The concept of social change and development under a microscope
Change is a constant and gradual process, which is not only a thing of a modern world as perceived by many, but a million years? phenomenon that has been taking place since the existence of the first human (homo Erectus), and even before that.
There are many aspects ascribed to the word ‘change’, such as climate, economic, infrastructural, social change and so forth.
Narrowing this concept to more relevant and effective social change can be strenuous work that a contemporaneous person will not succeed in.
In many cases, it is the development changes that bring about the social changes in any given society or state, although it might be deemed vice versa from different intellects. Changes in architectural, infrastructural and or technological improvement bring about a drastic change in people’s lives, which translates into a social change.
According to Immanuel von Wiese (Von Wiese 1956:1 – 9), the concept of social change and development are very broad concepts, which, when examined critically, denote an observed difference from antecedent states of social structures, institutions, habits or instruments of society in so far as it is: (a) The outcome of legislative or other overt measures to control conduct or (b) The conduct of change either in a specified substructure or dominant sector of social action pursued in conformity with the systematically related modes of fulfilling needs and meeting expectations that prevail in a society. The term also denotes the process through which such differences occur.
He attempted a review of the uses of the term social change, which has very largely displaced the term “evolution” or “development” (ibid). a) He specified two main uses of the term (a) an almost but not quite neutralised, noncontroversial rendering of the idea of progress and (b) statistical usage, which makes the word ‘change’ a purely quantitative conception (ibid: 7). He distinguished social change from cultural change, used mainly with regard to technique and from social impact, which refers to influences on one sphere of life from another, and reserves the term for denoting alternatives in the human relationship (ibid: 10 – 19). Max Ginsberg (Ginsberg 1956:10 – 19) understands “Social Change” as a change in a social structure in terms of the size of a society, the composition or balance of its parts, or the tops of an organisation (ibid:10), and also concludes that artistic or linguistic changes may fall within the reference of the term. A.M. Rose proposes a reference exclusively intellectual and moral with regard to social change as he claims: “Finally, we would define social change as modifications in the meanings and values held by society or by important subgroups in it” (Rose 1956:54). He continues to claim that other complications brought in which the phrase “Social Change” is viewed as the semantic heir of progress and possible predecessors of social dynamism have to be brought into service to account for the facts previously organised in terms of progressive social development, or when social change is identified with progress.
This is so concerning attempts made to describe or account for the laws according to which any state or society produces the state which succeeds it (Mill 1843:587).
There is a further interpretative act needed, and now customary performed in relating change as progress to earlier news such as the history of human species as a whole may be regarded as the unravelling of hidden “plans of nature of accomplishing a perfect state of” Civil constitution for society view expressed by Immanuel Kant (Kant 1784:439.
Beyond the problem of scale, however, as the problem of the units, it must be presumed social changes are reducible. This Condorcet claims that “progress is subject to the same general laws that can be observed in the development of the individual, and it is indeed no more than the sum of that development realised in large numbers of individuals joined together in society”.
The study of this developmental process is a record of change, and is based on the observation of human societies throughout the different stages of their development.
According to John Barraclough, social change may, accordingly, be regarded as everything that happens.
Questions of reductionism, therefore may and do complicate the meaning of the term, while reduction to basic units arranged in services according to rather mechanists’ notions of cause is now unfashionable, the psychological reduction has appeared. Many of the changes which are recorded in the long-time span of conventional histories, such as the decay of monarchy or the rise of popular government, occur sporadically in the behaviour of individuals, and only gradually become consolidated into identifiable patterned changes.
While such changes are going on, immeasurable moments of choices occur, according to Margaret Mead (Mead 1949:19). With the concept of development, development has multi-dimensional meanings which include economic, social, cultural dimensions, etc. Like underdevelopment, which appears to be a negation of development, is a socio-political and socio-economical situation of any society which is no longer structurally able to achieve the self-determination of its political superstructure and its economic basis. The causes of under-development lie in the external influences which are superimposed upon distorted traditional structures, the external force defined as colonialism or imperialism. For some people, the introduction of capitalism brought about development in developing countries, others think that it brought under-development.
These are some of the problems there are when it comes to the question of defining development. Indeed, the one common feature of all context/citations is the demonstration or presumption that social or development change, in so far as it is attended to by sociologists, is the product of ascertainable causes. No society is ever static, and changing, nevertheless, some changes are more important than others.
When the person is transformed economically, socially, politically and spiritually, integral development is said to have occurred.