Week:
Department of International Relations
INR 135 |
2020-2021 Spring Semester
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
WEEK 5 |SOCIETIES
vChanging Patterns of Society
vExplaining Modern Industrial Society
vReviewing Theories
vThe Contemporary Shape of World Societies.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
Changing Patterns of Society
vThe concept of society refers to «people who interact in a defined space and
shared culture»
e.g., Turkish, Canadian, English society etc.
vMany sociologists were concerned with the momentous changes taking place
in European Societies in their times, and how the future would develop.
vSociologists who study the past (with archaeologists and anthropologists)
have learned quite a bit about our human heritage.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Gerhard Lenski and Jean Lenski have chronicled the great differences among societies that have flourished
and declined throughout human history.
v The Lenskies call the focus of their research as «Sociocultural Evolution»: The process of change that
results from a society’s gaining new information, particularly technology.
v Drawing on the Lenskies’ work, we will describe five general types of society distinguished by their
technology:
1. Hunting and Gathering Societies,
2. Horticultural and Pastoral Societies,
3. Agrarian Societies,
4. Industrial (modern) Societies,
5. Post-industrial (post-modern) Societies.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
1. HUNTING and GATHERING SOCIETIES
v Hunting and gathering societies refers to simple technology for hunting animals and gathering vegetation.
v From the emergence of our species until about 12.000 years ago, all humans were hunters and gatherers.
v Although they are in sharp decline, there may be around 300 million indigenous peoples around the World in our
days.
Indigenous people: Peoples with ties to the land, water and wild life of their ancestral domain. Many of them are still
hunter and gatherers:
e.g.,
• Aka and Pygmies of Central Africa, - The Bushmen of South-Western Africa,
• The Aborginies and Torres strait islanders of Australia,
• The Maori of New Zealand, - The Kaska Indians of North-West Canada,
• The Batek and Semai of Malaysia, etc.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Hunting & gathering soceties are nomadic, moving on as they depleted vegetation in one area or
in pursuit of migratory animals.
v These societies are based on kinship. Family is very important. Family;
• Obtains and distributes food,
• Protects its members, teaches necessary skills to children,
• No further specialization, everyone seeks for the next meal,
• The very young and very old contribute only what they can,
• Women – generally do gathering of vegetation,
• Men – generally do hunting of animals.
v Hunting & gathering societies have few formal leaders:
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Most recognise a SHAMAN, or spiritual leader, who enjoys high prestige but receives no
grater material rewards than other members of the society and must help procure food like
everyone else.
v However, the social organisation of hunters & gatherers is relatively simple and egalitarian.
v They are often ravaged by the forces of nature.
v Storms and droughts can easily destroy their food supply.
v They are vulnerable to accident and diseases.
v So, many die in childhood, perhaps half perish before age of 20.
v Industrial societies (technology) destroyed most of them.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
2. HORTICULTURAL & PASTORAL SOCIETIES
v Ten to twelve thousand years ago, a new technology began to
change many hunting & gathering societies.
v Horticulture is technology based on using hand tools to cultivate
plants.
v The most important tools of them are the hoe to work the soil
and digging stick to punch holes in the ground for seeds.
v Horticulturalists first appeared in fertile regions of the Middle
East, and later in Latin America and Asia.
v Cultural diffusion spread knowledge of horticulture throught
most of the world by 6.000 years ago
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v However, not all horticulturalists left hunting and gathering.
v Mostly women were doing horticulture, while men occupied by hunting.
v They were cultuvating small lands around temporaray settelement, and planting trees. They
also used irrigation.
v Women had strong positions in society = Matriarchal
v However, by growing populations, humans found horticulture to be of little value.
v Such people turned to a different strategy for survival:
v Pastoralism, which is technology based on the domestication of animals.
v It is possible today to find them in South America, Africa and Asia
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v The domestication of plants and animals greatly increased food production, enabling cities
to support not dozens but hundreds of people.
v Pastoralists remained nomadic.
v Horticulturalists, by contrast, formed temporary settlements.
v Domesticating plants and animals generates a material surplus (more resources than are
necessary to sustain day-to-day living).
v
A surplus = freed some people
allowed them to create crafts,
engage in trade, cut hair, apply tattoos,
serve as priests, etc.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
Having surplus intensified «social inequality»
i.e., People producing food, and
People securing and distributing them, also
Governing – generating elite families
Some kinds of military forces were formed.
v Again, growing of population, discovering ploughs and having
animals’ power = cultivating greater lands ...
v Transfering to a new type of Society = AGRARIAN SOCIETIES
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
3. AGRARIAN SOCIETIES
v About 5.000 years ago, another revolution was underway in the Middle East that later
transformed most of the world.
v This was the discovery of agriculture.
i.e., the technology of large-scale farming using ploughs harnessed to animals or more
powerful sources of energy.
v Shortly;
o the social significance of the animal-drawn plough,
o irrigation,
o the wheel,
o writing,
o numbers and the expanding use of metals.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v All these mean the arrival of a new kind of society.
i.e., Farmers cultivated larger fields.
v Plough turned soil to increase fertility.
v First permanent settlements appeared.
v Large food surpluses, transported on animal-powered wagons allowed agrarian societies to expand
land area and population.
v Slowly, the tasks performed by everyone such as clearing land and securing food became distinct
occupations.
v Specialization and job division.
v Invention of money.
v So, exchange economy transformed to money economy.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Also, growing towns and settlements.
v Population increased.
v Problems such as drinking water, municipality services, governing, security, military affairs etc.
occured.
v Shortly, agrarian societies exhibited dramatic social inequality.
v Slaves or peasents constituted labour for elites.
v Elites devoted their time to study art, literature and philosophy.
v Man again become the dominant in society.
v Religion reinforced the power of agricultural elites.
v In agrarian societies, elites gained unparalled power.
v To maintain control of large empires, leaders required the service of a wide range of
administrators.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v So, economy growed.
v New political systems are established.
v Greater specialization and more social inequality happened.
v Greater – wider technology provided human control over the natural world.
v Step by step;
Discovering wind mills – water mills
Melting iron
Gunpowder
Clock
Steam etc.
v Lead to a new type of Society = INDSTRIAL => MODERN SOCIETY
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
4. INDUSTRIAL – MODERN SOCIETIES
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
4. INDUSTRIAL – MODERN SOCIETIES
v Industrialism is technology that powers sophisticated machinery with advanced sources of energy.
v This period is named as INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
v Around 1750 = new development in technology: Mills, factories, water and steam power; later –
electricity, railways, etc.
v Consequently, industrial societies transformed in very short time.
v During the 19th century, railways and steamships revolutionised transportation.
v Later – electricty, telephone, news papers, radio, TV;
v Later – nuclear energy, information technology, internet, social media etc.
v All produced a new cultural patterns.
v World got smaller and smaller.
v Work styles have changed.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Industrialization created factories.
v Human power replaced by machinery power.
v Serial production led to more and more number of products.
v Family – strong kinship ties losted its importance slowly and traditional ties –
societies collapsed decade by decade.
v Industrialization engenered societies of unparalled prosperity.
v North America and Western Europe were developed.
v Living standarts are increased.
v More diseases are controlled.
v Life expectancy increased.
v Machinesation in agriculture increased.
v Surpluses agrarian population are pushed to city’s centers.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Rapid changes in life conditions, kinship system and cultural values.
v Shortly, industrial technology recasted the family.
i.e., diminished its traditional significance as the center of social life.
v Extended family transformed to nuclear family.
v More divorced people; single-parent families; gay-lesbian couples and marriages; increasing in step
families.
v However, poverty, colonization, explotation become problems.
v New social rights; trade unions = workers’ rights
v Later invention of computer technology: Computer, Fax, Internet, Smart technologies, Internet of
things.
v Consequently, all these developments led to a new society’s type:
v POST-INDUSTRIAL (POST-MODERN) SOCIETIES
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
5. POST-INDUSTRIAL & POST-MODERN SOCIETIES
v Post-industrialization refers to computer-linked-based technology that supports an information-based economy.
v While production in industrial societies focuses on factories and machinery that generate material goods,
v Post-modern production focuses on computers and other electronic devices that create, process, store and apply
information.
v This is called also as INFORMATION SOCIETY.
v i.e., Factory is replaced by office; Machine is replaced by computer; Economic sectors are divided as agriculture,
industry and service sectors.
v Parralel to blue-collar workers (proleteria), the number of white-collar workers (managers, academics, marketing,
advertising, public services, public relations etc.) are increased.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
v Post-modernism is the ways of thinking which
Karikatür: Özer Aydoğan
stress a plurality of perspectives as opposed to
a unified, single core.
v It is a world where –change is greatly speeding
up,
where
–classical
boundaries
accross
societies are breaking down, and –a new sense
of society is in the making.
v However, it is important to remember that all
five kinds of society we outlined here still coexist in our day over the World.
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY
INR 135 | Sociology 2021-2022
Karikatür: Erdil Yaşaroğlu
Take care of yourself!
See u next week..
Dr. Barış MUTLUAY