S2018106402 – Montenegro, Roi Vincent V.

BSE – Mathematics | PROFED 3

“There is a cultural lag between material progress,

and social institutions and ethical values”

Imagine a four-wheeled car, and tomorrow, one of its wheels will be upgraded into
something more technological and innovative compared to the remaining three wheels.
Do you think the car will function well? Of course not. Do you think the three wheels can
catch up to the more upgraded wheel? Of course not. This is how cultural lag is defined.
It is a phenomenon wherein the material culture (technological advancements, etc.)
changes faster compare to changes in the non-material culture (norms, laws, beliefs,
etc.). This implies that while the technology is emerging in a very fast rate, our beliefs
ethics, or laws evolves as well but in a much slower rate. The concept asserts that this
gap on material and non-material culture can lead to societal conflicts and ethical
dilemmas.

This quotation conceptualized from W.F. Ogburn is indeed true and still relevant to our
society nowadays. In field of education for example, different learning management
systems are utilized nowadays by different institutions. This is an advancement in
educational technology. However, not all students has the adequate resources such as
internet or a gadget to be able to access the LMS. What can be its probable result? Some
students will not be able to submit requirements on time or not at all. How are teachers
going to deal with this? Will he/she giving a consideration? Or the student will get a failing
grade? It is a dilemma. Furthermore, divides can be formed in a classroom because some
students can access it some cannot. These material progress can result to social conflicts
among social institutions such as family and schools itself because as these
advancements emerges, the adaptations of different social institutions where we belong
adapts in a sluggish manner. Child Development can also be an example for cultural lag.
Due to gadgets such as tablets and mobile phones, kids nowadays tends to use these
gadgets instead of social interactions. Furthermore, parents doesn’t have much time to
communicate with their child personally. These lag possibly resulted to the slow social
and ethical development of a child. Another example is integrating ICT in the curriculum.
Even though this subject will be very beneficial for the students, government did not
prepare well for this. Not all institutions has computers installed in them. If there is, most
of it are not functioning well. It is a conflict on social institutions. Social institutions and
material progress has gap. Teachers who are going to teach ICT are also lacking in
training. Not all teacher has the access to different resources in order for them to teach
ICT. Not all teachers has the avenue for them to train hands on for better understanding.
This contradicts one of the concepts in ethical standards for teachers, the value of
integrity. Moreover, we cannot teach what we do not know. The gap between material
progress and ethical values is indeed evident.

These material progress is unstoppable and our society tends to accept these emergent
material progress while our non-material culture rejects this change and resulting to that
lag or gap. Just like the aforementioned car example, the wheels symbolizes the different
cultures we have and once a part of it is changed or upgraded, the whole car will not
function well and will result to conflicts among the parts. A drastic change in material
culture mostly results to a large gap to social institutions and ethical values that’s why
material and non-material culture should work hand in hand to attain harmonious society
where issues and conflicts won’t arise. Our beliefs, laws, ethics, and way of thinking
should always be adaptive to changes, especially in material culture change. What we
need to do is to have necessary preparations and adaptation measures so our beliefs,
laws, norms, and etc. will not be left behind the material progress. Lastly, we should not
indulge ourselves to these emergent technologies because our humanities should still be
winning. Just like what Dr. Tuga of PNU have said “Technology will never replace
teachers because teachers have something they can never have – it’s HUMANITIES”

References:
Cultural Lag (2020) by LoveToKnow Corp. retrieved from:
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/cultural-lag-examples.html
Effects of Cultural Lag (2019) by Ashley Crossman retrieved from:
https://www.thoughtco.com/cultural-lag-3026167
Culture Lag and Culture shock (2014) by Jimmy Howick retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINGZpEWicw