CULTURAL LAG
The role played by material inventions, that is, by technology, in social
change probably received most emphasis in the work of William F. Ogburn. It was
Ogburn, also, who was chiefly responsible for the idea that the rate of
invention within society is a function of the size of the existing culture
base. He saw the rate of material invention as increasing with the passage of
time.Ogburn believed that material and non-material cultures change in
different ways. Change in material culture is believed to have a marked
directional or progressive character. This is because there are agreed-upon
standards of efficiency that are used to evaluate material inventions. To use
air-planes, as an example, we keep working to develop planes that will fly,
higher and faster, and carry more payloads on a lower unit cost. Because
airplanes can be measured against these standards, inventions in this area
appear rapidly and predictably. In the area of non-material culture, on the
other hand there often are no such generally accepted standards. Whether one
prefers a Hussain, a Picasso, or a Gainsborough, for example, is a matter of
taste, and styles of painting fluctuate unevenly. Similarly, in institutions
such as government and the economic system there are competing forms of styles,
Governments may be dictatorships, oligarchies, republics or democracies.
Economic system includes communist, socialist, feudal, and capitalist ones.
As far as can be told, there is no regular progression from one form of
government or economic system to another. The obvious directional character of
change in material culture is lacking in many areas of non-material culture. In
addition to the difference in the directional character of change, Ogburn and
others believe that material culture tends to change faster than non-material
culture. Certainly one of the imperative aspects of modern American life is the
tremendous development of technology. Within this century, life has been
transformed by invention of the radio, TV, automobiles, airplanes, rockets,
transistors, and computers and so on. While this has been happening in material
culture, change in government, economic system, family life, education, and
religion seems to have been much slower. This difference in rates of cultural
change led Ogburn to formulate the concept of culture lag. Material inventions,
he believed bring changes that require adjustments in various areas of non-material
culture.Invention of the automobile, for instance, freed young people from
direct parental observation, made it possible for them to work at distances
from their homes, and, among other things, facilitated crime by making escape
easier. Half a century earlier, families still were structured as they were in
the era of the family farm when young people were under continuous observation
and worked right on the homestead.
Culture lag is defined as the time between the appearance of a new material
invention and the making of appropriate adjustments in corresponding area of
non-material culture. This time is often long. It was over fifty years, for
example, after the typewriter was invented before it was used systematically in
offices. Even today, we may have a family system better adapted to a farm
economy than to an urban industrial one, and nuclear weapons exist in a
diplomatic atmosphere attuned to the nineteenth century. As the discussion
implies, the concept of culture lag is associated with the definition of social
problems. Scholars envision some balance or adjustment existing between
material and non-material cultures. That balance is upset by the appearance of
raw material objects. The resulting imbalance is defined as a social problem
until non-material culture changes in adjustment to the new technology.
Society slack is characterized as the time between the presence of another material creation and the making of suitable modification in comparing zone of non-material society. This time is frequently long. It was in excess of fifty years, for instance, after the was created before it was utilized methodically as a part of work places. Indeed today, we may have a family framework better adjusted to a homestead economy than to a urban modern one, and atomic weapons exist in a strategic climate receptive to the nineteenth century.
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