A nail is lost and a hoof is broken; a hoof is broken, a war horse is broken; a war horse is broken, a knight is wounded; a knight is wounded and a battle is lost; a battle is lost, an empire is lost.
- Western folk songs
What is the direct or inevitable relationship between a nail and an empire? Who would believe that the loss of a nail could lead to the demise of an empire? However, the above Western folk song gives us a serious answer. How can an empire be like this, and how can the people of a society not be like this?
Life is a one-way journey. It cannot be assumed, it cannot be repeated, it is disposable, and it is invalid when it is used up. However, individuals are not completely passive in their own life journey, but can be proactive and free to control their own life trajectory. So we say that life is full of wrong paths, life is full of opportunities, life is full of choices, and life is full of turns.
How much subjective initiative can individuals exert in the course of their own lives? What are the consequences of subjective initiative for individuals? American meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz proposed an interesting phenomenon in a paper in 1963: A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas a month later. This is the "butterfly effect" that was later talked about by the world. The butterfly effect is a derivative of something that seems unrelated and very small on the surface, and can bring about a huge change. This effect shows that the result of the development of things has an extremely sensitive dependence on the initial conditions, and the minimal deviation of the initial conditions, if not guided and adjusted in time, will cause a great difference in the results.
This effect also applies to the life course of individuals. The impact of certain special life experiences and life experiences on the individual's psychology and behavior is continuous, far-reaching, and may even be lifelong. If this influence cannot be correctly guided by itself or external forces, it is likely to lead to deviations in individual thoughts or behaviors, thus causing individuals to be disadvantaged.
These special life experiences and life experiences have their roots traceable, all have their original triggers, and the continuous effects of these primitive triggers are usually bounded by a certain point in time and manifested by the abnormal behavior of individuals.
Here, we may as well call this time boundary the "inflection point of life". In a person's life, there are many such inflection points, and the impact of these inflection points on individuals is due to the differences of individuals themselves, especially the level of self-adjustment ability in the face of the original triggers that bring continuous adverse effects to themselves. For the sake of expression, we call this persistently undesirable effect on the individual a "knot."
Finding the original trigger and opening the "heart knot" that affects the individual's thoughts and behaviors is the key to helping individuals correct their deviations. As a result, we have to work to help individuals find the various primal triggers that adversely affect them. And these primordial triggers are hidden in various representations in the entire life course and life experience of the individual, such as school, work, life, emotions, and so on.
I believe that people have the instinctive reaction of "seeking benefits and avoiding harms", as long as they have the opportunity, they will definitely make choices that are conducive to their own development. Therefore, if the individual is willing to inform the social worker of the relevant facts, the social worker can help the individual analyze the causes and adverse effects of the problem and formulate a plan for improvement, so as to achieve the development and growth of the individual. Therefore, in this sense, social diversion is not only a theory, we prefer it to be a methodology, a theoretical basis and intellectual support that can guide our practice, and be further inherited and developed in practice.
I. Definition of social diversion
Social diversion refers to the process of individuals who were originally in the same or similar social relationship space, due to their own or external factors, in the social flow of different social relations space. For this concept, it is necessary to further elaborate:
1) The focus of social diversion is on individual individuals who were originally in the same or similar space of social relations, rather than social groups or social classes.
2. Social diversion focuses on the social trajectory process of individual mobility more than the result.
3, the process of social diversion is dynamic and observable, but its results are unidirectional, a social diversion must produce a certain kind of result, and this result has uniqueness and irreversibility.
4. In the process of social diversion, if you change the factors of one of the links, it will affect the results of other links that follow, that is, the process of social diversion can be changed.
Second, the connection and difference between social diversion and social mobility
With regard to the definition of social mobility, the more common view is that social mobility refers to the movement of people from one position to another in the space of social relations. Usually, because social relations space is closely related to geographic space, the flow of people in geographic space is generally attributed to social mobility.
Another of the more common views is that social mobility in the broad sense is a change in the structure of an individual's social status. Because professional status is the position that plays a major role in the structure of individual status, social mobility in the narrow sense often refers to a change in the occupational status of the person.
From the above two definitions of social mobility, it is not difficult to see that social mobility and social diversion are relatively similar, and it can even be said that social diversion is included in social mobility and is a special form of social mobility. However, since it is a special form, it must have something special about it. To sum up, this special is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:
First, the subjects of study are different. The object of study of social mobility is more likely to be a different social group or social class, a certain group of people or a certain type of person in society. The object of study of social diversion is different social individuals in the same social group or social class, which is a single social person or natural person.
Second, the perspective of analyzing the problem is different. Social mobility analyzes and studies problems from a macro or meso social level, while social dislusion tends to look at and analyze problems from the perspective of a microscopic individual.
Again, the core concerns are different. Although both recognize the process of social mobility, the core of social mobility lies in "movement", which is a result-presenting action that tends to describe the result of social mobility. The core of social diversion lies in "division", which is a process presentation action, and pays more attention to the different directions in the process of social flow.
Third, the factors affecting social diversion
According to the Marxist view, we know that changes in the natural environment, social changes, technological and economic development, changes in the birth rate, cultural traditions, etc., all have an impact on social mobility.
In this context, as with social mobility, the factors affecting social diversion can be roughly divided into three levels: one is the macro level in the form of social structure and institutional arrangements; the other is the meso level in the form of work units and families and other social resources; and the third is the micro level that depends on the degree of individual's acquired efforts.
However, as mentioned earlier, the core objects of concern for social triage are individual individuals, who are relatively independent social or natural persons. Therefore, we are more inclined to analyze the factors affecting social diversion from the perspective of the "individual-social" mode of thinking. In this way, the factors affecting social diversion can be defined into two categories: social factors and individual factors.
1. Social factors
The main social factors affecting social diversion are:
(1) The mode and level of social and economic development. The mode and level of economic development of a society directly affect the mobility of individuals in that society. For example, people in the planned economy and the market economy environment, respectively, the possibility and degree of their mobility are not the same.
(2) Social management system system. The social management system includes political, economic, cultural and other aspects, and its impact on social diversion is direct, powerful and large-scale. For example, the urban-rural dual household registration system restricts the movement of people.
(3) Social values. As a social person, you will definitely be affected by the corresponding social values. Such as social status, social prestige, wealth, etc., this has also become an important reason to promote people's upward diversion.
(4) Social change. Whether it is social development, progress, reform, or social stagnation, regression, or revolution, all social changes may cause structural diversion of members of society.
(5) Natural factors. The change of natural ecological environment is also one of the important factors that cause social diversion. In particular, sudden natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts and other natural disasters, will cause a large number of people in a certain area to move in a short period of time.
2. Personal factors
According to the degree of exertion of individual subjective initiative, personal factors are divided into pre-assigned factors and self-induced factors.
(1) Preemptive factors, that is, factors other than personal ability. The pre-assignment factor is beyond the scope of the influence of the individual's subjective initiative, and it is innate, and the individual has no right to decide and choose. Such as race, gender, family background, cultural traditions, customs and habits.
(2) Self-induced factors, that is, the results of an individual's acquired efforts. Such as education level, ambition level, career choice, marital status, social relations resources, health status, etc. Self-induced factors play a crucial role in the social diversion of individuals, and these influences are even decisive.
Some people say that everyone has four origins: family origin, urban origin, educational origin, and professional origin. You can decide the last two of your own. This is undoubtedly the most vivid interpretation of the pre-assignment factor and the self-induced factor.
Fourth, the type of social diversion
Social diversion can be divided into different types on different grounds. To sum up, there are mainly the following types:
According to the direction of individual flow in the space of social relations, social diversion is divided into upward diversion and downward diversion. Upward diversion refers to the process by which an individual moves from a lower position to a higher status in the space of social relations. Conversely, the process by which an individual moves from a higher position to a lower status in the space of social relations is called downward diversion.
According to the causes of social diversion, social diversion is divided into structural social diversion and non-structural social diversion. Structural social diversion refers to the social diversion of individuals due to changes in a certain social structure. In societies with a high degree of openness, advanced industrial development and large-scale schooling make individuals particularly prone to upward diversion, largely because of changes in social or economic systems (non-individual achievements). For example, in the early 1990s, because of the implementation of reform and opening up, many Chinese chose to "go to the sea" to do business, and after 2000, China laid off some employees and lost their jobs due to industrial upgrading or state-owned enterprise transformation. Non-structural social diversion refers to social diversion caused by personal reasons, mainly through individual efforts or no efforts to achieve, relatively speaking, non-structural social diversion depends on the degree of social openness, and varies from person to person, change is slower, and the scope of influence is relatively small. For example, the free choice of employment of individuals, different willingness to learn, etc.
According to the motivation generated by social diversion, social diversion is divided into active diversion and passive diversion. Active diversion is based on the individual's own will of social diversion, is not interfered with by external forces, and belongs to the category of the client's consciousness. In contrast, passive diversion refers to the behavior and process by which an individual is forced by external pressure to make a certain social diversion to adapt to the social environment. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, the "going to the mountains and going to the countryside" movement of intellectual youth, the college entrance examination system, and various evaluation and selection mechanisms.
Fifth, inequalities in social diversion
In a general sense, social inequality is a concentrated summary of the relationship between classes and strata produced by vertical differentiation, referring to the differences between classes and strata in the amount of possession, access to opportunities and the degree of satisfaction of needs of relatively scarce social values.
Social inequality is long-standing and widespread. From birth, people begin to face inequalities in society, that is, the lack of equal opportunities and access to the valuable things that society has to offer.
In social diversion, social inequality naturally follows:
1. The pre-assignment factor itself is the existence of inequality. Among the many pre-existent factors, such as family background, cultural traditions, etc., they are themselves the products or manifestations of social inequality. Taking family backgrounds as an example, the starting point of life for children living in the homes of aristocratic eunuchs and children living in slums is very different. In the last year of the Qin Dynasty, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang revolted and shouted a loud slogan: "The prince will have a kind of Hu Ning? This answer has been widely confirmed to be negative, but it is certain that the descendants of the princely generals are indeed "kind". There was once a popular article on the Chinese Internet called "I struggled for 18 years to sit with you and drink coffee", which is the most vivid annotation.
2. The degree of social openness is limited. An open society is not necessarily an equal society, but because it is open, there is a possibility of achieving social equality in this society. Conversely, a closed society must not be an egalitarian society. The degree of openness of a society depends on its socio-economic development model and level, as well as the supporting social management system system. It is often these factors that determine the full possibility, form and scale of social diversion.
3. Unequal opportunities. According to the concept of social inequality, the access to relatively scarce valuable things is listed as the three major manifestations of social inequality along with the amount of possession of valuable things and the degree of satisfaction of demand. In social reality, opportunities are never absolutely equal, they are relatively equal under certain preconditions. For example, the compulsory education system, legally speaking, has equal opportunities for each school-age child, but in reality, due to different regional characteristics and cultural backgrounds, such as insufficient allocation of educational resources, children in different regions are still unequal in receiving compulsory education.
4. Social discrimination. Social discrimination is an unfair, negative and exclusionary social behavior or institutional arrangement against a vulnerable group or people in society. There are many types of social discrimination, such as racial discrimination, color discrimination, regional discrimination, gender discrimination, age discrimination, disease discrimination, educational discrimination, cultural discrimination, etc. Needless to say, these social discriminations are often mentioned and used in social segmentation, thus exacerbating inequalities in social segmentation.
Sixth, the efficacy of social diversion
Like the factors that affect social diversion, the functional utility of social diversion can also be analyzed from both the individual and social levels.
(1) Social level
1. The effect of social integration. Social diversion provides members of society with the opportunity to change their social status, which is conducive to maintaining an open social stratification structure, broadening the contact area between all social classes, and playing a role in adjusting the relationship between social classes, thereby strengthening social integration.
2. The effect on social stability. Reasonable social diversion can promote social fairness and justice, while unreasonable social diversion may lead to an increase in the gap between the rich and the poor in society, thereby deepening social contradictions and social conflicts. Judging whether the social diversion is reasonable or not depends mainly on whether the social diversion can promote the benign operation of society and whether it can achieve equal opportunities for social members.
3. The effect of social structure. The convergence of social strata forms social mobility, which in turn directly leads to social stratification, which results in the formation of social classes, and the relationship between the various strata of society is woven into the existing social structure. Therefore, a reasonable social diversion contributes to the establishment and consolidation of a rational social structure.
(2) The individual level
1, the so-called "people go to a high place, water flows to a low place", the higher social status is in line with the basic interests of social members, and social diversion makes it possible for social members to seek to change their social status and realize their personal ambitions, thus stimulating the freedom, initiative and creativity of social members to carry out social activities.
2. Social diversion is conducive to the formation of an open and dynamic social structure, under the condition of the principle of equal opportunity and self-acquisition, to establish an equal participation and competitive relationship among members of society, to promote the fair development of social members, so as to eliminate social inequality and social injustice.
VII. Conclusion
Social diversion is contained in social mobility and is a special form of social mobility. Social diversion has its own unique causes, types, and effects. The social shunting tree is an intuitive form that helps us understand social shunting. The reason why we extract social diversion from social mobility separately is that social stratification is more conducive to defining the causes of social problems caused by social members in the process of mobility and formulating corresponding solution strategies. By applying it to the practice of social work services, we try to open up a new social work service model - the life inflection point treatment model.