LIVING IN THE IT ERA

Jonathan Javinar
SOCIAL EVOLUTION
Jonathan Javinar
At the end of this module, you are
expected to
1. Know where, when and who started social evolution.

2. Know the long waves of social evolutions.

3. Determine the impact of global information explosion.

Introduction to Social Evolution
Social Evolution
 Proposed in the 19th century social advancement,
 referred to as Unilineal Evolution, was the main
hypothesis produced for the human sciences. This
hypothesis asserts that social evolution occurs based
on a single universal order meaning evolution of
societies follow one singular path but differences in
societies are present because social evolution happens
at various rates. This is why there were/are distinctive
kinds of societies existing on the planet.
Introduction to Social Evolution
Social Evolution
Proponents of Social Evolution, who by the way
mainly relied on secondary-data, classified societies
into universal evolutionary stages with technology or
technological advancements being the primary basis.

Social development is the thing that researchers term

an expansive arrangement of hypotheses that
endeavor to clarify how and why present day societies
are not quite the same as those before.
Introduction to Social Evolution

Social development has a wide assortment of opposing

and clashing elucidations among researchers - actually,
Herbert Spencer [1820-1903] as indicated by Perrin
(1976), one planner of present day social evolution had
four working definitions that he modified throughout his
career.
Introduction to Social Evolution
According to Perrin, Spencerian social evolution studies a
mixture of all of the following:

Social Progress: Society always moves toward an ideal

setting, where though there exists individuality and
specialization based on different achieved qualities,
there is voluntary cooperation among individuals who
have high discipline.
Social Requirements: Society is shaped by its set of
functional requirements like sexual reproduction and
food sustenance, environmental aspects like climate,
and social existence aspects, the behaviors that
makes living together possible.
Introduction to Social Evolution
Increasing Division of Labor: the evolution of society
happens by intensifying the functioning of each class,
group, or individual.

Origin of Social Species: it is believed that society’s

development like an embryo echoes the stages and
change that has been experienced by its ancestors,
albeit the final direction of those changes may and
can still be altered by outside forces.
Where Did This Notion Come From?
In the mid-19th century, the physical evolution theories
of Charles Darwin influenced social evolution but lo and
behold social evolution did not come from the theories or
writings of Charles Darwin. The 19th-century
anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan is credited to be the
first to apply the principles of evolution to social
phenomena.

Morgan pointed out that society moved relentlessly

through stages that he coined as savagery, barbarism, and
civilization.
Where Did This Notion Come From?
But it wasn't Morgan who observed that first. Before the
19th-century social evolutionists, researchers in the 17th
and 18th Centuries like that of Auguste Comte,
Condorcet, Cornelius de Pauw, Adam Ferguson, among
others reacted to "voyage literature", stories of the
fifteenth and sixteenth century western pioneers who
brought back reports of newfound plants, creatures, and
social orders. And those researchers attempted to give
explanation as to why there were differences In their
societies.
Where Did This Notion Come From?

But then again, ancient scholars such as Polybius and

Thucydides describing the early Roman and Greek
cultures as barbaric versions of their own present, built
histories of their own societies. Society developed from a
family-based organization, into village-based, and finally
into the Greek state, that is Aristotle's idea of social
evolution Much of the modern concepts of social
evolution are present in Greek and Roman literature.
Where Did This Notion Come From?

Despite the differences of social evolutionists whether

modern or ancient they all have a classical view of change
as growth, that progress is natural, inevitable, gradual,
and continuous according to Bock (writing in 1955). All of
them write in terms of successive, finely-graded stages of
development; all seek the seeds in the original; all
exclude consideration of specific events as effective
factors, and all derive from a reflection of existing social
or cultural forms arranged in a series.
The Long Waves of Social Evolution

Figure 4.1. Long Waves of Social Evolution

The Long Waves of Social Evolution
Similar to how social evolutionists categorized what
.
is a more socially evolved culture or society, the long
waves of social evolution depict how technology has
advanced through time. From early stone tools to the
development of the water wheel which in itself marked
the industrial revolution. From the discovery or
invention of electricity and engineering which also
marked the start of computers until what it is today as
we know it, the Internet Age.
The Long Waves of Social Evolution

. It can also be seen that the long waves of social

evolution aside from being benchmarked with
technology, the waves overlap with each other. As
discussed in previous topics the end of a wave could
actually mean the end of a certain or specific
technological advancement that which has not adapted
to the needs of the society or that which has seen the
last of its usefulness to society.
Global Information Explosion

. Due to more and more people gaining access to

information in the World Wide Web and more so with
more and more individuals or groups making
information easily available in the internet, information
explosion has become a reality if not already very close
to it.
Global Information Explosion

. The effects can already be seen in the cyclical

uploading and downloading of information. With so
much information it can easily lead to erosion of work
efficiency. Take for example, the simple browsing or
surfing the net. People tend to get lost in the moment
or get lost in the information for that matter and time
flies without them knowing they have not really
accomplished what can be called a productive work or
time.
Global Information Explosion
Albeit not all impacts and effects of online information
overload
. is negative:

•Access to and availability of more information enables

ideas, comparability and interlinkages. Are we doing the
right thing? How do others handle the same challenge or
situation?
•There are always problems behind more problems - and so
there will always be solutions for more solutions. By
understanding the cause-effect dynamics, better and more
information enable a holistic and integrative approach to be
built
Global Information Explosion
•When we link the problem at hand to others who have
encountered
. similar concerns, and have attempted different
solutions, more ideas can be generated when people have a
broader and deeper understanding of the issues involved.
•Access to a wide range and gamut of information aids local
creativity, inspires action, and generates innovative ideas
and ways of doing things.
•Continual learning is critical for anyone to be able to
understand the changing values and behavior patterns of
people in the now that affect the future. Continual learning
becomes an anytime-anywhere process due to the easy
access of information.
References and Supplementary Materials
Online Supplementary Reading Materials
.
Social Evolutionism - How Did Modern Society Develop?;
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-social-evolutionism-172801; May
11,2018
Social Evolution of Anthropological Theory;
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/anthr
opologicaltheory/; May 11,2018
File:Long Waves of Social
evolution.jpg;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Long_Waves_of
_Social_Evolu tion.jpg; May11, 2018
Global Convergence and Local Divergence:
Implications of Online Information Explosion;
https://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/output3.html; May11, 2018