Dialectics of social forms of necessity and randomness

The study aims to identify the socially necessary content in human existence and to contrast it with the content that has little or even negative significance for society development. Socially necessary means necessary in its higher, precisely human content, in relation to the human nature, society and individual. Since the necessary and random content in society are dialectically related, the study is reduced to revealing this interrelationship of the social forms of necessity and randomness. The study is based on the concrete-universal theory of development proposed by the group of authors under the leadership of V.V. Orlov. The concept of person developed by V.V. Orlov within the framework of this theory makes it possible to identify objective grounds for defining criteria for the degree of necessity of content in society. One of these grounds is linked with the universal, potentially infinite essence of a person, its deepest laws and needs, while the other ground, dialectically associated with that, is linked with a person’s work activity, its goals and objectives. These grounds allow one to trace the way the necessary content is distributed in the social and individual being of a person, revealing the most socially necessary content. The dialectical interrelationship of these grounds makes it possible to preserve the traditional approach to the understanding of necessity and randomness as correlative concepts turning into their own opposite under certain conditions. The study provides an important tool for critical analysis of the order existing in society and trends of its development in terms of the underlying needs of the universal human essence. In this light, it appears that the most necessary content in human existence is everything that contributes to unlocking of the fruitful potential of the human essence and corresponds to human values and humanistic ideals proven throughout the centuries.