One of the popular misconceptions concerning evolution is the belief that the process itself is fixed and stable and that only its products—be they species or societies—change. The fact of the matter is that while there are certain enduring aspects of the evolutionary process, the process itself has evolved. Emergence charac- terizes the process of evolution as well as its products. This is why we have today a family of evolutionary theories (see Chapter 1) and not a single all-purpose theory to cover the spectrum of the sciences from cosmology to sociology.
The taxonomy of historical eras is a valuable reminder that what is true of the evolutionary process as a whole is also true of sociocultural evolution. The process of sociocultural evolution has evolved and the concept of emergence ap- plies to it no less than to its products. We have already noted an important in- stance of this associated with the transition from the hunting and gathering era to the horticultural era. Prior to the horticultural era, intersocietal selection appears to have been based on the quantity and quality of technological information that societies possessed concerning the challenges and resources of their own particu- lar niche in the biophysical environment. Beginning with the horticultural era, however, the quantity and quality of technological information relevant to mili- tary matters became crucial and this gave rise to dramatic and revolutionary changes in the global system of societies.
This was not the end of the matter, however. There is good reason to believe that certain technological advances of the modern era are altering the historic relationship between technology and ideology. As noted earlier, ideological fac- tors are able to influence societal characteristics only within limits set by technol- ogy. Moreover, technology not only defines the limits of the possible, it has also determined the economic costs of the various options available within those lim- its. But when technological advances (e.g., contraceptive technology) slow the rate of population growth, and thereby increase the economic surplus, then the quantity of resources that can be allocated on the basis of ideological consider- ations is greatly increased and the importance of the ideological factor is enhanced. This has already happened in advanced industrial societies.
3. A few horticultural societies have had some literacy and some urbanization, though usually much less than the average agrarian society.
Conversely, technological advance appears to reduce the influence of a society’s biophysical environment relative to other determinants of its characteris- tics. Improved methods of transportation make it possible to import resources that are lacking in a particular territory. Thus, modern industrial technology makes it possible for substantial populations to reside in desert areas, such as the Ameri- can Southwest, or in subarctic regions, such as Alaska (though, again, one must beware of exaggerating the magnitude of the change). Meanwhile, this same new industrial technology has greatly enhanced the importance of the sociocultural environment and made societies more dependent than ever before on other soci- eties.
As these examples suggest, the relative importance of the various determi- nants of the characteristics of individual societies changes from one historical era to the next. If it were possible to deal with this problem quantitatively, we would see that the coefficients associated with each of the variables in our regression equations were changing from era to era. Figure 6.5 indicates the kinds of changes that have occurred because of the evolution of the sociocultural evolutionary pro- cess.
During the hunting and gathering era, the most important variable from the standpoint of explaining differences among the universe of societies was al- most certainly the biophysical environment. Societies were obliged to adapt to the peculiarities of the challenges and resources of their own immediate territo- ries, with the result that significant differences developed between those in the tropics and those in temperate, subarctic, and arctic regions. Similarly, differences developed between societies in arid regions and those in well-watered regions, and between societies in mountainous regions and those on the plains.
With the emergence of the horticultural era, technological differences gradu- ally became the most important determinant of societal characteristics within the universe of societies. The technological differences among horticultural, herding, fishing, and hunting and gathering societies became better predictors of more of the sociologically relevant characteristics of societies (though not of each and ev- ery individual characteristic). Differences in subsistence technologies predicted
Hunting and Horticultural Agrarian Industrial
gathering era era era era
First-order Biophysical Technology Technology Technology
differences environment
Second-order Biophysical Biophysical Ideology
differences environment environment
Third-order Ideology Biophysical
differences environment
Figure 6.5 Effects of the evolution of the evolutionary process on the relative importance of major determinants of the characteristics of individual societies
Characteristics of the Global System of Societies 123 and explained the increasing differences in the size of societies, their modes of governance, the appearance of the first urban communities, the beginnings of full-time occupational specialization, increasing inequality, and more. In short, differences in subsistence technologies predicted and explained which societies retained the traditional patterns of societal organization, and which adopted the newer and more complex patterns.
The emergence of agrarian societies and the beginning of the agrarian era meant further change in the relative strength of the various determinants of the characteristics of individual societies. With the shift to plow agriculture, the po- tential for production of an economic surplus was substantially increased and this, in turn, increased the potential for the formation and growth of new occupa- tions and new social classes, and it also facilitated the growth of urban communities and the expansion of empires. Thus, the relative importance of the technological factor was again substantially enhanced, since the differences between agrarian societ- ies and hunting and gathering societies were substantially greater than the differences between horticultural societies and hunting and gathering societies.
The agrarian era is also associated with the growing importance of ideology. This was the era in which the first supraethnic religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam) made their appearance, and, indeed, the contrasts between these new reli- gions of agrarian societies and those of earlier societies are substantial. Their im- pact on daily life was not nearly as great, however, as the impact of the ideologies that emerged in the industrial era. With the onset of the industrial era, the relative strength of the major determinants shifted once more, with technological ad- vances reducing the impact of the environmental factor on individual societies and increasing the impact of ideology.
Looking to the future, one can imagine that advances in technology will lead to modifications in human genetics that will have significant social conse- quences in technologically advanced societies. If the genetic bases of major dis- eases can be identified and eliminated, life expectancy could be substantially ex- tended with both obvious and not so obvious consequences for societies.