Ogburn’s View, Essay Example

William Ogburn, an “American sociologist known for his application of statistical methods to the problems of the social sciences” (Encyclopedia Britannica), studied the changes in technological sphere and their impact on culture. His theory of social displacement is caused by the irregularity of changes of different culture aspects.

Ogburn marks out two cultural aspects: material and non-material. Material culture includes all kinds of made goods, factories, houses, cars – all material things, also inventions and technological discoveries. Non-material culture, which is also named adaptive, includes social institutes, such as family, church, school, system of values (laws, customs and traditions, views) and political institutes (governments, lobbies and political clubs).

The main Ogburn’s idea is that changes in material culture, “the applications of scientific discovery and the material products of technology” (Ogburn 169), occur at a faster rate than do changes in the non-material, adaptive culture (e.g. norms, values, patterns of social organization), thereby causing mal – adjustment in this non-material culture. One of main reasons is the existence of some conservative groups that defend their values and views from the influence of the material culture. Other elements of adaptive culture can adapt to the new conditions only partly. Family can serve as a great example. Inside the family there can be some adaptation to material changes. During the technical revolution some crafts were displaced from the family and turned into factory manufacturing.

The changes in one part of the social system (especially technological success) need adequate changes of its other aspects. Until it is reached, society will face a lot of problems.

One of the reasons of the cultural lag is the habit and inertia. It may be very difficult to persuade people to accept some new, more intelligent behavior. Other difficulty is the fact that modern society consists of groups, having different interests. Immigration, for example, may raise somebody’s appreciation because of will to meet their relatives from abroad, and also negative responds of those who is anxious not to lose work because of the immigrants, etc.

The cultural lag is a vivid problem nowadays. Material culture elements are changing very fast. We face the problem of the widely spread of nuclear weapon. It exists for a long time but we only start to create institutes that can control this danger.

Based on this conception there exists the theory of social progress as the culture reaction to technical development – the history is considered to be the result of the technical progress.

Works Cited

Ogburn, William. “Cultural Lag as Theory.” Sociology and Social Research 41. (1957): 167-174. Encyclopedia Britannica. 29 Apr. 2009.  <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/425785/William-Fielding-Ogburn>