The modern socio-philosophical literature by force of objective demands of social transformations has intensified the attention to the problem of the civil society, civil culture and the civicism in general. And it is natural because this type of social quality is strategic purpose of society.
However, there is a plenty of various approaches in native literature as well as abroad about its essential characteristics, genesis, trends and way of achivement.
Not claiming to the ultimate truth, it is important to express some theoretical thoughts on this phenomenon. Foremost, in our opinion it would be correct to analyze the civil society as historical phenomenon with its owh logic, and sequentially changing principles and values. Being the system element of united metasystem, the civil society constitutes one of the modificatios of the system of social relations. It is relatively independent part of social life outside of state and political control and it is its specificity defined by epithet of civicism. This type of society in the history of humanity and its future fate connected with finding by peophe the system of relations.
The notion “civil society” goes back to antiquity to the works of philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome gave the first interpretations of such terms as “citizen”, “society of citizens” extending the correlation of society and state. As an example the sophist Likofron interpreted the policy as a result of agreement of people among themselves on joint life. As said the sophist: «The Law in this case is a simple contract, a simple guarantee of individual rights, and it is not able to make citizens kind and equitable». Plato charactering justice in the ideal state, wrote: «To engage in your own business is perhaps justice, which is that everyone has his own and also performed his own, and, no one captured somebody else’s property and nobody is deprived of his own» [1].
In the works of ancient philosophers it is reflected the social syncretism of Ancient Greece: on the one hand — the democratie values of policy, and on the other hand — slavery.
Primary remoteness and autonomy of civil society, as well as the term «civil society» in the sense in which it is accepted in modern science for the first time was used by thinkers of the Renaissanse. T.Hobbs recognizes the state only as the autorization object, which is sanctioned by the «social contract».
Rousseau even recognized the supremacy of the civil society over the state, in the form of people’s right to the revolutionary overthrow of all the anti-popular power.
Limited, as evidence, the above given examples, and without going into details of the socio-historical analysis of civil society,we point to the fact that each era left its mark on the type of relations of the individual and society, the diverse social whole, where evolved and changed a hierarchical relationship between members of society. And as a reflechtion of these social qualities arose various analytical concepts of civil society. Of course, in our opinion, it is true the concepts that are engaged in the study of this problem in terms of identifying the socio-historical basis, the result of long evolution.
Taking into account the importance of the historical approach to the analysis of civil society, it is important to give social and structural study of this phenomenon as a cultural phenomenon, because history profes that civil society was recognized and formed as fully integrated cultural form of society.
Human society, as a spontaneously folding system of connections and living together people is in need of concrete organisation of these connections, which aren’t specified genetically, not coded, not transmitted by genes and for that reason they should be organized by people on the basis of their knowledge, skills and values. They become cultural communications. In the language of philosophy, there is an ontological relationship of form and concept: culture objectifies and thus creates, organizes, structures social relations which are the concept of these built up by culture institutions, organisations, agencies.
Basing on the logic, we can define civil society as a type of society by its content, that is the definity type of social relations, terms of citizens and it’s a creation of culture as totality of dispays of economic, juridical and political cultures.
Culture and society are indissoluble phenomenons. Culture was born with a person and society. During the process antroposociogenesis the evolution of culture’s verge directly was told on all levels of social being.
Social changings got cultural motivation. Modern culture progressively takes over the functions of engine, motor of social changing and development. It’s increased the role of culture in regulation of human behavior and creation of new structures of another plan.
Culture as varied specific system of means owing to which it is fulfilled collective and individual life of people, stimulates, motivates, programes, socially reproduces the activity and evolves human groups and their activity.
One of the significant traits of human activity is its joint co-operative character, assuming the unification of efforts of multitude of the individuals for reaching of important social intentions. But these purposes can be achieved only on the condition of corresponding organisation and co-ordination of efforts of the acting individuals. Socio-regulatory function of culture just creates the possibilities for realizing of mentioned function. To sum up, we can consider culture as socio-genetic programme accumulating a social experience, and, adapting and regulating the society life in the capacity of civil society.
References:
- Платон. Государство. –М.: Мысль, 2000. С.433.
