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12.The phenomenon of social force
In the preceding pages many views on progress were presented; not one of them can be considered satisfactory. The disagreements between philosophers, political scientists and scholars of international affairs about the content of the term “force” as applied to society or state haven’t decreased. The debates around this term intensified during the years when the USA and the USSR opposed each other, i.e. during the “Cold War,” when everyone was evaluating which side is “stronger.” The problem proved to be a difficult one. How does one determine the force of a state, of a society? How does it manifest itself? And what is “might”? Or is it the same thing? The English-speaking authors have even more difficulties, since in their language there are three words to designate the concept: force, power, strength. Each of these has its own nuances and shades of meaning which are difficult to convey in translation to another language. How, for example, do you translate into Russian the phrase “power to resist force”? «Sila, kotoraya soprotivlayetsya sile»? Or: «strengths of forces» – how do you render that? «sily sil»? There is need to distance these words from each other somehow. Not even that is the main thing, though. The main thing is to uncover the essence, the content of force, i.e. elevate this word by way of a term to the level of a concept, which will signify scientific cognition of the phenomenon.
I decided this time not to delve into an ultra-detailed analysis of different perspectives on force like I did concerning the term “progress.” More exactly, I already performed this research in my book about Force. The discourse there, though, was about ontological force; I limited the analysis thereof to inorganic and organic worlds, and to the sphere of psychology. Social relations were left overboard; I intend to rectify the omission in the present book. However, before presenting my view on social force it is necessary after all to give the floor to several scholars who dedicated special works to the topic of “force” – if only to make the readers understand where the problem lies and why force is often called an elusive phantom.
First of all I need to stress right away that almost every philosopher touched on the topic of force in one way or another, starting with Plato. I did not study medieval scholars specifically within the framework of the problem of social force. This is why I am compelled to refer to Patrick Quinn, an American philosopher at Boston University, who asserts that the theory of force in Plato’s key was subsequently defended by representatives of three religions: Averroës (Ibn Rushd) – Moslem; Moses Maimonides – Jewish; and St. Thomas Aquinas – Christian. The essence of their positions is this: “Knowledge is perceived as a conserving influence on individual and political life, to be transmitted preferrably in an essentially unaltered state to maintain the desired social-cultural value system and power structure.”[14] In The Republic Plato reasons over many pages - through the mouths of his heroes - about the huge role of knowledge in governing the state, leading the readers to the thought in the ideal state, it is exactly those who have more knowledge who have the right to govern others. More knowledge means more force for controlling others. Even though Plato did not write such words, the whole pathos and logic of his reasoning lead to the conclusions made by Quinn, and after rereading these fragments I cannot but agree with him. Plato’s reasoning boils down in principle to the assertion that knowledge and force is practically the same in its essence. Patrick Quinn believes that the above-mentioned philosophers thought similarly as Plato. Perhaps. If this is indeed so, if they really did join knowledge and force in one, according to them a deciding role in the political arena, then they were much closer to the truth than contemporary “thinkers.”