Main theories about Culture and Society
There are four main theories about Culture and Society that are:
Evolutionism, particularism, diffusionism, Functionalism, Structuralism.
Evolutionism
In the second half of the 19th century, it was thought that culture developed uniformly. According to this anthropological model, all cultures and societies are governed by the same historical laws that determine their evolution.
Edward B. Taylor was his representative. He affirms that every culture evolves from simple to complex and that all societies go through three great stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization. The savagery is a poorly developed system, based on hunting and gathering, barbarism, the invention of agriculture and the use of metals, and civilization is characterized by the appearance of writing.
Taylor also said that culture follows a linear and progressive development, but many societies stop at their cultural development and fall behind other peoples; In addition, the cultural features of a stage never disappear completely, but in the most advanced societies will always be traces or traces of previous stages.
He also believed that there was a common collective mentality that encouraged very different and distant societies to find the same or similar solutions to problems of adaptation to the environment.
Particularism
At the beginning of S. XX, the model of evolutionary theory enters into crisis. The anthropologist Franz Boas was his forerunner and openly criticized the idea that human culture is governed by universal laws. He focused on the enormous complexity of cultural variations to affirm that it was premature to assume the existence of social laws. He also considered, without scientific basis, the evolutionary claim that all cultures are similar due to the unity of the human mind.
In opposition to evolutionism, he argues that the differences between different societies and cultures are the result of their particular historical, social and geographical conditions. It is impossible to explain the similarities and cultural differences through a set of identical stages that each village travels as it develops.
For Boas, therefore, it is impossible to explain cultures through a universally valid evolutionary scheme. That is why he suggested that anthropology should study isolated or particular cultural characteristics in a specific historical context. The anthropologist did not have to speculate.
Diffusionism
New theoretical model defended by Elliot Smith or William J. Perry. They affirmed that the most advanced societies in a certain period of history transmit their cultural characteristics to the rest of the contiguous civilizations. Subsequently, these characteristics are extended to other towns through a system of diffusion by concentric circles. They give as an example the Egyptian culture to the bordering cultures and their transmission to other more distant civilizations.
The diffusionists thought that the people preferred to copy the characteristics of other more advanced civilizations than to invent them. The diffusionists consider cultures as a fortuitous mixture of elements borrowed between nearby and distant peoples. Therefore, the origin of cultural differences and similarities is not the spontaneity of the human mind to invent, but the tendency of social groups to imitate or copy each other.
In the next publication Functionalism, Structuralism will be explained!
Evolutionism, particularism, diffusionism, Functionalism, Structuralism.
Evolutionism
In the second half of the 19th century, it was thought that culture developed uniformly. According to this anthropological model, all cultures and societies are governed by the same historical laws that determine their evolution.
Edward B. Taylor was his representative. He affirms that every culture evolves from simple to complex and that all societies go through three great stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization. The savagery is a poorly developed system, based on hunting and gathering, barbarism, the invention of agriculture and the use of metals, and civilization is characterized by the appearance of writing.
Taylor also said that culture follows a linear and progressive development, but many societies stop at their cultural development and fall behind other peoples; In addition, the cultural features of a stage never disappear completely, but in the most advanced societies will always be traces or traces of previous stages.
He also believed that there was a common collective mentality that encouraged very different and distant societies to find the same or similar solutions to problems of adaptation to the environment.
Particularism
At the beginning of S. XX, the model of evolutionary theory enters into crisis. The anthropologist Franz Boas was his forerunner and openly criticized the idea that human culture is governed by universal laws. He focused on the enormous complexity of cultural variations to affirm that it was premature to assume the existence of social laws. He also considered, without scientific basis, the evolutionary claim that all cultures are similar due to the unity of the human mind.
In opposition to evolutionism, he argues that the differences between different societies and cultures are the result of their particular historical, social and geographical conditions. It is impossible to explain the similarities and cultural differences through a set of identical stages that each village travels as it develops.
For Boas, therefore, it is impossible to explain cultures through a universally valid evolutionary scheme. That is why he suggested that anthropology should study isolated or particular cultural characteristics in a specific historical context. The anthropologist did not have to speculate.
Diffusionism
New theoretical model defended by Elliot Smith or William J. Perry. They affirmed that the most advanced societies in a certain period of history transmit their cultural characteristics to the rest of the contiguous civilizations. Subsequently, these characteristics are extended to other towns through a system of diffusion by concentric circles. They give as an example the Egyptian culture to the bordering cultures and their transmission to other more distant civilizations.
The diffusionists thought that the people preferred to copy the characteristics of other more advanced civilizations than to invent them. The diffusionists consider cultures as a fortuitous mixture of elements borrowed between nearby and distant peoples. Therefore, the origin of cultural differences and similarities is not the spontaneity of the human mind to invent, but the tendency of social groups to imitate or copy each other.
In the next publication Functionalism, Structuralism will be explained!
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