Multilinear evolution
The multi-linear evolution is a sociological theory of the 20th century on the evolution of societies and cultures . It consists of competing theories of various sociologists and anthropologists and replaced the theories of unilinear evolution of the 19th century.
description
The criticism of classical social evolutionism caused the researchers to reconsider their views: Modern theories and development models try to avoid unsubstantiated, ethnocentric speculation, comparisons and value judgments and consider individual societies in their own historical context. These conditions provided the context for new theories such as cultural relativism and multilinear evolution.
In the 1940s, anthropologists like Leslie White and Julian Steward developed an evolutionary model on a more scientific basis, thereby creating neoevolutionism . White rejected the distinction between “primitive” and “modern” societies and divided societies based on their energy consumption, with more energy allowing greater social differentiation. Steward rejected the notion of progress and drew attention to Charles Darwin's idea of "adaptation" that all societies must adapt to their environment.
The anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service tried to combine approaches in Evolution and Culture , Whites and Stewards. Other anthropologists developed theories of cultural ecology and ecological anthropology on this basis . The best-known examples are Andrew P. Vayda (* 1931) and Roy Rappaport . In the late 1950s, Steward's students such as Eric Wolf and Sidney Mintz oriented themselves from cultural ecology to Marxism , world system theory , dependency theory or Marvin Harris ' cultural materialism .
Most contemporary anthropologists continue to reject the nineteenth-century notion of progress and unilinear evolution. In the steward tradition, they pay particular attention to the relationship between a culture and its surroundings when trying to explain different aspects of a culture. But most modern anthropologists have taken a general systematic approach, examining cultures as emerging systems and considering the whole social environment, including political and economic relationships. Others completely reject the evolutionary way of thinking and instead consider historical contexts, contacts with other cultures and the functioning of cultural symbol systems. The simple notion of cultural evolution has thus become useless and replaced by a multitude of more nuanced approaches. In the field of development studies, authors such as Amartya Sen have presented an understanding of development and human prosperity that also challenges the simplistic notions of progress, but at the same time retains much of the original inspiration.
See also
literature
- Marshall Sahlins et al. Elman Service: Evolution and Culture. Foreword by Leslie White. University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor 1988 ISBN 0472087762