Power and Wisdom: Toward a History of Social Behavior

Abstract

Cross‐disciplinary studies carried out lately by Russian scholars discovered a causal relationship between the three variables: technological potential, cultural regulation quality, and social sustainability. The patterns called techno‐humanitarian balance law, states that the higher production and war technologies' power, the more refined the behaviorregulation means (consolidated values and norms, etc.) that are required for self‐preservation of the society. The article shows that the law has controlled social selection for all of human history and prehistory, discarding unbalanced social organisms, as far as they could not cope with ecological and (or) geopolitical crises, which had been caused by their own activities. It also shows how successive growth of instrumental opportunities in long‐term retrospection has dramatically led to the consecutive perfection of cultural and psychological regulation mechanisms. Relevant calculations, comparative‐anthropological evidence, and historical illustrations are provided. Regularities in mental processes are described that precede and accompany crisis‐causing behavior, to certain extent regardless of population's historical and cultural peculiarities.