Evolution Versus Revolution - The Paradoxes of Social Change

Revolutionary and evolutionary theorists have very different views about change; Fein writes in favour of evolution. He proposes an integrated model of social evolution, one that accounts for the complexity, inconclusiveness, and impediments that characterize social transformations.This multi-dimensional approach recognizes that change is always saturated in conflict. Major changes are rarely initiated by conscious decisions that are automatically implemented; power and morality generally control the direction that significant alterations take. Fein explains how the social generalist dilemma places our need for both flexibility and stability in opposition to each other such that non-rational mechanisms are needed to produce a solution. He also describes how an "inverse force rule" dictates that small societies are bound together by strong social forces, whereas large ones are secured by weak forces. This suggests that social roles are likely to become professionalized over time.If social change is, in fact, analogous to natural rather than artificial selection, we may be in the midst of an only partially predictable middle class revolution. Indeed, the current impasse between liberals and conservatives may be evidence that we are in the consolidation phase of this process. Should this be the case, a paradigm shift, not a classical revolution, is in our future.Table of ContentAcknowledgments1 The Strangeness of Social Change2 Classical Theories of Social Change3 Revolution versus Evolution4 Integrated Social Evolution5 The Multidimensional Objects of Social Change6 The Impetus to Social Change7 Adaptive Radiation8 Resistance to Social Change9 Semi-Functional Social Selection10 Patterns of Social Change11 The Inverse Force Rule12 Consolidating Social Change13 The Middle-Class Consolidation14 Conclusion: A Third WayBibliographyIndexBiographical NoteMelvyn L. Fein is a professor of sociology at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, USA, and is the editor of the Journal of Public and Professional Sociology.