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In this article we will discuss about social change:- 1. Definition of Social Change 2. Social Change: A Factionalist Perspective 3. Factors of Social Change.
Definition of Social Change:
The dynamic quality inherent in the basic social processes leads us to the investigation of the problems of social change. We have seen that the basic social processes are imbedded in social organisation. But social change itself is so complex and so significant in the life of individual and of society that we have to explore the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of social change in all its ramifications.
When we speak of social change, we do not mean what is generally known as social process. The kind of change that is associated with basic social processes does not come under the category of ‘social change’. More appropriately, these changes may be characterised as social metabolism. In an animal body, chemical changes take place constantly.
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This is known as metabolism. Likewise, the changes which take place in society constantly may be called social metabolism. In course of time, however, these changes accumulate and become significant. We need, therefore, to introduce time dimension into our discussion on social change.
Against this background, we may explore the definition of social change. Morris Ginsberg has defined social change thus: “by social change I understand a change in social structure, e.g. the size of a society, the composition or balance of its parts or the type of its organisation. The term social change must also include changes in attitudes or beliefs, in so far as they sustain institutions and change with them”.
In this definition, Ginsberg emphasises two types of changes, e.g.:
(i) Changes in the structure of society and
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(ii) Changes in the values and social norms which bind the people together and help to maintain social order.
These two types of changes should not, however, be treated separately because a change in one induces changes in the other. For example, a change if the attitude of the people may bring about changes in the social structure. Towards the close of the nineteenth century, there was a tendency in the countries of Western Europe for families to grow smaller in size.
“There is a general agreement that this has been brought about in the main by voluntary restriction of births”.
In this case, a change in the attitude of the people is mainly responsible for change in the social structure. On the other hand, a change in the social structure may bring about attitudinal change among the members of the society. Transformation of rural society into urban is not simply a change in the structure of society but it also introduces changes in the attitude and mentality of the people.
Differences in objective situations that obtain in the country and the city impress themselves on the mentality of the countrymen and of the city people. Hence, these two types of changes should be treated as two facets of the same social phenomenon. Some sociologists lump together these two types of changes under the category of cultural change’.
Kingsley Davis, for example, defines social change thus:
“By ‘social change’ is meant only such alterations as occur in social organisation that is, the structure and functions of society. Social change thus forms only a part of what is essentially a broader category called ‘cultural change’. The latter embrace all changes occurring in any branch of culture, including art, science, technology, philosophy, etc. as well as changes in the forms and rules of social organisation”.
Having defined social change, he goes further to say:
“Cultural change is thus much broader than social change”. It is doubtful if a clear-cut distinction between social change and cultural change can be maintained. Davis himself concedes that “no part of culture is totally unrelated to the social order….” If that be so, there is obviously no justification for treating social change and cultural change as two separate social phenomena.
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Davis observes:
“Sociologically, therefore, we are interested in cultural change only to the extent that it arises from or has an effect on social organisation”. Does not all types of cultural changes, in the ultimate analysis, affect social organisation? Davis refers to phonetic change as an example of cultural change which does not, however, “noticeably affect the social system”. He considers phonetic change as “purely a linguistic phenomenon, a cultural rather than a social change”.
A phonetic change does not occur autonomously in a vacuum. It arises from changes in social organisation. For example, quick means of transportation in the 20th century have made it possible for people to come closer in meaningful contact. As a consequence, phonetic changes occur in almost all languages in recent years.
Do not such phonetic changes make communication among different groups easier? So, from whatever angle we may analyse the thesis of Kingsley Davis, it appears that a distinction between cultural change and social change cannot be maintained. Social change should, therefore, be interpreted to mean both a change in social structure and a change in any branch of culture.
We have already referred to the fact that social change ought to be distinguished from social process, and that it can be done by introducing the dimension of time in an analysis of social change. A specific period of time is to be taken into account in order to determine as to whether any social change has actually occurred during that period.
That is, a base year has to be chosen and with reference to this base year one has to assess the type, nature and extent of change that may have taken place during the intervening period between the base year and the year of comparison. There will, therefore, be no scope for confusion between social process and social change.
We have to grapple with a few other methodological issues. In the first place, what will be the unit of change? Should it be analysis of change in the society as a whole? Or, should it be analysis of change in the parts of society? Some sociologists have tried to delineate types of societies on the basis of certain characteristic features and “to interpret social change as the successive shifting from one type to another”.
For example, in his book, Social and Cultural Dynamics, Sorokin classified societies into two types: Ideational and Sensate. The ideational culture emphasises the spiritual and non-material; the sensate stresses materialism and agnostic concepts of value and reality.
According to Sorokin, Taoist China, Buddhist India and mediaeval Christian Europe represent ideational cultures, and the Western culture of today represents the sensate system.
This kind of typology, and for the matter of that any other kind of typology, “seems rough and vague”, because societies differ in myriad ways. Different scholars “looking at the same society are apt to characterize it differently, according to which particular traits they emphasise”.
In the circumstances, contradictory characterizations of the same society cannot be ruled out. In view of these difficulties, it is broadly agreed that “the analysis of change in the parts of society may throw light on changes in the whole”. Secondly, in any discussion on social change, one should identify clearly the parts of society in which change has occurred and also the type and nature of change that has affected those parts.
It is not enough to say that social change has occurred because such a vague statement does not indicate anything beyond what is inevitable. To be meaningful, one should be very specific about the areas in which changes have occurred and also about the nature of changes that have taken place.
Thirdly, there are difficulties in measuring the rate of change and in indicating the direction of change. There are some changes which are easily amenable to measurement. For example, one can easily assess the rate and direction of changes in the field of literacy by comparing the enrolment figures in elementary schools prevailing in the base year and the year of comparison.
There are, however, areas which defy all attempts at such measurement. If, for example, one tries to find out as to whether people of a particular society have become more pragmatic and rationalistic during the last fifty years, the attempt is bound to be a failure, because there is no way of assessing in quantitative terms changes that take place in the mind and attitude of people.
Fourthly, there is another issue to be taken up — namely, whether change is cyclical or linear.
“An extreme statement of the cyclical hypothesis would be that social phenomena of whatever sort (whether specific traits or whole civilizations) recur again and again, exactly as they were before. An equally extreme statement of the linear hypothesis would be that all aspects of society change continually in a certain direction, never faltering, never repeating themselves”.
Neither of these two statements can be accepted as valid. We can only know and analyse the social change that is observable.
Any claim that a pattern and sequence of change have always persisted and will always persist in future clearly goes beyond empirical knowledge. The linear hypothesis can also be subjected to the same kind of criticism.
“The question of what is the ultimate nature of social change is therefore simply a philosophical puzzle that has no place in social science. When we confine ourselves to what is knowable, we find both trends and fluctuations. Indeed, whether a given change is cyclical or linear depends largely on the span of time under consideration. A decline in business appears as a trend if only a few years are taken, whereas in a larger time context it appears as merely one phase of the business cycle”.
Finally, we have to consider the central issue, e.g., the question of causation—what brings social change and what retards it. In the following sections we shall discuss the various explanations of social change offered by different sociologists from their respective perspectives.
Social Change: A Factionalist Perspective:
All living beings have three basic biological needs which must be met if they are to stay alive as individuals and as species. These are the need for food, reproduction and protection. Most mammals are equipped by heredity with special talents, skills, and instincts which enable them to meet their basic needs, and to adapt themselves to their environment.
All animals except man which lacked the requisite capacity perished from this earth long also. Man is neither particularly strong physically, nor are his senses particularly acute.
He cannot reproduce himself rapidly, for it takes a long time to create a human child and a longer time to bring it up to the point where it can take care of itself independently. But man has survived the challenge of nature because of the fact that he has “the capacity to invent and learn language, which in turn enables him to build a culture and to organise society”.
Man has not to adapt himself to his environment. On the contrary, he changes his environment to suit himself. It has been very aptly said that “he cannot grow fur to keep himself warm, but he can and does weave cloth to make clothing”.
It follows, therefore, that the primary function of culture and of social organisation is the meeting of man’s basic needs. Man has also needs other than basic ones. These needs are derived from the way he meets his basic needs. So these needs are called derived needs of man.
For example, the needs for school, writing materials, etc. are derived from the use of language which is utilised by man for the purpose of meeting his basic needs. Hence, another function of culture and of social organisation is the meeting of derived human needs.
The foregoing discussion will make clear that social change is likely to occur under three situations:
1. Social institutions change when human needs change:
The basic biological needs of man are by their very nature unchanging. As long as human beings are animals, they will need food and protection, and they will also need to procreate. The derived needs of men do, however, change. For instance, there are changes in the nature and form of good that a particular group of men may prefer at a particular time.
The techniques of protecting oneself from nature and from enemies also change from time to time. Again, the individuals who make up society are constantly changing through birth, growth, death, and migration. All these naturally produce new problems and new needs.
Another reason for change in our needs lies in the fact that institutional changes that have already taken place may create new derived needs. For example, introduction of automobile in place of horse-drawn carriage has created the need in our society for broader streets, traffic regulations, and traffic police.
So our needs may change for a number of reasons, and their change contributes to the necessity of change in our social institutions.
2. Social institutions change when they fail to meet existing human needs:
The failure of social institutions to meet needs even when the specific need in question has not changed is due primarily to two reasons. In the first place, “some human needs are at times more compelling than others and sometimes we sacrifice the meeting of one group of needs in order to meet another”.
Thus, when a country is involved in a war, the needs for national defense become so pressing that we consciously restrict the satisfaction of many of our individual needs.
The mechanism of price .control and rationing, which generally replaces the normal economic system of distribution in times of war, becomes necessary because of the fact that the needs of the majority of the people for food and other necessaries cannot be met by the system of free competition.
Another reason why social institutions sometimes fail to meet some of the existing needs lies in the fact that social institutions have manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions are those objective consequences for society which are intended and recognised by the persons who are involved. Latent functions are those consequences which are neither intended nor recognised.
The manifest functions (purpose) and latent functions (result) do not always completely coincide. For example, the express purpose of the competitive economic System is to promote efficiency both in the field of production and distribution. But in actual working, the system gives rise to problems of unequal distribution of wealth and income, of unemployment and of social injustice.
In other words, the competitive economic system fails to meet our psychological need for a feeling of security. Hence, there arises the need for the Government to regulate the competitive economic system in order to meet the demand for social security.
3. Social institutions change when new materials suggest better ways of meeting needs:
This may be illustrated by the fact that introduction of automobile in place of slow- going methods of transportation has made people increasingly dependent upon large centres of trade and commerce and much less dependent upon services which are available in small communities. Likewise, introduction of technology and industrial methods of production have changed the economic activities of families considerably.
Man’s culture and social organisation are, therefore, in a constant state of flux as both major and minor adjustments are made in order to meet the various needs as they arise and decline in importance. Hence we may look upon the institutional structure of society “as a dynamic imperfect equilibrium subject to constant change”.
Social change is a process which, once begun, tends to continue for a very long time inasmuch as change in one segment of our social structure gives rise to dysfunctions in another, creating the need for further change and so on.
It will, however, be wrong to assume that changes in institutional structure occur easily in response to some stimuli. All social institutions are, by their very nature, resistant to change. Folkways and mores are grounded in the habits of human beings, and ‘they find it difficult to change their habits.
There is another reason way people resist change. All of us plan our lives on the assumption that the social organisation and the social institutions will remain essentially stable. We, therefore, resist change out of sheer self-interest when any change is suggested to us.
We fear that changes in social structure will “leave us strand among our old, useless plans and preparations”. We may conclude then that social change is more likely to begin in those areas of our institutional structure which we hold least sacred, and that ‘the process of change is likely to be least rapid and most convulsive in those areas which we hold most sacred”.
Factors of Social Change:
Social change cannot be explained in terms of a particular theory. A theory is no more than looking at a phenomenon from a particular perspective. That particular perspective may single out those conditions which are, so to say, decisive. Which conditions are taken as decisive depends to a large extent on the perspective of the inquiry. Obviously, many conditions are not specified.
All theories of social change are, therefore, partial. In order to appreciate the complex nature of the phenomena, it is worth considering various factors which generally bring about social change. In one particular case, a particular factor may prove to be decisive in the sense that social change can be adequately explained in terms of that factor.
In another case, social change may have to be explained in terms of other factor or factors. In short, there is not a single master key with which we can unlock all the doors leading to an unraveling of predisposing causes of social change. With these general considerations in mind, we may bring out, following Morris Ginsberg, the sort of factors to which causal agency has been attributed by competent authorities.
(i) There are cases in which social changes may be attributed “mainly to desires and decisions of individuals”. As an illustrative case, Ginsberg refers “to the rise of the small family system in Western countries in the latter part of the nineteenth century”.
The decline in birth rate is to be accounted for, in the main, by voluntary restriction of births. The people practiced birth control in increasing numbers and the end-result was a rise in the number of small families.
A question may be raised: Why did people in increasing numbers practice birth Control during the last part of the nineteenth century, and not earlier? The answer is found in a number of interlocking changes in the social and economic structure during this period.
Among these mention may be made of introduction of compulsory education which virtually removed children from the labour market. This meant an additional burden upon parents of rearing large families.
The opportunities for employment of women outside the home were considerably widened, and, as a result, they did not want to be encumbered by a large number of children. The women’s liberation movement which gained strength and popularity during this period further strengthened the desire of women to have small families.
To all these must be added changes of moral and religious outlook as well as the availability of effective contraceptive devices.
(ii) Circumstances favourable to a change constitute an important sine qua non for change to take place. Some individuals and groups may be motivated to bring about a particular change and even appropriate steps toward that end may be taken. But the entire effort might prove futile because circumstances do not favour the change.
Pandit Iswar Chandra Viddasagar initiated a movement for the re-marriage of Hindu widows. At the instance of Vidyasagar and a few others, the Hindu Widow’s Re-marriage Act was passed in 1856.
But the passing of the Act or the ceaseless efforts of social reformers like Vidyasagar could not create much impact on the Hindu community for over a century simply because the people were not prepared to accept the change.
Ginsberg emphasises this aspect thus:
“The causes are the motivated acts, but the motives are shaped by the change in the conditions”.
(iii) In a society there may occur structural changes, i.e., changes in the parts of a structure due to changes in other parts or to a change in the balance of forces. As a consequence, tensions may be set up by a lack of equilibrium between its parts. These strains set up disturbances, latent or overt, which sooner or later find expression in movements for change.
Ginsberg gives the following illustration. “Thus the domain economy was made impossible in Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the rise of the towns. The urban population could not feed itself and had therefore to obtain the means of subsistence by purchase from the rural areas. This meant that the domains no longer restricted their production to meet their own needs. As production became remunerative, the idea of working for profit began to exercise people’s minds. On the other hand, the landowners, restricted to customary revenues, found it difficult to satisfy their growing needs. In this way the moral and economic foundations of the domainal system were shaken by the growth of cities and the change in the relations between town and country”.
We may take another familiar example from India. The process of urbanization has set up pressures which tend to weaken the foundations of the traditional joint family pattern.
According to Ginsberg, “The major sources of social change are conditions generating these strains or ‘contradictions’, and the efforts made to overcome them. The Marxists have concentrated on the contradictions that arise between the forces of production and the relations of production. But it seems clear that the sources of strain are many and varied, and indeed hardly reducible to a system”.
(iv) Changes of social structure can be brought about by external influences due to contact with other societies, peaceful or warlike.
According to Toynbee, civilisation grows and develops in either of the three ways:
(a) Original creation:
Creation and innovation are realities. If they were not realities, no changes could ever have occurred. And if creation and innovation are realities, every act of creation and innovation must have been achieved by some agent at some point of space-time,
(b) Mzmesis:
This means the reception and adoption of elements of culture that have been created elsewhere and have reached the recipients by a process of diffusion. If the only possible form of human action were original creation, a human being’s whole energies would have to be taken up, from birth to death, in willing each pulsation of his heart and each inflation of his lungs.
Far from this being characteristic of human nature, one of its distinctively human features is its capacity for learning and for translating what it learns into habits organised in those patterns of relations between people that we call ‘institutions’.
Besides the psycho-physical heritage that Man, like all other living creatures, transmits to his off-spring automatically and involuntarily, he transmits a cultural heritage by the social process of teaching and learning and it is this second capacity that makes and keeps Man human,
(c) Stimulus Diffusion:
A.L. Kroeber has shown that an anti-thesis between two terms—originality and mimesis —does not cover all the phenomena. There is at least one more alternative which Kroeber calls ‘stimulus diffusion’.
“Stimulus diffusion might be defined as new pattern growth initiated by precedent in a foreign culture… A goal or objective was set by something previously existing in another culture; the originality was limited to achieving the mechanisms by which its goal could be reached”.
Kroeber demonstrates his case by bringing forward illustrations from the most diverse fields of human activity. Since then, this new concept has been employed to account for the genesis of the Egyptian Civilisation as a creative response to a stimulus received from the Sumer Civilization.
The observations of Frankfort are quite pertinent “We observe the Egypt, in a period of intensified creativity became acquainted with the achievements of Mesopotamia; that it was stimulated; and that it adapted to its own rapid development such elements as seemed compatible with its efforts. It mostly, transformed what it borrowed and after a time rejected even these modified derivations”.
It will be seen that the role of Sumer influence in the genesis of the Egyptian Civilization, as described by Frankfort in the above passage, is a classic illustration of Kroeber’s concept of ‘stimulus diffusion’.
(v) The contribution of outstanding individuals or groups of individuals to social change cannot be ignored. Their importance has been exaggerated as frequently as it has been underestimated. Spencer argued that the great man had first to be made before he could remake society.
There are others who argue that, however made, he is rarely the arbiter of events. Bismarck, who exercised an enormous influence on the political events of the nineteenth century, said: “The statesman can do nothing for himself. He can only lie in wait and listen until amid the march of events he can hear the footsteps of God. Then he leaps forward and grasps the hem of His garment. That is all he can do”.
So little is known as yet of the genetic basis of genius or exceptional ability. In sociology we are not concerned with that question or the question as to whether a great man is a product of his age. Any answer to these questions will raise other questions. But the fact remains that in all epochs men of exceptional ability leave a deep impress of their personality on the society.
In contemporary India, the influence of Gandhiji, Nehruji or Netaji cannot be overlooked by any means. Can anyone ignore the contribution of Lenin to the success of Russian revolution? Can anyone underestimate the contribution of Henry Ford to the expansion of automobile industry? It seems “foolish to deny the great importance of men of genius whether as innovators or as the vehicles of large and massive forces”.
(vi) Social changes are often due to a confluence or collocation of elements derived from different sources but converging at a given point. Ginsberg refers to the occurrence and eventual success of the Russian Revolution as an example of this factor.
In his view, there was a very complicated combination of circumstances which prepared the ground for Russian Revolution.
“There were first the prolongation of the war of 1914 and the inability of the Czarist regime to sustain a large-scale war. There were the land-hunger of the peasantry and the presence together of a depressed peasantry with a relatively advanced proletariat. There was the fact that in Russia capitalist industry had developed as a result of foreign pressure and under the patronage of the state, with the result that a proletariat had been created without an independent class of bourgeois entrepreneurs. There was the further fact that the Russian intelligentsia did not possess social roots in the commercial bourgeoisie and was not committed to any deep-seated bourgeois allegiance. To all this must be added the existence of a small and determined group of men, able to seize power and, above all, the ‘accident’ of the great personality of Lenin”.
(vii) Sometimes fortuitous or accidental causes are responsible for bringing about social change of considerable significance. Ginsberg illustrates this point by referring to Black Death, a name given to the epidemic of plague in Europe in the 14th century, which changed the history of the entire Jewish people.
Among the various consequences of this epidemic was the letting loose of a wave of superstitious terror. “This expressed itself in many German towns……… in barbarous attacks on Jews in the belief that the plague was a malignant device for the confusion of Catholics. The savage attack led to an exodus to Poland where…. the Jews found protection.
In this way a series of events originating in the Far East was an important factor in the formation of an East European Jewry, which in the centuries to come was to develop distinctive characteristics of its own and to play an important role in the history of the entire Jewish people”.
The partition of India is another accidental factor (the decision was so sudden that the people, including the leaders, were not prepared for the same) which has changed the entire course of history of the subcontinent. More far-reaching repercussions are likely to follow in the years to come.
Ginsberg has analysed the phenomenon of social change in a historical background indicating how in myriad ways the society may undergo changes. Some of these changes may be of little significance and some may be of far-reaching importance.
The analysis is particularly important for two reasons. In the first place, it has been made abundantly clear that social change cannot be explained in terms of one or two factors only and that various factors actually combine and become the ’cause’ of the change.
Ginsberg observes:
“A cause is an assemblage of factors which, in interaction with each other, undergo a change of character in combination in the manner of a chemical substance and are continued into the effect. In practical life and in the scientific studies arising out of practical needs we are always in search of such continuities. We assume that one difference implies another and that changes do not occur in isolation, but are linked without gaps in time or space with other changes”.
Thus, causal relationship has much the same significance in the social sciences as in the natural sciences. Secondly, there are important differences between social and physical causation. Social facts are more variable and less likely to be repeated in identical fashion than physical events.
“Because of this, and the ensuing difficulty of isolating cause-factors, causal relationships in the social sciences cannot be stated in the form of uniform sequences or conations between specific events, but in the form of changes of pattern within a series of interlinked events”.
There is another important difference between social and physical causation. Social causation involves mental factors which obviously mark off social causation from physical causation. Unlike physical objects, individuals ‘respond’ rather than react to their environment, and they do so selectively.
While analysing social change, we are to take a macro-view, keeping in mind the similarity and differences between the social universe and the physical universe. Micro view of a particular social event in the manner of analysing a physical event cannot adequately bring out the causes responsible for the social event. The analysis of Ginsberg is particularly important, in so far as it draws attention to this aspect.
In the aforesaid analysis of Ginsberg, two important factors are not considered at all. These are demographic factors and technological factors both of which are of crucial significance in terms of their bearing on social change in the contemporary world.