Proceedings of III International Congress Systems Science (Roma, 1996)
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Every society, community or collective faces problems, some of them related to its own survival, others less important related to its trajectory. Either way, society needs to solve them either to survive or to reach its objectives. But society as a Living System is a dynamic and complex system. For complex system implies that it is formed by numerous subsystems that also have their own problems of the same kind and besides for dynamic system implies that the composition and articulation of these subsystems changes through time. Once the problems have been solved, society will need to keep the typology of the problem, the solutions given, the process through which the optimal solution was reached at every moment, the elements that have participated at every moment and those that were put aside. The manner in which they are kept are the models, and the manner in which they are expressed are the patterns. The process of incorporating, maintaining or rejecting models, validating their validity, introducing them to new members of society, reminding to those who remain about them, setting standards in order to solve new problems or old ones; all these define the process by which a society learns.
Any collective has problems and in order to solve them it carries out some practices, that is to say it uses objects, persons, techniques, theories and abstract concepts. Obviously, the system cannot reinvent the solution every time that it faces the same problem, the system remembers the exact solution that was applied to every problem that presented itself at any time. The system maintains in its critical subsystem memory -in Miller's terms- , in spite of the fact that its dynamism could have changed its members or could have become more complex, what objects were used, what functions were carry out by every element or person, what techniques and theories were applied and, above all, what "values", what abstract concepts, what attitudes were shaping the mentality of the individuals and the configuration of the objects and how the collective itself was organized. It is obvious that the collective memory, as its main purpose, stores objects in museums because of which, with the passing of generations, the new elements that are incorporated have access to the information. It maintains the techniques and the theories in books and that knowledge is transmitted through the educational process. Abstract concepts of the type "virility", "fecundity", "nobility", "courage", "fierceness", "passion", "sacrifice", "energy", "tenacity", attitudes all of them, they are the strength ideas, the motor ideas, that make possible the correct usage of the objects and the appropriate applications of the theories. They are concepts that, at heart, make possible the resolution of the problem. These concepts, in that they are not physical things, cannot be stored as such, it is necessary that the community projects these ideas onto a particular object in a such way that the object represents continuously the projected concept. Deities, totems, idols, icons in short, the theological pantheon that any society has and maintains, form part of the memory subsystem. As we have seen the society remembers, memorizes the elements, but it also needs to memorize how these elements were connected to solve the problem, that is to say how a particular collective was organized at a particular moment. The rite, the different rites fulfil this function. But not only this one, they also fulfil a didactic function. They fulfil the function of forming, educating the elements that form society, whether they be individuals, or collectives, teaching them how they should act to solve their daily problems and what relationships they should establish for their daily performance. The function of the rite does not end here. Society, as a system that gains complexity and that is constantly reshaping, needs an experimental space, a theoretic model, with which on the one hand to check if the values that at a particular time were necessary in order to solve a problem would continue being necessary in a new situation, and above all to verify and validate the new features that emerge from within. There constantly appear new social values, new abstract concepts, new theories, new ways of social organization that, before being applied to reality, should be tested on a model that would reproduce all the reality in its complexity, and they should be implanted on a small scale before being incorporated to the prevailing theologic pantheon and therefore to the collective memory. This is the main function of the rite: to model reality.
Hitherto, we have a series of elements: problems, solutions, practices, collective memory, concepts, icons holding them, rites, new concepts that are incorporated and objects and persons that are configurated according to social values. Let us see how they are connected (Fig.1).
Problems have an effect on the community, which applies solutions by means of practices, understanding by practices the execution of actions on the plane of reality with instruments used by persons or collectives that are connected in a specific way, following a pattern. The elements participating in the solution have implicit within themselves a series of values, a series of concepts already described. The solution is filed in the collective memory, the physical objects in their places and the attitudes and abstract concepts are fixed on objects that, from the projection made by the society of its values, become icons with a symbolism that extends their physical entity. This process of fixing is also done through rites in a manner that every element of the system acknowledges their presence, so then they are exceptional rituals, without periodic repetition, because of which neither do they assume their didactic function nor their function of modelization as pointed out. Values and attitudes are periodically showed to the society for being assimilated by the new elements that are being incorporated to the system and remembered to the ones who remained in it through the representation. Society gets to know new attitudes, creates new concepts and incorporates objects, spatial and functional relationships to the representation of the rite. The rite is initially represented with these new contributions. If the new element optimazes the model or it is understood in that way by who contemplates it, this new concept will come back to form part of the representation and with the time will move out an icon from its meaning assuming itsef the image or else the society will incorporate a new icon into its pantheon. If on the contrary it is considered that the model is not optimazed, the concept will be put aside from the collective, together with the persons and objects that are configurated in accordance with it.
To describe the mechanism of the ritual through which these processes are produced, that is sufficiently studied even though not modelled, would form part of a greater space that the present one, be enough a small sketch. The rite has as an objective the absorption of the esence of the icon on the part of the initiate who is used like a transmitting belt to the rest of the collective that receives it in the form of emotions. In order to achieve it, the officiant invades the exclusive scenic space of the icon as far as deity and officiant occupying the same space, being only one, through the use of instruments and techniques, keeping a specific relationship with the initiates from the second, third and fourth order. These officiants, accordingly to their grades of initiation, are situated closer or farther to the space of the icon. The icon is symbolically or in fact destroyed and ingested by the officiant, then by the assistants and finally by the community. If the objective is reached, the community manifests signs of fraternity and happiness, and if not the community manifests internal tensions that can reach to physical aggression amongst its components.
In Western Europe, South of France, Spain, and Portugual, the rite par excellence is the Bullfight. The bullfight is posed as a problem that affects the survival of the collective and as a model of the bullfighter's survival. The collective, to survive, needs to be provided with proteins, vitamins and energy. If it cannot obtain them by killing animals for its consumption, the community will die of starvation. If the bullfighter, as a representative of the community, does not succeed in killing the fighting bull, he will die or at least he will suffer serious wounds.
The bullfighter cannot act voluntarily to kill the fighting bull. In order to obtain food for all its elements, the society organizes itself in a specific way and the bullfighter and his assistants must organize themselves to carry out the entrusted task exactly in the same way. For that reason until the eighteenth century the composition of the quadrilles were led by a noble on horseback and a multitude of assistants, all of them at the same level, were spatially arranged in estates that indistinctly performed tasks. Since 1750 bullfights have been led by a person on foot, with the capacity for leading a group because of his knowledge and experience, who distributes the work amongst individuals who are trained in specific tasks. As we can see, the transition of models of production, that is to say the social practices to solve a problem, are reproduced through the representation of the rite in an isomorphic way by society. All the elements taking part in the bullfight assume specific values on the conceptual plane: fighting bull, bullfighter, quadrille, sword, banderillas, gestures, costumes, particular positions in the scenic space, manners of exchanging objects, etc. Bullfighters adopt particular attitudes, according to the characteristics of the fighting bulls and the bullfighter's personality in order to invade the territory of the animal, that take the form of particular movements, that is to say of a particular technique. This relationship between the characteristics of the fighting bull and the bullfighter's personality, which can be of immobility, passion, endurance, steps forwards or backwards, transforms the pure and simple individual into the paradigm of the concept, into the icon itself. That is the case of "Joselito" who is transformed into grandeur, Domingo Ortega into supremacy, "Manolete" into stoicism, "El Vity" into majesty, or "Ponce" into purity. If we take as an example the protection or not of the picador's horse, fundamental to bullfights, we can show that it assumes a social role. Until 1750, the horse, as a symbol of the means of production in the nobility's hands, had been protected from the fighting bull's attack by the assistants. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the horse had not been protected and was attacked or killed by the fighting bull, as a symbol of the essence of the people. With the final establishment of the bourgeoisie and its appropriation of the means of production, the horse, its icon, was to be protected from the fighting bull, the people, and it was covered with a modern protection. The horse in its distinctive stages, far from being a simple animal, becomes the symbol of the tools. The gestures with which objects are exchanged during the performance are paradigms of their respect and of their status.
All these concepts, which are subtly settled on their respective totems, are performed periodically in front of the collective. Spectators receive through their senses the relationships among the objects, but since this is a border situation of survival, let us not forget that the fighting bull not only can kill the bullfighter, but also receives emotional impulses. All these emotions fix themselves, in an irrational manner within, the concepts implicit in the elements. In that way they are interiorized and constitute a pattern of behaviour to face its dailiness. The collective and the individuals assimilate, that is to say they learn, models of behaviour that crystallize themselves in patterns of conduct when solutions to problems are applied at any level.
The evolution of the system generates emergencies, that is to say that the relationships of the different subsystems amongst them and with the whole system give rise to the appearance of new elements in its totality. But these elements, occasionally conceptual, must demonstrate their validity. The mechanism to validate them, as already mentioned, is the ritual itself. We must not lose sight of the fact that the fighting bull is not an element in a natural state. It is the result of a very careful selection of ancestors. It is an artificial element created by the breeder and that must respond in its behaviour to certain parameters. The set of these parameters that are visible in the behaviour and type of fighting bull is what we denominate bravura. This is not a term of constant meaning, on the contrary. By means of this term of bravura, we can confirm that concepts are being incorporated or put aside and that at every moment the concepts held by the Fighting Bull are the fundamental ones of the collective that goes to contemplate Its death and to consume It afterwards. We can confirm this in a positive or in a negative way.
Through the years, we have read descriptions of bullfights and behaviours, in which they stated "...the fighting bull was excellent, with an extraordinary bravura, it was x...". Substituting “x”, we find "noble", "with caste", "furious", "intractable", "generous" and others. The negative concepts that are emphasized are the ones that were not observed in the fighting bull and that should have been manifested, or else those that were manifested are handled in a pejorative manner "it did not humiliate/ keep its head down", "it was maintaining its head raised", "it did not move", "it was not staring at", "it was not repeating the attack", "it stopped in the middle of the performance". If we observe the concept that defines bravura at every moment, we can see that in times when there is a social predominance of the aristocracy, the idea of a good fighting bull is the one of fighting bull equal to noble. In times when there is a militar predominance, the fighting bull must have caste. In times of economic development, the bull must have presence and volume. In times of social dynanism, bulls are bred with great mobility. In the time of the boom of communications, the fighting bull must transmit. Breeders are lately searching and creating a fighting bull that can conserve the maximum of energy during the longest possible time, this type of behaviour is said to be of "sustainable bravura". All of them are concepts that appear in society, but because of their novelty at every moment the system does not know whether they are valid or not for solving its problems. We can see that the object, the fighting bull, is temporarily designed according to them, it is exposed to society through the rite to the divinity, the bullfight, and it is finally accepted or not by the collective according to the degree of emotion that is expressed. A perfect theoretic model in order to simulate social processes, with a very reduced cost of implantation if we take into account the results that we obtain.
Valencia, January 1996
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