HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Several ideas of social change have been developed in various cultures and

historical periods. Three may be distinguished as the most basic: (1) the idea
of decline or degeneration, or, in religious terms (2) the idea of cyclic change,
a pattern of subsequent phase of growth and decline, and (3) the idea of
continuous progress. These three ideas were already prominent in Greek and
Roman antiquity and have characterized Western social thought since that
time. The concept of progress, however, has become the most influential idea,
especially since the Enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Social thinkers advanced theories on the progress of human knowledge
and technology.

Auguste Comte's “religion of humanity”Learn about Auguste Comte's

positivist philosophy and his attempts to establish a “religion of humanity.”
Progress was also the key idea in 19th-century theories of social evolution,
and evolutionism was the common core shared by the most influential social
theories of that century.

The most encompassing theory of social evolution was developed by Herbert

Spencer, who, unlike Comte, linked social evolution to biological evolution.
According to Spencer, biological organisms and human societies follow the
same universal, natural evolutionary law.

Evolutionary thought also dominated the new field of social and cultural

anthropology in the second half of the 19th century.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels  were highly influenced by evolutionary ideas.

The Marxian distinctions between primitive communism, the Asiatic mode of
production, ancient slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and future socialism may
be interpreted as a list of stages in one evolutionary development.

The originality of the Marxian theory of social development lay in its

combination of dialectics and gradualism. In Marx’s view social development
was a dialectical process: the transition from one stage to another took place
through a revolutionary transformation.

É mile Durkheim and Max Weber, sociologists who began their careers at the

end of the 19th century, showed ambivalence toward the ideas of progress.
Durkheim regarded the increasing division of labour as a basic process, rooted
in modern individualism. Weber rejected evolutionism by arguing that the
development of Western society was quite different from that of other
civilizations and therefore historically unique.

The work of Durkheim, Weber, and other social theorists around the turn of
the century marked a transition from evolutionism toward more static
theories.

The study of long-term social change revived in the 1950s and continued to
develop through the 1960s and ’70s. Neoevolutionist theories were
proclaimed by several anthropologists. Unlike 19th-century
evolutionism, neoevolutionism does not assume that all societies go through
the same stages of development. Instead, much attention is paid to variations
between societies as well as to relations of influence among them.

THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Social Change refers to the modifications which take place in life patterns of a
people. It occurs because all societies are in a constant state of disequilibrium.
Early sociologists viewed the cultures of primitive peoples as completely
static.

But this view was abandoned with the appearance of scientific studies of pre-
literate culture. Anthropologists now agree that primitive cultures always
underwent changes, although at a very slow pace, which initially gave the
impression of their being static and stationary.

All modern sociologists unanimously express their agreement on the

naturalness and inevitability of Social change in each human society. However,
at the same time they project and advocate various theories of Social Change.
Each theory seeks to explain the nature and reasons and scope of Social
Change in a particular way. Following are the most important theories of
social change:
1. Cyclic Theory:
Many of our present day thinkers have put forward the cyclic theory of social
change. These include Spengler, Vacher-de-Lapouge, Vilfredo Pareto, F. Staurt
Chopin, Sorokin and Arnold J. Toynbee. Spengler is of the view that like day
and night, society too has a pre-determined course which includes its birth,
growth, maturity and decline. J.B. Bury has also contributed to this idea. On
the basis of analysis of some of the great civilizations like Egyptian, Roman
and Greek civilizations, he came to the conclusion that all these civilization
saw its decline due to cyclical theory. Vilfredo Pareto is of the view that social
change is due to political circumstances. He feels that vigorous politicians try
to capture power by disturbing the existing social order but with the passage
of time it becomes impossible to vigorously pursue the change and they try to
use their energies for maintaining status quo. This status quo is tolerated till
such time when new aristocracy does not come to the forefront to disturb the
existing order. Therefore, he believes that disturbing social order and
maintaining status quo is in a cyclical order and thus inevitable.
2. Auguste Comte’s StageTheory:
Comte said that society has passed through three stages namely theological,
metaphysical and positive. In the theological stage society, they believed in
supernatural powers and accepted the idea that these powers controlled our
social behaviour. During the second stage i.e. the metaphysical stage his ideas
about supernatural powers changes and from god he came to abstraction and
tried to explain social behavior through abstraction. In the third stage which is
called positive stage, everything is being empirically studied and all this is
going on in a cyclical order.

3. Karl Marx’s Theory of Social Change:

Karl Marx’s theory of social change is also called deterministic or single factor
theory of social change. According to this theory there is only one factor and
not many factors are responsible for bringing social change. According to Karl
Marx, economic factor is the only factor responsible for bringing social
change. Marx believed that except economic factor all other factors are useless
and superfluous and sometimes even harmful. He also believed that religion
was the opium of the people and it distracted masses from hard realities of
life. For Marx, all ideas change with economic ideas and so also the living
standard of the people. Not only this but for Marx, social changes which are
being witnessed in the society are nothing but due to continuous class
struggle. A class struggle is always going on between the rich and the poor,
between the employer and the employee.
4.Structural-Factor Theory:
According to this theory each function of the society directly and positively
influences the other. Every social function is complementary and none is
exclusive. Therefore they believe that changes in functions are reasons behind
social change. This theory is supported by Parsons and Merton.

5.Theory of Religion: There are many who refute Marx’s theory of economic
determinism for social change. They feel that no doubt economic
considerations play a considerably important role but they feel that there are
many other considerations as well according to them, more than economic
consideration are religious considerations. Max Weber contributes to the idea
that religion is responsible for bringing about social change. From history, he
quotes that emergence of Hinduism, Islam, Christanity or Judaism brought
considerable social changes and thus they give more importance to religion
rather than to economic aspects of life for change.

Conclusion:
Social changes are rapidly coming and in fact their occurrence is inevitable.
But what is the rate of social change. A change may occur in different societies
or in the same society at different times. It is more or less impossible to decide
about the rapidity of change and determine whether change is faster than the
other.