Migration and cultural stability.

Cultural stability can occur as a result of selective migrations. Human history shows repeated efforts by people that are dissatisfied with the society of origin to migrate toward better socio-economic conditions. Migration of religious cultural groups on the other hand is motivated by the desire to find refuge from persecutions. These primary causes have over the last centuries produced large scale migration to the new world of the Americas. When a group that is dissatisfied migrates overseas the sending society is left more stable. A similar phenomenon operated in revolutionary Cuba where the authorities permitted large scale migration of citizens to the United States creating more social stability at home.

Migrants move from societies where their opportunities for survival or prosperity are poor, or where members of cultural groups suffer social sanction, toward other cultures that offer better economic opportunities and tolerance for their beliefs (Alba & Nee, 2003). The most frequent outcome for immigrant populations is assimilation, which promotes stability in the receiving culture. However, when migration produces cultural enclaves and conflict with the host culture social instability is the outcome. Whether migration leads to social stability in the sending culture as it has in the historical past is not easily concluded in the modern age of globalization. New research is also needed to evaluate the issues around the stability of receiving cultures exposed to large scale immigration. Migration can be a source of a new synthesis of cultural values or produce conflict when immigrant communities do not assimilate.

5.11.2 Conformity and geographical mechanisms affecting cultural evolution and language development.

As noted earlier rapid horizontal cultural change is a problem for the phylogenetic model borrowed from biology. We live in the midst of an information revolution that has produced the World Wide Web, new social media, and email. These cultural forces have significantly reduced the isolation of populations previously separated by geography. We see in the so-called Arab spring, and in population dissatisfaction elsewhere, the consequences of the transmission of new cultural values seen as instrumental to a better life in cultures that are dissatisfied with the status quo, and comparative information about how people live in other societies. Although there are cultural forces that sustain the status quo, there is also awareness among people who are dissatisfied of the new cultural values that in turn produces a desire for change and improvement. Cultural change may occur abruptly in revolutionary uprisings, or in other cases follow a gradual path of an evolutionary model.

Conformity is a ubiquitous human cultural trait that serves to inhibit change and stabilize cultural evolution in both language and other socio-culture. Because of conformity pressures language and basic cultural traits are essentially passed unchanged to the next generation. That language is the mediator of both cultural stability and change is demonstrated in the analysis of 277 African cultures (Guglielmono et al, 2009). Linguistic affiliation was the strongest predictor of variation in cultural traits. Geographical distance is associated with some cultural traits, but variations in marriage patterns and kinship are associated only with language. These fundamental cultural traits require language intimacy and evolve only in common language families.

However, while conformity may be a force for stability, geographic closeness creates the conditions for horizontal transmission and change. For example the writing systems of the world are of recent innovation, and cultures are believed to have borrowed extensively from each other from a few original inventions (Diamond & Bellwood, 2003). Since horizontal borrowing complicates the use of phylogenetic statistical methods used to evaluate vertical cultural evolution some researchers have argued that these methods should only be used when the cultural trait is unambiguously thought to be of vertical descent (Nunn, Mulder, & Langley, 2006). However, others have demonstrated that tree-branching models are very robust producing useful results for cultural traits even at high levels of horizontal transmission (Currie, Greenhill, & Mace, 2010).

Cultural traits develop from human attempts to survive and similar traits may have evolved independently in many regions of the world. For example agricultural development does not require horizontal transmission as each cultural trait (like irrigation) may have developed locally in response to similar climate problems faced by different and even geographically distant societies. However, conformist social learning is very adaptive since it teaches the common means of survival in a society and has the additional important advantage of being approved by the majority. The underlying psychology of imitation is adaptive both in family relationships but also among members of larger cultural units. Conformist adaptive behavior is reinforcing as it produces many physical and social benefits including access to food and protection. Research employing cultural models has demonstrated the selective advantage of a conformist behavior in different social environments (Henrich & Boyd, 1998).

Conformist pressure affect cultural evolution by weeding out nonconformist traits thereby ensuring that what is common in society becomes even more common. Cultural traits including artifacts, beliefs, ideology, and especially dogmatic religion follow a process where the commonly held view becomes even more dominant. Still a dogmatic system may be in conflict with other deeply held beliefs and therefore give rise to new dissenting groups. Dissatisfaction with established religious systems gave rise to the evolution of religious beliefs and practices. However, to survive and prosper most individuals will retain the dominant beliefs of their society. If the individual grows up and is surrounded by religious believers chances are that he/she too will become a believer. On the other hand individuals that grew up surrounded by atheistic beliefs and might well choose to imitate such non-religious perspective on life. In the United States the large majority of the population is believers and candidates for office must reaffirm their religious beliefs at every opportunity if they hope to be elected, whereas in Europe skeptical beliefs have a long history and a place in intellectual life.

Conformist behaviors are also likely to be imitated when they are supported by the sanctions of moral disapproval or punishment. Moral behaviors serve as a stabilizing force since people get into all kinds of trouble when not abiding by moral conventions. Sanctions can be severe when removing the offender from society as for example when women are stoned to death in Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries for adultery. Cultural stability is also created by much less drastic means by employing the simple mechanism of disapproval, or any range of sanctions that fall between these two extremes. Conforming is adaptive because it not only ensures survival within the cultural group, but also produces social affirmation in the form of awards and recognition. When people migrate conformity plays a significant role since migrants either establish new forms of the old culture, or assimilate to the new country’s moral values and beliefs. Much of current social conflict in Europe is over the refusal of new immigrant groups to conform to established cultural values and wanting to continue to conform to the expectations of the culture of origin.

5.12 Social learning: Imitating success.

There is much evidence in current world history of developing societies seeking to imitate more successful countries. Neo-liberalism defined by open markets and borders has been the prevailing socio-economic ideology of recent years. Developing countries have sought to emulate successful Western economies as suggested by theories of modernism and post-industrial societies. Socio-economic success is supported by norms of behavior like the so-called puritan ethic of hard work that played a role in the development of modern capitalism. Research shows that struggling societies try to imitate the successful, or what is perceived to be success (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Cultures that become aware of the success of neighbors are encouraged to develop a similar society. Johnson (1976) pointed to the spread of Christianity during the Roman Empire as an example of the adaptive transmission of successful ideas and subsequent imitation. Romans accepted the new society formed by Christians since they demonstrated in actual behavior norms of mutual help and charity much needed during the health crises caused by epidemics in Europe. The spread of Christianity eventually led to state power the outcome of the desire of Romans to imitate the more successful within-cultural Christian group.

Imitation explains much of the current globalization effort. The benefits of one group can, especially in the information age, spread rapidly through neighboring societies. However, innovations are often transmitted without a clear understanding of underlying environmental or potential social problems accumulating in the world that contribute to ongoing economic and ecological crises. For example, the use of nuclear power has left thousands of tons of very dangerous material in unsafe storage in the United States and elsewhere without a consensus of where to securely deposit the contents. The desire to imitate neighbors has also brought about large scale immigration of undocumented workers seeking a way out of poverty. When long term affects of cultural imitation are taken into account imitation is not a force for cultural stability, but rather contributes to social crises the outcome of which cannot be predicted.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 735