UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

ELENOR MAY CHANTAL L. MESSAKARAENG

UNIT I
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES:
ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Bird’s Eye View of the Unit

• You have always been fascinated by the lives of great scientists who contributed to
the knowledge of the natural world. These giants include
• GALILEO GALILEI (1564 – 1642), who invented the telescope;
• NICOLAUS COPERNICUS (1473 – 1543), who popularized the view that the sun is
the center of the solar system;
• ISAAC NEWTON (1643 – 1727), who discovered gravity;
• CHARLES DARWIN (1809 – 1882), who proposed the controversial theory of
evolution; and
• ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 – 1955), who developed the theory of “big bang” to
account for the beginning of our universe.
• But you have not yet encountered the eminent “social scientists” who immensely
contributed to our knowledge of how society, culture, and politics work.
• They were the first to ask fascinating questions such as: “What makes social
sciences similar to natural sciences?”, “Does society exist or only the individuals
who compose it?", “Do societies share the same culture and pattern of cultural
development?”, “What is the best form of government?”. “How do you distinguish
common sense from scientific way of studying society, culture, and politics?”
•
The Historical background of the Growth of Social Science
• In the development and progress of human knowledge, the social science were the
last to develop after the natural sciences. And while the origin of the social science
can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle,
their development as separate fields of knowledge only begun in the modern period
(Collins 1994, p. 7).
• Before the birth of modern social sciences in the West, the study of society, culture
and politics were based on social and political philosophy (Scott 2006, p. 9).
• In return, social and political philosophies were informed by theological reasoning
grounded in Revelation based on the Bible.
• This was largely due to the dominance of religious worldview and authority during this
time.
• While pre-modern social thinkers employed experiences and personal observation,
just like modern scientists, they fit them within the overall framework of their
philosophy and the overall religious scheme of the Church.
• Philosophy is distinct from Science.
• SCIENCE • PHILOSOPHY
• would have not developed if it • is based on analytic understanding
remained under the wings of of the nature of truth asserted
philosophy and theology. about specific topics of issues.
• are based on empirical data, tested • It asks the questions: “What is the
theories, and carefully contrived nature of truth?”, “How do we
observations. know what we know?”
• It does not ask about the question •
about the nature of nature of truth.
• Seeks to discover the truth about •
specific causes of events and
happenings in the natural world.
• It is inductive •
• It proceeds from observing particular •
cases and moves toward
generalizing the properties of
common to these cases to other
similar cases under the same
specified condition.
• This definition of Science is very modern description.
• Before the modern period, the growth of the sciences was slowed down because of
the dominance of religious authority and tradition.
• However, with the breakdown of the Church and its religious power after the French
revolution, the science grew steadily and rapidly to become the most widely accepted
way of explaining the world, nature, and human beings (Harrington 2006)
• The development of the social sciences during the modern period was made possible
by several large scale social upheavals and pivotal events. They can be summarized
below.

Science Humanities
Visual Arts
Pure Science
Applied Science Performing Arts

Social Science Religion

Law
History
Linguistics
The Unprecedented Growth of Science
• The Scientific Revolution, which begun with Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543),
refers to historical changes in thought and belief, to changes in social and
institutional organization, that unfolded in Europe roughly between 1550 and 1700.
• It culminated in the works of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), which proposed
universal laws of motion and a mechanical model of the Universe.
• The 17th century saw the rapid development in the sciences. Along with Sir Francis
Bacon, who established the supremacy of reason over imagination, René Descartes
and Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundation that allowed science and technology to
change the world.
• The discovery of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton, the mathematization of physics and
medicine paved the way for the dominance of science and mathematics in
describing and explaining the world and its nature.
• With the coming of the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason, in the 16th and
17th centuries, nature was to be controlled, “bound into service and made a slave”
(Capra 1982, p. 56).
• From the Medieval cosmology or model of the universe that defines it as divinely
ordained, people shifted to the model of the universe as a big machine.
• The triumph of this model of the universe was facilitated by Newton’s Physics.
• Descartes’ separation of the physical from the spiritual, the body from the mind,
also led to the triumph of valuing the physical over the spiritual.
• Once the physical universe is considered as a machine, it soon became apparent
that human beings can explore it according to science in order to reveal its secrets
(Merchant 1986).
• René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and
writer who is considered the father of modern philosophy. Descartes advocated the
use of rigorous philosophical analysis to arrive at truths rather than basing them on
dogmas.

The Secularization of Learning and Education

• The modern period marked the growing triumph of scientific method over religious
dogma and theological thinking.
• The triumph of Reason (specifically Western Reason) and science over dogma and
religious authority began with the Reformation.
• The Protestant movement led by Martin Luther eroded the power of the Roman
Catholic Church.
• It challenged the infallibility of the Pope and democratized the interpretation of the
Bible.
• Then, there was the Enlightenment.
• This was largely a cultural movement, emphasizing rationalism as well as political
and economic theories, and was clearly built on the Scientific Revolution (Streams
2003, p. 70).
 • In the Age of Enlightenment, philosophers led by Immanuel Kant challenged the
use of metaphysics or absolute truth derived mainly from unjustified tradition and
authority such as the existence of God.
• Kant advocated the use of reason in order to know the nature of the world and
human beings.
• In 1784, Immanuel Kant wrote his famous essay, “What is Enlightenment?” Kant
heralded the beginning of the Modern Period when he defined Enlightenment as
the courage to know.
• Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s
ability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self
incurred is this tutelage when its case lies not in lack of reason but in lack of
resolution but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from
another. Sapereuade! “Have courage to use your own reason!” – that is the motto
of enlightenment.
• (http://www.allmenderberlin.de/What-is-Enlightenment.pdf, retrieved August 7,
2014)
• Whereas in the Medieval Period, universities relied mainly on religious tradition and
the Bible to explain the nature of the universe and the place of human being in the
grand scheme of things, the modern universities started to rely on science and its
method to interpret the world.
• Max Weber, on of the leading figures in modern sociology, described this process
as rationalization.
• Rationalization means that social life is more and more subjected to calculation
and prediction.
• Calculation and prediction can only be achieved if human beings and society rely
on regularities established by modern science.
• Earlier people explained diseases through divine intervention. With the discoveries
of germ theory and the development of vaccination by Louis Pasteur, people
relied more and more on medical knowledge to deal with diseases.
• As French sociologist Francois Lyotard (1984) points out, Science triumphed
because it provided reliable results.
• Another element of rationalization is the separation between different social
spheres especially between the Church and the universities.
• The collapse of religious authority and gradual erosion of religious domination over
social life of the people led to the use of classical humanistic resources such as
ancient philosophy and humanities to advance human knowledge independent of
Revelation (Zeitlin 1968, pp. 3ff)
•
The Rise of Universities
• Education is the single most important factor in the rise of social sciences.
• The growth of universities also contributed to the triumph of science.
• Secular subjects or subjects dealing with natural world proliferated in the
universities.
• Merchants and capitalists supported universities and institutions of secular leaning
because them became the hub of training future scientists, technocrats, and
technological innovators.
• Durkheim, one of the founding “fathers” of sociology, for instance, lectured on
the need of secularize education and base the curriculum on the need of nation-
state – to develop citizens necessary for the modern world (Collins 1994, p. 11)
•
The Dissolution of Feudal Social Relations
• With the intensification of commerce and trade in 17th century, many medieval
guilds or workers’ cooperatives were dissolved and absorbed into the emerging
factory system.
• The factory system and the unprecedented growth in the urban centers due to
trade and commerce, attracted a lot of agricultural workers and mass of rural
population to migrate to urban centers.
• This created the modern cities.
• This development forced many social scientists during this time to study the
effects of the dissolution to feudal relations on the social life of the people.
• Ferdinand Tönnies (1885-1936), a German sociologist, and contemporary of Max
Weber, lamented the passing away of gemeinschaft or community because of
urbanization.
• Tönnies’ classic book Community and Society (1957) showed how the modern way
of life had drastically changed the way people relate to one another. Whereas in
traditional communities people had warm relationships with the members of the
community, in modern cities or, gessellschaft, individualism gave way to cold and
calculated social relationship.
• As capitalism replace agricultural economy, people began to see their relationships
with other people as mere economic transactions rather than as a form of personal
relationships.
•
Trade and Commerce
• Livres des merveilles du monde recorded the travels of Marco Polo, an Italian
merchant from Venice. This book introduced the Europeans to Asia and China, and
inspired Columbus’ five journeys to America (1942-1506).
• From Marco Polo’s travels (1276-1291) to Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world
(1519-1522), the travels of this period fed the imaginations of the Europeans with
vivid descriptions of places whose very existence they had so far been unaware of.
• These travelogues had not only inspired European merchants and governments to
explore the non-Western world but also provided the social scientists the raw data
to create a universal model of social development.
• Later in the 18th century, trade and commerce greatly accelerated.
• Charles Tilly, a historian, believed that this was one of the major factors in the
large-scale change in European history that also determined largely the direction of
the social sciences.
• Both domestically and around the world, European merchants played a growing
role in trade and commerce.
• Anthropologists also began to compare the differences between rural life and city
life, between the civilized life and the supposed “savage” life of non-Western
people.
• As many travel accounts reached the Western world, especially in the accounts of
Harriet Martineau, a British political economist and sociologist, social scientists
shifted their attention to non-Western world as a model of the early stage of
Western civilization.

The Rise of Individualism

• The intensification of commerce and trade gradually replaced barter with the
introduction of money and banking system.
• Soon banking system provided merchants and capitalists the leverage to extend
credit and transactions.
• The introduction of money enabled people to deal with people in an impersonal
manner.
• Money made possible the reduction of the human interaction to mere business-like
transactions devoid of any warmth and personal touch.
• This is led George Simmel (1858-1918), a German sociologist in the early 20th
century, to decry the growing depersonalization of life due to the introduction of
money.
• Money economy transformed individuals to autonomous consumers who were
released from attachment to local contexts and traditions.
• Hence, the dominance of money in social life paved the way for individualization of
lifestyle and the birth of plural relationships.
• This condition became an important focus of social scientists.
• It compelled them to explain how the “new economy”, which as industrial
capitalism, that replaced the traditional feudal relations, had drastically shaped
human character and traits.
• The transition from feudal economy to industrial capitalism heralded the creation
of people who no longer relied on traditional norms and prevailing culture.
• Modern individuals asserted their freedom to choose. Through education and the
spread of scientific worldview, people saw their lives as no longer at the mercy of
fate or destiny.
• Individualism is simply the recognition of the power of the individual to assert ones
freedom against the given norms and structures of society.
• The vast intensive and extensive growth of our technology which is much more
than just material technology entangles us in a web of means, and means towards
means, more and more intermediate state, causing us to lost sight of our real
ultimate ends. This is the extreme inner danger which threatens all highly
developed cultures, that is to say, all eras in which the whole of life is overlaid with
a maximum of multi-stratified means. To treat some means as ends may make this
situation psychologically tolerable, but it actually makes life increasingly futile.
• (source: Frisby, David and Mike Featherstone, eds, 1997. Simmel on Culture:
Selected Writings, p. 97. London: Sage.)