POLSCI 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Social Change

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLSCI 1AA3
• Professor: Todd Alway

Document Summary

What tradition is depends on where and when you are. Conservatism is about respecting tradition and conserving it. Not representing a way society should be organized. The conservative hypothesis is that deference to tradition is important. Predicted that the french revolution would end in tyranny, in fact any type of revolutionary project is likely to end in disaster. The attempt to overthrow tradition to reconstruct society ends up being violent. Society is better seen as a living organism than as a mere collection of individuals. Individuals form part of a greater interdependent whole. There are different roles that need to be completed for society to be a whole and keep living. Society cannot be disassembled and reassembled at will, in whatever form that a particular individual might desire. There are simple reasons why revolutionary plans so often fail to work.