THE DESTINY OF SOCIETY: Sociologies of Hope and Hopelessness

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THE DESTINY OF SOCIETY Sociologies of Hope and
Hopelessness
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING IN SOCIOLOGY

• Darwins Nightmare?

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Contents of Presentation

• 1. Introduction
• Social Darwinism and Societal Transformation
• Central Question and Main Theory
• Assumption, Paradigm Shift, and Agenda of Main
  Theory
• 2. Typologies of Evolutionary Theorizing
• Classical
• Neo-evolutionary
• 3. Classical Evolutionary Theorists
• 4. Neo-evolutionary Theorists
• 5. Darwins Nightmares

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IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnLvszWBf6BQ

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• INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTIONSocial Darwinism

• Evolutionary selection is the organizing force of
  not only the natural world but also the social
  world.
• According to Herbert Spencer, since all
  creatures adapt biologically to their
  environments, it is both useless and cruel to try
  to civilize the natives in colonies or to allow
  criminals and mentally defective persons to
  produce their inevitably defective children (
  Collins and Makowsky 2005, p. 81).

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• EVOLUTIONARY SELECTION (x)

x
Y
Transformation of the Social World
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INTRODUCTIONSocietal Transformation

• Evolutionary theories of sociology provide a
  stimulating overview of how societies transform
  by identifying
• 1. the major and far-reaching differences
  between our reality and that of our ancestors.
• 2. the processes of the transformation
• 3. the directions and impact of the
  transformation
• 4. the driving forces of the transformation
• 5. the destiny of society

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INTRODUCTIONCentral Question

• WHAT IS THE CHANGE PATTERN OF HUMAN SOCIETIES,
  ITS IMPACT, DRIVING FORCE DESTINATION?

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INTRODUCTIONMain Theory

• All human societies start from the same point,
  move on the same path and in the same direction
  towards the same destination independent of the
  actions of societal members or social
  engineering.

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INTRODUCTIONAssumption

• Human choices count for little unless society is
  in transitional crisis Societal change is
  non-negotiable.

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INTRODUCTIONParadigm Shift

• Supernatural forces and human/social action have
  little to do with societal change.
• Social Engineering is unnecessary
• According to Saint-Simon, the main task of
  science knowledge is to discover the laws of
  social development, evolution , and progress
  those laws are inevitable and absolute. All that
  man can do is submit. Progress takes place in
  stages and each stage is necessary and
  contributes something to the further progress of
  humankind (Zeitlin 2001 71).

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INTRODUCTIONAgenda

• Political To maintain the STATUS QUO.
• to avert revolution and to achieve the
  resignation of the multitude to the conditions
  of the existing order (Zeitlin 2001 82).
• This agenda puts evolutionary theorizing into the
  ideological typology of sociological theory.

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• TYPOPOLOGIES

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TYPOLOGIES OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• 1. Classical Evolution Theory Linear Stages
  Model
• 2. Neo Evolution Theory
• Ecological Model
• Curvilinear Model
• Globalization Model

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TYPOLOGIES OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• CLASSICAL Growth is Progress Stages Toward
  Progress
• Conceptualizes the movement of society through
  evolutionary stages where each stage of
  development represents a marked movement in human
  progress.
• The movements are independent of social
  action/engineering.
• NEO Growth creates a New order but not
  necessarily Progress
• focuses on mechanisms and processes of change in
  size, scale, scope and complexity rather than
  progress.
• Social action/engineering influences change only
  in periods of structural crises.

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• CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

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CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• MAIN THEORY
• Change in human society is inevitable,
  unidirectional, stages-based, and progresses
  toward a final destination.

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SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF CLASSICAL SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• 1. All societies are fundamentally similar in
  that they all go through the same sequence of
  stages, albeit at different rates of change,
  showing a hierarchy of developmental stages
  toward the highest and final stage.
• 2. Many of these classical theorists ranked their
  own societies (European societies) very high and
  placed contemporary non-European societies lower
  on the sequence of developmentthrowbacks to
  earlier, simpler social forms that European
  societies had long since surpassed.

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SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF CLASSICAL SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• 3. Classical social evolutionists did not believe
  that once the final stage of evolution was
  achieved, history came to an end rather, they
  thought that once the final stage arrives, change
  would involve a continued elaboration and
  development of this final form.

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SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF CLASSICAL SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• 4. Social Relationships, that is, 1) Social
  Action, 2) Social Status positions and Roles, 3)
  Culture, 4) Structured Social Inequality, 5)
  Social Institutions, 6) Attitudes and Behaviors
  of individuals, and 7) all collective phenomena
  are manifestations of a particular stage of
  development or disruptions that occur in crises
  periods of transition in the progressive
  development process.

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• CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONISTS

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CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONISTS

• Saint-Simon Sociology of Hope
• Auguste Comte Sociology of Hope
• Herbert Spencer Sociology of Hope
• Emile Durkheim Sociology of Hope
• Karl Marx Sociology of Hope
• Max Weber Sociology of Hopelessness
• Thorstein Bunde Veblen Sociology of Hope

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY
CLASSICAL EVOLUTIONISTS

• 1. Saint-Simon Comte Model
• The Law of Three Stages
• Movement of ideas towards science causes society
  to progress in stages from THEOLOGICAL, through
  METAPHYSICAL to POSITIVISTIC.
• Whats the driving force of social progress?
• Knowledge is the underlying and sustaining factor
  of society a social system is the application of
  a system of ideas. The historical growth of
  knowledge, or science, was the major cause of
  the transformation of European society from
  feudalism to industrialism (Zeitlin 2001 70-71).

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Theological Stage
• Dominated by religion ruled by priests.
• Metaphysical Stage
• Dominated by abstract philosophy ruled by
  Enlightenment thinkers
• Positivistic Stage
• Dominated by science or positive philosophy as
  against negative philosophy, the legacy of
  Enlightenment and the French revolution and
  social thought before them ruled by
  scientific-industrial elite.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• 2. Spencers Model
• The Law of the Four Stages
• Increasing differentiation moves human society
  from simple society through compound and doubly
  compound societies to trebly compound society.
• What drives social progress?
• Increasing differentiation in the areas of
  production, reproduction, regulation and
  distribution moves society progressively from a
  simple stage, through compound, to doubly
  compound and trebly compound stages. In the
  process the best forms of social organization
  emerge ensuring the survival of the fittest and
  thereby elevating the level of society.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• Simple societies of hunters and gatherers reveal
  very little differentiation. As societies
  compound to horticultural systems, however, clear
  differentiation between regulatory (political)
  and operative (productive and reproductive)
  structures is evident then, as they doubly
  compound into agrarian societies, they
  differentiate distinctive distributive systems
  such as markets, ports and roads. Finally, with
  treble compounding into industrial societies,
  complex patterns of differentiation between and
  within the operative, regulative, and
  distributive axes are evident.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Simple Society
• Dominated by hunting-gathering virtually no
  differentiation among the three fundamental axes
  of society.
• Compound Society
• Dominated by horticulture clear differentiation
  among the axes of society
• Doubly Compound Society
• Dominated by agrarian activities distinct
  differentiation with the distributive axis
• Trebly Compound
• Dominated by industrial activities complex
  differentiation among and within the three main
  axes of society.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• Survival of the fittest
• Almost a decade before Darwin published On the
  Origin of Species, Spencer coined the phrase
  Survival of the fittest. He used this phrase in
  a moral and philosophical sense, arguing that the
  best forms of social organizations emerge with
  unregulated competition among human, which allows
  most fit to survive, thereby elevating the level
  of society (Turner 2003 77).

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• 3. Durkheims Model
• The Law of Two Stages
• The necessity of social integration moves human
  society from the Mechanical Solidarity stage to
  the Organic Solidarity stage
• What drives social progress?
• Problems of integration compel society to become
  differentiated and progressively move from a
  MECHANICAL SOLIDARITY stage to an ORGANIC
  SOLIDARITY stage (Emile Durkheim).

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Mechanical Solidarity Stage
• This is an initial stage of evolution when
  society is characterised by hunting/gathering
  with little differentiation. Collective
  conscience (shared basic moral values, beliefs,
  and norms) provided social solidarity.
• Organic Solidarity Stage
• This highest stage of society is characterized by
  industrialization with complex pattern of
  differentiation, and division of labour creating
  a moral value in the form of mutual
  interdependence that provide integration for the
  social system.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• 4. Marxs Model
• The Law of Six Stages
• Contradictions in the relations of production
  create social conflict that moves society from
  Classprimitive communism through slavery,
  feudalism, capitalism, and socialism-- to
  Classlessness (advanced communism).
• What drives social progress?
• Contradictions in relations of production
  reflected in economic inequalities, exploitation
  and alienation produce conflicts--class
  struggles--that progressively transform society
  from class society into classless society
  specifically from a primitive communalism through
  ancient slavery, feudalism, and capitalism, to
  socialism, and, ultimately, communism.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Primitive Communism
• Hunting/gathering is the focus of life with
  little economic inequalities and exploitation.
• Slavery
• Horticulture/agrarian activities dominate slaves
  and commoners are exploited for the benefits of
  the nobility/royalty.
• Feudalism
• Agrarian economy is well developed with the
  exploited labour of the serfs for the benefit of
  the clergy and gentry.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• Capitalism
• Industrialization takes a central stage
  exploiting the working classes (proletariat) for
  the benefit of the upper classes (bourgeoisie).
• Socialism
• Dictatorship of the proletariat .
• Communism
• Highest stage of industrialization without
  exploitation classless society.
• Inequality
• Unfair distribution of scarce resources
• Exploitation
• Appropriation of the labor effort of a
  group/individual for the benefit of another.
• Alienation
• Separation from ones self, others, and
  product/service.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• 5. Webers Model
• The Law of Two Stages
• Increasing rationality moves society from
  traditional society to modern society
• What drives social change?
• Increasing rationality changes society from a
  traditional inefficient stage into a modern
  efficient but oppressive bureaucratic stage
• Increasing purposive rationality structures
  society into a bureaucratic iron cage.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Purposive Rationality
• the rule of reason demanding that meaning and
  action are justified explicitly and objectively.
• Iron Cage
• Social organization that depersonalizes,
  dehumanizes, and dominates/restrains its members.
• Bureaucracy
• formally rational, large-scale organization with
  the following six characteristics division of
  labor, hierarchy of positions, formal system of
  rules, separation of the person from the office,
  hiring and promotion based on technical merit,
  and the protection of careers that produce
  efficiency.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• 6. Veblens Model
• The Law of Three Stages
• From savagery through barbarianism to
  civilization
• As the material conditions of life change,
  society develops through three basic
  stages--savagery through barbarianism to
  civilization.

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LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY

• MAJOR CONCEPTS
• Savage Society
• Small, independent, and self-sufficient hunting
  and gathering communities.
• Barbarian Society
• Both the agricultural slave societies of the
  ancient Middle East and Asia and feudal societies
  that developed in Europe and Asia.
• Civilization
• Modern society that began in the West in the 19th
  century with the Industrial Revolution.

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• NEO-EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

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NEO-EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• MAIN THEORY
• Competition for scarce resources and control over
  surplus compels society to evolve/grow from
  simple to more complex forms of social
  organization.

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NEO-EVOLUTIONARY THEORISTS

• Amos Hawley
• Gerhard Lenski
• Jurgen Habermas
• Anthony Giddens
• Immanuel Wallerstein

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1. ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• Unlike the stages model, the ecological model
  does not focus on social progress. Rather, it
  focuses on growththat is, increasing size,
  scale, scope, and complexity of the systemic
  whole in its environment (Turner 2003 89).

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ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF NEO-EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• Amos Hawleys Ecological Model
• Main Theory A societys contact with other
  cultures and societies causes it to increase in
  size, scale, scope, and complexity.
• An ecosystems exposure to ecumenical environment
  produces new knowledge that causes growth and
  change in society when it increases the level of
  communication and transportation technologies
  through increasing production which then causes
  expansion of these technologies until the
  mobility costs associated with the change reach
  their maximum, that is, until equilibrium is
  attained (Hawley 1950, 1992).

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ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Growth
• Increasing size, scale, scope, and complexity of
  the systemic whole in its environment
• Mobility cost
• the time, energy, money and materials associated
  with the movement of information, materials, and
  people for a change in any given technology.
• Ecumenical Environment
• Other societies or cultures of other societies
• Equilibrium
• Relative stability in the ecological system.

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2. CURVILINEAR STAGES MODEL OF NEO-EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• Main Theory
• Societies begin with equality, change into
  inequality, and move toward equality (Kuznets
  Curve).
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vWth6HhOYpn8

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CURVILINEAR STAGES MODEL OF EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• Lenskis Model
• Main Theory Improvement in technology first
  changes society from more equality to less
  equality and later back towards more equality.
• Low technology-production-surplus in
  hunting/gathering societies displayed the most
  equality then through medium technology-productio
  n-surplus in horticultural and agrarian societies
  monopolistic control of surplus increased
  inequality, but with high technology-production-su
  rplus in industrial societies, democratic
  redistribution of surplus lowered inequality
  somewhat but not to the level of hunter-gatherers
  (Gerhard Lenski).

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CURVILINEAR STAGES MODEL OF EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Inequality
• Unfair distribution of power and privilege among
  the members of a population.
• Societal types
• Hunting and gathering societies, simple
  horticultural societies, advanced horticultural
  societies, agrarian societies, and industrial
  societies.

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• MainTheory
• Traditional societies disintegrate into
  transitional modern capitalist nation-states and
  eventually into a global society.

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• 1. Habermas Model Three Stages
• Main Theory Crises/contradictions in the social
  system transmitted by communicative action
  transform society from primitive classless,
  through class systems, to a postmodern classless
  global society.
• Communicative action/rationality (increasing
  rationalization of peoples lifeworlds or ideas,
  values and consciousness) transmits the crises
  and contradictions inherent in a social system
  to transform society from primitive classless
  social formation, through class social formations
  (traditional civilizations, modern
  civilizationsliberal capitalist, organized
  capitalist, postcapitalist) to postmodern
  classless global social formation (Jurgen
  Habermas).

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• In other words, this evolutionary process is a
  reflection of underlying structural changes and
  contradictions manifested in the breakdown of
  shared values or normative structures that cause
  the old social system to disintegrate because
  such disintegration threatens peoples feeling of
  social identity, and therefore integration
  (Wallace and Wolf 2006 177)
• All societies in a given social formation are
  similar in their lifeworlds that evolve.

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Lifeworld (Ideas and Consciousness) Peoples
  values, feelings, identity, and interaction.
• Communicative Action or Communicative
  Rationality
• a distinctive type of interaction oriented to
  mutual understanding or noncoercive
  argumentation an ideal speech situation in
  which everyone would have an equal chance to
  argue and question, without those who are more
  powerful, confident, or prestigious having an
  unequal say (Wallace and Wolf 2006 184)

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• Primitive Social Formation
• Tribal societies where the burden of social
  integration is on religion
• Traditional Civilizations
• Ancient and Feudal societies where the burden of
  social integration is shifting from religion
• Liberal Capitalist Social Formation
• 19th Century capitalism where the consensus
  formation in language is emerging as the burden
  of social integration.

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• Organized Capitalist Social Formation
• Capitalism in the 20th and 21th centuries Western
  societies where the burden of social integration
  is shifting to consensus formation in language
• Postcapitalist Social Formation
• State-socialist class societies where the
  political elite disposes of the means of
  production.
• Postmodern
• Global high modernity where the burden of social
  integration has shifted to consensus formation in
  language/voices.

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• 2. Anthony Giddens Model Three Stages
• Main Theory Changing dynamics of the interaction
  between social structure and human agency have
  transformed human society from a tribal system
  through a class-divided systems to a global high
  modernity
• Due to structuration, the past is dominated first
  by tribal societies and then by class-divided
  societies where tradition and kinship are the
  dominant structural principles. Then followed
  global high modernity, distinctly different from
  class-divided societies in that its classes are
  global and structured by expertise and risk
  (Anthony Giddens).

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3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEO- EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

• ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS DEFINITIONS
• Structuration The dynamics of the combined
  forces of social structure and human agency
• Social Structure Norms, particularly rules, of
  relationships that tell people how to do social
  life, and the resources on which people can call
  to do social life.
• Human Agency The creative aspect of human
  actionthe individual as a knowledgeable actor.
• Global High Modernity Modern capitalism where
  people both calculate risk and feel out of
  control where economic changes have taken from
  the poor to give to the richon a huge and global
  scale, both within and between countries (Susan
  George 1999 190).

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• DARWINS NIGHTMARES

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DARWINS NIGHTMARES

• 1. Natural Selection is the Exception Unnatural
  Selection is the Rule
• A) Orchestrated or planned action does the
  de-selection or the selection.
• B) Societies that are well advanced on the
  evolutionary ladder are not producing enough
  off-spring and vice versa
• 2) Change is negotiable

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DARWINS NIGHTMARES

• Unnatural Selections is the Rule
• MOVIE REVIEW 'DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE' By A. O. SCOTT
  Published August 3, 2005 Get the full video
  in Camosun Library and watch it.
• Youtube Video http//www.youtube.com/watch?vVK9v
  3ioiYBUfeaturefvsr

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DARWINS NIGHTMARES

• What do the planes bring to Africa?The answers
  vary. The factory managers say the planes'
  cavernous holds are empty when they land. One of
  the Russians, made uncomfortable by the question,
  mutters something vague about "equipment." Some
  of his colleagues, and several ordinary Mwanzans,
  are more forthright the planes, while they
  occasionally bring humanitarian food and medical
  aid, more often bring the weapons that fuel the
  continent's endless and destructive wars.
• Along the shores of the lake, homeless children
  fight over scraps of food and get high from the
  fumes of melting plastic-foam containers used to
  pack the fish. In the encampments where the
  fishermen live, AIDS is rampant and the afflicted
  walk back to their villages to die.

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DARWINS NIGHTMARES

• Unnatural Selection is the Rule
• The Nile perch itself haunts the film's infernal
  landscape like a monstrous metaphor. An alien
  species introduced into Lake Victoria sometime in
  the 1960's, it has devoured every other kind of
  fish in the lake, even feeding on its own young
  as it grows to almost grotesque dimensions, and
  destroying an ancient and diverse ecosystem.

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DARWINS NIGHTMARES

• 3. The Extinction of the Naturally Selected
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_an
  d_territories_by_fertility_rate

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DARWINS NIGHTMARES

• The Extinction of the Naturally Selected
• In 2005, Hispanic women had the highest fertility
  rates, followed by non-Hispanic black women,
  Asian women, Native American women, and
  non-Hispanic white women. Fertility rates for
  Hispanic women were over 45 percent higher than
  those for non-Hispanic black women and Asian
  women (99 births per 1,000 for Hispanic women
  versus 67 births per 1,000 for non-Hispanic black
  and Asian women), and more than 65 percent higher
  than those for Native American women and
  non-Hispanic white women (60 and 58 births per
  1,000 women, respectively). (See Figure 3)

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DARWINS NIGHTMARESThe Extinction of the
Naturally Selected

• Ukraine 0.8 natural decrease annually 28
  total population decrease by 2050Russia -0.6
  -22Belarus -0.6 -12Bulgaria -0.5
  -34Latvia -0.5 -23Lithuania -0.4
  -15Hungary -0.3 -11Romania -0.2
  -29Estonia -0.2 -23Moldova -0.2
  -21Croatia -0.2 -14Germany -0.2 -9Czech
  Republic -0.1 -8Japan 0 -21Poland 0
  -17Slovakia 0 -12Austria 0 8
  increaseItaly 0 -5Slovenia 0 -5

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• CONCLUSION

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CONCLUSION

• Societal Change is Negotiable
• The irony of Marxism and functionalism, says
  Berger and Luckmann, was that though their social
  ideas were inspired by the high ideals of the
  Enlightenment, their social theories sketched a
  process of social evolution in which individual
  choice counted for little Berger and Luckmann
  wished to bring real living, acting individuals
  back into the center of social thinking. They
  aimed to replace organismic and mechanistic
  social imagery with a view of society as a
  precariously negotiated, fluid order that
  ultimately resides in the interaction of
  individuals. The very title of their major work,
  The Social Construction of Reality, underscored
  the power of the individual to shape society and
  the open-ended character of history ( Seidman
  2004, p. 81)