CHAPTER 1: HUMAN SITUATION

Theme

Each one of us has a vested interest in learning all that we can about the societies in which we live and the other with which we share the planet. Above all, we need to prepare ourselves for the changes that lie ahead.

Fortunately, we are not without resources. A branch of modern science known as sociology has made the study of human societies its chief concern. Its basic aim is to understand human societies and the forces that have made them what they are. Although many important questions remain to be answered, considerable progress has already been made, and the aim of this volume is to provide a summary of, and introduction to, what has been learned thus far. (4-5)

Two Approaches in Sociology: Micro & Macro

Microsociology is the study of specific components, features and problems of societies. Marcrosciology focuses on human societies themselves. Although it too is concerned with the parts that make up society, it analyzes them in relation to the larger social systems of which they are part.

Approach of Text

This volume takes the macrosociological approach. Its primary concern and focus are human societies themselves. It does not ignore the components of society but examines those parts as they relate to the whole (5).

Two other characteristics of this book should be noted. First, it relies on a historical and evolutionary approach. It examines societies over an extended period of time to understand the critical process of societal change and development. Second, its approach is comparative. In examines the similarities and differences and draws inferences explaining specific phenomena. In making comparisons, the book hopes to discover differences that make a difference.

Theoretical Baseline

The text’s uses an ecological-evolutionary theoretical framework to explain social phenomena. Ecological-evolutionary theory (EET) is concerned with 2 things: (1) relations among the parts of societies and the interactions between societies and their environments and (2) evolution of societies--how and why they change and how these changes create differences among societies EET predicates societies as part of the global ecosystem; the organization of which parallels that of many species of multicellular organisms (6-8).

A Definition of Human Societies: 2 Parts

I. Societies as Adaptive Mechanisms: Societies are adaptive mechanisms involving cooperative activities among its members.

The development of the societal mode of organization has been called “one of the great steps in evolution, as important as the emergence of the cell, the multicellular organism, and the vertebrate system. The societal mode of organization helps the members of a species survive. It is a valuable adaptive mechanism Different from adaptive mechanisms that enable a species to perform a particular activity, societal organization is by its potential for being used as an enhanced capacity for cooperation (8). Cooperation means that the individual in a given species associate with and interact with one another for their mutual benefit. It does not presume complete cooperation or an absence of conflict and competition. The types of cooperative activities in which the various social species engage include reproduction, nurture of their young, securing food, and defense.

II. Autonomous Groups

Human societies are autonomous groups--groups not subject to the political authority or control of any larger, more inclusive group. A human society is a politically autonomous group of people that engages in a broad range of cooperative activities (9).

Understanding Societies: 3 Basic Assumption of EET

EET begins with 3 basic assumptions. (1) First, because human societies are part of the world of nature, they are influenced by their environments in a variety of ways. (2) Second, because human societies are part of the world of nature, their members, like members of other species, are endowed with a genetic heritage that profoundly influences their actions. (3) Third, this human heritage enables the members of human societies to create cultural heritages, and it is this that gives human life its unique qualities (12).

I. Human Societies & the Environment

Environment refers to everything that is external to a specified population and that has any effect on it. For human society, the environment includes both intellectual and empirical phenomena. Human society must adapt to both a biophysical and human social environment (12).

II. Human Societies: Their Genetic Heritage

In the efforts of societies to cope with the challenges of their environments, their most basic resource has always been the vast store of information contained in the genes of their members. This heritage is a produce of an evolutionary process that has been going on for more than 3 billion years. As such, each member of a species is endowed with a vast store of chemically coded information (13).

What makes humans so different from other anthropoid apes, with whom we share more than 99 percent of our genes, is that at some point in the evolution of one anthropoid line there occurred a series of genetic changes that, although few in number, had revolutionary consequences for behavior. The most critical changes altered the structure of the brain and shifted the center of vocalization to the neocortex, or new part of the brain, where learning takes place and learned information is stored. Because of these changes, humans acquired the capacity to learn, communicate, and create a radically new mode of adaptation: culture.

Human’s capacity to cooperate and live in societies, is not a matter of choice, but a product of our genetic heritage. Similarly, our reliance on learning as a basic mode of adaptation, is not because we decided it was the best thing to do, but an expression of our mammalian and primate heritage.

Learning is the process by which an organism acquires, through experience, information with behavior-modifying potential; its own experiences become a factor shaping its behavior. In human and higher primates, the evolution of the forebrain has reached the point where they are able to store such a wide range of memories that they can learn by insight. In other words, they can analyze a situation in their minds and thereby avoid the time-consuming, costly, and often painful process of trial and error. The adaptive ability to learn is enhanced by two factors: (1) when animals live in groups and benefit from the experience of its fellows thereby multiplying the amount of information available to a population and (2) prolonged physical immaturity of the young thereby allowing from long-term education and socialization (15).

III. Culture: A New Mode of Adaptation and a New Kind of Heritage

Unlike the genetic heritages of other species, ours enables us to create culture. Culture is learned information, and it is passed from person to person and from generation to generation by means of symbols. Symbols, as signals (used by other species), both convey information. The difference between signals and symbols is that the meaning of a signal is wholly or largely determined by the genetic makeup of the individuals who use it; the meaning of a symbol is not (16-17). Symbols are not genetically determined. The ability to create and use symbols does depend on genetics, but the form of a symbol and the meaning attached to it do not. Thus, a symbol is an information conveyer whose form and meaning have developed within a community of speakers. Humans share the ability to create symbols with no other species (18).

The importance of symbol systems lies not in what they are, but in what they have made it possible for our species to become. Although we are all born into the human family, we become fully human only through the use of symbols. Without them, we are unable to develop the unique qualities we associate with humanness. For symbols are more than a means of communication: they are tools with which we think and plan, dream and remember, create and build, calculate, speculate, and moralize (20).

Human Societies: The Basic Model

The aim of EET is to understand why human societies are the way they are. It assures that human societies are (1) part of the world of nature and (2) unique in fundamental ways (20-21).

In the chapters that follow, we will present a number of models in diagrammatic form as a means of summarizing various aspects of EET. Our first model identifies the most basic determinants of the characteristics of human societies as understood by EET. As figure 1.2 indicates (page 21), this theory asserts that all of a society’s characteristics are ultimately due to 3 things: (1) the influence of its biophysical and social environments, (2) the influence of our species’ genetic heritage, and (3) the influence of prior social and cultural characteristics of society itself.

Things to Come

In the chapters that follow we will amplify and extend this basic model. In chapter 2 we will examine the characteristics of society and in chapter 3 we will see why and how human societies change. These chapters will provide us with the information we need in chapter 4 to map the principal types and varieties of societies that have evolved over the course of the last 10,000 years (22).