Societal Change

College Classwork: Intro to Sociology Chapter 4

What are the most important reasons for societal change?

One important ways societies change, is when they grow from hunter/gatherer (wandering and spending the main portion of your energy and time on food gathering) to agricultural (population moves less, begin to build more permanent structures, and grow because there is more available food) to industrial (manufacturing based factory style society) to post-industrial (service-information-technology based) societies. Some of the reasons for change are the structures that provide for patterned relationships change the "norm" in any particular society, like, family, economy, political, legal, and educational systems in a society. These five being social facts, if any of the idea of the institution changes (this would take time), then that given society would then change in response. In addition to the stated reasons for societal changes, I believe to that we are living in a time in America where the communication "norm" is shifting. Fifteen or so years ago, the language spoken in America was known to all as English. Now, a mix of Spanish and English has become the norm even on household and grocery products. During the late 1980's and early 1990's, I remember seeing French as the secondary language on instructions, bottles of cleaner, diapers, packages of socks, etc. here in America. I would also add that a major reason for structural societal change has to be based on the awareness factor of the individuals in that society, to then relate in the conformed manner to the dictates of the rules of that society. As you do something, it becomes second nature or the term "doing it in your sleep" comes to mind. Well, I believe that as a society does ... then teaches what it does to the new ones ... it may begin to leave out the "why", causing the new ones to lose some of their reasoning skills.

 

Example story: One day a mother and daughter were preparing dinner. The mother takes the roast out of the refrigerator to cook for the nightly meal. She begins by slicing off the end of the roast, placing it in a roasting pan, sprinkling spices, and placing it in the oven. The daughter watches and asks "Mom, how come you cut off the end?" The mother stops and stares at her daughter and says "Well, it is how grandma always did it." So, they called grandma to see why she always did it. The Grandma said “the pan I had would never fit the full roast so I had to cut the end off to make it fit into the pan." Sometimes knowing "why" things are done the way they are, effects whether or not we continue doing them.

Stephanie Haile