Conclusions

I do not find the perspectives examined in this course to be incompatible; rather, I believe they are each illuminating different aspects of a single sociocultural system, each leaving the remainder in the background. But to embrace each perspective in full, without priority or weighting, is to adopt an eclectic perspective, and this, I believe, has been disastrous for sociology. While such a strategy has led to some remarkable insights within the social sciences it has not led to a holistic, coherent world view that is shared by the vast majority of practitioners within the field and consequently has hindered the advancement of the social sciences. As evolution does for biology, such a shared world view offers a beginning framework for organizing a field, informing the researcher what to look for, what needs further testing, clarification, or refinement, and what should be rejected and finally abandoned. A shared, coherent world view offers a systematic analytical strategy that practitioners and students alike can use to guide and prioritize research and to order and interpret new findings and data. Such a world-view also offers identity to its practitioners as well as providing an empirically based alternative explanation to those offered by religion, ideology, or folk wisdom.

Required Readings:

Chapter 5: Meta-Analysis in Macrosociology: Four Modern Theorists,

Chapter 14: "Common Ground" in Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural Systems.

Resources

Great Classical Theorists

In the Classical Tradition

Look these words up in your chapter reading or in the Glossary of Social Science; study them and be ready for fill-in-the-blanks on the next exam:

synthesis	integration	eclecticism	world-view
bureaucratization	division of labor	mode of production	social evolution
anomie	internalization	environmental constraints	primary group
secondary group	cultural superstructure	mental superstructure	infrastructure
environment	mode of reproduction	intensification	hyperindustrial
infanticide	social structure	zweckrational	traditional action
wertrational	affective action	primacy of the infrastructure	cost-benefit decision making
exponential growth	hunting & gathering societies	rationalization	cumulative change

Essays:

On your next exam you will be asked to demonstrate that you have read and mastered the course material. You should take the time now to answer the following essay questions to create your study guide for that exam. Address the questions fully and completely in your own words and voice. Prepare your answers now.

What selection process occurs in the world-system of societies?
Why did capitalism arise in the West at the end of the Middle Ages?

Short Answers:

The following short answer questions are from your readings and may well appear on your next exam. Each can be answered with a short paragraph of three or four sentences; please use your own words and voice. You are encouraged to answer these questions now to create your study guide for that exam.

Discuss the pros and cons of considering the economy as part of the infrastructure of sociocultural systems
Explain the differences between Harris's concept of intensification and Elwell's use of the term.
Explain the concept of feedback loop with reference to bureaucratization and intensification?
How is infrastructural intensification related to the growth of secondary organizations?
What is a materialistic causal order?
According to Marx, what is the engine of sociocultural change?
According to Weber, what are the root causes of the bureaucratization/rationalization process?
What is the cultural materialist's posited relationship between ideas and material conditions?
How does the increasing division of labor affect social solidarity?
According to Durkheim, why is the division of labor increasing?
According to sociocultural materialism, what is the principle function of human sociocultural systems?
Through what mechanisms do societies regulate the flow of energy from their environment?
What is the most common source of innovation in sociocultural evolution?
How are resource shortages related to the initial industrial revolution?
According to materialists, what is the role of elites in social change?
What is the relationship between capital and intensification?
What is the relationship between capital and rationalization?
Who is Betty J. Miner?
What are the advantages for a discipline to have a coherent and shared world-view?

Bibliography:

Elwell, F. W. (1992) The Evolution of the Future. West Port: Praeger.

Elwell, F. W. (1999). Industrializing America: Understanding Contemporary Society Through Classical Sociological Analysis. West Port: Praeger.

Elwell, F. W. (2007) Macrosociology: Four Modern Theorists. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Elwell, F. W. (2009) Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural Systems. Lewiston: Mellen Press.

Malthus, T. R. (1798/2001). An Essay on the Principle of Population. In F. W. Elwell, A Commentary on Malthus' 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population as Social Theory (pp. 127-294). Lewiston: Mellen Press.

Features | Syllabus | Theorists