and the
observed
object mutually influence each other and the probabilty coefficient of
whether the observation is correct or erroneous, is a constant. In terms
of social sciences this would imply that all social sciences are
value-laden, and that the observed object and the personal universe of
the researcher influence each other. Since, however, the probability of
the correctness of the observation is constant, i.e. it cannot be
transgressed, whenever this constant is reached a new object or
analytical unit must be selected. Thus a specific phase of research is
finished not when the analytical results are "absolutely correct", but
when a new unit becomes necessary, i.e. new questions arise. The answer
to a specific question is always a new question. Were this not
so, were we to consider our work finished at a certain - even if
previously defined - point, our preliminary judgement would, to quote
Allport, solidify into prejudices, and our analytical results into
dogmas. Thus, the criteria of the start and end of a research is
formulated in the demands concerning it.
        (f) The personal and social phenomena which can be desribed and
interpreted
according to the above axioms will be termed autonomous, whilst those
excluding them will be termed fundamentalistic.
        Autonomy means that man continuously - cyclically - bares himself to
the unknown and continuously - cyclically - transforms the enacting
clause of the law ordered for him. Fundamentalism, on the other hand,
means that he does not do this, but raises one specific enacting clause
to the rank of law and vests it with absolute validity - making it into
the "fundament" of the universe -, and thus not only excludes the world
beyond himself but also destroys himself, falls into collapse, and only
after (partial) annihilation can the first tentative steps be taken on
the path to autonomy. In the present situation, on a scale ranging from
prejudices to poltical stigmatisation, we can detect the first, strong
symptoms of this general collapse, and it is exactly these which are the
object of our research.
        (g) Fundamentalistic phenomena depart from the world as a kind of
"black hole", whilst autonomous phenomena enter it as a kind of "white
hole", and thus development always occurs cyclically and through a
series of equilibrium states.
        According to modern cosmology - as well as to older ones - the material
and energy swallowed by the black hole re-enters the same or another
universe through the so-called time- space singularity, the point of
entry being the white hole. This time-space singularity is the
transmutational point. In modern quantum mechanics this phenomenon
corresponds to a transgression without total annihilation through the
wall of potentiality which is, in principle, impermeable, i.e. to the
so-called tunnel-effect. In terms of social sciences this transgression
implies that the crisis, the collapse is not an absolute destruction,
but may be seen as the "placenta" destroyed at the birth of a new life,
in other words, a (re)structuring also occurs after the collapse.
However, sociological diagnosis is unimaginible without a therapy, since
it is not devoid of values. Our research concentrates not on the
formulation of the "great world equation"
(following in the footsteps of Heisenberg) but on concrete thematic
measurements and
analyses, with therapy itself being not a formula for the "redemption of
the world", but analyses for policy making.

 The objectives of the research
        It results from the above that the objective of the research - no
matter how deep and how quickly deepening the crisis is - is not the
prompt affirmation or refutal of a thesis, but diagnosis and therapy, in
the sense of point (g). In other words, we offer a diagnosis not of the
illness, but of the man, and we cure not the illness, but the man.
        Finally and on a highly abstractional level the objective of the
research is the diagnosis of collapse and (re)structuralisation, as well
as the therapeutical aiding of transmutation. And even though the
transmutational point itself cannot be located - exactly because it lies
beyond time and space -, it is preceded and followed by a process which
can be grasped, the process of annihilation and explosion. (As Asimov
has aptly said, the disappearing black hole turns into a brightly
shining white hole, a supernova emitting new materials and energies, the
source of a new life.) In Hungary, in Europe and the whole world over,
the process of collapse is unfolding in a growing number of groups,
often reaching the stage of annihilation and explosion, whilst
(re)structuralisation is hardly visible. Each man descends into his own
personal hell - even if  this befalls him  through the fault of others
-, and re-emerges thence himself, but all mythological heroes ever
descending into hell were aided by someone in finding  the correct path.
In Hungary the number of distorting mirrors and  phantoms is on the
rise, whilst  there are ever fewer microscopes and telescopes, and ever
more deheroised heroes descending into hell, and ever less who can see
as far as the next corner or two.
        The above, however, appears concretely, in the form of concrete
research hypotheses, objectives and achieved results.
        To offer one possible example: research hypothesis: Adorno's
authoritarian personality theory cannot be applied in the explanation of
political attitudes since this type of personality is only necessary,
but not sufficient precondition; research objective: the demonstration
that political stigmatisation in itself generates an authoritarian
personality; achieved results: the socio- cultural group of
national-traditional attitude structure which was previously politically
stigmatised,
but which has been rid of the stigma by now has attained authoritatrian
features  and has begun the political stigmatisation of "aliens" and
"unneccesary labour force", who then either take upon themselves this
applied stigma (collapse) and hide or flee into another (sub)culture
(e.g. previous communist functionaries, emigrees, destructve deviants -
annihilation) or reject it, become politically active (explosion) and
try to assert their will from the local to the world wide arenas
publicly and institutionally (e.g. opposition activists, members of
trade unions and ethnic-cultural self-organisations -
(re)structuralisation), as well as a third group which is in the
intermediate non-locatable point beyond the world (beyond the space-time
continuum) - in the ghetto - (e.g. demonstrating homeless who occupy
railway stations - the transmutational point; tertium datur);
therapeutical aid: lectures on the general and concrete (political)
analysis of this process at the public evaluation of the events in the
political arena on the basis of research.

 The directions of research
        In accordance with our hypotheses we will take as our starting point
the cycles which can be grasped in the course of research. Our theme is
fundamentalism and we can distinguish four phases of the
fundamentalistic cycle, which are as follows: the evolution and
operation of the prejudiced personality, everyday ritualised stereotyped
dogmatics, negative discriminative identification and political
stigmatisation. (Although in terms of logics we are dealing with a
circular process in which the circle is closed by the link between
political stigmatisation and the prejudiced person, these four phases
can nonetheless bond in all possible ways. Nota bene: in contrast to
fundamenatlistic cycles, in the case of an auonomous cycle the circles
are not closed, but new cycles are opened.)


Some remarks on possibilities of a research concerning urban policy in
Hungary

Autonomy vs. fundamentalism
Factually about transmutation - urban policy
(a)  The spheres of transmutational processes differ qualitatively from
the transformational processes of quasi-stationary nature. The latter
occur in units well definable in space and time and thus their models
can be constructed, whilst the former occur in overlapping zones and
cannot be circumscribed in time.
(b)     Transmutation can be seen as the very soul of the modern city.
Social groups, cultural milieus and technologies collapse and are reborn
in cities. This is the quintessential nature of the city. However, it is
by no means homogeneous in terms of quality since quasi-stationary
transformational processes form the basis and the starting point, as
well as the result and ultimate end of transmutation.
(c)     Transformation is the emergence of social groups, cultural milieus
and technologies on a course of great probability, involving the overall
development of the given group, milieu and technology. These processes
can be modelled, and end values can be estimated according to their
basic structure. In contrast, the emergence and decline of actual
groups, milieus and technologies cannot be modelled, they can - at the
most - be merely ascertained. The transmutative process occurs between
the decline of one specific group, milieu and technology and the
emergence of another.
(d)     Transmutation is never abstract; it can be best observed in the
overlapping zones. These overlapping zones can be seen as the joint
section, the interference area of several well-defined groups, milieus
and technologies, as a kind of no man's land on the one hand, as
membranes, courses and currents on the other, along which numerous
social groups, cultural milieus and technologies can be found, all in
the state of radical transformation, i.e. in the state of transmutation.
(e)     These membranes, courses and currents are complex structures in
which group, milieu and technology processes of varying locality and
cyclicality appear simultaneously. Localities and cycles of bordering
transformational nature are similarly complex.
(f)     Groups, milieus and technologies participating in the
transmutational process can be derived from a vanishing structure and
they tend to gravitate towards an emerging structure. In this
transformation the 'Field of life', the values and the energies of
groups, milieus and technologies in the state of quasi-stationary
transformation are curtailed, resulting in a conflict between the
transmutative and the transformational group, milieu and technology. The
conflict itself is realized in the common locality and cycles of the
membranes, courses and currents. The scene where conflicts are resolved
is the political arena, here used in the sense of policy.
(g)     In the case of the modern city the above problems can be
operationalized on three scenes in terms of urban policy:
        (1)     Conflicts are generated between the prevailing emerging and
upwardly mobile new élite and the entirety of urban society, the
'civitas'. The new élite attempts to expropriate the natural and public
field of life, 'niche', the community - recreational and cultural -
system of values and the (bio)energy formerly enjoyed by the civitas. In
terms of urban policy the conflict can be approached from land use and
construction regulations. The operationalized formulation of the
conflict appears in the decisions concerning communal green areas, as
well as private landed property and real estate. Humane ecological
policy.
        (2)     Conflicts are generated between the prevailing new (small)
businesses and the groups of the local population in the area and
function affected by these businesses. The new businesses attempt to
expropriate the physical residential area, the privacy (i.e. the values
of  the private and the family sphere) and the
reproductional/maintenance energies (household energies, the  technical
state of buildings, the services in street traffic units serving the
community). In terms of urban policy this issue can be approached as
question to be solved by economical and taxation policy as well as by
social housing. The operationalized formulation of
the conflict appears in decisions concerning the preference of
profit-oriented businesses and non-profit servicing oriented tax and
social policy. Real estate and land policy.
        (3)     Conflicts are generated between the prevailing marginalized 
groups
and
coexisting or neighbouring small communities, as well as between their
sections, i.e. continuously contiguous parts. Marginalized groups
attempt to expropriate the public spaces, streets and institutions
functioning as agoras used by the communities, the communicational
scenes and the spiritual energy generated by free human contact. In
terms of urban policy this issue can be approached from the transport
networks and junctions and from functional urban structure planning. The
operationalized formulation of the conflict appears in the decisions
concerning track- and point-like institutions, concave spaces, as well
as  institutions functioning as central places and convex spaces. Public
transport and structural policy. The three conflict and policy types
outlined in the above are realized in space and time-cycles (short-term,
mid-term and long-term activities and processes) in a configuration of
changing, numerous actors, in overlapping patterns that interfere with
each other. The groups, value system and (subsistence) technology of the
new élite, the new entrepreneurs and the newly
marginalized form articulated structures. The scale ranges from the
trans-national level to the regional, from the national and local to the
private person, from the multi-generational cycle-time, through the
various life phases, to the annual and the momentary. These are all
separate, dynamic actors, and the interference of their activity can
carry both mutual strengthening and extinction; a factual analysis and
conflict management is necessary in each case, the scene being the
social, cultural and technological membranes, courses and currents.
        The solution can hardly be a conserving urban policy since these
transmutative groups, values and technologies do exist, are active and
becoming stabilized they can reach harmony with the already existing
quasi-stationary social groups, cultural milieus and technologies. One
vehicle of creating this harmony is the assertion of a balance in urban
policy based on modelling, calculations and conflict management.

**********

-- 
Gabor VARNAI
PARDES Urban Policy Research and Consulting Office;  
Institute of Sociology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Felsoerdosor 12. Budapest, Hungary, H-1068
tel/fax: +36-1-3515465; mobile phone: +36-30-2219452
e-mail: h7711var@helka.iif.hu; gabor_varnai@yahoo.com