The Dilemma: To Integrate or Divide Society

Social responsibility, where political life commences, is an integrative and unifying phenomenon because it refers to each and all taking on roles in society and feeling responsible for their own lives. It also means joining organizations that, however specialist or small, are part of the panoply of groups required in a diverse society.

However, such commitment is also intrinsically divisive, because a person can only commit to one or two parts of one or two societal institutions at most. In some arenas, there will be sectional political principles and ideologies that are irreconcilable with others.

So:

Exerting pressure always seeks to promote a particular interests and viewpoints that are favoured by particular groups. Communications in public settings are blatantly sectional. So political work must be divisive.

However, all political work maintains a balance of power in society. It activates countervailing perspectives and contributes to the development of diverse views, so vital to reducing tensions. So, paradoxically, actively looking after private interests operates in the public interest and political work is therefore simultaneously, and perhaps surprisingly, integrative.

So:

Any mobilization instituted and organized by its leadership seeks special sectional gains. If the specific desired result is obtained from mobilizing, then that group is ahead. So deliberate mobilization, for whatever reason and however organized and authorized, is intrinsically divisive. Counter-rallies may develop, but that confirms the divisiveness.

People may also become mobilized unofficially in the form of spontaneous, unauthorized and unorganised demonstrations. Such demonstrations may take many forms: gathering outside the gates of a shut factory or bankrupt bank, attending a town hall meeting to hear and question a Parliamentary Representative, lining the streets when an unfriendly head of state visits. Where voting is optional, the turn-out can be viewed as a spontaneous demonstration.

Spontaneous activities are usually neutral or unifying, although they may not produce results beyond media reports that raise awareness of social feelings about political issues. When people mobilize themselves spontaneously, they are using freedoms and rights within society which confirms their value and society's strength, which is certainly integrative.

So there are two distinct Centres here:

• Joining an Official Mobilization: CG3_D
• Engaging in Spontaneous Demonstration: CG-3_I

Dominance: Any well-organized and officially sponsored mobilization will be more powerful than an ad hoc or spontaneous demonstration of the same type. Crowds and other diffuse gatherings of people offer no means for authorities to engage. As a result, factions take advantage of spontaneous protests or uprisings around significant political issues to develop popular engagement.

The recommendations by the various methods and systems for inquiry on problematic issues strive to be accepted even if not popular. Making documents generally available and consulting on proposals all foster integration.

At the same time, each source of proposals is biased to some degree and reflects interests of particular groups. Individuals and groups, so deep in the political process, naturally work from their own sectional or vested perspective and this means that policy proposals cannot avoid being divisive as well.

So:

Arrangements for making changes in a society are specified formally in a constitution &/or by tradition. This formalization of a governance institution is intrinsically unifying and integrating. Its documents, structures, procedures, and norms endure over time creating a common framework affecting what can be done and how.

While institutions guide, human leaders are needed to make the choices and put ideas for change into practice. So societal leadership is a matter of the particular individuals that have been authorized in that role either informally, by appointment or by election.

The personalities, idiosyncrasies and power-bases of the particular leaders in society lead to the creation of factions, personality cults, modifications of governance protocols, cronyism and nepotism, corruption and other phenomena. Such all-too-human behaviour splits allegiances. So actual leaders are sectional and inherently divisive for society.

So there are two distinct Centres here:

• Society's Governing Institutions: CG-5_I
• Society's Current Leaders: CG-5_D

Dominance: Society’s governance arrangements are designed within cultural parameters to be reasonable, respected and enduring. Despite provisions for their modification, it is broadly necessary that institutions control and, if need be, provide for judging and removal of particular leaders—not the other way around.

Leaders are human: with frailties and egotism that undermine themselves and whatever they touch. Leaders must connect with formal bodies and processes, respect their significance for the people, and bring their purpose usefully to life. When they dominate, manipulate or undermine those formal institutions, there is the danger of a chaotic disintegration of society.

Imperatives may reveal themselves as popular dissatisfaction, often leading to pressure for or against a particular reform, and often taken up by a particular pressure group. However genuine the dissatisfaction or beneficial the reform, there will certainly be segments of society that would suffer a reduction in their comfort, wealth or power, at least in the short-term and perhaps permanently. So dissatisfaction and their potential for reform split society: they are divisive.

The political will of society is also expressed diffusely by approving and demanding sustenance of a particular social order that embodies its history and culture. The social order refers to the essential values and traditions, that inspire, define and organize any society. It enables, validates and stabilizes the system of government and all significant social phenomena and civil society operations. This makes its requirement unifying and integrative. 

So again there are two distinct Centres that channel political will:

• Recognition ofPopular Dissatisaction: CG-6_D
• Sustenance of the Social Order: CG-6_I

Dominance: The social order is a permanent and relatively unchanging phenomenon and its sustenance naturally becomes the dominant condition. Dissatisfaction, by contrast, moves from topic to topic with waxing and waning intensity. The social order may affect where and how popular pressures are likely to build up.

The social order is found within the framework dealing with realizing values in society (PsH6-G7¹).The Hexads in this structural hierarchy are: the citizenry (G6²) and the government (G6¹). From: Ch.12, Working with Values (1995).

Sovereignty seeks to defend stability. Stability, which is the basis for a peaceful and prosperous order, depends on the maturity and performance of political institutions. By virtue of sovereignty and through mass action, this Centre is intrinsically integrative and unifying for society.

However, the vision of unity does not deny or remove the existence of diversity and injustices. Discontents will exist that deserve to be remedied, but are not. Maintaining stability and upholding unity will therefore simultaneously sustain injustices which will foster splitting e.g. between «the haves and the have-nots», or between regions of the country, or between various ethnic groups. So stability/unity is also inherently and simultaneouslydivisive.

So: