Microsociology and macrosociology

Historical retrospective I: small non-political communities

Communication between people proceeds differently, depending on how many people participate in it. Long before the emergence of sociology as a science, Aristotle distinguished between a family (household), a settlement consisting of several households, and a political urban community. For centuries and millennia, even those who radically disagreed with him, still recognized at least one of the main differences between families (including united families) and states (the word "state" must be used with extreme caution, but in this case it is very difficult to do without it): only the latter can be political unions, in no other way many people cannot live. The critic of Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, draws attention to the small size of non-political communities, whose writings go back to classical theoretical sociology. A big role in understanding how different, for example, friendship or fraternal community, on the one hand, and political union, government, on the other hand, played widespread in the XVI-XVII centuries, differed. discourse on the so-called “reason of the state” or “state reason” (ratio status). “The heart has its own arguments,” said Blaise Pascal, as we know. “And the state has its own,” seemed to be answered by political philosophers who looked for justifications for such a course of action of modern European sovereigns, who could not be justified in the eyes of contemporaries either from the point of view of customary morality or from the point of view of traditions of government. Not the mind of the sovereign, but the mind of the state was thus affirmed as a superpersonal instance. In emerging political economy a century later, the doctrine of the division of labor and the invisible hand of the market was directly based on the opposition of close communication, acquaintance and friendship, on the one hand, and impersonal mutually beneficial exchange, other. At the very beginning, “Studies on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (book 1, chapter 2) Adam Smith contrasts friendship (the old notion of ethical regulation of interpersonal ties) and exchange: a civilized person, he says, can acquire only a few he is in the help and cooperation of many people, so it is better to turn to their egoism. (In the original, this juxtaposition of the few to many is more distinctly expressed: ( The Works of Adam Smith. Infivevolumes. Vol. II. London, 1812.P. 21.) (My italic is A.F.)). But for this, Smith continues in the next chapter, we need extensive, often international markets, rather than small villages and "rarely scattered" families. However, for a long time neither the ancients nor the new authors put the value of a social group as such at the forefront.

Historical Retrospective II: Amount as a Form in the Sociology of Georg Simmel

The first who theoretically investigated this question was the classic sociology Georg Simmel (1858-1918). If the number of group members (Simmel sometimes refers to groups as circles, but in general the concept of a circle is broader than the concept of a group) is considered a formal rather, then, according to Simmel, from a sociological point of view, this is all the more important because the sociology he tries to re-establish, and must be formal. “Where the small circle largely draws individuals into their unity (especially in political groups),” Simmel writes, “it is precisely because of his unity that he imposes a decisive position on other people, meaningful tasks and other circles; whereas a large circle, with multiple and different elements, does not require such a decisive position and does not need it ”(Simmel G. Soziologie. Untersuchungenüber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe. Bd. 11. Frankfurt / M: Suhrkamp, ​​1989. S. 69). We draw attention to the fact that Simmel speaks here of small political groups that do not constitute a state, but are formed within large political unions — such, for example, is the aristocracy or a group of political associates.

Communication in small circles is interpersonal and direct, whereas in large circles it is impossible, they create special “instances”, acting as “independent carriers of social unity” (Simmel G. Soziologie. Ibid. S. 72.), - everyone laws, representations, services, symbols, etc. “The nature of the impersonal and objective ... arises precisely because of the multiplicity of ... individual elements. Because only because of their multiplicity is the individual in them paralyzed, and the universal rises above them, being removed at such a distance that it seems to exist by itself, without any need for the individual and quite often even antagonistic towards him ... ”(Ibid. S. 73).

The space and time of social interactions and classical dichotomies

Simmel’s somewhat archaic and seemingly simplistic reasoning addresses, so to speak, the main nerve of the problem. Undoubtedly, no other sociality than the one that exists in live communication here and now simply does not exist. Money systems in which no one makes payments, full library books, which no readers touch, homes and means of communication, cultural monuments and technical devices - all this is dead if alive with human intercourse, immediate action, and if we do not notice it it is only because we are surrounded by “everyday, immortal society”, as Harold Garfinkel (Garfinkel H. Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Out and Durkheim’s Aphorism / Edited and Introduced by AWRawls. Lamham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). As long as the production and reproduction of communications, interactions, social events of the most different kinds lasts, it makes sense and everything is stable, so long as it is not involved in these interactions, but it may be involved in them - like a book, or finally a computer program, taken from the shelf. This means that a person must communicate with other people, and only the nature of this communication allows us to speak about the “macro” or “micro” in relation to it. Entering the institution, filling out a mandatory payment form, participating in ritual practices, we are dealing with an objective and impersonal one that Simmel spoke about, but at the same time, we still interact with specific people - directly (when setting out our business to an official) or indirectly (when we send the completed form by mail). The reverse is less obvious. No matter how close the circle to which we belong, communication will be very rare, in which everything impersonal and objective would be, if we use the words of Simmel, “paralyzed,” just as he is paralyzed personal in large circles. . Do we lend money to a friend, welcome a familiar gesture, help a child solve a mathematical problem, or give flowers to a loved one, every time we cannot do without applying invented, not established forms, whose content is not the result of conscious interactions between us and someone we know. Money and the monetary system, mathematical tasks and school education, widespread rituals of politeness and even accepted forms of expressing love feelings came to us from outside. We can say that the structure of a large society finds its visible expression in them. Unlike rural communities, from the policy of antiquity or the medieval city, it is fundamentally immense. It is the perspective of a large modern society, chosen by sociology, that leads to the first known dichotomies, which have retained a certain significance for the theory to this day. For example, Ferdinand Tönnis (1855–1936) contrasted society (Gesellschaft) with the so-called community (Gemeinschaft) (literal translation of these concepts into other languages ​​is almost impossible and therefore undesirable), and distinguished among communities are those formed due to kinship, neighboring communities and welded friendship of citizens of the city as political units. True, he has all these rather ideal constructions (which he himself called the concepts of pure sociology), and not certain historical descriptions, but still it is possible to conclude from the works of Tennis that the evolution of the West leads to the distortion and decomposition of immediate, emotionally saturated connections, in which few are involved, and the emergence of a volatile world in which emotions are replaced by calculations, and the number of participants increases dramatically. Another well-known dichotomy is the opposition of society to a segmentally differentiated society to a functionally differentiated sociology of Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). Durkheim always speaks precisely about society as the highest level of reality, but the differentiation of the first kind, inherent in earlier societies, means that it is divided into small, equal segments, whereas in later, modern societies the solidarity of people not familiar between themselves and not meeting each other. In one of the main books of classical sociology, the name of which is still often misleading readers, Simmel's Philosophy of Money, one of the most important characteristics of modern, monetary culture is the effect at a distance: money, among other things, gives us the opportunity to get what is far from us, outside the zone of normal accessibility for direct action and exchange.

Big in small

But it’s not just the distance and the lack of direct contact between people. Equally important for the macro approach was the development of statistics. This is explained very simply. If we look for explanations of events and processes occurring in relatively small groups, we can find the causes of what is happening in specific events that preceded those that are important for us, in habits, customs and other personal characteristics of certain people, etc. If it comes to recurring events, then these events are either outstanding, and then dissimilar between them is no less than similar, or routine, everyday. But if these are everyday events, then when asked why they occur, we will receive, for example, the answer: “By virtue of the dominant mores (good or spoiled)”. And if we ask what the morals find expression, then we will find out what exactly is in the very events that we are interested in. For example, to say that corrupt morals are expressed in the domination of superstition, in rampant theft or deceit, the same thing as to say about corrupt morals as the cause of deceit, theft or superstition. But then explained and explaining, in fact, the same thing. It is quite another thing if statistics are used. More or less accurate figures show, for example, the repeatability in the distribution of suicides by season, religious affiliation, marital status of suicides. From here, Durkheim drew far-reaching conclusions that the very individual, at first glance, decision, caused in each case by special biographical circumstances, is the greater reality of society. With the development of statistics, this aspect of the matter turned out to be increasingly important. It turned out that one can judge the characteristics of a large society from a comparatively small amount of data, so that first it was necessary to interpret the data obtained as evidence of a small big, and then, based on the characteristics of a large, to talk about how it manifests itself in a small one. For example, we can examine several hundred preferences regarding the choice of a newspaper to read over morning coffee, and then draw the well-founded conclusions that all readers in the whole country choose the same way for themselves. Then we will transfer the conversation from the readers' preferences to the social stratification of society, that is, its social structure, values ​​and party commitment of readers belonging to different layers, etc., and only then, conducting the next survey, we will proceed from the fact that from the very beginning we find ourselves in the same place and we recognize not one particular case of preference or choice, but the manifestation of the fundamental characteristics of large social groups and, as a result, of society as a whole.

Of course, this is a highly simplified presentation of how the macro approach is implemented, but it is important to fix the most important thing here: research of data arrays, to which the farther away, the more sociologists acquire taste, and even more so - the reliability of static conclusions, can lead to oblivion of their own semantic people's lives. Indeed, much of what emerges as a result of uncoordinated actions of many people forces us to take a new attitude to their conscious goal-setting, responsibility, understanding of what is happening. All this may be important, of course, but not in order to explain how much is born out of small things that exceed it, but in order to ask the opposite question: how are laws, trends, “functional needs” (this term is now obsolete? , but was widespread in the heyday of functional analysis in sociology several decades ago.) in general can be transferred to the micro level, where people still appreciate what is good or bad for them, where they argue, err, equate are under the opinion of a respected and influential interlocutor in anger changed to the opposite point of view and often do not notice that the curse is something that used to protect. At the same time, of this, in fact, consists largely of the social life that is visible to us. Isn't it possible that between “micro” and “macro” is an insurmountable gulf, and all interpretations invented for one level of social interaction do not work for another, and not because the era has changed and small societies were replaced by large ones, but because the very structure of sociality is not internally homogeneous, and each of the perspectives of observation and analysis is correct, but only within certain limits. These questions led to numerous discussions, especially stormy in the sociology of the 80s - 90s of the last century. Of course, in this case it was not so much about disengagement - it was already striking, and so much as about establishing or restoring a lost connection.

The continuum of sociality: from the micro level to the macro level

Of course, it was possible to proceed from the fact that in fact there is no contradiction here. The respectable American sociologist Randal Collins, even thirty years ago, substantiated the theoretical “microsubstantiation strategy of macrosociology” (Collins R. On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology // American Journal of Sociology. 1982. Vol. 86 (5). P. 984-1013.), There are building the entire building of sociological descriptions, from the lowest to the highest floors, on the same foundation of micro-processes. He proposed to consider "micro" and "macro" as the poles of the continuum. Depending on whether we look, so to say, "down" or "up", taking the starting point of interaction at one of the many possible levels, the level from which we start turns out to be rather "micro" or "macro". The fundamental dimensions of social life are space and time. The most "macro" is that which covers the largest territories and lasts the longest ", and micro-interactions are insignificant in the area of ​​occupied space and very transient in time. Collins also proposed a two-dimensional scale for ranking micro and macro objects. The smallest element is cognitive-emotional processes that take place in a single person within a few seconds. Small groups cover up to 102 square meters, and territorial societies up to 1011-1014 square feet. Rituals and group dynamics in a small group can have l duration up to 104 sec., and the duration of a territorial society is calculated at least in years (Collins R. Sociology since Midcentury.Essays in Theory Cumulation. NY etc .: Academic Press, 1981. P. 263; P. 266, Fn. 2; P. 273, Fn. 3.) At the same time, none of the levels is for Collins more real than the other, so to speak. Despite the fact that one of the parts of his newer work is called “Radical Microsociology”, Collins argues that interactions at the lowest level are structured in the same way as at the highest, but it is the actions of living people that turn structures into something that has ergetikoy, manifested in human bodies, minds and emotions (Collins R. Interaction RitualChains. Oxford and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. P. 5 f.) Another way of microbasic was taken by JS Coleman (Coleman JS Microfoundations and macrosocial behavior // The Micro-Macro Link. Op. Cit. P. 153–173 ), who built a well-known scheme in which they were taken into account, as he called them “microconditions and macroconditions”, as well as “microeconomic results and macroresults”. in turn, micro-results. But micro results lead to macro results. Таким образом, от макроусловий к макрорезультатам путь лежит через микродействия, но эти последние совершаются в условиях, заданных на макроуровне.

Обзор подходов можно было бы, конечно, и продолжить. Однако здесь требуется, конечно, не просто умножение примеров, но более принципиальный подход. Мы должны выяснить, что именно делает микроподход столь привлекательным, несмотря на очевидные издержки его применения, а также особо поставить вопрос о том, действительно ли микро и макро могут быть примерены и непротиворечиво связаны в рамках одной теории. Все новые и новые попытки преодолеть различия между ними и утвердить единство знания и описаний наводят на мысль, что, скорее всего, дело здесь не так просто, если к нему приходится возвращаться из поколения в поколение.