Social and Cultural Change
Social Change can be defined as the change in
relationship social structure, ways of doing and thinking of people, human
behavior and social institution like marriage, family, kinship, etc.
Characteristics of Social Change:
a. It
is universal.
b. It’s
prediction is not possible.
c. It
is general law.
d. It
is a community change.
e. It
is a chain change.
f. It
lacks uniformity in speed.
Factors for Socio-Cultural Change:
1. Physical Environment:
Major changes in the physical environment are very compelling when they happen.
Climates change, soil erodes and lakes gradually turn
into swamps and finally plains. A culture is greatly affected by such changes
although sometimes they come about so slowly that they are largely unnoticed.
Human misuse can bring very rapid changes in physical environment which in turn
change the social and cultural life of a people. Deforestation brings land
erosion and reduces rainfall. Much of the wasteland and desert land of the
world is a testament to human ignorance and misuse. Environmental destruction
has been at least a contributing factor in the fall of most great civilization.
Many human groups throughout history have changed their physical environment
through migration. In the primitive societies whose members are very directly
dependent upon their physical environment migration to a different environment
brings major changes in the culture. Civilization makes it easy to transport a
culture and practice it in a new and different environment.
2. Population changes:
A population change is itself a social change but also becomes a casual factor
in further social and cultural changes. When a thinly settled frontier fills up
with people the hospitality pattern fades away, secondary group relations
multiply, institutional structures grow more elaborate and many other changes
follow. A stable population may be able to resist change but a rapidly growing
population must migrate, improve its productivity or starve. Great historic
migrations and conquests of the Huns, Vikings and many others have arisen from
the pressure of a growing population upon limited resources. Migration
encourages further change for it brings a group into a new environment subjects
it to new social contacts and confronts it with new problems. No major
population change leaves the culture unchanged.
3.Isolation and Contact:
Societies located at world crossroads have always been centers of change. Since
most new traits come through diffusion, those societies in closest contact with
other societies are likely to change most rapidly. In ancient times of overland
transport, the land bridge connecting Asia, Africa and Europe was the centre of
civilizing change. Later sailing vessels shifted the centre to the fringes of
the Mediterranean Sea and still later to the north- west coast of Europe. Areas
of greatest intercultural contact are the centers of change. War and trade have
always brought intercultural contact and today tourism is adding to the
contacts between cultures says Greenwood. Conversely isolated areas are centers
of stability, conservatism and resistance to change. The most primitive tribes
have been those who were the most isolated like the polar Eskimos or the Aranda
of Central Australia.
4.Social Structure:
The social structure affects the social change indirectly. A society which gives
great authority to the very old people as classical China did for centuries is
likely to be conservative and stable. According to Ottenberg a society which
stresses conformity and trains the individual to be highly responsive to the
group such as the Zunis is less receptive to the change than a society like the
Ileo who are highly individualistic and tolerate considerable cultural
variability. A highly centralized bureaucracy is very favorable to the
promotion and diffusion of change although bureaucracy has sometimes been used
in an attempt to suppress change usually with no more than temporary success.
When a culture is very highly integrated so that each element is rightly
interwoven with all the others in a mutually interdependent system change is
difficult and costly. But when the culture is less highly integrated so that
work, play, family, religion and other activities are less dependent upon one
another change is easier and more frequent. A tightly structured society
wherein every person's roles, duties, privileges and obligations are precisely
and rigidly defined is less given to changes than a more loosely structured
society wherein roles, lines of authority, privileges and obligations are more
open to individual rearrangement.
5.Attitudes and Values:
To people in developed nations and societies change is normal. Children there
are socialized to anticipate and appreciate change. Societies differ greatly in
their general attitude toward change. People who admire the past and
preoccupied with traditions and rituals will change slowly and unwillingly.
When a culture has been relatively static for a long time the people are likely
to assume that it should remain so indefinitely. They are intensely and
unconsciously ethnocentric; they assume that their customs and techniques are
correct and everlasting. A possible change is unlikely even to be seriously
considered. Any change in such a society is likely to be too gradual to be
noticed. A rapidly changing society has a different attitude toward change and
this attitude is both cause and effect of the changes already taking place. Rapidly
changing societies are aware of the social change. They are somewhat skeptical
and critical of some parts of their traditional culture and will consider and
experiment with innovations. Such attitudes powerfully stimulate the proposal
and acceptance of changes by individuals within the society. Different groups
within a locality or a society may show differing receptivity to change. Every
changing society has its liberals and its conservatives. Literate and educated
people tend to accept changes more readily than the illiterate and uneducated.
Attitudes and values affect both the amount and the direction of social change.
The ancient Greeks made great contributions to art and learning but contributed
little to technology. No society has been equally dynamic in all aspects and
its values determine in which area-art, music, warfare, technology, philosophy
or religion it will be innovative.
6. Cultural Factor
Culture not only influences our social relationships,
it also influences the direction and character of technological change. It is
not only our beliefs and social institutions must correspond to the changes in
technology but our beliefs and social institutions determine the use to which
the technological inventions will be put. The tools and techniques of
technology are indifferent to the use we make of them. For example the atomic
energy can be used for the production of deadly war weapons or for the
production of economic goods that satisfy the basic needs of man. The factories
can produce the armaments or necessaries of life. Steel and iron can be used
for building warships or tractors. It is a culture that decides the purpose to
which a technical invention must be put. Although technology has advanced
geometrically in the recent past, technology alone does not cause social
change. It does not by itself even cause further advances in technology. Social
values play a dominant role here. It is the complex combination of technology
and social values which produces conditions that encourage further technological
change. For example the belief or the idea that human life must not be
sacrificed for wants of medical treatment, contributed to the advancement in
medical technology.Max Weber in his The Protestant Ethic and the spirit of
Capitalism has made a classical attempt to establish a correlation between the
changes in the religious outlook, beliefs and practices of the people on the
one hand and their economic behavior on the other. He has observed capitalism
could grow in the western societies to very great extent and not in the eastern
countries like India and China. He has concluded that Protestantism with its
practical ethics encouraged capitalism to grow in the west and hence industrial
and economic advancement took place there. In the East, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Judaism and Islam on the other hand did not encourage capitalism. Thus cultural
factors play a positive as well as negative role in bringing about
technological change. Cultural factors such as habits, customs, traditions,
conservatism, traditional values etc may resist the technological inventions.
On the other hand factors such as breakdown in the unity of social values, the
diversification of social institutions craving for the new thoughts, values etc
may contribute to technological inventions. Technological changes do not take
place on their own. They are engineered by men only. Technology is the creation
of man. Men are always moved by ideas, thoughts, values, beliefs, morals and
philosophies etc.These are the elements of culture. These sometimes decide or
influence the direction in which technology undergoes change. Men are becoming
more and more materialistic in their attitude. This change in the attitude and
outlook is reflected in the technological field. Thus in order to lead a
comfortable life and to minimize the manual labor man started inventing new
techniques, machines, instruments and devices.
7. Technological Factors:
The technological factors represent the conditions created by man which have a
profound influence on his life. In the attempt to satisfy his wants, fulfill
his needs and to make his life more comfortable man creates civilization.
Technology is a byproduct of civilization .When the scientific knowledge is
applied to the problems in life it becomes technology. Technology is a
systematic knowledge which is put into practice that is to use tools and run
machines to serve human purpose. Science and technology go together. In
utilizing the products of technology man brings social change. The social
effects of technology are far-reaching. According to Karl Marx even the
formation of social relations and mental conceptions and attitudes are
dependent upon technology. He has regarded technology as a sole explanation of
social change.W.F Ogburn says technology changes society by changing our
environment to which we in turn adapt. These changes are usually in the
material environment and the adjustment that we make with these changes often
modifies customs and social institutions. A single invention may have
innumerable social effects. Radio for example has One of the most extreme
expressions of the concern over the independence of technology is found in
Jacques Ellul's 'the technological society'. Ellul claims that in modern
industrial societies technologism has engulfed every aspect of social existence
in much the same way Catholicism did in the middle ages. The loss of human
freedom and the large-scale destruction of human beings are due to the
increasing use of certain types of technology which has begun to threaten the
life support systems of the earth as a whole.
8. Economic Factors
According to Karl Marx, economy is the focal point of
each social action. Social behavior, assumptions, activities and perspectives
are developed on the basis of relationship developed on the economic ground.
Socio-cultural structure can be studied on the basis of the nature of economy.
a.Nomad Economy: In this economy, there was only
collection of wild fruits, edible yums, roots and hunting. There was neither a
developed economy nor a developed social institution like family, kinship, etc.
b. Agricultural
Economy: There is residence, evolution of Polytheism, development of
kinship, labor exchange.
c. Feudalist
Economy: There is development of technology.
d. Capitalist Economy: There is development of technology,
thoughts, practices and behaviors, emergence of class, dominance of material
perspective.
When a person is economically strong, he/she have
access to education, health, communication, etc which helps in developing
scientific perspectives and assumptions in looking the society. This results in
the contribution of bringing changes in the society.
9. Psychological Factors
Human activities can be concretized through the
thinking, perception, desires, spirit, etc of the members of society. The
presumption of a cultured, civilized, developed and self-reliant society
depends upon human perception. As per the perception, people engage in
development of society and brings socio-cultural change. Family, community and
society run through the behavior and activities of people, their desire for
change, feeling of cooperation and anti-anger attitude rings change in the
culture, behavior and relationship in the society.
Mechanism of Socio-Cultural Change:
A. Discovery:
It is any addition to knowledge.
B. Innovation:
It is the new application of knowledge that influences all the patterns of
human society and culture.
C. Sanskritization:
It is the process of adopting values and norms of higher caste by lower caste
in caste based society.
D. Assimilation:
It is the process to adjust with the existing socio-cultural values by a person
in new socio-cultural environment.
E. Revolution:
It is the process by which people try to bring radical change in
socio-political atmosphere.
F. Migration:
It is the movement of people from one place to another either for temporarily
or permanently.
G. Moderation:
It is the process which indicated of modern ways of life and values.
Some parts are adopted from: https://www.sociologyguide.com/social-change/factors-of-change.php
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