THE SOCIO-CULTURAL DYNAMICS

The concept of moral agent is the focal point of a perspective based upon two considerations: (a) that values come into being in an historical process and (b) that human persons living and acting according to values, which have roots in their cultural heritage, shape this historical process. This calls for a conceptualization derived mainly from phenomenology. This seems a preferable approach to the issue of historicity for it offers a broad perspective in terms of an open movement in which the present is but an instant that meaningfully articulates the past toward the future. This conceptualization was developed in chapter I above. Here I would like only to call attention to the fact that the meaning or value content of this process is given by persons acting and interacting historically. From this derives the concept of the moral agent inasmuch as one's historical action is directed to the promotion of the fullness of being with its personal and communitary connotations.

From a more sociological point of view, the moral agent can be conceived in terms of Alain Touraine's "historical subject." Touraine begins from what he considers a main human endeavor: "the need present virtually in every agent to realize a work endowed with one's own social experience, and to maintain or regain control over this work, in sum to overcome alienation. . . . Work is the social experience which best expresses this creative tension of production and its appropriation."¹

Thus, Touraine develops a "Sociology of Action" theoretically and methodologically oriented to understanding man's efforts to realize socially meaningful "work," and to maintain or recover his control over this work. He uses the term "work" in the very open and inclusive sense of culture:

But sociology of action is not only a sociology of work. It must be extended to all experiences or relations with one's neighbor and with nature, that is, with the life of the body which are marked by this double movement of creation of the object and of regaining control over the object created by the agent.²

It is here, at the heart of the double movement of the creation of an object (in a very wide sense) and of the maintenance or recovery by the agent of the control over the object created, that Touraine places the "historical subject," creator of culture and main actor of his Sociology of Action. Historical subjects should not be misinterpreted as super or supra-beings, but conceived simply as persons interacting among themselves and together in a certain direction.

Touraine's accent is therefore upon the constituting forces which Lourau would call the constituting (l'instituant), rather than upon the cultural systems of values and norms already constituted which Lourau would call the `constituted' (l'institué).³

The sociology of action rejects focusing on systems of cultural values and already constituted social norms, to study their coherence, modification and transmission. Its object is to understand not how society functions, but how it is created and how men realize their history.⁴

I will not follow here the methodology worked out by Touraine in his Sociology of Action, which offers an alternative theory and methodology for studying how the social is historically constructed. However, I do want to call attention to the difference he notes between, on the one hand, the cultural values and social norms already constituted and, on the other hand, his main concern, namely, how people invent society, how they make their history. Each of these two processes has its own dynamics which later will have to be taken into consideration.

Touraine has an hermeneutic intention; he wants to discover and reconstruct the meaning, direction or sense of social action: "to discover and reconstruct the sense of a system of relations, . . . to investigate the nature of a debate, conflict or movement."⁵ Touraine calls for a sociology able to include the value oriented and creative thrust of man--for a study of the spirit and social systems which should contribute to the formation of a vast anthropology.

Sociology should focus upon the very heart of social action in order to contribute to the formation of an integral anthropology which is already a study both of the spirit and of social systems, and which should as well be the study of creative action. It should not remain at the periphery of action, heavily describing relations between types of conduct and society as if these could be defined as a state of things, when in reality they are movement, contradiction and creation that is an affirmation of values. . . . No sociological analysis can dispense itself from taking account of the most fundamental character of social action, namely, its normative orientation.⁶

Touraine does not conceal, but consciously assumes a value content orientation. He does not shun responsible evaluation of situations and conduct, and is concerned mainly with reflection upon the dynamics of reality as a means of clearly evaluating situations in view of correct action. He thus urges us to "avoid laying down from the beginning a system constituted of values, and to find in action itself--in its double movement of objectivation, which in turn calls for reflection upon the constituted work--the principle for evaluating situations and conduct."⁷

Thus, Touraine hopes that his position will be understood best by those who search for the best ends or goals and the appropriate means for their fulfillment amidst confused, conflictual situations, rather than by those concerned with the organization of means.

The call for a sociology of action probably will not have its best response in established societies where the organization of means is more important than the conflictual elaboration of goals. Rather, this call can be understood whenever the social order or personal life is lacerated, when the individual or collective agent must impose a new meaning on a social field modified under his initiative, every time one takes up the fight for the formation of a new society, new social relations, or new feelings and tastes. . . . At the heart of the industrial civilization sociology is above all a study of the formation and transformation of social experience.⁸

I have taken Touraine as my starting point because his overall perspective is similar to ours, though from a more sociological point of view. For understanding values from an historical, socio-cultural viewpoint it offers very helpful analytical categories within a sound theoretical context. His concept of the historical subject enables us to give a more sociological meaning to the concept of moral agent. The historical subject can be seen as a collective creator of culture, struggling to express itself through the constitution of institutions which express the deeply rooted values of its culture while responding creatively to the challenge of an ever-changing historical condition.

In creating these institutions the historical subject is really institutionalizing certain forms of relationship in order to produce, and eventually reproduce, certain socio-cultural forms.⁹ In a wide sense of cultural creation the action of the historical subject is thus grounded in the human effort to constitute a socially meaningful work and to maintain its control. The consideration of this positive process, on the one hand, and of alienation as the loss of this capability, on the other, enables us to explain the double movement of creation/control and alienation.

Alienation is conceived as the escape of man's creation from his own hands. For there is a tendency for one's creation to cease to reflect what it had of oneself or of human relations and to become a thing in itself, no longer under his control. The relation could even be reversed, with man being controlled by the forces he created. It is not that his creation really controls him, but rather that man makes an "idol" of that which he has created. His creation having become "reified," man turns to adore it as if it were a "being" or a good in itself, rather than a means for him. He thus loses control of it.

From the economic point of view, for example, in terms of a socially meaningful product and one's control over it, there is a great difference between an artist producing and selling his/ her own work of art and the automobile worker who assembles the same piece on many cars. The latter would never recognize this as a product of his personal creation, and it really is not. Furthermore, these cars will be sold by someone else; the worker loses all control of the product of his work which is subject to economic forces beyond himself. In this light the type of industrialization spreading over the world poses a great problem and calls for a more humanizing solution.

Furthermore, these products no longer reflect that they are products of man's creative work and human relations. Reified as they are, they turn out to be like "idols" and reverse their relation with man. Instead of means for the promotion of his full being, they turn one into a consumer of goods without clear purpose (except perhaps for those who induce him to buy): they turn one from "being" to "having." Instead of man really possessing things, things possess him. Something similar might tragically be happening with the development of nuclear power. Man could lose control of himself and of his relations with others through adoring the idols he has created.

It is in the religious dimension that alienation takes on its clearest meaning of idolatry, through the fabrication of a god which alienates man from his essential relation to the divine and to others. The type for this is found in Moses's coming down from the mountain with the tablets containing the essence of man's relation with God and kin, only to find his people adoring the golden idol, Baal. The idol created by man, being adored as if it were God, alienated the people from a profound, vital relation with God and others. "You will no longer adore the work of your hands."¹⁰

The dynamics of the process of alienation can be further clarified by developing the concepts of institutionalization and ideology. To do this I will refer to the above-mentioned distinction between:

1) a constituting (instituant) human impetus by which the "historical subject" invents society, that is, men make their history through the conflictual elaboration of goals and the appropriate means to achieve them, and

2) a constituted (institué) system of cultural values and social norms, characteristic of stabilized societies, which centers upon the disposition of means (and, I would add, sometimes leaves no time to stop and think of ends or goals).

Let us begin from the first moment, that of constituting. The constituting force is that of the historical subject in its drive to express itself through the creation of institutions which might best respond to the historical situation. Historical subjects, starting from and recreating their deeply rooted cultural values, would be open also to the assimilation of new ones. Persons would be creating institutions that could best promote the fullest expression of their cultural identity, or "self," through their way of responding to the historical conditions of that moment. This is the moment of the "utopia" or the ideal that inspires action.

But the ideal world exists only in our minds as a parameter, as something for which to fight, live and die. When ideals take form, they cease to be the ideal and begin to reflect it only to a limited degree. If people continue to think of reality as if it functioned just as does the ideal model, their thinking becomes ideological; they are no longer aware of what is happening in reality, of how much it is diverging from the ideal model. The beneficiaries of the system promote this type of unconsciousness since it best fits their interests; indeed, in many cases they themselves would not be conscious of it, being themselves ideologically constituted.

This is precisely what happens in the process of institutionalization, through which "the constituting" becomes "the constituted." The process of institutionalization takes place between the moment when the "historical subject" is elaborating its ends and creating institutions as appropriate means for these ends, and the moment when the system is comfortably instituted with its systems of cultural values and social norms well established. At that point society is devoted to promoting means and each member is dedicated to his role or way of developing a certain means, no thought is given then to the ends.

Putting their ideals to work men create institutions. When facing a certain historical challenge they elaborate their goals and the ways and means to achieve them--in which are expressed their values. That is, they create ways of response in which their values inspire goals and particular forms of inter-action to achieve them. Stabilizing these patterns of relations they create institutions. With the passing of time, however, institutions created as means begin to acquire a sort of life or drive for self-preservation. The new interests created during the process of institutionalization contribute to this transformation of the institution from a means to an end in itself, since they are interested in its conservation. A suspicion of power thus always hovers over the process of institutionalization. Through it men, having created institutions as means, not only lose control of them as they become structures--stabilized patterns of relations which persist through time and acquire certain historical weight--but are finally dominated through them. The individuals and groups who are favored by these structures and interested in maintaining them promote their reproduction and thereby the continuation of the system through which they maintain their dominant position.

Turning once again to ideology--in the sense of dominant ideology¹¹--this type of alienation, like others, takes form during the process of institutionalization. As new interests are created, people interested in maintaining the institutions or the system of institutions which favors their interests, and this both for their own benefit and for that of their descendants. There are many ways of doing this. Mainly, it is through economic and political power. But there is another, less obvious way--since if it were obvious it would no longer work--namely, the ideological reproduction of the system. How does this work?

Ideology is a form of alienation and works through mechanisms similar to other forms of alienation. Men create their ideals, put them to work, create institutions, and then adore them as "idols." Such idols take the place of reality: the ideal model takes the place of the existential context and conceals what there is of real inter-human relations at the concrete level.

Passing from the macro to the micro consideration of the way ideology works, it should be noted first that it strongly favors those who believe in it and impose their belief on others. The sense that the system favors the interest of all gives them the needed psychological reassurances that they are working for the benefit of all and not mainly for their own interest. And as it really does work, business and political leaders can be quite honest in their idealism and work hard for what they believe is the best for all. Remaining unaware that they themselves are ideologically constituted, they contribute to the ideological reproduction of the system by reproducing the ideal interpretation of reality and the corresponding forms of inter-relations.

For the broader population this works as a psychological soporific. The ideological rationalization of the system, which makes its positive aspects stand out, gives reassurance through a sense of participation or belonging to the best of worlds. I will not take up here the socio-psychological question of how these ideological patterns are internalized in personality structures. In terms of present dominant rationality, however, we can look for the ways in which such very complex motivational patterns are introduced into one's personality through socialization practices considered as functional imperatives.

From an epistemological perspective ideology proceeds mainly by the abstraction from reality of certain ideal entities which become absolutized in a partial, static, ideal model. This model, which symbolizes the social reality, is constructed on the basis of three fundamental processes:

- naturalization of historical laws,

- universalizing abstractions, and

- mystification of social relations.

The abstract rationalization thus constructed, detached from its real context, constitutes the model from which reality is interpreted. When applied to reality, which is much more complex than the model, only the variables or categories contained in the model are perceived for they are the only ones consciously or unconsciously selected. This leaves out of the picture a very considerable portion of reality.

All that has been said in this introduction concerning alienation, institutionalization, structures and ideology might give the impression that we are concentrating on the "tail" instead of the "head"--on the institutionalized, instead of on the positive side of the creative moral agent--thus losing sight of Touraine's emphasis upon the "historical subject." But without this side of the coin we would not be able to understand the positive movement of the historical subject as the moral agent takes hold of him/herself. That aspect will appear in the last part of this paper dedicated to the presentation of the possibility of a new synthesis. It will draw particularly from the resources of traditional culture, for which I will use as an example the case of Latin America focusing, on the seeming constitution of an historical subject of Andean roots.

WESTERN CULTURAL HERITAGE

The development of western culture is marked by the tension within it between Christianity's sense of totality, rooted in its traditional hebraic origins, and the reduction and partialization brought about by the development and absolutization of some categories assimilated from Greek thought.

Origins: Hebraic and Greek Visions of Man and Reality

This analysis begins from Heidegger's idea of historical consciousness which directs our attention to the fact that each culture has its own consciousness. The problem is that when one discovers or becomes "conscious" of some aspect and clarifies his/her ideas about it one tends to concentrate upon this and to forget other aspects. This happened with Western Christian civilization when it centered on some discoveries made by the Greeks and became less sensitive to the traditional Hebrew sense of reality and existence. In so doing, it lost the concrete sense of life, as lived in the family, the tribe and through the covenant.

Hebrew consciousness was vital, existential, and historical: it had a profound sense of unity in relation to God and with others. Through the covenant, their relation to the Holy gave them a sense of both holiness and wholeness, of the possession of an intelligence of truth and of a relation with others manifested in kinship. This inter-personal relationship is typical of family and tribe; it is still alive in traditional cultures. As historical, the covenant led to liberation in history. This Hebrew thought was centered upon life and action to promote life; it did not develop abstract forms as did the Greeks.

The Greeks developed philosophy and science as means for understanding reality. To do so, from reality they abstracted ideal entities and searched for relations between them, thereby developing systematic thinking. This laid the foundation for the subsequent flourishing of Western scientific culture centered upon a new type of consciousness whose importance cannot be overstressed. This has not been without its price. Beginning from the Greeks, Western culture progressively lost the sense of real human existence in its totality, being concentrated upon developing systems of abstract thought in science and philosophy. "Unfortunately, the progress made in the conceptual clarification of the variety of nature was accompanied by a corresponding loss of sensitivity to the power and activity of nature, that is, to its existential reality."¹²

While acknowledging the magnificent contribution of Greek thinkers to posterity, it is important to note how this was achieved through the development of universalizing abstraction. This was related to Socrates' and Plato's search for virtues, ideas and ideals as a safeguard for a Greece in crisis, whose institutions were being questioned by an absolute relativism. In these circumstances the philosophers focused upon truth that would be "essential," absolute, unquestionable. In so doing, however, their thought was void of a sense of historicity, and thus was conducive to a mystification of social relations and to laying the foundations for ideological constructions.

Following Heidegger we might trace this reduction to Socrates and Plato. Attempting to provide an ontological basis for Socrates' endeavour and to provide essential definitions, Plato located truth in the realm of the "ideas" or the eternal, immutable "essences" of things. Conversely this implied a reduction of the concept of "physis" to the sensible, devalued in favor of the realm of "ideas." Thus, the "eidetic" or ideal became the real, conceived as permanent or eternal; this was to be found in the intelligible spirit or rationality of man.

According to Heidegger, the primordial or pre-Socratic notion of "physis" was a "totality of beings," or even "Being itself": physis was comprehensive, all inclusive. Moreover, "physis" was self-emerging or self-emergence; and this, in turn, implies as its origin that which is hidden and from which manifestation is possible. Thus, "being" contains in itself both manifestation at the level of that which is manifest, as well as being manifesting itself. In such a perspective, truth, in its pre-Socratic sense is the truth of being, self-emerging, and thus manifesting itself.

Plato himself did not abjure completely the primordial sense of physis, for he retained the sense of aletheia as "unveiling." Nevertheless, he directed his attention to that which is manifest, and placed truth in that which is consistent or invariable as the "essence" of that which is present or manifest in time. This could be only the "ideas" or essences of that which is manifest as these are accessible to the mind. Thus he interpreted Being in its essential sense of physis as "idea," thus "transforming the meaning of truth from the self-unconcealing of primal Being (the manner in which `physis' brings itself to appearance) to a notion of truth as the `correctness of seeing'."¹³ With Plato, "truth became correct seeing, and thinking became a matter of placing an idea before the mind's eye, that is, it became the proper manipulation of ideas."¹⁴ Truth and reason would thus be put at the service of the will.

This location of truth in the essence of things led to a subsequent reduction in medieval thinking when essence was linked to, and interpreted as, "efficient cause." The primordial sense of physis though was not "a question of an emerging or coming to appearance as the result of having been caused. Rather, if we may so express the matter, self-emerging in the manner of physis is self-caused, i.e., a self-rising."¹⁵ Later, especially in the modern elaborations of Descartes and his heirs, truth would be considered to be no longer in beings manifesting themselves, but in man, the philosopher. Truth concerns knowledge, or the relation between man and that which is present; it is no longer the truth of being, but of the knowledge of being.

This was the ground for the modern subjective conception of truth and its "forgetfulness of being" in the Cartesian sense of

the person as the knowing `subject' around the pivotal point called consciousness or self-consciousness. . . . From a Heideggerian standpoint, a philosophy of subjectivity is one which pretends that `Being' is the result ensuing from the subjective activity called `thinking' in the sense of Vorstellen or acting, that is, manipulation, in the way of Bestellen. Thus, on this view `Being' would end up to be the mere produce of the subjective dimension.¹⁶

Thus the Platonic conception of "idea" provided two of the roots of modern rationality, Descartes and essentialism.

The Platonic `idea' suggests another direction which itself is two-dimensional: the `idea' and its correlate idein laid the ground for the Cartesian `representedness' (Vorgestelltheit) or `representing' and secondly, the `idea', insofar as it is considered as the `What-being' (Wassein) of beings, clears the way for the `Essentia' of `School' Philosophy.¹⁷

The alienating form of modern rationality is divorced from totality and hence from reality. On the one hand, in the search for greater accuracy or more "correctness of seeing" man constructs abstract models which become ever more partial. These models are then projected upon reality, which they reduce to partial analytic categories, thereby mutilating reality. On the other hand, we have the search for fixed essences of reality, often coming from the models themselves and thus tending to legitimate the "reality" contained in the model. It is not necessary to elaborate on the way in which these rationalizing constructions lay the basis and provide the tools for the construction of modern ideologies.

Scientific-technological Rationality: Development and Domination

Scientific-Technological rationality is the collective consciousness which undergirds the development of capitalism. On the basis of this consciousness the bourgeoisie, as the historical subject, elaborated the new social relations which made capitalism possible. This rationality was later raised to the status of "the truth" by the bourgeoisie, who institutionalized its power and promoted this model of development and its corresponding social relations as "rational." They did this in terms of this model of scientific-technological rationality, thereby justifying their dominant position within the system of social relations.

At present, the development of the systems based on this specific type of rationality appears to be exhausting its possibilities. It is producing dissatisfaction, even among the beneficiaries of the systems in industrialized countries, where there is a progressive consciousness of the limitations it imposes upon persons. Namely, it replaces a view of the whole with a view that is partial, elevating what should be a means in the service of mankind to the position of an absolute end in itself to which persons are subjected and by which they are thereby alienated.

The distinctive context and implications of this problematic in the countries of the Third World will be considered later. At that time we shall consider the possibility of reconstituting historical subjects on the basis of their traditional roots which confer diverse value orientations upon their own distinctive historical projects. These will take form through efforts directed at institutionalizing the relations corresponding to these values within the ever conflictual elaboration presupposed by the affirmation of the self.

In a general way the roots of modern scientific-technological rationality can be traced first to Galileo. His epistemological revolution consisted precisely in considering as real and concrete what in fact was abstract, namely, the mathematical form of interpreting reality. This was a step beyond Plato, for whom reality consisted in a world of ideas of which the sensible or perceivable world was but a disfigured reflection. For Galileo reality is in the concrete, but he considers this only in abstract mathematical terms.

The concrete, the sign of the ontological weight or reality of things, is properly the abstract mathematical configuration which is the sign of productive nature. For this reason sense experience is for Galileo a second step and can be understood only as integral to the sequence of rational discourse, whose norm is constituted by mathematics.¹⁸

Descartes adapted philosophy to the scientific-epistemological revolution whose philosophical characteristics had been set by Galileo.¹⁹ For Descartes the subject (mind or "res cogitans") could know the object (matter or "res extensa") only in terms of the physical properties of the object. This promoted an analytical dissection of reality into successive levels of categorization and mathematization, ruled by principles of cause and effect. Such a mechanistic conception, required for the development of machines, was the basis of Newtonian physics which constituted the model for classical scientific thought.

Auguste Comte first articulated scientific positivism which, in contrast to the more theoretical tendencies, was to be predominant in the technological era in both the natural and the social sciences. For him all valid knowledge was positive knowledge which, in turn, was identified with "science" and then with "truth." "Positive" knowledge was that in which the "subject" could objectively and directly know reality, which, in turn, was identified with its quantifiable properties. This knowledge was based on the impressions received at a given moment--ecstatic vision--through which are encountered the causal relations which explain how phenomena take place.

This type of rationality--proper to scientific knowledge--is necessary for instrumental action which permits man to act and survive. However, by rejecting other types of knowledge as true it gave "science," understood positivistically, an absolute character. This provided man with a sense of security sustained by the increasing and impressive scientific and technological developments; it provided science with its sacred "patina" and made possible its assumption for the throne vacated by the gods.

Historical Development of Scientific Technological Rationality Within the Context of Capitalism.

Scientific technological rationality developed historically as the collective consciousness of capitalism, which was constructed and reproduced as a system through the following process.

(a) The concentration of capital in the hands of the bourgeoisie, who, by channeling it into industrial production, constituted itself as the dynamic center of the development of productive forces which became the central axis of the whole historical project achieved thereby.

(b) The development of the sciences and of a scientific mentality which, through the strong emphasis put on its task of dominating nature, led to its technological orientation.

(c) The development of a mentality of efficiency and saving among the bourgeoisie which was inculcated in the working class. This made it possible to increase productivity and contribute to the ideological reproduction of the system.

(d) At the inter-personal level, the shift to functional relations between abstract individuals and relations--between roles, not persons-- favored the ideological delusion by making oppression less visible because indirect, diffuse and generalized.

(e) The institutionalization, at the political level, of a liberal democratic system as the form of government based upon formal equality, participation and liberty permitted free circulation of capital and labor and the freedom of contact required for the economic system to function.

The bourgeoisie strove to secure the prerequisites for the continued existence of the system of relations necessary for the capitalist productive process to develop. Toward this end it concentrated its efforts upon building up a state apparatus to institutionalize these structures. This process was sustained, in turn, by the liberal model's function as a utopia which permitted the bourgeoisie to promote its goals through a system of supposed free competition. In this way the bourgeoisie played a dynamic role in developing the possibilities of the new model, and in some areas this resulted in optimizing productivity within the frame of consumer society.

While this model was postulated as being convenient for everyone in terms of an ideal of generalized equality, it contains elements which negate this on the concrete level. The model favors the bourgeoisie and can function only on the basis of real inequality. Though it is proposed in terms of an ideal of equality and of free competition and "freedom of compacts" between individuals who are supposed to be free and equal, it is obvious that a capitalist and a worker meet in very unequal conditions in negotiating a contract.

As its off-spring, scientific technological rationality was developed within this process. Its manipulative mentality regarding reality is manifest in its emphasis upon the efficiency expected both of the results of the application of the sciences as well as of the functional actuation of persons. As the fundamental mentality of the bourgeois project of development scientific technological rationality has constituted the collective consciousness of capitalism from its beginning. It is the dominant ideology in the recent most technological phase of capitalism, where it has become an absolute, extending beyond the area of instrumental action to all spheres of human life. The system is justified on the basis of its surprising technological advances. By seeming to function on the basis of technical decisions, it hides the political or economic origins of its fundamental decisions.

Absolutization and Ideologization of

Scientific Technological Rationality

Scientific technological rationality implies a manipulatory attitude; ultimately it requires technology in order for this manipulation to be as efficient as possible. Thus, there develops a type of instrumental mentality which Habermas describes as "purposive-rational action" in reference to the organization of means or the choice between alternatives. Planning consists in the progressive establishment of systems and sub-systems of this "purposive-rational action."

Acting within these systems and sub-systems, in which success demands efficiency, individuals increasingly internalize the rationality of means. They interrelate in functional terms; they suppress possibilities of intersubjective and symbolic communication which appear disfunctional in relation to the goals of the institution. As producers require efficient cooperation from the areas of education, health, transport, etc., instrumental rationality increasingly penetrates all areas of human life. In the family, the ultimate bastion of intersubjectivity, members are pressured by the demands of the system which force them to struggle to be efficient, to strive to relate in functional terms and thereby progressively to reduce the ways of protecting and of loving one another which are possible only on those levels which are repressed and thus negated in favor of instrumental relationality. Regarding the scientific mathematical bases of this rationality, Marcuse notes:

Nature (including man) is scientifically rational only in terms of the general laws of movement: physical, chemical and biological. . . . Values can have a higher dignity (moral and spiritual), but they are not real and thus count less in the real business of life, the more these values are elevated.²⁰

This progressive rationalization of society is tied to the institutionalization of scientific technological development and the ideological position this assumes. Historically the definitive elevation of scientific technological rationality to an ideological position took place in the second World War. Then the United States consolidated its hegemony through its technological progress in the development of productive forces. The same happened in the Soviet Union, other state capitalist countries, and subsequently in such countries as Japan, Germany, etc.

The bourgeois ideology, which had always presented a facade of autonomy for technology, politics and economics as independent areas, could now claim that the decisions were taken on the basis of scientific technological criteria, obscuring in this manner the political or economic interests which commanded these decisions. The great prestige which science and

technology had acquired through its advances endowed it with a special aura characteristic of the sacred and the absolute, thus promoting its ideological character.

At the level of purposive-rational action, this ideology operates at an abstractive level according to its own achieved social interests by keeping everybody busy trying to be most efficient in the prosecution of his/her immediate goals. This removes from public consciousness the framework of interests from which these same goals derive.

Because this sort of rationality extends to the correct choice among strategies, the appropriate application of technologies, and the efficient establishment of systems (with presupposed aims in given situations), it removes the total social framework of interests in which strategies are chosen, technologies applied, and systems established, from the scope of reflection and rational reconstruction. Moreover, this rationality extends only to relations of possible technical control and therefore requires a type of action that implies domination, whether of nature or of society. By virtue of its structure, purposive-rational action is the exercise of control. That is why, in accordance with this rationality, the "rationalization" of the conditions of life is synonymous with the institutionalization of a form of domination whose political character becomes unrecognizable: the technical reason of a social system of purposive rational action does not lose its political content.²¹

In the highly industrialized capitalist countries, class relations--established on the basis of the social relations of production--reproduce themselves through the impetus of the whole apparatus to reproduce itself. They are legitimated by being postulated as technically rational: "The existing relations of production present themselves as the technically necessary organizational form of a rationalized society."²² Domination, nevertheless, tends to lose its exploitative character and direct oppression diffuses throughout the whole society to which everyone is subjected as pieces of the great machine. Political domination does not disappear while the oppression appears "rational" inasmuch as it seems necessary for the reproductive capacity of the system as a whole. The system, in turn, legitimizes itself on the basis of the growth of the productive forces through its impressive scientific-technological progress, although, at the same time, these conquests make the limitations and burdens suffered by individuals appear at each step more unnecessary and irrational. Habermas notes that:

In Marcuse's judgment, the objectively superfluous repression can be recognized in the `intensified subjection of individuals to the enormous apparatus of production and distribution, in the deprivatization of free time, in the almost indistinguishable fusion of constructive and destructive social labor.' Paradoxically, however, this repression can disappear from the consciousness of the population because the legitimation of domination has assumed a new character: it refers to the `constantly increasing productivity and domination of nature which keeps individuals . . . living in increasing comfort'.²³

Following Habermas we can see how the capitalist project, centering on the development of productive forces and its concomitant scientific technological rationality, has absolutized what in other cultures pertained only to the sphere of instrumental action, thus reducing man to a partial dimension. Man progressively has become alienated as the part has taken the place of the whole. Habermas remarks that what has been forgotten by this concentration upon the technological sphere is the sphere of communication, which he calls the practical.²⁴ Practical interest refers to free communication and intersubjectivity.

The new ideology consequently violates an interest, grounded in one of the two fundamental conditions of our cultural existence: in language or, more precisely, in the form of socialization and individuation determined by communication in ordinary language. This interest extends to the maintenance of intersubjectivity of mutual understanding as well as to the creation of communication without domination. Technocratic consciousness makes this practical interest disappear behind the interest in the expansion of our power of technical control. Thus the reflection that the new ideology calls for must penetrate beyond the level of particular class interests to disclose the fundamental interests of mankind as such engaged in the process of self-constitution.²⁵

Thus, the only way to reverse this progressively alienating technologically-centered process would be to recover free communication liberating the medium of symbolic interaction.

. . . two concepts of rationalization must be distinguished. At the level of subsystems of purposive-rational action, scientific-technical progress has already compelled the reorganization of social institutions and sectors, and necessitates it on an even larger scale than heretofore. But this process of the development of the productive forces can be a potential for liberation if and only if it does not replace rationalization on another level. Rationalization at the level of the institutional framework can occur only in the medium of symbolic interaction itself, that is, through removing restrictions on communication. Public, unrestricted discussion, free from domination, of the suitability and desirability of action-orienting principles and norms in the light of the socio-cultural repercussions of developing sub-systems of purposive-rational action--such communication at all levels of political and prepolitized decision-making processes is the only medium in which anything like "rationalization" is possible.

In such a process of generalized reflection institutions would alter their specific composition, going beyond the limit of a mere change in legitimation.²⁶

TRADITIONAL CULTURES AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A NEW SYNTHESIS

The scientific-technological rationality which was described previously as characteristic of highly urbanized and industrialized societies, in third world countries is superimposed and variously mixed with traditional cultures. The values of these cultures either disappear as those who carry them are absorbed by the dominant social system and culture, or are expressed through the creation of new cultural forms or social relations responding to the difficult challenge imposed by the historical situation. In this latter case we could speak of historical subjects expressing their cultural values through the creation of new forms of relationship which, if successful in becoming institutionalized, eventually could reproduce a new model of social integration.

To pretend to predict the outcome of such a social process would be precisely to negate the possibility of the existence of an historical subject. Nevertheless, I would like to pose, as a possibility, the following question: Do some traditional cultures maintain their cultural roots so as to be able to assimilate important achievements of the dominant culture, while, at the same time realizing forgotten human dimensions within a revitalized dynamic and total vision which could restore the capacity for a more fraternal and fuller life?

To attempt an affirmative answer, in the spirit of hope, I would recall first the importance given by Habermas to communicative action as the medium for recreating meaning and as the motor for social evolution. Thus, the constitution of historical subjects would be linked to communicative competence and to symbolic interaction between people. In contrast to industrialized countries, people in the third world, not having been incorporated into the technological development and its concomitant rationality, may be able to maintain within the following context their communicative ability.

In third world countries, not only do many of the most fundamental needs of the people remain unsatisfied, but as people are incorporated into the system under conditions of subordination and exploitation, they are negated as social persons. This has obliged them to create new forms of response in which they maintain their traditional values as a means of resistance and of recreating their identity. This form of resistance, grounded in the maintenance of one's identity, has been possible by keeping alive symbolic recreation and free communication. The existence of myths founded upon the background of a lost harmony and manifesting themselves as an utopic projection indicates the historical dimension of this recreation of identity. Diverse traditional cultures thus have remained vigorous without being fragmented by the fractioning and reductionism endemic to occidental rationalism; they maintain a conception of totality in which the relationship of persons between themselves and with nature is recreated and embedded within an integral experience with profound religious roots.

Returning now to Habermas, let us see how it is precisely through the mediation of communicative action--which in order to flourish requires a lack of constraint and symbolic interaction--that new normative structures take shape. These, in turn, and within the dynamics of social movements, eventually institutionalize new forms of social integration.

Rationality structures are embodied not only in amplifications of purposive-rational action--that is, in technologies, strategies, organizations, and qualifications--but also in mediations of communicative action in the mechanisms for regulating conflict, in world views, and in identity formations. I would even defend the thesis that the development of these normative structures is the pacemaker of social evolution, for new principles of social organization mean new forms of social integration; and the latter, in turn, first make it possible to implement available productive forces or to generate new ones, as well as making possible a heightening of social complexity.²⁷

In industrialized countries purposive-rational action represses intersubjective communication, and the global system tends to make individuals merely receptive and thereby impedes real and free inter-communication. In contrast, in many Third World countries with living traditional cultures communication between people remains very lively. Through spontaneous and rich communicative action they recreate their own identity. This, in turn, is the source from which their values inspire original ways of solving the problems for which the institutional framework has no answer. These solutions imply new forms of social relationship which, to the extent to which they could succeed in becoming institutionalized, would change the prevailing socio-cultural model.

The Case of Andean Culture in Peru Today

Conscious of the fact that concrete universality, as Hegel would say, passes through singularity, and precisely in opposition to the abstract and superficial universality of generalizations, the following analysis will focus upon Peru and its Andean cultural roots as one instance of a vigorous historical subject reflecting the capacity for free communication and symbolic interaction described above. This is not to say that Peru is necessarily the most representative case, but it has been the cradle of important and perduring cultures.

Historical Context. When the Europeans invaded America they found in the Andes a highly developed culture and a complex, efficient social organization. The Incas ruled an Empire built by conquering and unifying cultures whose remains--particularly its fine textiles, jewelry and ceramics, as well as its achievements in such fields as medicine, astronomy, architecture, etc.--are still amazing. They found a people who, in contrast to the Europeans, did not know of the atrocious consequences of famine since, in addition to their wise utilization of the various ecological habitats, they reserved grain in silos throughout their territory for difficult times.

Within this system economic, political and social activity took its meaning from a sacralized vision which unified the natural with the transcendent in a dynamic and cyclic manner. This can still be observed in rites, depicted particularly in pottery, which witness the annual repetition of life and death cycles, corresponding to their ritualized calendar of life.

The worldview which integrated the diverse aspects of the relationship among men, with nature and with the divine was structured upon a spatio-temporal axis whose terms were simultaneously opposed and mutually dependent: "To preserve both (parts), to maintain the equilibrium, was indispensable so that all could function. Heaven would require of earth as much as men of the divinities."²⁸ This basic bipartition, combined with a tri-partition and the decimal system was reproduced within increasingly extended patterns so that the smaller was included in the wider hierarchical order. Thus, according to a division which was both social and geographical, a town would pertain to hierarchically wider regions which finally would be unified with others under the whole Empire. This was divided in two halves, which in turn were divided in two, forming four quarters, whose center was Cusco, the capital. To this socio-geographic division corresponded a political one, with the representatives of the four regions forming the Great Council, presided over by the Inca.

In the temporal dimension, the annual calendar, with its ritualized socio-economic activities, also contained two halves, each of which was divided in two. This whole annual cycle was inserted in longer cycles which would later give birth to such millenarian beliefs as the utopias of the return of the lost order, or the reconstitution or resurrection of the Inca.

Upon the arrival of the Spaniards, this division in worlds and sub-worlds could have facilitated their incorporation into a broader, more powerful world, with an extended hierarchy in which the King of Spain would be the new apex. This might also be the case for the popular religiosity which still survives and in which Mother Earth and the gods of mountains and lakes are indisolubly tied up with Christ, the Cross and the saints. This synthesis could be explained the same way: more powerful gods being superimposed upon a politheistic world. Nevertheless, in the Andean iconography of today one observes that the sun is often placed above the Cross and other Christian symbols, which could reflect the return of an Inca utopia.

The Spaniards who conquered the Inca Empire found there serious internal difficulties which contributed to its succumbing to the Spanish domination. The extension of the Empire, even to latitudes in which the ritual agricultural calendar would no longer be functional, made it difficult to keep all under control. The greatest internal weakness was the division of the Empire by a civil war between two royal clans, headed by two Incas who disputed power over the whole. The Spaniards made good use of this rivalry for their own benefit.

Additionally, some nations helped the Spaniards for, although the imperial system had benefitted them in some ways, "the Incas were seen by many of the Andean people as conquerors and invaders, against whom rebellion was legitimate."²⁹ Perhaps they discovered their error too late for the Inca domination would later be shown to be far less oppressive than that of the Spaniards--to such a point that the Inca Empire later and even today has been idealized.

From of old, Andean culture had based its organization in the "ayllus" or communities. Although these have been altered by the influence of Spanish colonial institutions, they still preserve traits of their original organization. The new synthesis is expressed in the gradual assumption of tasks by all the male members of the community, starting from the least important jobs and gradually assuming those of more responsibility. The participation of all adults, men and women, in assemblies--reinforced by the Spanish "cabildo"--to decide all issues of importance for the community traces its history to pre-Inca times. During the Inca Empire decisions taken in these assemblies guided the action of the "Curaca" (later called "Cacique" by the Spaniards), who was the chief of the "ayllu" and its direct representative to the Inca.

The `ayllu' constituted the nucleus of the diverse cultures which flourished at these latitudes prior to Inca times and which subsist today in modified form. Its organization was structured around the principles of reciprocity and redistribution, not only at the level of circulation and consumption, but also and fundamentally within the process of production. These two principles--which despite everything are still alive--began to function improperly at the distributive level when restructured under Inca domination. Within this system they kept working with the double function of allowing the system to operate while playing an ideological role. Not having lost their operating capacity, the principles could disguise how imperfectly they were actually functioning and the growing disparity of their terms. The development of the productive forces attained by the Inca organization had permitted maintaining the members of the ayllus in a decent condition while at the same time increasing the transfer of goods to the Inca and the privileged class. Thus, the Inca system was able to maintain, though twisted, the principles of reciprocity and redistribution which were able to function while simultaneously playing an ideological function.

These principles, still deeply internalized in the Andean mentality, were broken as regards distribution through the system imposed by the Spaniards, in which they began to function in only one direction and turned into mere exploitation. Nathan Wachtel describes it in the following way:

while reciprocity had given way to a flow of goods (though ficticious and uneven) among the ayllu, Curaca and Inca, Spanish domination produces an unidirectional flow of goods from the Indians to the Spaniards, without a counterpart. . . . The Spaniard has taken the place of the Inca and inherited his centralizing function without maintaining the redistribution of riches for the benefit of all. While the Inca tribute worked through a circular, balanced structure, Spanish tribute was characterized by an unbalanced, one-way structure:

INCA TRIBUTE SPANISH TRIBUTE (30)

Inca Spaniard

Curaca Curaca

Ayllu Ayllu

One cannot forget what Spanish domination, with its deadly abuses, oppression, etc., brought upon the Andean people. Nevertheless, to take account of the real dimensions of the disaster as a total collapse of the their worldview, we ought to remember the intimate liaison of the economic with their whole conception of reality, their entire life, which thus disintegrated: "If the fact that the economic system of the Inca Empire had religious and cosmological dimensions, which gave it its meaning, is taken into consideration, then the depth of the colonial rupture can be grasped."³¹

The Spaniards from the first moment utilized the Curacas as intermediaries in their exploitation of the Indians. Nevertheless, they finally shortened internal social distances as well as inter-ethnic rivalries, by organizing their laws on the basis of the distinction between the "Republic of the Spaniards" and the "Republic of the Indians." With this division they contributed to the development of an Indian identity profile. Besides, the Spaniards, having to deal with several native languages, promoted a wider spread of "quechua," the language of the Incas. The harsh campaign against indigenous religions, the so-called "extirpation of idolatries," was another factor which contributed to the development of an Andean identity.

Once dominated, the Indians had to develop adaptative and resistive mechanisms. Nevertheless, they never ceased to fight, nor did they lose faith and hope, acquiring the ". . . conviction that the Inca will return so that everything will be better."³² The history of their struggle is the other side of a history which has never ended. Of its many episodes the most important was the rebellion of Tupac Amaru II, Curaca (Cacique for the Spaniards) from a region of Cusco, who appeared as legitimate successor of the Incas, restorer and redeemer, at the end of the eighteenth century.

Within this context, the image of the Curacas, traditionally regarded as having sold out to the Spaniards, is being reconsidered. Today, it seems rather that they had no alternative to assuming the role imposed on them--while benefitting from it, of course--but that they surreptitiously protected the Indians and permitted cultural practices prohibited by the Spaniards.

Political independence from Spain brought no major changes in the system, aside from adaptation to a new type of domination--this time exercised by England as the new hegemonic axis of world power. The new type of domination, structured upon economic mechanisms, allowed a relative and formal independence from the new hegemonic metropolis: "New times made it possible for neo-colonialism to result from an interplay of essentially economic processes and mechanisms, without the need for a formal political bond with the metropolis."³³

The Republic brought no significant change in the life of the Andean person from what it had been in Colonial times. The most significant process was, indeed, the greedy expansion of the landowners' possessions at the expense of the communities, which were reduced to the poorest lands. The "Republic of the Indians" having been abolished, the Andean person--though still treated as a member of a separate and inferior world--had lost the legal protection he possessed under that Republic. They became private subjects under the new principle of freedom of contract. This conversion into abstract entities gave them the freedom to be easily plundered.

The landowners, nevertheless, had to face the fight by the communities in defense of their lands. The process was a double one for the communities: on the one hand, it was a struggle for survival, on the other,the fight had a cohesive effect.

With the turn of the century, the process began--which continues till today--of more direct domination by the United States as the new hegemonic power. Joined with a constellation of power exercising a financial-monopolist imperialism, this process fundamentally aims to control the price of raw materials and broaden the market for its products. Market relations penetrate rural areas and are expressed through market prices, market labor and the assimilation of some consumer needs.

This penetration, however, does not constitute a real alternative to the rural economy, which continues to be based in non-market relations and maintains the principle of reciprocity. Through this the means of production are obtained without the mediation of money due to an exchange of labor for labor as well as, for example, tools or seeds. To some extent, barter of commodities is also maintained and many goods still are produced by family units.

The production of exchange goods for the general market thus has a previous condition: the production of use commodities and the non-market barter of commodities and services.

Thus, interchange in the community does not belong exclusively to the sphere of exchange created by the process established in the general market, but it also participates of another sphere of interchange based in a system of values whose nature differs from that of the general market. The two spheres of interchange are far from being autonomous for both coexist within a single structure.³⁴

The fact that capitalism has not penetrated rural areas even at the market level, has permitted the survival of fundamental dimensions of the Andean cultural tradition, always exteriorly bowing before power while inwardly keeping what is its own. In community life the principles of reciprocity and redistribution have remained operative, as has the Andean worldview with its conception of totality tightly linked to the still functional ritual-agricultural calendar. Consequently, Andean communities have continued to live in a consistent sacralized world expressed in its political organization with its respective duties, as well as in communitary work marked by a sense of reciprocity, redistribution and maximum utilization of scarce means to solve common basic needs. It is a ritualized life, in which symbolic-communicative medium the group relives its identity which is based in memory and recreates its culture, constantly incorporating new elements and giving them a distinctive content and significance.

The greatest challenge for the survival of the Andean culture is, however, the ever-growing urban-rural interpenetration and the massive migration from country to city. During the last decades this has turned Peru from a rural into an urban country. This is the crucial phenomenon upon which we will have to focus in order to understand the present dynamic of Peru and its future possibilities.

Today's Challenge. The Latin American world is a melting pot in which diverse cultures with traditional roots converge. These constitute a counter force to the homogenizing assault from dominant capitalism. It is

a tense coexistence of indigenous forces: Andean, Afro-American, mestizo, middle-class, natives of the Amazoneon forests, all of which, along with their particularities, have a common horizon in their opposition to Western capitalism.³⁵

Among these cultures in the majestic Andean Cordillera the fact that cultural roots remain alive and strong could constitute a unifying factor and generate a new mode of social integration.

This is the force, the roots, in their Andean region. . . . The truth is that there are vigorous roots, which hold real promise. I would consider traditions to be the source for new human coexistence: roots in conflict with the parameters of occidental progress.³⁶

The issue sketched above raises important questions and hopes in the midst of the confusion precipitated by the recent massive migrations which have turned our countries from rural to urban. In the case of Peru:

In the period from 1940 to 1981 the urban population grew almost five times (from 2.4 million to 11.6) while the rural one grew by only a third (from 4.7 to 6.2 million). Thus, while in 1940 the rural constituted 65% of the total population and the urban 35%, by 1981 these percentages were reversed; in 1940 two out of every three Peruvians lived in the country while in 1981 two of three lived in cities.³⁷

More specifically in the capital, Lima, "this increase is significantly greater: it has grown 7.6 times in this period: from 8.6% of the country's population it has grown to 26% of the population."³⁸

Why do people migrate to the cities; what are the main causes of this phenomenon? First, they were practically expelled from the country by such factors as the crisis in agriculture around the middle of this century and recently the situation created by subversion in the south of Peru. Among the comparative advantages or incentives the city offers and which seem to have weighed most are the availability of better services such as health and especially education, as well as the possibility of higher wages. One must take account also of the attraction exerted by the city as opening new worlds of discovery, progress and liberty.

All migrants--whether they search for new opportunities or are fleeing from unbearable situations--arrive with great hopes, with an enormous will to begin a new life. What they find is a daunting challenge. The city does not greet them; it has other owners who do not wish to share with them. How are they to face a hostile world that has no place for them, does not take them into consideration and even denies them? How are they to survive; what are they to do?

To better understand their response, let us look into a newly occupied area in the outskirts of Lima and follow the creation of a whole life which, by struggle, succeeds in overcoming adversity. This includes opening a new geographical space, imprinting upon it a new countenance and making life possible through the weaving of a copious network of interpersonal relationships.

Due to the growing penetration of capitalism in rural areas, the migrants have already had the experience of combining with their strong cultural roots, powers of adaptation and coping with dominant structures. Those who have had more of this diversified experience will have a greater chance to succeed at the social as well as at the personal level, and will respond in original ways to the difficult situation they face. These creative modes of response have communal roots in the deep and strong sense of organization, solidarity, collaboration, reciprocity and maximum utilization of scarce means for the satisfaction of the basic needs of all--values which are sustained in solid interpersonal relationships.

At the risk of simplifying a much more complex panorama, the situation in which the lives of these immigrants evolves might be sketched as follows.

The migrant who comes today--in contrast to what occurred with the pioneers--usually arrives at a relative's house. Sometimes this relative can put him in contact with someone through whom he/she can obtain some sort of job. In general, however, he has to look out for himself and learn to solve his own survival problems. This is especially so when one begins one's own family, if one has not arrived with one.

As urban development has not considered the need for low-cost housing, there is no alternative for migrants but to search for their own solutions. They organize themselves and invade generally barren lands in the deserts surrounding Lima. These lack any type of service or urban substructure; they are distant from everything: everything has to be started from zero. Life seems impossible and the human cost of having to choose this precarious mode of survival is enormous.

Sometimes they must even defend with their lives their right to a home. Arguedas compares the fight for urban property with the historical one for community lands. In the city, as well as in the country, the authorities will have to face the ordeal of either killing those who thus fight for their right to live or permitting a fissure in the established order. Thus, regarding one of the first settlements in which the invaded deserts were legally recognized as the property of a neighboring landowner, Arguedas relates:

The political authorities of the Capital of the Republic face an identical alternative in the invasions by migrant masses. Though they are not invasions of large highland haciendas, the unused pieces of desert surrounding Lima did turn out to belong legally to neighboring estates. In lightning invasions and a sole night migrants construct there, in the midst of the desert, illegal slum settlements. In one of the most recent ones--on a small hill and "Angel's Fall" plain--the leader of the invasion notified the official who commanded the troup sent to dislodge them: "Sir, all we want is either this little piece of land to live upon or that you kill us all." They killed only one.³⁹

Having set up during the first night some very flimsy huts --which they will later improve little by little--the next step is to strive for the most basic services, for there are no sanitary conditions. It might take up to 10 or 15 years of petitions before a water supply and sewage system are installed, during which time they live in conditions of misery. As the price of the water transported in trucks is exorbitant, they have to do with the minimum indispensable for the most urgent needs. This scarcity of water, plus the problem of refuse, the lack of sewage and problems of nutrition, bring catastrophic consequences, particularly upon the children.

There is no need to expand upon the miserable conditions these settlers must undergo. It is more helpful for our purpose to see the ways in which they organize in order to respond to the severe challenges and to survive. Their new settlement is not chaotic or random, but grows as planned neighborhood development. From the very first moment of the process of urban settlement they are organized by blocks, committees and sectors. This structure enables them to respond to a variety of every-day neighborhood problems. From this they move to solving urgent needs of some of the settlers such as obtaining money for those who are sick, for a funeral, or for hospitalization. If the mother if hospitalized a spirit of solidarity is manifest in the way in which neighbors care for and feed her children. This is particularly significant in view of the precarious conditions in which all live.

The women organize into clubs and common kitchens which, even if supported by external institutions, reflect their effort to make the best communal use of scarce means in response to their needs. Due to the lack of legal and police protection, the migrants usually develop ways of solving internal disputes and organize neighborhood watches in order to defend themselves, for example, from burglars or drug vendors.

The migrant has to undergo a via crucis to find a job. Employment in industry is quite difficult to find because of the precarious state of its development due to the dependant situation of the Peruvian economy. Even if one manages to find a job in industry, due to the recent economic crisis, one would be very poorly remunerated and would need somehow to complement this income. Furthermore, as employment is so unstable, one continually needs to change jobs.

Thus, since the established productive apparatus does not resolve the migrant's problems, they must search out such answers as workshops, services and street vending. In all these the logic or organization differs from that which is proper to a capitalistic enterprise. Several members of the family, including children, elders and relatives, are employed; sometimes a few wage earners also participate in the enterprise. All work and all live, but no one necessarily profits or saves. This, however, is no reason to close the enterprise; they will keep on working and living.

Thus in the workshops the division between capital and labor which is typical of capitalism does not obtain. Those who at times participate in the productive process at other times sell their products, while also alternating--particularly in the case of the women--with household jobs: home and shop share the same roof.

Starting from street vending, they implement original forms of survival which reflect great versitility in the way of responding to market demands as well as creating new avenues for earning. Furthermore, the relationships do not acquire the abstract character which the market imprints, but are predominantly personal.

These activities, in addition to being ruled by the market obey other rules: loyalty and solidarity between small merchants who skillfully compete with the big ones, interpersonal dealings with purchasers whom they attract with wisdom and cleverness. In sum, "informal" commerce offers guidelines for a more humanizing interchange of goods and services than that of the capitalist order.⁴⁰

Thus, we see that the immigrants, faced with the problem of lack of employment, develop alternatives which reveal a synthesis between their own culture and the dominant structure.

The activities connected with independent work (such as those performed in workshops and by street vendors) pick up and often reinforce elements of their traditional culture, coexisting with those proper to the dominant model. That is why this sector of the subordinate classes moves between apathy and resistance, individual endeavour and the rescue of the collective, disunion and cohesion. Its history thus appears as fragmented, episodic and spontaneous; but transcending this first impression, we find a constant creation of bonds, coherence and continuity between them.⁴¹

One of the main examples of how the principle of reciprocity works can be found in home construction. Usually, relatives and other relations come on the weekends to work. They are provided with food and drink and will be helped when their turn comes to have their homes constructed. The close relation between feast and work is also reflected here, for on the day of the topping, when the house is completed, a cross is placed over the door and everybody participates in a feast.

Some organizations are based on the place of origin. In these, original bonds and feasts (fiestas)--the communal rites--are celebrated. In these associations, which are the place of greatest interchange, the principle of reciprocity clearly functions. One who takes part in the feasts and activities of his native town and remains united with his fellow townsmen will be helped enthusiastically should he fall into need. Mainly through these associations, strong bonds with their mother community are maintained, and from Lima these nuclei promote improvements in their home towns.

On weekends in the popular quarters surrounding Lima there are processions of those who were not able to go to their home town to celebrate the feast of its patron saint. But, why are there so many feasts; what is their meaning? Irarrazaval answers this:

We can all perceive that celebration is joy, surprise, gratuity, but we cannot so easily detect its symbolism. How to explain the quality and quantity of feasts? Just for the sake of having fun? No. They symbolize the roots and progress of the indigenous Andean population.⁴²

Here we reach the heartbeat of the Andes. In these feasts Andean persons live communitarily their cultural values, recreate their identity, and elaborate their own myth. This, in turn, poses the question of the historical subject.

The Possibility of the Constitution of an Historical Subject of Andean Roots. Here the issue concerns what the outcome of this process will be. We cannot know, for otherwise we would be denying the dynamic character of the historical subject. All we can do is postulate a hope, but we have already provided some grounds to sustain this hope.

I am among those who, like the anthropologist and novelist, Jose Maria Arguedas, believe in the possibility of the constitution of an historical subject with Andean roots. This historical subject would be capable of giving birth to a new historical project as long as he sustains himself in his sacred, mythical character and on that basis is able to overcome the reductive project now being imposed on him. Pedro Trigo, analyzing what several specialists in the work of Arguedas say with respect to his novel, All Bloods, notes:

Subsequently, Cornejo concludes his study asserting that the new world he imagines blossoming from the death of the comunero (member of the community, in the novel) is, basically, the Indian world of fraternity among men and with nature. This is the only destiny that Arguedas accepts for Peru. Not, certainly, the elimination of the Western contribution, but undoubtedly the constitution of a modern world . . . ruled by Quechuan values. Forgues enumerates the principal ones: throughout the whole novel, he says, we see the progressive eruption of the formidable potency of Indian strength, made of courage and discipline, of a spirit of solidarity and abnegation, of dignity and respect. . . . Marin, on his part, refers to the beliefs and rites which operate, he says, as real cultural substrata. . . . There is a keen sense of dignity and firmness as well as a profound lived religiosity where the Inca and Christian mingle and the Indian pantheistic sense turns visible in multiple attitudes, rites and happenings. It is noticeable how the Inca and the Christian blend into each other with no possibility of subsequent division . . . thus giving birth to a new cultural form resulting from the process of transculturation. Marin sums up saying that the deep roots of Peru . . . are grounded in the sacred.⁴³

This anchoring in the sacred leads us to what Arguedas seems to be saying throughout his entire work, that the roots of the Andean historical subject lie in its mythical-sacred character.

There remains another question:

Will this mythical man be confined to traditional societies, so that the process of modernization will automatically lead to his extinction? Or will he be able to plunge into this process assimilating his opponent's qualities and thereby vanquish him? . . . If he can assimilate technology, would not this automatically lead to the destruction of the mythical man? Would this mean for him not merely assimilating the achievements of the other, but becoming like him?⁴⁴

In regard to this crucial question Arguedas insists upon the fact that the mythical does not imply stagnation, alienation, idealism, or irrationality. On the contrary, it is a live historical reconstruction, and hence capable of incorporating the dominant rationality, which indeed has always been partially incorporated in traditional cultures. Thus, Trigo notes with respect to the novel, Deep Rivers:

The life world is no longer that of the native or of automatic adaptation to the environment; it is a construction. It is the subject who, through memory, rite and acts of social solidarity, makes of himself a mythical man. But if myth is the result of a choice, then it is not `primitive', a prior elemental stage characterized by lack of conscience and individuality. In Deep Rivers the mythical is rather a port or harbour, a goal attained through long, strenuous combat against individualism and the typical devaluations by modernity. It is not that some traumatic contact with modernity causes regression as a pathological reaction. The sensation of solitude and culpability is not annulled by the negation of the subject; on the contrary, the subject constitutes itself precisely through responsibly overcoming these situations. Hence, in Deep Rivers the mythic as overcoming modernity is a modern possibility. Because the mythic is "religation" (from re-ligare or bind back as in the term "religion") it cannot be maintained at an idealistic level without degenerating into nostalgia. That is why the mythical as the construction of a subject demands the social constitution of the mythical space.⁴⁵

Regarding All Bloods Trigo notes:

The mythical as monstrous resistance has no future. The mythical as life-world can only maintain itself if, going on the attack, it conquers the historical project of modernity. For this, it needs to assimilate its achievements. The mythical is thus similar to an orchestration in which some elements fall and others remain, but everything is transformed. This means that the mythical has a dynamic complex structure and hence integrates that planning which is typical of modernity.⁴⁶

Hence, a new synthesis is not necessarily probable, but remains possible as long as the Andean cultural roots remain vigorous. Critical reason constitutes a "second act," whereas the mythical subject expressing itself in ritual communion constitutes the "first act." In this first act meaning is recreated in communion which is lived at the symbolic-intersubjective level. In a second moment, rational elements are incorporated at an operative level and reelaborated in order to be adapted to the values of the relational structure expressed and lived communitarily at the ritual level.

Therefore, the possibility exists that as long as he keeps living the relational structure of his mythical religious world the historical subject with Andean roots can, in a second moment, incorporate the modern rational-operative way of thinking, without totally yielding to it. He would thus be exercising the planning capability which purposive rational action implies as a necessary means for men. Means-end rationality would thus find its place in the operative sphere within a more holistic conception. This could overcome the reductionism inherent in occidental rationalism, taken to an extreme in the totalizing instrumentalization of our present-day "developed" worlds.

Nevertheless, I wish to reiterate that the example of Peru and its Andean roots is just one case. It would acquire greater significance to the degree that it were representative of the possible constitution of historical subjects with traditional roots in other places. Starting from their diverse identity recreation processes, these could generate important new historical configurations.

Universidad de Lima

Lima, Peru

1. Alain Touraine, Sociología de la Accíon (Barcelona: Ariel, 1969, pp. 13-14.

2. Ibid.

3. Cf. René Lourau, El analisis institucional (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1970).

4. Alain Touraine, op. cit., p. 14.

5. Ibid., p. 15.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 16.

8. Ibid.

9. Cf. René Lourau, Les analyseurs de l'Eglise; Analyse institutionelle en milieu chretien (Paris: Anthropos, 1972), p. 72.

10. Mic. 5:13.

11. The term "ideology" has many meanings, starting from the rather positive connotation of the German "Weltanshauung," as an organized system of notions, images and values, by means of which a collectivity or an individual organizes its diverse experiences in an acceptable manner. Here we shall use "ideology" in the sense of dominant ideology, which is a type of alienation. This is the case when a dominant group imposes its ideological view of reality and justifies it as most convenient for all, concealing the fact that it favors mainly the interests of that dominant group.

12. George McLean, Plenitude and Participation: The Unity of Man in God (Madras: Univ. of Madras, 1978), p. 7.

13. John Loscerbo, Being and Technology: A Study in the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), p. 5.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., p. 43.

16. Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 142.

17. John Loscerbo, op. cit., p. 44.

18. Jean Toussaint De Santi, "Galileo y la nueva concepción de la Naturaleza," Historia de la Filosofía (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1976), p. 82.

19. Cf. Alexandre Koyre, Etudes Galiliennes (Paris: Herman, 1940).

20. Herbert Marcuse, El hombre unidimensional (Barcelona: Ariel, 1981), p. 174.

21. Jurgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), p. 82.

22. Ibid., p. 83.

23. Ibid.

24. See Chapter VIII below.

25. Jurgen Habermas, op. cit., p. 113.

26. Ibid., pp. 118-119.

27. Jurgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, l979), p. 120.

28. Alberto Flores Galindo, Europa y el pais de los Incas: La utopia Andina, (Lina: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario, 1986), p. 43.

29. Pablo Macera, Vision historica del Peru (Lima: Ed. Milla Batres, 1978).

30. Nathan Wachtel, Sociedad e ideologia: ensayos de historia y antropologia Andinas (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1973).

31. Ibid., p. 83.

32. Jan Szeminski, La utopia Tupamarista (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 1984).

33. Heraclio Bonilla and Karen Spalding, "La independencia en el Peru: las palabras y los hechos," La independencia en el Peru (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1981), p. 106.

34. Jürgen Golte and Marisol de la Cadena, La codeterminacion de la organizacion social Andina (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1986), p. 6.

35. Diego Irarrazaval, "Potencialidad Indigena-Andina," Paginas, No. 74 (Lima: Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1985), pp. 4-5.

36. Ibid., p. 5.

37. Hernando de Soto, El otro sendero (Lima: El Barranco, 1986), p. 7.

38. Ibid., p. 8.

39. Jose Maria Arguedas, Indios, mestizos y senores (Lima: Horizonte, 1985), p. 22.

40. Diego Irarrazaval, op. cit., p. 9.

41. Romeo Grompone, Talleristas y verdedores ambulantes en Lima (Lima: DESCO, 1986), p. 228.

42. Diego Irarrazaval, op. cit., p. 10.

43. Pedro Trigo, Arguedas, mito, historia y religion (Lima: Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1982), pp. 161-162.

44. Ibid., pp. 33-34.

45. Ibid., pp. 197-198.

46. Ibid., p. 198.