The Multidimensionality of Social Evolution and the Historical Pathways of Asia and the West

Samenvatting

Argues that evolutionary theory is a weak model for human social change; species evolution is a history of proliferating species into specialized niches, whereas human social change is recurrently niche-obliterating, through conquest, destruction, and imitation. The concept of progress is a human concept based on the dominance of some social forms over others, whereas biological species are all equally well adapted to their niches. The multidimensionality of social change is illustrated by the question of whether the European West was more advanced than the East, especially China and Japan. Breaking social advance into economic, political, and cultural subdimensions, numerous mechanisms of social change can be identified. A central dimension of change has been a shift along the continuum from patrimonial-household structures to bureaucratic organization, contributing to capitalist productivity, state control, and secularized cultural markets. The shift was promoted by religious organizations, especially celibate monasteries, which helped promote entrepreneurial capitalism in China and Japan, just as Christian monasteries did in Europe. A combination of conditions, still not well understood, led to a relatively brief historical moment, ca. 1800-1970, when Europe was dominant over the rest of the world. 31 References. Adapted from the source document.