ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Man and Universe Chapter 25: Social Classification Although society enjoys a sort of unity, from within it is divided into various groups and classes, which are sometimes incongruous. At least some societies are so. As society possibly has different and sometimes conflicting polarities, it may be said that it has both unity and plurality.

According to the terminology of the Muslim philosophers, societies are governed by a specific sort of 'unity in plurality and plurality in unity'. In the previous chapters we discussed the nature of the unity of society. Now we propose to take up the nature of its plurality. In this connection there exist two well-known theories. The first one is based on historical materialism and dialectic contradiction.

According to this theory, which we will elaborate later, the question of the unity and the plurality of society hinges on the principle of ownership. The societies in which private property does not exist, such as the primitive social society or the social societies that are likely to come into existence in future, are basically unipolar. But the societies, in which private property holds sway, are bipolar. As such society is either unipolar or bipolar, there being no third alternative.

In a bipolar society all men are divided into two groups or classes, the exploiters and the exploited or the rulers and the ruled, there being no group or camp other than these two groups or camps. This division becomes applicable to all affairs of society, such as philosophy, ethics, religion and art. In other words, in a bipolar society there are two kinds of philosophy, two kinds of ethics, two kinds of religion and so on, each kind having a particular economic character.

If in any case there prevails only one philosophy, one religion or one set of moral rules, that philosophy, religion or morality is always tinted with the colour of that class which has succeeded in imposing its colour on the other class as sometimes happens. There can exist no philosophy, art, religion or morality transcending the economic classes and having no class colour.

According to the other theory the unipolarity or multipolarity of society is not subject to the principle of private ownership. The cultural, social, racial and ideological factors also can make society multipolar.