The concept of the naturalization of social life is central in the thinking of Norbert Lechner -that is one of the few theorists that have been produced in our midst, and they have also been central in the Human Development Reports in Chile, which, in some form, may be regarded as the implementation of a program of research lechneriano.
Under this idea what is critical is the conception that the social order is something natural, and therefore outside of the human will. It is not always clear whether the opposition between nature / will is part of the instrumental conceptual lechneriano or social discourses criticized; but his character determinant in these analyses cannot be discussed.
An interesting feature, and at first glance completely absurd, is that the conception ‘natural’, what is not natural is possible. The idea is that there is a social order that is natural, but that sometimes humans try to do another thing, and occur, then, lower orders ‘anti-natural’. Lechner, as already stated, raises the critique of the idea of a social order that is natural from the idea that it is an order produced socially. Us, rather, we will focus on the insufficient naturalism of this conception.
Because it is based on the fact that it is possible -but wrong – to get away from the nature. Now, if it is true that the social is a part of nature, then everything social is part of it, and then it is completely natural. Therefore, any order to try to create human beings is ‘natural’, or at least the attempt is natural because the actions that make up such an attempt are also part of the nature of social life.
In other words, it makes no sense to oppose the natural order / order was built. Build through the conscious will and policy -the ideal of Lechner – is a process perfectly natural for human beings. What the thought lechneriano shares with the thought that criticism is the opposition nature / will, as if human beings (and what they want) they were an order apart and distinct from the nature.
If we recognize that this opposition as such has no sense, that human beings, all that they produce, is as much part of nature as anything else (stars, mountains, colonies of ants); then we can recognize a series of features of social life that jump out at you.
(1) That human beings naturally produce social orders. In fact, there is no way in which it is possible to prevent to do so. In that sense, it is beyond the human will.
(2) That human beings are continuously produced by social orders, and then that way de-structured orders that have been created. In other words, they can’t keep it perfectly stable the order that have been produced, and that, too, is beyond the human will.
But the record, again, that what we have said is about the process of production of order, not on the orders produced. But we were wrong, in fact not even are the claims are about the processes as such, but on their results. In other words, the processes as such and the orders in question can be analyzed as products of the will.
To be more precise, and more consistent if you want to: The process of construction (and de-construction and re-construction) of commands through the will human is a natural process and inexorable in human communities.