The postmonocentric social order and its dynamic character: Two opposing cultural constellations

Abstract

This article is a reprint of a text which is a theoretical introduction to a collective work published in 1993 entitled Polacy wobec ładu postmonocentrycznego. Społeczeństwo polskie i jego instytucje w 1992 roku. It discusses the basic direction of the great systemic transformation, which began in Poland in 1989, using for this purpose Parsons’ classical juxtaposition of two sets of pattern variables. It shows how the “core of the transformation”, i.e., modernisation measures taken in line with “theoretical interests” in the economy, politics and culture, encountered social resistance from various sources. The article is published in the belief that it can serve as an excellent reference to Karl Polanyi’s concept of double movement (cited in this issue in Maciej Kassner’s article), showing in particular that resistance to the introduction of a market economy was not only economic, but of a much broader, i.e. socio-cultural, nature.