SOCI 2510 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Pastoralism, Industrial Technology, Sociocultural Evolution
10 Sep 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Society
➢ Society refers to people who interact in a defined territory and share a culture.
➢ Three of sociology’s founders include:
○ Karl Marx took a long historical view of societies, probing the roots of the social
conflict that arises from the positions of owners and workers in the production of
material goods.
○ Max Weber shows that the power of ideas shapes society. Weber contrasted the
traditional thinking of simple societies with the rational thought that dominates
complex societies today.
○ Emile Durkheim helps us see the different ways that traditional and modern societies
hang together.
GERHARD AND JEAN LENSKI: SOCIETY AND
TECHNOLOGY
➢ The Lenskis use the term socio-cultural evolution to mean changes that occur as a society
gains new technology.
○ Societies with the simplest technology have little control over nature, so they can
support only a small number of people.
➢ Inventing or adopting new technology sends ripples of change throughout a society.
➢ The more technology a society has, the faster it changes.
➢ Modern, high-technology societies change so quickly that individuals will experience major
social changes during their lives.
HUNTING/GATHERING SOCIETIES
➢ In the simplest of all societies, people live by hunting and gathering, the use of simple tools
to hunt animals and gather vegetation.
➢ From about 3 million years ago until about 12 000 years ago, all humans were hunters and
gatherers. Today, just a few remain.
➢ With little ability to control their environment, hunters and gatherers spend most of their time
looking for game and collecting plants to eat.
○ Only in lush areas with a lot of food do hunters and gatherers have much free time.
➢ Because it takes a large amount of land to support even a few people, hunter/gatherer societies
tend to stay together in extended family groups of just a few dozen members.
○ They must also be nomadic, moving to find new sources of vegetation or to follow
migrating animals. They rarely form permanent settlements.
➢ Hunting/gathering societies depend on the family to do many things. The family must get and
distribute food, protect its members, and teach the children. Everyone’s life is much the same.
➢ Women gather vegetation as well as fish, small mammals, and birds, while men take on the
less certain job of hunting large game.
○ Most hunters and gatherers probably see the sexes as having about the same socio-
economic importance.
➢ Hunting/gathering societies usually have a shaman, or spiritual leader, who enjoys high
prestige but has to work to find food like everyone else.
➢ People in hunter/gatherer societies come close to being socially equal.
➢ Hunters and gatherers use simple tools but rarely as weapons to wage war. Their real enemies
are the forces of nature.
➢ Being at risk encourages people to co-operate and share, a strategy that raises everyone’s
chances of survival. Many die in childhood, and no more than half reach the age of 20.
HORICULTURAL AND PASTORAL SOCIETIES
➢ About 10 000 to 12 000 years ago, people discovered horiculture, the use of hand tools to
raise crops. These inventions allowed people to give up gathering in favor of growing their
own food.
○ The first humans to plant gardens lived in fertile regions of the Middle East.
➢ Hunters and gatherers living where food was plentiful saw little reason to change their ways.
People living in dry or mountainous areas found little use for horiculture because they could
not grow much anyway.
○ Such people were more likely to adopt pastoralism, the domestication of animals.
➢ Today, societies that mix horiculture and pastoralism can be found throughout South
America, Africa, and Asia.
➢ Growing plants and raising animals greatly increased food production, so populations
expanded to hundreds of people in one location. Pastoralists remained nomadic, but
horiculturists formed settlements.
○ These settlements formed societies with populations reaching into the thousands.
➢ Once a society is capable of producing a material surplus, not everyone has to work at
providing food. Greater specialization results.
➢ Compared to hunter/gatherer societies, horicultural and pastoral societies are more socially
diverse. However, horicultural and pastoral societies have greater inequality, with elites using
government power to serve their own interests.
○ Leaders control only a small number of people, rather than a vast empire.
➢ Hunters and gatherers are likely to believe that many spirits inhabit the world. Horiculturists
are more likely to think of one God as Creator. Pastoral societies see God as directly involved
in the well-being of the entire world.
○ This view of God is common among members of our own society because
Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all began in pastoral societies of the Middle East.
AGRARIAN SOCIETIES
➢ About 5000 years ago was the development of agriculture, large-scale cultivation using
plows harnessed to animals or more powerful energy sources.
○ This moment in history is often called “the dawn of civilization.”
➢ Farmers could work the same land for generations, encouraging the development of
permanent settlements.
➢ With the ability to grow a surplus of food and to transport goods, agrarian societies greatly
expanded. Greater production meant even more specialization.
➢ With so many people producing so many different things, money (or currency) was required
as a common standard of exchange, and the old barter system was abandoned.
➢ Agrarian societies have extreme social inequality, typically more than in modern societies
such as our own. A large share of the people are peasants or slaves who do most of the work.
Elites therefore have time for more refined activities.
➢ Agriculture raises men to a position of social dominance. Men take charge of food production
in agrarian societies. Women are left with the support tasks.
➢ Religion reinforces the power of elites by defining both loyalty and hard work as moral
obligations.
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
➢ Industrialism is the production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large
machinery.
➢ Around 1750, people used water power, then steam boilers to operate mills and factories filled
with larger and larger machines.
➢ Industrial technology gave people such power over their environment that change took place
faster than ever before. It sparked the birth of sociology itself.
➢ Electronic communication gave people the ability to reach others instantly, all over the world.
➢ Industrialization drew people away from home to factories situated near energy sources that
powered their machinery.
○ Workers lost close working relationships, strong family ties, and many of the
traditional values, beliefs, and customs that guided agrarian life.
➢ Occupational specialization became greater than ever.
➢ Rapid change and people’s tendency to move for employment also make social life more
anonymous, increase cultural diversity, and promote subcultures and countercultures.
➢ Industrial technology reduced the family’s traditional importance as the centre of social life.
➢ Technological change also makes families more diverse, with a greater share of single people,
divorced people, single-parent families, and step-families.
➢ Industrial technology is so much more productive that incomes in general rise over time, and
people throughout society have longer and more comfortable lives.
○ Even social inequality decreases slightly because industrial societies provide
extended schooling and greater political rights.
■ Industrialization has had the effect of increasing the demand for a greater
political voice.
POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
➢ A generation ago, sociologist Daniel Bell (1973) coined the term post-industrialism to refer
to technology that supports an information-based economy.
➢ Today, post-industrial production relies on computers and other electronic devices that create,
process, store, apply, and transmit information.
➢ People in post-industrial societies develop information-based skills and carry out their work
using computers and other forms of high-technology communication.
➢ A post-industrial society uses less and less of its labour force for industrial production. More
jobs become available for all of those whom process information.
➢ The Information Revolution is most evident in rich nations, yet new information technology
affects the whole world.
Document Summary
Society refers to people who interact in a defined territory and share a culture. Karl marx took a long historical view of societies, probing the roots of the social conflict that arises from the positions of owners and workers in the production of material goods. Max weber shows that the power of ideas shapes society. Weber contrasted the traditional thinking of simple societies with the rational thought that dominates complex societies today. Emile durkheim helps us see the different ways that traditional and modern societies hang together. The lenskis use the term socio-cultural evolution to mean changes that occur as a society. Societies with the simplest technology have little control over nature, so they can gains new technology. support only a small number of people. Inventing or adopting new technology sends ripples of change throughout a society. The more technology a society has, the faster it changes.
