Question

Short essay (Sociology)

Which theory of social change do you find the most persuasive? Why?

Answer 1

Despite the wide variety in the possible directions change may take, various generalisations have been set forth. Because the lot of mankind generally has improved over the long term, by far the most numerous classes of theories of the direction of change comprise various cumulative or evolutionary trends. Though varying in many ways, these theories share an important conclusion that the course of man’s history is marked up upward trend through time. The notion of evolution came into social sciences from the theories of biological evolution. With the advent of Darwinian Theory of biological evolution, society and culture began to be regarded as undergoing the same changes and demonstrating the same trends. It was conceived that society and culture were subject to the same general laws of biological and organism growth. Some thinkers even identified evolution with progress and proceeded to project into the future more and more perfect and better-adapted social and cultural forms. The basic assumption of this theory is that change is the characteristic feature of human society. The present observed condition of the society is presumed to be the result of change in the past. Another assumption is that change is inevitable or it is natural. It was assumed that the change is basically the result of operation of forces within the society or culture. Underlying all theories of evolution, there exists a belief of infinite improvement in the next stage over the preceding one. All these assumptions can be summarized as under: That change is inevitable and natural. That change is gradual and continuous. That change is sequential and in certain stages. That all successive stages of change are higher over preceding stage, i.e., evolution is progressive. That stages of change are non-reversible. That forces of change are inherent in the object. That the direction of change is from simple to complex, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from undifferentiated to the differentiated in form and function. That all societies pass through same stages of development. It postulates the straight-line, ordered or progressive nature of social change. According to this theory, change always proceeds toward a predestined goal in a unilinear fashion. There is no place of repetition of the same stage in this theory. Followers of this pattern of change argue that society gradually moves to an even higher state of civili­sation which advances in a linear fashion and in the direction of improvement. The pace of this change may be swift or slow. In brief, linear hypothesis states that all aspects of society change continually in a certain direction, never faltering, never repeating themselves.