SUPRA-, INTER AND INTRASOCIAL MOTIONS:PROLEGOMENA TO THE ONTOLOGICAL

POVERTY OF SOCIETIES

Janos Toth

The general definition of poverty in social sciences

• its problematics: poverty exists, but as a concept and not as a fact

• can be defined as an universal economic category, but in several cases another definition is needed

• with its discoursive meanings many non-economical dimensions can be grasped

these can be divided into

- static approaches dealing with the – subjective or objective – lack of something (like absolute and relative deprivation theories)

- dynamic approaches focusing on the process of impoverisment (like exclusion-, underclass- or new poverty-discourses)

Characteristics of the dynamic approaches

• they talk not only about lacks and deprivations inside of a society, but also that poor peoples falling out from society develops, maintains and reproduces new structures of coexistences

• here poverty appears not as series of lack, but as a complex of concrets like institutions, identities, values, norms and lifestyle strategies decisive to that specific culture

• the creative and dynamic aspects of poverty cannot be bypassed by researches and theorizations with real scientific ambitions

Excourse: Theoretical framework of the presentation

• the conceptual framework of „society” is not wide enough to refer legitimely to all the types of human coexistences

• hence it would be more accurate to think universally not in terms of society or societies, but in terms of human symbioses

• the quality of being of these symbioses can be different

• differences in quality of being are showed by the organizing principle of a given symbiosis

Excourse: Theoretical framework of the presentation

• two basic types of organizing principles: transcendent and godless

• two subcategories within the last one: the modern (material), and the global (power-centered) organizing principle

• symbioses organized by a power-centered principle differs from modern ones to a great extent: in modernity, omnipotency –which was conceptually severed from God- was assigned to matter, while in global modes of human coexistences, this omnipotency was not assigned to anything, but became the reference in itself

Excourse: Theoretical framework of the presentation

• that special type of human coexistencs which we know as „society” was originaly formed by the material variant of the godless organizing principle

• modern society per definitionem embeds only peoples, and the relation of peoples with each other (Rochefort 1685, Furetière 1690 → Baker 1994, Mintzker 2008)

• transcendent organizing principles always embeds, beside peoples, God and/or different transcendent entities like ghosts, spirits, angels and demons, and also nature, which was concieved as god-given

Excourse: Theoretical framework of the presentation

• To sum up the totality of these social and non-social modes of coexistences, their relations and their positions compared to each other, we can talk about the suprasocial- or ontostructure of human symbioses

• Societies can be placed not only in a structure which includes other modes of coexistences, but according to the relations of one society to another, in a structure that would be adequate to call multisocial

• Every society has his own build, his own structure that is peculiar only to itself, which can be called the monosocial structure of that given society

Back to the question of poverty...

• how can poverty be conceptualized as a complex of deficits and surpluses at the same time?

• how are these deficits and surpluses connected to different kind of motions?

• these questions should be investigated equally within the monosocial, multisocial and ontosocial dimensions

I. Poverty within the limits of a given society

• as a static state, meaning taking up different economical, political, social or cultural positions within the monosocial structure

• the „wealthy” or „poor” status of these positions are showed by the –absolute or relative- quantity of those resources posessed being relevant from the viewpoint of the analyzed field

I. Poverty within the limits of a given society

• as a dynamic change: a kind of intrasocial motion, where a state of an entity can be described with lower and lower positions by the time passing, meaning posessing the relevant resources in a decreasing quantity or ratio

• limits: cannot provide a solution to the question that exactly where will arrive a given entity which is moving downwards from the very bottom statuses of the monosocial structure

II. Poverty within the aggregate of societies

1. moving between societies

• motions leading out from a society heads toward another society • societies are part of a network of power relations • the availability of scarce resources needed for their reproduction,

development, as well as for the actuation of personal carriers are dependent from the strenght or weakness of their actual positions within this network

• whole societies can be poor compared to another society in a dominant position

II. Poverty within the aggregate of societies

• impoverisment is a kind of intersocial motion: it leads from one society to (or towards) another which is poorer in resources than the previous

II. Poverty within the aggregate of societies

2. Connections between motions and the production/consumption of goods

• resources and goods that are necessary for the motion of a given entity are not „neutral”, but can be rather different from the viewpoint of the existence of both the societies and peoples

• the effects of their production and consumption develops in several dimensions, and can have either a positive or a detrimental impact on different entities (Joseph E. Stiglitz → social costs of production & consumption)

II. Poverty within the aggregate of societies

• Conclusion: the hermeneutic potential of the conceptual framework of a multisocial approach affects a significantly larger domain than a monosocial approach becasue it is capable to describe poverty not only as an intrasocial state or motion, but also as processes of impoverisment where the subject of these are either societies themselves, or individuals falling out from one society into another

• Limits: not fitted to examine poor statuses and processes of impoverisment within non-social types of human symbioses

III. Poverty in the ontosocial structure of human symbioses –christianity, modernity and globality

The analysis can be divided into two parts, namely

• what kind of surpluses comes together with deficits causing an individual to fall out from a community organized by transcendent principles?

• what modes of human symbioses are developed by these falled out individuals after reaching a critical mass?

Dimensions of christian poverty –ptokeia (poverty), ptokeuo (impoverishment), ptokos (poor)

1. Poor in the material sense of the word

• Involuntary poverty; here ptokos signify a person who, independently from his or her intentions, do not have access, or have very limited access to goods needed for satisfying basic biological needs

• Voluntary poverty, here ptokos signify the person who, from his or her own free will, limits his consumption to what is biologically necessary or does not significantly exceed that level

Dimensions of christian poverty –ptokeia (poverty), ptokeuo (impoverishment), ptokos (poor)

2. Spiritual poverty

• lack of spiritual goods and virtues

• having „inferior”, „miserable”, „godless” things, thoughts and lifestyle strategies

• Describes a human state or condition which is typical to sinners, errants and heretics

3. Poorness in spirit

• being poor in spirit differs from spiritual poverty in the extent of referring neither to the lack of something divine nor to having godless things and deeds, but it rather signifies the existence of a divine virtue, namely, humility in people

Dimensions of christian poverty –ptokeia (poverty), ptokeuo (impoverishment), ptokos (poor)

4. The poverty of Christ

• The base for reference for the poverty of Christ is kenosis, the self-emptying process of God where in Christ He became man for man’s salvation. The meaning of Christ’s poverty in christian tradition is that God became man so that man might become God

Dimensions of christian poverty –ptokeia (poverty), ptokeuo (impoverishment), ptokos (poor)

• „Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Phil. 2:6-7)

• „though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2Kor 8:9)

• What can be seen from these dimensions concerning poverty?

• Why is this important for us from a scientific perspective?

What can be seen from these dimensions concerning poverty?

• The hermeneutic potential of christian poverty is significantly larger than that of the multisocial approach

It is capable to • describe - besides negative tendencies- communicative

motions which aims to the spiritual reintegration of the man and the community with God

• show how an excommunicative motion, as spiritual impoverisment and leading the individual out from a christian community is connected both to the lack of virtues and to the dominance of godless thoughts and lifestyle strategies

Why is this important for us from a scientific perspective?

• brings on the possibility that in social theory, modern societies may be conceptualized within the ontosocial structure as the unfolding of this spiritual impoverisment, and global societies as its further deepening

• it can be also relevant from the viewpoint of poverty researches that processes which can be valorized as „progress”, „wealth” or „enrichment” within a mono- or multisocial approach can also be ontosocially the signs of spiritual poverty, decline and impoverisment

Thank you for your attention

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