Introduction to interdisciplinary social science

Social Science

Social Change

Situations keep on evolving, making different aspects of culture to change as well. The human social life has been faced with immense development, and still on the verge of change to accommodate posterity needs. The ancient generations evidently presented human beings as a pre-literate and conservative population. In addition, the existence in the ancient society mainly dwelt on nature's resources and complex aspects of their culture. However, increased competition and need to advance increased the rate at which social change was taking. Customs and traditions started to erode and replaced by new practices. These practices were driven by many discoveries, inventions and culture diffusion and perspective thinking and evaluation of ideas and ideologies.

Discovery and Invention

Discovery is a mutual human perception that enacts reality aspects. The use of discoveries has greatly contributed to the process of social change by introducing new ideas and policies that avert the present reality and culture. Invention involves the addition of already existing things but in a new way. Social change has gradually increased due to social and material invention, which all backbones of societal social change. In a chain summary, discoveries bring about inventions that eventually lead to innovation that change the structure and policies that social cultures dwell upon (Hunt and Colander, 2006).

Discovery and invention is a major factor that has led to the acceleration rates of social change. The discoveries made by previous generation led to the realization of more advanced knowledge that changed the entire mindset of human beings. Contributions to discoveries and invention placed technology and industrial revolution in other levels. An instance of historical evolution is writing that has made it possible for human beings to record and store their discoveries and inventions' theories for future generations. However, these discoveries are open to challenges and as global revolution changes, so does the discoveries. Inventions are improved to accommodate even more efficient devices to sustain human social life. In addition to the writing invention, transmission of transport and communication services has evolved with time, currently being sustained by high speed communication of airplanes and electric trains, the internet and the space satellites (Hunt and Colander, 2006).

Culture Diffusion

Another process that has contributed to social change is culture diffusion. Contact among human beings regardless of race, geographical region, among others has increased. This aspect is also attributed to other human factors of interaction such as business, tourism and entertainment. Under this notion, different communities shared or copied other important practices of other cultures, hence diffusing their own and developing new culture practices. The essence of taboos has greatly eroded due to the presence of new practices favorable to each member of the society. Similarly, culture diffusion has contributed to social change by making societal changes to culture dimensions. These repercussions are prone to resultant changes, though in a gradual process. The elements of culture diffusion that result to gradual social change are culture lags, which include belief-conceptual, aesthetic-value, institutional aspect, political, economic and technological.

Culture diffusion and social change greatly relate with how cultural circumstances take turns when rendered to difficult situations. According to Sharma Rajendra et al., situations that compel certain people of the society make culture and social aspects of a society to change. This practice has gained momentum nowadays, and some of the challenges that social change has to deal with have been created as obstacles in tackling vital societal issues such as prostitution and providing alms to the financially challenged (Sharma et al., 1997).

Ideas and Ideologies

Throughout the years, sociology concepts have been developed, interpreted and put in rational frame works with concepts that advocate for social ideology. Human perspective thinking is guided by the systems of ideas that provide relevant societal theories with commitment and implications that promote social change (Johnston and Oliver, pg 1). Ideologies are of fundamental importance, especially when scrutinizing social and cultural formations that lead to social change. Ideas that human understanding is coherent with are of moral and ethical, upholding of norms, and behavioral characteristics acceptable to social life. The system of ideas and their internal structures have changed a great deal as compared to ancient times due to the increased account of phenomena that requires ideas to explain purposively.

A historical evolution pertaining ideas and ideologies is democracy. 1950s and 1960s were subsequent years that opposed personal accreditation. According to social psychologists, these years political systems were presumed as a collective behavior among crowds. The 1970s changed that ideology by supporting political views from other political and organizations (Johnston and Olive, pg 1). This, however, did not satisfy resource mobilization in political systems, and hence in the 1980s, new variants of democracy were considered by putting in radial-based systems with cognitive categories that enlightened the mass. More reified, independent and static political systems were formed placing the political phenomenon in unequivocal levels (Schatz and Rexach, 2002). Regardless of the type of democracy now used in governing political systems and maintaining authoritarianism, democratic ideas and ideologies have ratified a conceptualized and logical realism of politics, hence changing the social act, and thereby contributing to social and societal change (Javier and Rexach, 2002).