About the Mutual Dependence of Socio-cultural Change in Eastern and Western Europe

This contribution deals with the interdependence of Eastern and Western Europe in the present historical developments. It emphasizes the importance to distinguish analytically between the social and the cultural. Pointing out an increasing neglect of the social in theory and research particularly with respect to the post-communist societies of Eastern and East-Central Europe. As social structure is the one element which has been changing the fastest in these societies, the theoretical insights about its relation to culture are most significant. Given this point of the theoretical approach it becomes obvious that every assumption of a more or less coherent Central European culture or from another point of view post-communist mind must be misleading. Behind both one can suspect a too holistic understanding of culture. If we, however, assume that every cultural pattern requires certain socio-structural support, the post-communist situation appears rather as a set of different cultural dimensions than a cultural system homogeniously organized around coherent principles.