Culture Case

According to Karl Marx, the formation of social relations and mental conceptions and attitudes are dependent upon technology, which is an example of social change. His thinking offered insights into many institutions. The Marxist view of social change does not restrict people to a passive role in responding to inevitable cycles or changes in material culture. Marxist theory offers a tool for those who wish to seize control of the historical process and gain their freedom from injustice. In contrast to functionalists' emphasis on stability, Marx argues that conflict is a normal and desirable aspect of social change. Change must be encouraged as a means of eliminating social inequality (Lauer 1982). Functionalists focus on what maintains a system, not on what changes it. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), viewed society as being in a natural state of equilibrium. The functionalist theory minimizes the importance of change. It emphasizes the persistence of social life and sees change as a means of maintaining society's equilibrium, while a conflict theorist states that social institutions and practices persist, because powerful groups have the ability to maintain the status quo. Change has a huge significance, since it is needed to correct social injustices and inequalities. Efforts to promote social change are likely to meet with resistance. Because of rapid scientific and technological innovations, many people are frightened by the demands of an ever-changing society, causing certain individuals and groups have a stake in maintaining the existing state of affairs, which relates to Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) coining the term vested interests, referring to those people or groups who will suffer in the event of social change. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) also contributes to theories of social change. Darwin's approach stresses a continuing progression of successive life-forms. The evolutionary theory, viewed society as moving in a definite direction. An evolutionary theorist would agree that society is progressing inevitably toward a higher state, and that their behavior and culture were more advanced than those of earlier civilizations. Ogburn (1922) pointed out that one cannot devise methods for controlling and using new technology before the introduction of a technique; introducing the term culture lag. This refers to the period of maladjustment when the nonmaterial culture is still struggling to adapt to new material conditions. Computer technologies for example are becoming more advanced, more rapidly making them hard to regulate control. Because of this, computer technologies are creating cultural lags, which lead to resistance. A few factors that contribute to resistance to change would be any environmental, legislative, economic or political forces acting on organizations.