Society

Walter Buckely

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9781136759574
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1998. Society-A Complex Adaptive System aims to re-establish a firm scientific foundation for contemporary sociology, incorporating current extensions to a systems approach, such as complex adaptive systems and aspects of contemporary dynamic systems theory. The essays brought together to form this volume address general problem areas in basic theory and methodology. The work then develops to focus on the more empirically relevant core of social theory-socio-cultural regulation and control-with concern for adaptive structure changing and structure conserving aspects. In addition, the book is focused on dynamic processes rather than static structural or functional concepts.

I.

General Theory

INTRODUCTION

In this first part we discuss a number of abstract issues concerning the nature of sociological theory and methodology stemming from the unique nature of its subject matter. Chapters 2 and 3 address the very possibility of basic sociological theory modeled after the physical sciences, and look critically at general methodological problems to be faced in trying to study society empirically. It is argued that, whereas sociology can and must be treated as one of the sciences, it is very different from the lower level “hard” (i.e., mathematically and empirically based, reductionist) sciences and consequently cannot be studied in the same way. This runs contrary to the hopes and attempts of many earlier sociologists who believed that society could be approached in basically the same way as physics or chemistry (analytically and quantitatively), e.g., the sociological “positivists” of the early part of the twentieth century such as George Lundberg and others, and in the middle of the century by Parsonians (sociological theory should ideally consist of a “set of simultaneous equations”) and by the dominance of quantitative methodology (which almost replaced the highly successful qualitative research approach of the Chicago School, though important qualitative research survived and continues).

Chapter 4 outlines the basic concepts of the modem systems approach (not to be confused with the incompatible Parsonian type framework) and overviews the emergence and characteristics of the main types of concrete systems that have evolved in the world.

Chapters 5 and 6 consist of two essays looking at general theoretical orientations toward the study of societal dynamics: a Darwinian evolutionary approach, and a systems view of social change. There has always been concern to distinguish biological evolution and social change, with skepticism about applying evolutionary theory to society, partly because of the attempt, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, to erect a Social Darwinism that appeared to aim at justifying the very wealthy as the successful in the “struggle for survival” (Spencer’s term, not Darwin’s) proving their “fitness,” and the poor as the maladapted “unfit” losers. Cutthroat business methods were often justified as akin to “nature red in tooth and claw.” (On its basis, for example, the Poor Laws of Great Britain were tailored to provide the barest minimum charity to the disadvantaged, and legislation concerning the poor has fared little better in the United States and other industrial countries.)

The early (biologically trained) sociologist Lester Ward, at Brown University, almost single handedly destroyed the credibility of Social Darwinism championed by William Graham Sumner of Yale by detailing the fundamental differences between the environmentally imposed and largely random genetic selective processes of biological evolution on the one side and the possibility of reasoned, purposive goal-directed behavioral and social selection by humans on the other. In a word, learned mental selection processes replaced genetically based instinctual selection processes. (Unfortunately, there are still many politicians and others in high places who vote and act in terms of Social Darwinist notions seemingly inherent in ultraconservative capitalist ideology.) But there are scientific reasons for distinguishing the two, since the mechanisms of sociocultural transmission and change are very different from those of biological evolution. However, we try to show that, at a very general level, the two types of transgenerational change embody similar principles despite the very different substantive processes involved.

Chapter 7 presents a general orientation toward society as a “complex adaptive system.” In connection with this latter concept, we should mention work by some of the theorists recently or currently operating out of the Santa Fe Institute — a research think-tank headed, at least nominally, by the theoretical physicist Murray Gell-Mann — whose writings seem to imply that they have invented the concept of the “complex adaptive system,” and other systems theoretic concepts, without any reference or recognition given to the vast literature from the 1940s onward developing what we are referring to here as “modern systems theory.” (To his credit, Gell-Mann came to recognize this kind of deficiency in referencing priority work within the Institute and offered a kind of apology for it in the preface to his layman’s physics book, The Quark and the Jaguar.)

Since we view society as a higher level system of interrelated “components” (i.e., individuals and groups) bonded into a larger whole through the mental bondings of group, structural, and cultural role and personal interrelationships, we have included two articles in Chapters 8 and 9 on epistemology and a theory of mind and consciousness, and the dynamic process whereby meanings, understandings and social knowledge at the roots of such mental bondings are acquired. Theories of mind and consciousness constitute one of the “hottest” areas of research in cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, and cognitive science in general. After decades of mentally barren S-R “behaviorism,” theorists and researchers of many disciplines are responding to its demise by digging with gusto into this last (according to some) of the scientific frontiers. Everyone wants to understand this miracle by which we are able to subjectively experience a veridical “picture” of the external world, despite all the intricate (and still poorly understood) brain processing involved, from the sensory receptors on through several cortical levels, to produce that “miracle”; and how we can mentally manipulate and control our subtlest movements and long range activities and plans (sometimes) such that, not only does the brain produce mental events, but the latter produce brain events. How we can conceptualize this in a scientifically respectable manner without appealing to a mysterious Cartesian dualism of Mind and Body, is a deep problem exercising many minds. As we dig deeper into this mine, we discover more and more exquisitely presented problem areas; some theorists, mainly weak-hearted philosophers of little faith in science, have given up and officially declared we can never know how this is possible; but then, it wasn’t too long ago (the first half of this century) that people still had given up on understanding the basic nature of life, or appealed to a mysterious “Vitalism” or “entelechy” to account for it.

Since an understanding of Mind, then, is fundamental to the understanding of behavior, especially human sociocultural actions and interactions, as sociology’s favorite social psychologist George Herbert Mead argued so brilliantly three quarters of a century ago, it is a subject whose unraveling might well be followed closely by social scientists.

Chapter

TWO

Toward a Fundamental Societal Theory*

Of the many aspects of this topic that eventually need thorough discussion, I shall focus on three that appear to me particularly central. The first involves some of the important questions in the philosophy or methodology of social science that must be addressed by way of clarification of the meaning of, and the most fruitful attack on, this problem of a fundamental sociocultural theory. The second turns to a framework based on the evolution of social behavior and organization. Thirdly, I shall suggest a number of theoretical principles, derived mainly from a transactional approach and modem systems theory that should be explored as possible unifying conceptualizations so much in demand for an interdisciplinary endeavor. In the process I will risk some substantive applications of these conceptions to the sociocultural system as I see it. Throughout, the spirit will be one of exploration.

I. What might it mean to speak of a “fundamental” or “basic” theory of society? Among other things, it could mean an attempted reduction of the sociocultural level to some lower level, such as psychology or biogenetics, or a search for “universal laws” or sets of general propositions that would apply to any society.

Both of these approaches stem from the philosophy and analytic methods of physical science, which can be seen as inappropriate to the study of social systems. A reductionist approach, breaking up the system into components, tends to lose sight of the fact that in the kind of complex system we are dealing with, many of the crucial properties of the system are emergent from the dynamic interaction of the components and are not found in the components by themselves, e.g., social integration, or legitimized authority. Similarly, some of the properties of the components themselves are functions of the particular sociocultural matrix within which they are embedded (this is obviously true when those components are individuals, groups or organizations). And even more telling, the components, in this case socialized human beings, would not even be such, but only members of a biological species without this matrix. More generally, the best we can say of lower level components is that, besides having some stable or slowly changing characteristics, they also may have an unknown number of potential characteristics depending on or varying with whatever other kind of elements they are interacting with and the structures and cultures within which they are interacting. It is part of the job of a wholistic or non-reductionistic study precisely to determine this, among other things.

Consequently, a systemic approach seems indicated, difficult as it may be. This should not rule out, of course, the necessary attempts to study the lower level mechanisms by which higher level processes are maintained or made possible, and to seek out the common, as well as the variable properties of the human animal that may be pertinent to the understanding of the sociocultural system.

Turning to the question of a search for general laws or propositions from which other basic properties of sociocultural systems may be deduced, we need a lot of assistance from studies in the methodology of science. The demise of logical positivism (outside of the physical sciences, and now partially within) and recent attempts to redefine the nature of the scientific approach suggest that with the dethroning of physics as the model and reductive base for all the other sciences, the notions of universals and general laws deriving from it will have to undergo modification when we deal with the complex, open and adaptive types of systems we find in biology, psychology and social science. Theories of complex adaptive, self-organizing systems (concepts developed from the 1940s General Systems Theory movement and recently rediscovered and exploited without recognition of origins by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and elsewhere) need to be brought into play at a fundamental level in dealing with complex sociocultural systems.

The notion of a general scientific law implies an invariant relationship between a small number of “significant” variables such that a concrete situation may be decomposed into those variables (and some others taken as “disturbing” or “exogenous” variables) that are inessential to the “law,” e.g., friction. But it is difficult to think of treating biological or social systems in these terms. Such systems cannot be decomposed into a small number of invariantly related elements such that certain clearly distinguishable ones maintain a dominance over the trajectory of the system, unless other equally important ones are “held constant” or inoperative. Modem dynamic systems theory, especially so-called chaos theory and complexity theory in general, point to the highly sensitive dependence of future states of many complex systems on the values of earlier states. There are some general principles we will discuss later about the class of complex, open, adaptive systems having to do with broad structural or systemic features and processes, but there are few non-vacuous empirical generalizations we can make that apply to any society at any time. Thus it was a persistent mistake of earlier (and some current) psychologists and social scientists to appeal to some single or dominant factor or variable to explain everything, e.g., all social change comes about through conflict, or climate, or technology; or appeal is made to the economic factor, acquisitive or libidinal drive, a territorial imperative, or genetic factors. Some of these, no doubt, under certain conditions at certain times may indeed be more important than others in driving a system, but every attempt to erect a general law on such single-factor theories has failed. Such dominant features of a society must still be studied in a systemic context of other interacting features, to assess for example just why they may or may not remain dominant.

We should certainly continue to look for the similarities or more universal features of societies, but in terms of systemic properties that transcend local, circumscribed features though accommodating the latter when necessary. It is certainly the case that societies are unique systems in concrete respects, but they may be grouped in very similar terms of general systemic, e.g., structural and cultural properties. For example, we already classify societies historically in reasonably useful ways: peasant, folk, urban, pastoral, industrial, and the like, or monarchical, democratic, totalitarian, and such. It is this latter possibility that we will explore further.

II. In describing the evolution of the sociocultural system from its rudimentary beginnings in the organization of the higher apes there has been a strong tendency to think in terms of more or less linear causal chains or series of stages. Thus it becomes necessary to counteract any view that sees a dominant causal influence running from biology to psychology to social structure and culture. The evidence, for example from human paleontology, suggests that culture, the higher centers of the brain, complex social organization, and symbolic language all began developing before the appearance of Homo sapiens, and were largely responsible for the particular features of that development. The model then becomes a transactional one, with a number of crucial features emerging together and mutually shaping and reinforcing one another in an ongoing systemic process. Recent years have seen the development of evolutionary cognition theory, evolutionary psychology and neurophysiology, and a revitalization of sociocultural evolution is in order. In a later chapter we will develop this further.

This leads us to take issue with another common bias, that implied in the notion of “Man,” as in “The Study of Man” or “The Unity of Man.” Though not necessarily the case, this term is all too often interpreted to refer to men and women taken singly, as collections of autonomous creatures, thus reflecting the Western individualistic bias that sees society as only a nominal entity and culture as an epiphenomenon. This position is also held by some philosophers under the heading of “methodological individualism.” Thus some years ago a prominent philosopher actually argued this on the grounds that only the human individuals in society were “real” — could be directly seen and touched. It apparently did not occur to her that she could only be referring to the biological organism, not to the human being — which can only be defined in terms of sociocultural properties that are not all directly perceivable but must be inferred from behavior or empathized.

It is also sometimes difficult to put across to students that sociology does not study human individuals as such but rather the bondings and interactions of individuals with one another and the environment within social structural constraints and a learned cultural context.

III. Turning to the problem of a general theoretical framework for the study of society, I shall discuss briefly three general conceptions derived from modern systems research. The theme to which they are all relevant is the continuous evolutionary process, from the biological through the psychological and sociocultural realms. The first is a very abstract generalization of the evolutionary process itself. The goal here is the hope that, given the large amount of knowledge we have of the biological evolutionary process, we may derive parallel processes (along with important differences) promoting a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in psychological and sociocultural evolution. The second is the conception of modem information and communication theory, which suggests a conceptual link between genetic, psychological and sociocultural information processes as central to the evolutionary mechanism. The third is the cybernetic control principle, which is central, of course, to the understanding of any complex transactional system that is adaptive and self-organizing.

Starting with an adaptive system in a changing environment — species, psychological system, social system — we note that such a system is “sensitive” to its external environment and internal milieu. This means that it is organized in such a way that even slight stimuli or potential bits of information may trigger large reactions. An important question is how the information about the environment comes to be mapped in certain ways to the system’s organization and behavior, for example, by way of tropisms, instincts, individual learning, group study, and planning. This can be asked meaningfully about any of our adaptive systems, with the possibility of finding important parallels or structural isomorphisms, along with the differences. Transdisciplinary generalizations may thus be possible, as long as differences are carefully noted.

When the environmental variety and its causal constraints (for example, the variety of different role relationships one must differentially interact within) undergoes change, the adaptive system must have a pool of variety (e.g., different sets of behaviors) also from whic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction to the Series
• Foreword
• One Introduction
• I General Theory
• II Social Control: Power and Stratification
• Endnotes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index