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CULTURE CHANGE
and Social Change
by Phil Bartle, PhD
Introduction to the Module (Hub)
Documents Included in this Change Module
How and Why Does Society Change?
A society is always changing.
So are all the social institutions in it, communities, families, organizations.
Some social scientists, as a result, do not like to talk about ”social structure” because that implies more stability than there is.
From the early days of sociology, social change has been a vital topic.
Marx talked about material dialectics, the dialectics part he borrowed from Hegel.
Weber talked about Protestantism causing the rise of the industrial revolution.
Most social change starts with change in technology, the easiest dimension to introduce new inventions or obtain from cultures in contact.
Every change in technology then results in adaptive changes in all the remaining five dimensions.
Change tends to be cumulative. New elements are added onto the old, and the old may continue until they become hindrances to survival and growth.
In general (that means there are exceptions) change tends to be in the direction from simple to complex.
Planned change tends to result in changes that are not planned, expected or desired.
The biggest change in human history appears to be the agricultural revolution, which brought cities, and which continues today.
Mobilization, the organizing and encouraging of communities to act, is in itself social change, and results in social change.
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