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CHAPTER

Social and Cultural Evolution

World history reveals social transformations and directional trends of sufficient generality such that typologies of social forms can be fruitfully constructed. These directional sequences of change constitute the bulk of what is known as social evolution. . . . However, social evolutionists show due respect for the unique and nonrecurrent in world history. The unique and nonrecurrent may [also] be legitimately called social evolution. (Sanderson 2007, 282)

he concept of evolution has had a unique and profound impact on the development of social science. For over one hundred years, it helped define the field’s focus on historical events and trends that most directly affect survival and prosperity: agricultural

revolution, industrialization, and urban growth. In fact,

the disciplines of sociology and anthropology were virtually born evolutionary, for most of the leading founders of these field[s] embraced evolutionism of one type or another, some of them strongly so. The person who is usually credited with being the “father” of sociology, Auguste Comte, had a thoroughly evolutionary conception of the development of modern industrial society, one based on a view of the expansion of the powers of the human mind. Emile Durkheim carried on some of Comte’s basic evolutionary ideas. . . . Even markedly different thinkers like Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer were very much evolutionists. (Sanderson 2007, 1)

Beginning in the early 1900s, sociologists and anthropologists began to question the assumptions of the classical writers. Of special concern was the central thesis that human societies and cultures develop according to the same principles that apply to plant and animal species—varying over time as they struggle to adapt to their respective habitats. By the mid- 1950s, the debate between evolutionists and their critics had led to a thorough reexamination of all social theory, reflecting how important the concept has been to our understanding of the human prospect (Cerroni-Long 1994; Flynn 1994; Sanderson 1990).

This chapter summarizes the classic position and various extensions, critiques, and revisions of it. Our aim is to assess the strengths and limitations of evolutionism today. To what extent does evolutionary theory help us understand the massive sociocultural transformations our species is now undergoing? Is humanity entering a new stage of a long- term evolutionary process? Is it a higher stage, and, if so, in what sense does it represent an advance over the past?

Classic Evolutionism As noted, the concept of evolution was employed in the very first theories of social science in

Weinstein, Jay. Social Change, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=616416. Created from capella on 2018-10-07 17:39:50.

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the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by Adam Smith, Henri Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, and especially Herbert Spencer. Charles Darwin was strongly influenced by Spencer’s social scientific accounts, including the latter’s notion of the survival of the fittest, acknowledging this in print (Darwin [1859] 2008; Spencer 1862; Turner 1993, 65n3). From this association, the ideology of social Darwinism, the literal application of certain biological principles to human relations, was developed.

The foundations of evolutionary thought extend back to ancient times, to the work of Aristotle, Plato, and even earlier philosophers, but by the mid-nineteenth century it was the idea whose time had come. During this period, it radically transformed natural science and the way we think about the world in general (Barzun 1981).

Organic Evolution and Ecological Systems Evolution is a process involving the mutual and cumulative changes that occur as parts of a system interact with each other. Darwin’s formulation focuses on variations in biological traits that eventuate in the creation of new species and the extinction of others. Over the course of time, organisms adapt with varying degrees of success to changes in their habitats, which include geophysical elements such as landforms, water resources, and climate, as well as other species. Those that do succeed can survive, breed, and thus continue the existence of their species; failure to keep up with environmental change leads to the end of reproduction and ultimately of the species itself.

Contemporary biologists now understand that new species most typically emerge when random genetic processes (mutations) create radically different organisms (mutants). The traits of the mutants vary so much from their parents’ that it is impossible for them to produce viable, fertile offspring with normal members of their generation. If such mutants are able to survive and reproduce, a new species is created.

Some years after Darwin’s death, the influential (and controversial) evolutionary biologist Ernst Haëckel coined the now-familiar term ecological to refer to this organism-environment system (Haëckel 1917). The word has the same Greek root, oikos, as in “economics,” meaning “household.” Haëckel used it to stress that nature is like a household: it has an orderly character, consisting of different “rooms” or niches, each of which is reserved for certain functions (as real households have rooms for sleeping, eating, and so on) that contribute to the maintenance of the whole. Each niche has a population of occupants that must adapt to the overall functioning of the ecosystem. Otherwise, better-adapted species with different traits will take their place.

As this pattern of niche occupants changes, the habitat is affected because of variations in the use of landforms and water resources and because of climatic effects (Huxley 1953). This continual alteration of organisms and environment as they adapt to one another creates a long- term process in which the surviving species of a given period are the ones best suited to the environment and the habitat is the one best adapted to its occupants. Thus, evolution reflects the “survival of the fittest.”

The connection between the survival of populations, environmental change, and adaptation

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implies the principle of balance, or equilibrium. The various interrelationships among the parts of a system, along with the various impacts of the whole on each of its parts, make the system extremely interdependent. The slightest change in the activities of a niche occupant or in geophysical characteristics (such as the availability of water resources) could set off a long and cumulative chain of causes and effects, resulting in imbalance, or disequilibrium. The extinction of populations and species, as well as profound geophysical changes, can result from nearly any source. An especially graphic version of this process is the extinction and ecosystem degradation now occurring in the world’s rain forest regions, which is mainly the effect of human activity.

Evolutionary Theory and Human Populations The changing rain forest illustrates how people can dramatically affect the evolution of other species and their habitats. But human populations, too, have become extinct on many occasions or are in the process of becoming extinct today. Some have been the victims of natural disasters and loss of habitat, such as the population of Pompeii. Some have been victims of genocide, intended or otherwise, including several populations of native North American people. And others have blended or assimilated into larger populations under conditions of sociocultural diversity, such as the Normans and Saxons who, together with the native Celts, became the English.

We also know that there have been other species of Homo on Earth that are now extinct and that ours, Homo sapiens, evolved about 250,000 years ago. In this sense, human development is very much part of the evolutionary process.

Yet there is another way in which evolutionary principles might apply to human beings, that is, to long-range trends in society and culture. In fact, many social scientists have sought to describe and explain such processes using an evolutionary metaphor, as if they were biological evolution (Nisbet 1969). This is a very powerful association, for there are many interesting similarities between the evolution of species/habitats and the way in which aspects of human society and culture vary over time (see “Relevant Websites,” chapter 1; see also Hawley 1968; Lenski and Lenski 1987; Parsons 1951, 1964; White 1949).

Box 2.1 LANDMARKS IN HUMAN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

Thousands of Years Ago

2,500: The genus Homo appears, evolving from australopithecines ancestors. The development of the Homo genus coincides with the appearance of tools in the fossil record.

1, 800: The evolution of Homo erectus, in Africa. This species resembles modern humans and is thought to be an ancestor. 700: A common genetic ancestor of Neanderthals and humans is thought to have lived at this time.

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355: Homo heidelbergensis, common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals, leaves footprints in a layer of volcanic ash in Italy. The species was similar to Homo erectus but had a larger braincase. 195: Omo I and Omo II, two fossil specimens discovered in Ethiopia, lived at this time. They are the earliest discovered fossil evidence for ancient Homo sapiens. 160: Homo sapiens living in Ethiopia near the Awash River are known to have practiced mortuary rituals. 150: The woman known as “Mitochondrial Eve” lived at this time, in East Africa. This fossil is the most recent common ancestor of human females. 70: The development of genes associated with speech. The development of “behavioral modernity,” a set of behaviors and traits associated with modern humans. At around this time, the development of modern human culture began to accelerate rapidly. 60: The “Y Chromosomal Adam” lived in Africa. This fossil is the most recent common ancestor of human males. 50: Humans begin to migrate to South Asia. 40: Humans begin migrating to Europe and Australia. 25: The Neanderthals die out. 12: With the extinction of Homo floresiensis, Homo sapiens becomes the only living species of Homo. The Roots of Human Civilization: Sociocultural Evolution of H. Sapiens sapiens

10,000 BCE: Humans begin to develop farming in the “Fertile Crescent,” a highly fertile crescent-shaped region in the Middle East that includes Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, and the Levant.

Source: Emma Lloyd, “A Human Evolution Timeline,” Bright Hub Inc., July 2, 2009, www.brighthub.com/science/medical/articles/6040.aspx.

It is also important to remember that the evolution of species per se is an organic, not a superorganic, process. Mutation and other crucial biological principles, such as recombination, natural selection, and reproductive isolation, have no counterparts in the realm of sociocultural dynamics. They “cannot be compared; not in any way that has operational, as opposed to metaphorical, meaning for those whose primary concern is change in institutions, groups, traditions, and life styles” (Nisbet 1967, 234).

Organic evolution has produced Homo sapiens, a single, viable species that is currently growing in size (at near-record rates) and whose many still-surviving populations add up to a grand total of approximately 6.5 billion members, which is also an all-time high. In addition, we can be fairly sure that no new species of Homo has evolved lately (but see Teilhard de Chardin 1969). In this respect, human nature as a whole is the outcome of the same processes

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that have molded all members of the animal kingdom. However, significant alterations have occurred time and again within specific human

populations in specific habitats. This has happened in three main ways (as discussed in greater detail in chapter 3): through changes in the population’s (1) size, (2) structure, and (3) geographical distribution. Some of these variations are strictly biological and are identical to those that occur in nonhuman populations, such as growth due to natural increase (variations in births and deaths). Others are partly biological and partly social, such as migration. Still others are strictly sociocultural: changes in norms governing the “proper” number of children per family or in technologies of sanitation.

As a human population adapts to its environment, a complex combination of all three types of factors determines how large it will be, its composition, and its territory. As these demographic features change, the groups, norms, and other social and cultural traits shared by members are altered. This, in turn, has a feedback effect on demographic process and on survival itself.

In brief, whereas all species experience changes in population size because birth, death, and migration rates vary over time, human beings can and do exercise significant, often purposeful, control over these variations. For this reason, it is a mistake to view social and cultural traits as if they independently and literally evolve. Rather, they change as populations change—in conjunction with organic processes. These transformations “do not represent the unfolding of predetermined or intrinsic tendencies. Instead they are the outcome of human responses to environmental and social changes, subject to the same laws of cause and effect as other scientific phenomena” (Sanderson 2007, 284).

Social and cultural traits give human populations very special, and in some ways advantageous, niches in their habitats. The fact that people possess and develop powerful technologies, including technologies of fertility and mortality control, provides them with the ability to alter significantly the conditions to which they must adapt. If, for instance, a nonhuman population is confronted with a habitat that has very low levels of water resources, it is faced with a certain range of prospects. It can either evolve the capacity to go without water, migrate, or die out. A human population confronted with a similar problem has the additional option of introducing water through irrigation or well-digging techniques.

In some instances, the extinction of human populations has resulted from sociocultural variations or from the failure to change in response to new environmental conditions. Peoples throughout history have become extinct because they did not develop adequate weapons in the face of conquest by well-armed members of an encroaching population. But traits, such as having obsolete weapons, can survive even when proved “unfit” in this way.

Superorganic change is different from organic evolution in part because, when a human population dies out, some of its culture may well be preserved. It can then be passed to other populations through diffusion or, in historical times, through written records. Such preserved cultural material includes knowledge and norms, even the unfit norms that contributed to the extinction of the population sharing them. One population’s culture may even be revived, or at least partly so, by a succeeding (or conquering) population and transmitted to its later generations through enculturation. This occurred, for example, among the Bene Israel people of

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India, who had lost their ability to speak their traditional language of Hebrew and had to relearn it later from foreigners (Ausubel 1960, 221).

On the other hand, very “fit” social or cultural factors can be lost forever when a population that (uniquely) shares them becomes extinct without having transmitted them to another. You may recall from an introductory anthropology course that Ishi, the last member of the last existing Yahi population of California, died in 1916. At that moment, the Yana dialect of his childhood, which he did not use in his interactions with others, died as well (Kroeber 1961).1 Thus, each time a human population becomes extinct, valuable, possibly survival- adapted cultural material might also disappear forever. Fortunately, there is a far smaller chance of this happening today than in the past, thanks in part to electronic media.

In any case, even though many human populations have become extinct and much cultural material has been lost, the species as a whole is surviving extremely well, at least by biological standards.

“Fitness,” Adaptation, and the Direction of Evolution The unique relationship that has been formed between human populations and their habitats is the result of the fact that people inherit traits in two distinct, although closely related, ways: biologically and culturally. Cultural heritage makes the growth and decline of human populations a far more complex matter than in other species, for the critical adaptation mechanisms and environmental changes that determine survival are, to an ever-increasing degree, under human control. Similarly, the persistence of social and cultural traits depends on conditions that might be unrelated to those that affect physical survival. Values, languages, artifacts, and customs have a life of their own that is relatively independent of the organisms that share them.

In view of these complicating factors, social researchers are especially concerned with two basic questions whose answers are taken for granted in organic theories:

1. Are the human populations that exist today better adapted than those that are extinct, and, if so, does this mean that the current social and cultural characteristics shared by members are also better adapted than in the past?

2. Are some existing peoples better adapted than others, and, if so, by what criteria: population size, growth rates, economic wealth? What are the traits that distinguish the fittest existing populations, and how do their societies and cultures differ from those of less fit populations?

In general, one can divide evolutionists into three main camps, or theoretical orientations, according to how they answer these questions: progressive, cyclical, and regressive (Lasch 1973, 1991).

Progressive Theory Adam Smith, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and

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the majority of later theorists as well have generally agreed that (1) some existing populations and their social and cultural traits are better adapted than those of the past, and sociocultural evolution is essentially a process of improvement in adaptability, and (2) at the pinnacle of the evolutionary hierarchy are the peoples who share modern, Western culture. Although there have been significant disputes among those who accept these principles (especially along ideological lines), as a whole they make up the progressive mainstream of social evolutionists.

In his “Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy,” Marx ([1859] 1969) argued that “in broad outlines Asiatic, ancient, Feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society” (504, my emphasis). For him and other radical and liberal theorists, populations that have reached the latest, most highly “bourgeois” stages are the fittest, and their survival proves it.

We should note here that the progress to which Marx was referring does not occur in an even, ever-increasing fashion. Rather, as the result of successive rises and overthrows of the modes of production, the overall drift of history is toward an increase in material culture. In any case, progressives, including Marxists, need not believe that everything is always getting “better.”

Cyclical Theory Among the major evolutionary models that diverge from this mainstream are the cyclical theories of Pitirim A. Sorokin (discussed later) and Vilfredo Pareto, the major figure in Italian social science at the turn of the twentieth century: “Pareto explicitly and emphatically rejected the theory of linear social evolution. . . . In its place he puts mainly a theory of cycles according to which social forms pass through a series of stages which are repeated again and again in approximately the same order” (Parsons 1937, 178, my emphasis).

Box 2.2 DIALECTICAL AND LINEAR EVOLUTIONARY MODELS

The dialectic is a mechanism that brings about change through the ironic success-leads-to- failure principle. Thus, in Karl Marx’s progressive account (1867, 1: xxviii), Europe’s feudal rulers contributed to their own downfall by inadvertently empowering their enemies,

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the bourgeoisie, over the course of centuries. At first, the Church and monarchy exploited this class for its commercial skills, which helped enrich their regimes. But in the process, the traders and financiers benefited from the patronage to the extent that they developed an ultimately decisive power base outside of the established system. By the end of the eighteenth century, they were able to overthrow the old regime thanks to its initial support.

Cycles, on the other hand, are patterns that, according to Oswald Spengler, Vilfredo Pareto, and Pitirim Sorokin, are traced over longer or shorter periods of dialectical change, that is, all of these cyclical theories are also dialectical. The real difference between Marx’s and, say, Pareto’s account is that the former views the overall course of history as progressive, despite alternating periods of rise and decline, whereas the latter did not believe that things ever actually improve (or actually get worse, for that matter).

Plato and Sigmund Freud were dialecticians as well. But they saw the overall course of history as regression.

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So-called linear models depict a course of evolution in which the rate of change is constant throughout the course of history. Usually associated with modernization theory, these are different from other types because they lack the characteristic stress on dialectic, conflict, and irony. However, modernization theorists, including functionalists such as Talcott Parsons (1951, 1964), recognize that events do accelerate and decelerate; and most agree that, in the very long term, the overall trend is acceleration (e.g., each successive age is shorter than the preceding one), not constancy as the shape of a line suggests. Thus, in comparison to other approaches, it is more accurate to think of modernization theory not as “linear” but rather as a nondialectical/progressive type (whereas the Marxist model is dialectical-progressive, Pareto’s is dialectical-cyclical, and Freud’s is dialectical-regressive). Sorokin is more difficult to classify, but overall his grand scheme is best viewed as cyclical to emphasize the recurring outcomes of the ideationalsensate dialectic.

From this perspective, no era or culture can be designated as “higher” in any absolute sense. Processes akin to natural selection operate, through which some groups or ideas reign over others because they are more “fit,” but only in the short run. Over longer periods, dominant groups become obsolete and fall victim to the very conditions that once worked to their advantage. As a result, we can expect to see periodic declines and falls, along with repetition of the same general styles and themes in different times and places.

Regressive Theory Sigmund Freud, in his later sociological writings, departs even more sharply from the progressive position.2 Viewing sociocultural evolution as an essentially regressive process, he argued that in the long run there has been significant deterioration in humanity’s psychic conditions (for an extended discussion of this side of Freud, see Brown 1959). “If civilization is a necessary course of development from the family to humanity as a whole, then—as a result of inborn conflict arising from ambivalence, of the eternal struggle between the trends of love and death—there is inextricably bound up with it an increase in the sense of guilt, which will perhaps reach heights that the individual finds hard to tolerate” (Freud 1961, 80).

Freud was not the only observer of Western civilization to conclude that humanity is on the

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road to ruin. Conservative thinkers as far back as Plato have viewed historical change as essentially a process of deterioration. Numerous contemporary writers as well, some influenced by Freud and others not, from Oswald Spengler (see below) in the early twentieth century to Christopher Lasch in the latter half of the century, have taken exception to progressive interpretations of history.

Such disparity among leading theorists about the direction in which evolution is headed reflects the fact that, in the case of human beings, it is not clear how “advance” is to be measured. How do we judge that one culture is more highly evolved than another? What standard do we use to evaluate progress?

Spencer and other classic progressives used population size and growth rates, arguing that a large and robust population is healthiest and fittest. But, according to the development models used by most progressive theorists today, there is very little correlation between population size and advance. Moreover, the fastest growing populations now unexceptionably have the least developed economies. Marx pointed to the capacity of successive sociocultural systems (feudal, bourgeois, and so on) to generate surplus. But, as we are well aware, the societies with the greatest productive capacity also produce the most waste and do the greatest damage to the global ecosystem. Freud, writing during the early period of the Holocaust, stressed moral development, especially the burden of guilt and inner conflict different societies bear and express in destructive behavior. Yet the same civilization responsible for the Holocaust created in its aftermath the first viable framework for international representative government and the first-ever doctrine of universal human rights.

Progress, Complexity, and Race Progressive evolutionism stresses that, as populations grow, they tend to undergo an increase in sociocultural complexity and structural differentiation and that this trend is tied to survival. Thus, the various “ages” through which Homo sapiens has passed since the extinction of other species of Homo represent increasing levels of complexity, progressive steps toward the creation of today’s highly bureaucratic, diverse societies. The most recent, Historical Age, which began between five and ten thousand years ago, is marked by an evolutionary quantum leap in these factors made possible by agricultural revolution and the rise of impersonal, secondary relationships. According to this conception, just as plant and animal species have become more complex and habitats more differentiated during the course of the geological eons, human populations have followed the same pattern over the sociocultural ages. The ones that proved to be the “fittest” are today the most “highly” evolved. The still-surviving populations with simple, homogenous, and undifferentiated societies and cultures, the less “fit,” occupy a “lower” position on the evolutionary scale.

It is this specific interpretation that leaves progressive evolutionism most open to criticism as a highly ethnocentric theory. Although this critique is most frequently leveled at Spencer’s work, it applies just as readily to many of Spencer’s contemporaries, as well as to more recent progressive theorists. It is unlikely that it is just a coincidence that the evolutionary perspective favored by social scientists who are members of the most complex, industrial societies happens to identify the most complex, industrial societies as the most “highly” evolved. And is

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it not arguments just like this, which views non-European people as “primitive,” that have been used to justify conquest, colonialism, and imperialism?

One of the main flaws in this argument is that it assumes increasing complexity to be the only legitimate type of evolutionary advantage. “Increasing social complexity or differentiation is a basic evolutionary process. . . . But it is only one of numerous important evolutionary processes including ‘dedifferentiation’” (Sanderson 2007, 86). With this in mind, one could just as easily view the societies or the sociocultural traits and institutions that have changed the least over the centuries and millennia as the ones best adapted to their environments. Thus, the most “primitive” people who have the least complex social systems—such as the Basarwa (Bushmen) of southern Africa—have proved by their survival that they are the “fittest.”

A major discrepancy between the organic model and superorganic reality is apparent here. Darwin viewed the evolution of organisms as a very long-term process of increasing complexity, diversity, and differentiation over millions of years. Relying on the then-recent discoveries of the geologist Charles Lyell, he concluded that the earliest populated environments (about two billion years ago) had low levels of biological diversity and that the few relatively similar niches were occupied by simple, undifferentiated organisms. Over the very long course of geological time, the ecological systems became more complex, as did the new species that evolved to replace the older, less complex, and less well-adapted ones.

When he shipped out aboard the Beagle, Darwin took with him a copy of Lyell’s first volume of the Principles of Geology. . . . Accepting Lyell’s gradualist notion of geological change, Darwin began to look at the world around him, both animate and inanimate, in similar terms. Lyell and Darwin met soon after the return of the Beagle to England, and they soon became close friends, although Lyell would never fully accept Darwin’s theory of evolution. (Treasures of the American Philosophical Society, www.amphilsoc.org/library/exhibits/treasures/darwin.htm)

At the dawn of the Paleolithic Age, our highly complex species appeared on the scene. So the entirety of the span of sociocultural evolution has occurred in a fraction of the time biologists allow for species to emerge, develop, and decline, and all of it with no substantial changes in the organism itself.

Race and Evolution In order to account for this difference, the earliest theorists employed the concept of race, arguing that sociocultural evolution occurs at the level of organically distinct “subspecies,” over centuries rather than eons. Many of the classic evolutionists believed that a close and natural connection exists between physical characteristics and sociocultural traits, observing that people who look alike also act and think in the same ways. Because nonhuman species struggle to dominate one another, they reasoned, biologically uniform groups of people must be involved in a similar process.

Influenced heavily by the classification scheme of Carolus Linneaus3 and later by Robert Knox (1862) and Count Joseph Gobineau (Biddes 1970), this observation gave rise to the contemporary concept of “race.” Linneaus, Knox, and Gobineau were largely responsible for the creation of the five familiar major categories: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Amerind, Negroid, and Australoid (because of their origin in Asia, Amerinds are often classified as a branch of

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Mongoloid). These categories correspond to the indigenous populations within the five general

geographical areas that had very little or no contact with one another before the late fifteenth century: Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Polynesia. They have been further divided into subgroups and sometimes sub-subgroups, representing sets of populations within the larger areas that were relatively, but not absolutely, isolated from one another. For example, Alpine and Mediterranean were recognized as subraces of the larger Caucasoid group (one of the most widely used models was that summarized by anthropologist E. Adamson Hoebel [1966, 216– 18]).

This categorization allowed the early evolutionists to conclude that the observed diversity of societies and cultures corresponded to the various racial categories and subcategories and that the former could be explained by the latter: a people’s level of sociocultural evolution reflects the degree of evolutionary advance of their race.

With the benefit of research in genetics and related fields,4 contemporary social scientists are now aware that so-called racial differences are highly relative (see Barkan 1992; Massin 1996; Weinstein and Stehr 1999). In fact, “Although the person on the street may still believe that races are biologically real, science has proven otherwise” (Andreasen 1998, 200). The more isolated a population or subpopulation, the more likely it is to be endogamous, or “in- breeding.” In such circumstances, a common gene pool is established over the course of generations, resulting in a high degree of physical similarity among members, along with considerable differences between them and members of other populations. The more inaccessible two populations are relative to each other, the less their members will share genetic material and associated physical characteristics.

“Races” and “subraces” are, thus, actually groupings of populations that have been in some contact with one another for a number of generations but have been inaccessible to outside populations.5 Once new contacts are established, circumstances are right for previously distinct gene pools to become mixed. When this occurs, racial barriers disappear. This is because they never really existed in the first place but were instead a reflection of the absence of the opportunity to cross them. The more that two formerly separate populations interact (including those from different “racial” groupings) over the generations, the more likely it is that their members will come to resemble one another physically. It is important to stress that none of this applies to the organic evolution of species because under natural conditions it is impossible for two or more populations of different species to exchange genetic material.6

From Many Evolutions to One The colonial era was crucial because, prior to it, geographically separate populations each pursued relatively independent courses of sociocultural change. There were many separate tracks of evolution occurring at the same time, depending on where a population was located. In some places (i.e., industrializing Europe), the process had reached the most “advanced” stage, while elsewhere (the yet-to-be-explored areas) circumstances had slowed or stopped the process at “lower” stages. The discovery of people who were physically very different

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from Europeans and whose sociocultural systems were apparently lower on the evolutionary scale gave major impetus to race science (and racism). As colonization extended farther and deeper into formerly unknown territories, the data to support the race/evolution connection— and “proof” that European society was more advanced—accumulated (see Lindqvist 1996). For world system theorists, however, “advance” in this context refers, in fact, not to race but rather to political-economic advantage in a global power relationship that began centuries ago.

The colonial experience served to connect humanity in a way that was unprecedented.7 Since those times, people everywhere have increasingly become partners in a single, general evolutionary trend. Today, we are experiencing an especially critical, revolutionary period in this trend. Indeed, the main effects of globalization, including the conflict inherent in the inequalities between the more and less modernized peoples, probably lie in the future.

Whether or not we choose to label it “evolution,” the kind of change witnessed today clearly is superorganic: its outcome is not determined by genetic factors, nor is it beyond the reach of planned institutional change, social movements, or higher-order impacts. The human population is rapidly becoming an interacting unit, aided significantly today by electronic media and the extensive networks of technology-mediated relationships they make possible. But this phenomenon is occurring in large measure because relevant groups and individuals mean for it to happen and are engaged in activities designed to bring it about. This, in turn, has helped motivate other groups and individuals to attempt to combat, reverse, or redirect the apparently inevitable march toward globalization.

Cyclical Theories Progressive theorists, whether Marxists, modernizers, or another type, emphasize the cumulative, ultimately positive effects of growth, complexity, and the accumulation of wealth. In contrast, and often in conscious opposition to the progressive orientation, several social scientists have developed cyclical theories. In these, innovations are credited with leading temporarily to progress (according to specific measures such as wealth or control over natural forces) but not indefinitely. Rather, at some point, the process of innovation ceases being effective, a dialectic sets in, and new developments bring deterioration.8 However, it is argued, things can deteriorate only so far before reaching a negative limit. At that point, innovations begin to bring progress once more. This continues for a while, until deterioration begins again. Different stages in the cycle differ in style and specifics, but over the long run there is neither cumulative advance nor deterioration. Rather, evolutionary processes ultimately return us to the same levels as in the past.

Various cyclical theories differ in detail, but all stress this quality of recurrence of traits as change is observed over longer periods (Sorokin 1947). Spengler’s multivolume study of The Decline of the West (1926–1928) has been cited often for his argument that societies naturally go through successive cycles of growth, conservatism, and decadence and that Europe is in the final stage of its destined course. Pareto used a similar principle based on the writings of Machiavelli in a still-influential account of political change (Pareto [1901] 1968). Known as the theory of “the circulation of elites,” it focuses on how ruling classes replace one another in

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an alternating manner. Also included among cyclical theorists is one of the most prolific and most controversial

sociologists of our time, Sorokin (Allen 1963; Johnston 1995, 1998; Matter 1974; Schneider 1964; Sorokin 1964). Through the course of many years of research, Sorokin developed a direct alternative to progressive evolutionary views. The main difference between Sorokin and his mainstream contemporaries was his assumption that neither capitalist industrialization nor socialism represented authentic “advances” in the human condition (Sorokin 1962). In fact, Sorokin’s theory explains Marxism and modernization theory as two versions of materialism, themselves the product of a specific type of culture, valid only in relation to certain value judgments that are not universal.

Sorokin’s Theory of Social and Cultural Dynamics According to Sorokin, cultures evolve within fairly strict limits. At a given time, dominant beliefs and practices tend to reflect a general style or pattern, depending on the relative importance of ideals as opposed to the tangible evidence of the senses. Critical changes occur when one or another of these tendencies has reached its limits and the other begins to grow. Because even the most spiritual people need to eat, and even materialists have ideals, no “pure” cultural type is possible: all existing cultures contain a mixture of both elements. Thus, a point will always be reached at which a culture’s dominant pattern is no longer effective and must temper or compromise with its opposite. This point of “saturation” marks the beginning of a new era, in which the former opposition takes over. During the course of decades, as cultures pass from one to another pattern, we note a rhythm of alternating domination and subordination between the nonmaterial and material worlds.

The cyclical quality of Sorokin’s theory lies in the ordering of major periods. Complex contemporary cultures are in a highly materialistic, critical period, an era ripe for large-scale changes (Sorokin 1948, 1951). If the future follows past patterns, he argued, we are headed for a new age in which material culture will not be so highly valued and when we will not necessarily view the populations with the most conquest-oriented technologies as the most advanced. Although specific cultures clearly also vary in relation to other factors such as level of societal complexity, wealth, or population growth, the most consequential changes are not in these. Rather, the major stages are marked by the relative dominance of material culture in general, in comparison to values and other nonmaterial traits. Significantly, this can occur in cultures and civilizations at any level of industrial advance.

At one extreme, we find eras (such as the current one) in which material artifacts, their possession, and their development assume primary cultural priority. Material culture is the main concern in social relations from family ties to international affairs.

Things are considered the ultimate reality, and they dominate over ideas, which are viewed as derivative. Sorokin referred to these periods as highly sensate. At the other extreme are eras in which ideals and fundamental human values (truth, beauty, and justice) prevail as the ultimate reality and material things are viewed as secondary or derivative. These are referred to as highly ideational periods. Finally, between sensate and ideational eras, Sorokin discerned transitional periods that are characterized by a relative balance between the extreme

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types. These are referred to as idealistic. Each of these stages is then subdivided into early, middle, and late eras. To underscore that

he did not subscribe to the doctrine that things are meaningfully “better” today than in the past, Sorokin characterized the most recent period in European or U.S. History as a late or cynical sensate culture. Such a culture “encourages hypocritical conformity and facile adaptation in any way that will yield a ‘payoff ’” (Schneider 1975a, 83).

Sorokin and His Critics As noted, Sorokin presently occupies an ambiguous place in the history of social science. He was involved in a political battle with some of his colleagues at Harvard University that eventuated in the temporary disbanding of the university’s sociology department, the department that he had founded and chaired for some twenty years. In 1963, after being overlooked by the American Sociological Association’s official nominating committee, he became the only person ever to be elected president of the organization as a write-in candidate (Johnston 1987). He had many admirers, but because his criticism of those with whom he disagreed was often less than diplomatic, he also had many foes.

The fact that political and personal conflicts have placed him outside the sociological mainstream is unfortunate because he was a brilliant man who had a great deal to say to people today. For reasons both legitimate and questionable, his work has been challenged on many fronts. Some critics have argued that the stages and cycles are merely the product of his imagination and of a highly selective interpretation of the data. Saturation and related mechanisms that Sorokin used to explain how one stage turns into another have been derided as mystical forces that have no basis in scientific fact.

His major theory of sociocultural change has been characterized as largely speculative, as pseudo-science, and as evaluative rather than descriptive. Some have argued that it is essentially a conservative (even religious) ideology based on an interest-serving use of evidence to prove that our age is hopelessly lost from a spiritual point of view. He was accused of using data and lengthy rational arguments to obscure reality rather than to clarify it, overwhelming his readers with clever intellectual tricks to prove a doubtful thesis by wearing them out with the sheer volume of information.

Sorokin was certainly one of the most productive (if not the most productive) writers of social science ever: He authored dozens of scholarly books and monographs along with hundreds of articles, as well as three autobiographies and several works of fiction. He was an active participant in the Russian Revolution on what turned out to be the wrong (Menshevik) side. He was imprisoned and exiled by the Bolsheviks but was personally pardoned by no less a figure than V. I. Lenin. In his adopted home in the United States, he was known as one of the most outspoken opponents of the excesses of our materialistic era. In fact, his major work, Social and Cultural Dynamics (1962), represents a mere fraction of his output, although nearly all of the criticism leveled against him focuses on it.

Sorokin believed he was sorely misunderstood by his critics. He felt they wrongly accused him of scholarly errors that he did not in fact commit, such as not being “empirical” enough,

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despite the fact that the main impression one gets from reading his Dynamics is that a large quantity of data was used to support the arguments. He was quite right in pointing out that the criticism was invariably based on a very selective reading of his vast works.

Inevitability versus Tendency in Evolutionary Theory In fact, it is not difficult to read into Sorokin’s stage theory the idea that people have no choice about where cultural change is headed. Thus, if our culture happens to be in a late sensate era, then the next step is certainly toward an idealistic transition and then early ideationalism. We cannot stay late sensate forever, we cannot go “back” to an early sensate age of discovery, and we cannot “leap ahead” to a late ideational golden age without passing through intervening stages in the cycle.

Sorokin and cyclical theory are not alone in this regard. Marxism, modernization theory, and the world system perspective have all been criticized because they suggest that certain outcomes of historical processes are inevitable (Horowitz 1980). For example, history is “on the side” of a transition from capitalism to socialism or all societies will surely become industrialized and urbanized.

The main problem with evolutionary theories, whether their focus is on repeating cycles as in Sorokin’s case or the progressive stages of Marxism and modernization theory, is that they often appear not to account for intentional social change: legislation, institutional planning, technological innovation, and social movements. These kinds of activities are designed to bring about the changes we desire, not those that must occur according to evolutionary principles. Are such attempts to change the world on purpose all futile? Are the laws we pass, the movements we support or oppose, and the innovations that are created already determined in advance by cultural forces beyond our control? Are we, in short, destined to move to a certain kind of society and culture regardless of what we plan, seek to achieve, and do?

The notion of inevitable evolutionary stages and cultural cycles disregards the superorganic character of social life. It fails to account for the fact that people create their own laws that affect the production, distribution, and alteration of cultural items. People abide by their laws, more or less, and thus their beliefs and practices form patterns that are observed and incorporated into the theories of social scientists. But to believe that they are governed by the scientific laws thus created (as a falling object is “governed” by the laws of gravity) is to misunderstand why people act and change in patterned ways: because they want to achieve certain outcomes and to avoid others.

No doubt, the outcomes of our intentions often differ from and reverberate far beyond what we intend. But, through legislation, planning, and social movements, we can intend to modify the extent to which our cultures are sensate, our economies capitalistic, and our societies industrialized, and to some extent, we do get what we want. If the theories of cycles or stages were literally realized, then sociocultural change would be a closed, self-contained process. A particular population, such as that of the contemporary United States, would experience a certain transition to the next era, in sequence and regardless of what happens in other populations. The diffusion of ideas or artifacts into the culture from outside could have no significant evolutionary effect. No major war, certainly a nuclear war, could occur to upset the

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inevitable processes of accumulation, class struggle, or saturation. Of course, we can never discount war, foreign influence, and other unanticipated

possibilities. In fact, such “disturbances” have occurred routinely throughout the course of history. In this light, today’s social change theorists are aware that we cannot literally project the patterns observed in the past into the future, as Sorokin (1964) himself acknowledged in defense of his particular theory. Yet historical trends do leave an indelible imprint on the course of later events. Sociocultural evolution does not proceed with certainty but is affected by what is probable and what is unlikely, by tendencies in human nature (see my comments on prophecy in chapter 1).

We choose, plan, legislate, and join movements, but these activities always occur within a particular sociocultural context. This includes the heritage of generations, the historical (and even prehistoric) accumulation of beliefs, practices, and artifacts. The weight of tradition is very heavy. The manner in which people set goals, make plans, and seek to change things is shaped by this context: the force of moral authority, the fear of negative sanctions, group loyalties, and all of the other social control mechanisms bring about high degrees of conformity to prevailing norms and values. This force extends even to the way we conceive of changing society.

Thus, in a sensate era, social movements are likely to occur in sensate style, even if their overt goal may be to restore idealism. The most radical antimodernist, anti-Western organizations, such as al Qaeda (the group responsible for the September 11 attack on the United States), get their messages to their followers with the help of the most modern Western technologies. According to Rohan Gunaratna (2002), “Al Qaeda is essentially a modern organisation, one that exploits up to date technology for its own ends, relying on satellite phones, laptop computers, encrypted communications websites for hiding messages, and the like” (11).

We surely have choices concerning how we will go about reforming or even revolutionizing our contemporary economic systems. But if these systems are at a highly advanced stage of capitalism, some alternatives are unthinkable, if not impossible, such as returning to a pastoral economy. Such tendencies make it possible to anticipate what courses of events are more likely, but they do not automatically determine what “must” happen next.

We refer to events as “likely to occur” because, although heavy, the weight of tradition is not irresistible. In any era, individual and collective ideas and practices can deviate from the mainstream by as much as 180 degrees, although such a turnaround is improbable. Antimodernist leaders might attempt to organize without telephones or cars (established counter-communities, such as the Old Order Amish people, continue to reject these innovations). However, cultural forces make “abnormal” change very difficult. Great imagination and creativity, or great despair, are required to make a true break with the momentum of tradition.

Creative Altruism and the “Third Way” Sorokin personally believed in making such an imaginative break with the tendencies of one’s

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own era. In his later years at Harvard University, he sought to create a social movement that would combat cynical sensate culture and its emphasis on domination, egoism, and self- gratification. “The practice of kindness and love is one of the best therapies for many mental disorders; for the elimination of sorrow, loneliness and unhappiness; for the mitigation of hatred and other antisocial tendencies; and, above all, for the ennoblement of human personality, for release in man of his creative forces, and for the attainment of union with God and peace with oneself, others, and the universe” (Sorokin 1948, 196).

In February 1949, Sorokin and his colleagues established the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism, with the support of philanthropist Eli Lilly and the Lilly Foundation (Johnston 1998, 2, 18–19; Matter 1974, xiii–xiv). The center’s purpose was to promote planned cultural change, and under its auspices Sorokin wrote several books and articles on the subject (Sorokin 1950, 1954a, 1954b). In this work, he harked back to the democratic ideals of Saint-Simon and Comte (who introduced the terms altruism and egoism into social science)9 and to Spencer’s discovery of the superorganic realm.

Creative altruism is the conscious and purposeful insertion of the universal ideal of helping others, the Golden Rule, into planned change (see box 2.3). The strategy was developed on the basis of Sorokin’s decades of unparalleled research and theorizing about the origins, problems, and prospects of our age, and it incorporates his distinctive terminology (sensate, saturation, and so on) along with his concern about the excesses of materialism, whether Marxist or bourgeois.

The specific idea of creative altruism clearly is the product of a somewhat marginal approach to the problems of sociocultural evolution. However, in its emphasis on prosocial behavior and spirituality and in its rejection of both traditional capitalistic and socialistic visions of the future, it is one among many attempts, past and present, to develop a “third way” to planned sociocultural change. Several more recent social scientists have come to similar conclusions as Sorokin’s, although most are not cyclical theorists, nor do all necessarily use the term altruism.

Among those who continue to conduct groundbreaking research on altruism is Kristen Renwick Monroe (1996, 2001). Her work is of special interest because she has combined the study of altruism with the ongoing investigation of what was characterized in chapter 1 as the irony of moral progress during the Holocaust, that is, the selfless rescue of Jews and members of other persecuted groups during the Holocaust (Monroe, Barton, and Klingermann 1990; see also Fogelman 1994; Penner 1995). Others working in this field include the anthropologist Lionel Tiger, the influential planned change advocate Amitai Etzioni (1991), and—during an earlier generation—the founders of the democratic planning approach, Karl Mannheim (1950) and Philip Selznick (1949; their work is discussed in chapter 13 in this book).10

This movement is based on an explicit value judgment, that is, when we observe as scientists the awesome advantages that material prosperity—wealth, political power, and land —give to the few to exploit the many, we are right to object. For those who study social and cultural change, such inequities as slavery, caste, feudal bondage, and dictatorial government offend a universal sense of justice. As human beings, we are active participants in making social change, whether or not we wish to be, and our value commitments concerning justice

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and freedom ought to guide our actions as applied scientists. For Sorokin and others, this moral sense comes with the job of social scientist, and it should not be denied or denigrated as a compromise of scientific principles. As Comte argued some 150 years ago, one can and should be both scientific and concerned about the well-being of others (for a recent statement of these principles that is aimed at undergraduate sociology students, see Du Bois and Wright 2001).

Creative altruism rejects the hardheaded idea that inequity is somehow natural or inevitable, viewing it as merely part of the ideology of social Darwinism. Those who believe that somehow the price of progress is always domination of the many by the few are, of course, entitled to their opinion. But it is just that—an opinion—and it does not justify egoism. Selfishness is neither more nor less natural than altruism. Humans know and understand altruism, as do no other animals. This trait is part of our cultural heritage, not an evolutionary weakness as social Darwinism suggested.

Similarly, there are no laws of human nature that make it necessary for government to be run by an elite few who have special “racial” characteristics, or who are in possession of the true road map to the future. The Golden Rule, when applied to political relations, translates to equal rights for all members of society and an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives, that is, democracy. Many leaders, in Sorokin’s time and ours, have argued that difficult circumstances “temporarily” require autocratic government. But this, too, is ideology, not evolutionary necessity. Autocracy is no more natural than democracy; rather, both are possibilities that are subject to a substantial degree of social engineering.

Those who seriously study social and cultural change have observed much injustice in the world and are intuitively offended by it. But, try as they have, no one has been able to prove either that such evils will always be with us or that they will “inevitably” be eliminated. Moral progress is possible, but there are no unconditional laws of history that will unerringly lead us to the downfall of unjust and exploitative social institutions. This view is contrary to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, which argue that The Party does have The Answer—and I think that Sorokin intended the contrast. We have made substantial strides since the days of slavery and feudalism against the persistent, patterned failure of people to live up to the Golden Rule. And we clearly have regressed at times, as well. But, above all, creative altruism stresses that the direction in which we will continue is not preordained. Rather, it is a matter of will and choice.

The scientific study of sociocultural evolution reveals that no doctrine, no party, and no system possess the exclusive secret of moral progress. Rather, moral progress depends on the outcome of collective, conscientious decision making, a reordering of our value priorities that today must involve each and every citizen of the world system.

All claims that a “solution” is the exclusive property of one party, group, or school of thought should be viewed as self-serving and ultimately egoistic.

One may, of course, agree or disagree with such proposals, for they are very much in the realm of values and policy, not fact. Yet they are strongly science based, and for this reason I believe they are worth your consideration. The concept of creative altruism (or whatever words one chooses to use) articulates well with the trends of democratization, globalization, and the information revolution that are now shaping the future, as later chapters illustrate.

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Moreover, at its 2009 meeting, more than forty years after the death of Sorokin, the American Sociological Association established a Section on Altruism and Social Solidarity (see Jeffries et al. 2007). In this respect, it may be the next concept whose time has come—again (see Hourani 1994; Payne 1995; Wuthnow 1995).

Summary This chapter has focused on evolutionary theory, beginning with a summary of the principles of biological evolution. Because social and cultural change occurs within and between populations of organisms, biological evolution is an essential part of the human condition. Beyond this, however, many social scientists have viewed social and cultural change as if it were biological evolution, that is, they have mistakenly extended an organic metaphor to describe, as opposed to suggest, a superorganic process. The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson has summarized this use of metaphor (or “analogy”) and its shortcomings, noting that sociocultural evolution is itself a result of organic evolution, but it is something entirely different in kind.

Box 2.3 THE GOLDEN RULE: A CULTURAL UNIVERSAL

All the great humanitarian religions are based on a principle similar to the Golden Rule. This is not a side issue but rather the heart of the major religions.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Judaism and Christianity, the Bible, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:36–40

According to the legendary Rabbi Hillel, the Jewish faith says, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.”

Christians say, “Do unto others as you would have them do onto you.” Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,

and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

Islam says, “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

Confucianism says the same thing: “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.”

To the Hindu, “This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.”

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Buddhism says, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

Taoism says, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

A native Yoruba Proverb in Nigeria, Africa, says, “One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.”

Even the Wiccan tradition of witchcraft says, “And it harm none, do what thou wilt.”

Source: Compiled by William Du Bois.

Although it is semantically correct and scientifically enlightening to call both “evolution,” it is extremely important to recognize the difference in kind makes this in large part an analogy and not a straight equivalence. We may expect to find, and do find, that many general principles of evolution apply analogously to the two, but it is invalid and indeed dangerous to assume that equivalent evolutionary principles operate throughout the two and that principles discovered regarding one may forth with be applied to interpretation of the other. This fallacious sort of transfer is usually attempted from the field of biology to that of sociology. (Simpson 1951, 141)

The evolutionary approach has played a prominent role in sociology, anthropology, and other disciplines. It is most familiar as a progressive doctrine that stresses a long-term “advance” through cumulative growth and increasing complexity. It is integral to the two main schools of thought on long-term change, Marxism and modernization theory, but it also is incorporated in most alternative perspectives, such as the cyclical and the regressive models. Nevertheless, because sociocultural evolution essentially is a metaphor that does not exactly fit the reality to which it is applied, the approach leaves considerable scope for value judgments.

In particular, the principles of organic evolution have been used to give the appearance that a scientific basis exists for determining that some peoples are naturally superior or “more highly evolved” than others, whereas this is not the case. The best known of these polemical uses is social Darwinism (and its underlying principle of egoism), employed by Spencer and other evolutionists to this day. Critics of the controversial field of sociobiology claim that it has a similar, ideological bias (see Montagu 1980).

As a contrast to the evolutionary mainstream, the chapter also considered the work of Sorokin. Sorokin developed his comprehensive cyclical theory and the related idea of creative altruism in conscious opposition to Spencer’s and other progressive models. This suggests that if we understand sociocultural evolution broadly enough, as a superorganic, partly intentional process in which there are no guarantees of progress or advance, the concept is worth saving. This is because, despite its limitations, evolutionary thought has revealed many truths about social and cultural change, including the very important historical correlation between industrial wealth, social complexity, and materialist values. It remains important because this correlation will almost certainly be the defining force in the creation of tomorrow’s global society.

Relevant Websites

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http://socio.ch/evo/index_evo.htm This site has a wealth of information on social and cultural evolution, along with several links to bibliographical material, biographies, and online discussions on the subject.

www.montagu.org/home.htm Home page of the Ashley Montagu Institute.

http://anthropology.si.edu/repatriation/projects/ishi.htm This is the site dedicated to Ishi by the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

http://library2.usask.ca/sorokin/correspondence/hrcca This site is part of the University of Saskatchewan’s Pitirim A. Sorokin Collection detailing the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism, as well as Sorokin’s works and autobiography.

www.ushmm.org/ The site of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Smithsonian Institution, contains a comprehensive link on race science.

www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/marx.html www.emile-durkheim.com/ www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Weber/Whome.htm These three sites feature Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, respectively. The first is maintained by Australian National University and the second by the University of Illinois.

www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/wallerstein.html This comprehensive sourcebook on world system theory is posted at Fordham University.

www.altruisticlove.org/ This site, maintained by the Center for Altruistic Love at Humboldt State University, includes work by Professors Emeriti Pearl Oliner and Samuel Oliner.

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