GP...

• Explanation of social change must be sought in culture change rather than in the biological nature of man

Reason

• Little biological evolution in human race in last few 1000 yrs

• Much social evolution

4 Factors explaining Cultural Evolution

• Invention

• Accumulation

• Diffusion

• Adjustment

Inventions result from operations of 3 further factors

• Mental ability

- Individuals with the needed mental abilities have appeared in all societies

- But, the larger the population, the more such individuals there will be

• Demand

- Contributes to making of inventions

- Determines whether an invention, once made, will be used

• Existence of cultural elements

-the more cultural elements there are, the easier it is to produce new inventions by combining several existing ones

Accumulation

-Occurs when more new elements, that is, inventions, are added to the cultural base than are lost by obsolescence.

-The larger the accumulation is, the easier it is to make new inventions

Diffusion

• Spread of an invention from one area to another

Given means of communication, an invention made in one place are travel widely

• Eg. nations living at communications crosswords may make enormous progress simply by receiving a wide variety of inventions from various sources

Adjustment

• Each time an invention is made, some social change has occurred that requires adjustment

• an invention in one part of a culture may create an adjustment in a related part of

the culture

• The adjustments do not occur instantaneously, but are made after a delay, and are called ‘cultural lags’.

According to Ogburn…

• A common pattern of social change in the 20th century is for a technological advance to affect an economic organization.

• This in turn causes a change in a social institution such as the family or govt

• Finally causes a change in the social philosophy of a people

• Invention is not the unique cause of all social change

• (as noted previously) there must be a demand of an invention or it won’t be used

• such demand may precede or follow the invention

Ogburn’s research on social trends…

• Movement continues in the same general direction for long periods of time

• Convinced that trends in any of our 20th century modes of behavior were likely to continue for a number of decades

Egs of 20th century trends

- Continuously increasing role of government

- Growth of large businesses

The family has suffered at the expense of career in Singapore society. This statement is absolutely true in the modern society, when people are always busy thinking of ways to earn big bucks, hence they somewhat forgetting about their families, or they are uncertain when to start one.

Today’s society is a very competitive one. In the past, only the father went to work, while the mother stayed at home and play the nurturing role. However, with economic and social progress, and with education made available, more and more women find themselves contributing to the family incomes too. This phenomenon has become the norm in our modern society, when both parents leave the house for work in the day, and return home late at night, only finding their child already asleep. Thus, when few communications take place between the parents and the children, generation gaps may tend to exist between the two generations, since both parties do not have a very deep understanding of each other. This may in turn lead to communication breakdown between both parties. If this continues, the family will definitely have to suffer as the relations between the parents and the kids worsen.

Not only will the relationships between the parents and the children have to suffer, couples too, may also end up finding themselves in disputes, when the father and mother blame each other for not taking good care of the kid, because they are too busy in their work. The father may blame the mother for not coaching the son in his studies, while the mother may then argue that the father also has to bear the responsibility of educating the son. The quarrel between the couple may dread on for days, and eventually, not only the relations between the couples deteriorate, the child may end up suffering as well.

The situation may be worse in some families when fathers are under too much stress from work and become very bad-tempered easily. Some are so violent that they may find themselves venting their anger at the kids and even their wives.

Families may end up suffering when couples are too career-minded. When couples find themselves too busy in their careers, they may decide not to have children for the time being. Thus, as delayed parenthood among the career-minded means shorter child-bearing years, couples may find themselves end up to have no children eventually.

Indeed, because of career, many families in our society have found themselves ended up in many problems. Hence, it is necessary to have a balance between work and family. After all, it is our family which helps to satisfy our emotional needs for love and security, and it is our family members whom we turn to whenever we are troubled by difficulties and problems.

To sum things up, the statement is wrong to say that the traditional extended families are unnecessary to the society since with the traditional extended families, traditional values will be preserved, values like honesty and treating the elderlys with respect will more likely to be instilled into the children. However, what I still don't understand is how is those traditional values beneficial to the society... I don't see a link in why those values can help to curb crime rates.

On the other hand, the traditional extended families may be a roadblock to the society. Because the society is changing at a very fast rate, the traditional way of education is no longer effective nowadays. Also, the traditional families enhance inequality, as women's rights are deprived in the traditional families.

Firstly, let me define the meaning of a traditional family. In this statement, 'traditional family' actually means the extended family which consisits not only of the parents and the children, but also comprises of a network of relatives (including aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents). Thus, by saying that the traditional family is no longer necessary, the statement is actually implying that there is actually no need for our society to have such extended families. However, this is not necessary true. Unlike in the past, the fathers were usually the sole breadwinners of the household, while the mothers stayed at home to look after the kids. Now, the mothers also contribute to the household incomes, this phenomenon has become the norm in this modern society. Thus, parents usually leave their kids at home, without anyone to look after them. So, isn't it better if the grandparents are at home to help look after the children? Hence, this has proven that the traaditional extended families are actually important to the society in the sense that at least, there is somebody present to help to take care of the children when both parents are busy at work. Negative consequences may arise when less attention is paid to the children. The crime rate may go up along with a host of problematic behaviours, including smoking, drinking and premarital sex. Therefore, with the presence of the traditional extended families, more attention can be paid to the children, thus, this contributes to the society by reducing social problems since it will certainly help to prevent the crime rates from going up.