Exchange principles in the Analysis of a Fallen Society

       Exchange theories have a wide scope if applied to the study of social entities at various levels.They can be used to study a wide range of phenomenon from conflict to collaboration helping us view rise and fall of societies at various levels. The major component of exchange principle that sets it apart as a sociological analysis is the importance it places on socially significant exchanges and the satisfaction attained through such relationships. In this article I propose to apply exchange principles to analyse the fall of a historical society. In order to identify such phenomenon and study them in societies, we have to arrive at certain governing principles of exchange with which we propose to study the society.

                   (i)The genera of the commodity might be either explicit(commodities valued for their
                       economic value) or implicit(commodities valued for their social value).

                    (ii)The exchanges need not be for the same genera of the commodity offered. This we
                        can call as cross exchange. 

                   (iii)A commodity can have both economic and social value. In an exchange relationship it
                        is valued for either one of these values or for both the values.

                   (iii)Peter Michel Blau's principles of exchange conflict.

Easter Island is a Polynesian Island which was discovered by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Day (April 5, 1722). Archaeological evidence suggest that the first human settlements took place at around 900 AD. Today it is a well known tourist spot for its gigantic stone statues called moai. These statues represent the ancestors of the Polynesian people living on the island who are known as Rapa Nui. The reasons for the collapse of the Polynesian society that thrived in Easter Island are made clearer when examined through the glasses of exchange principles .

  There are 397 moai spread through out the island erected on stone platforms called ahu. The size of the moai seemed to have increased over time which either indicate prosperity and competition among the clans or an increasing need among the people to convince their ancestors to hear their prayers. The island was the home of around 12 clans. The island was well divided among the clans. Because of this division of the island among the clans the resources were also extensively divided. Land held by one of the clans had the necessary rock for building the statue whereas another clan possessed the best port in the island and so on. These circumstances indicate the necessity of an extensive social network among the clans for their mere survival. Archaeological evidence suggest the presence of social stratification in the society. There must have been extensive cross exchanges taking place, indicated by the heavy economic losses that the people would have had to incur in building the moai which had no explicit value.

 The dependence among the clans indicate that the exhaustion of any one of the resources or a clog in the exchange between them would have lead to a catastrophe in that society. Historical evidence indicate that this island was rich in biodiversity. This island is known to have housed the largest palm trees known to man. Because of various reasons the resources of the island depleted over  time. One of  the first European accounts of the island talk about the people of the island visiting a French ship anchored nearby in leaky canoes and the captain recalls ""All the natives repeated often and excitedly the word miru and became impatient because they saw that we did not understand it: this word is the name of the timber used by Polynesians to make their canoes. This was what they wanted most, and they used every means to make us understand this . ..". The analysis of the garbage dumps of the island also indicate such a situation. In the course of building the moai the people of the island must have destroyed the biodiversity of the island.

  As time went by the people of the island must have encountered the lack of resources which they enjoyed previously. They must have turned to their chiefs and preists for help( indicated by the increase in the size of moai). When the chiefs and priests were not able to full fill their promises they were overthrown by military leaders called matatoa. After the fall of the chiefs and the priests people of the island engaged in dismounting and breaking the maoi. By 1868 all moai had been toppled in fights between the clans.By 1872, after an epidemic of small pox and an abduction of 1500 people by about two dozen Peruvian ships only 111 islanders were left in Easter.

     Here one of Blau's conflict principles which imply that 'experiences of deprivation by subordinates in exchanges with super ordinates would cause  conflict' is seen at work.  We can infer from this scenario that an imbalance or a clog in exchange relationships in a society might cause massive damage to the social structure of that society. All the happenings at Easter Island indicate the importance of cross exchange. Moai were merely religious structures whose constructions were undertaken at the cost of their own destruction by the the Rapa Nui. Initially its construction brought together all the clans but as the resources depleted the people must have been forced to choose between the social and biological needs. We could conceive the cognitive dissonance that the people people would have faced(after the destruction of their biodiversity) whether to give up their hard earned food to build Moai, who would in turn bring prosperity if pleased. We also see a queer phenomenon where the failure of exchange between the ancestors(moai) and the people lead to the toppling of the moai. The above analysis prove the importance of social exchanges and that the collapse of a solitary society is not coused by the mere failure of economic exchanges.  

Cognition - Truths and Errors

We humans have been occupying this pale blue dot on this universe for a small period of about 2-4 million years and have developed into a species with a lot of advantages over our fellow animals. Many of us believe that we humans have the perfect features required to sustain in this planet. But that statement has been proved wrong many a times physiologically and psychologically. In this article I will try to deal with the significance of the psychological errors or as they are widely known, biases in our cognition.

We all see the world not as it is, but as we want it to be. We follow certain pattern while processing our cognition. So what influences the way we process our thoughts? The major reason for such biases is “Motivated Reasoning”. Motivated reasoning is the term used to refer to the process by which people tend to come to a certain conclusion that makes them feel better. To brief it further it is the tendency to alter the facts or opinions in a way that they fit perfectly into the long held opinions of the person or to recall incidences in which we had the upper hand. Motivated reasoning also leads us to make varying attributions in different situations.

 

Attribution is the process through which humans as observers infer the causes of other people’s behaviour. It may be from an individual to an individual or from an individual to a group. Fritz Heider (the man who found attributions) and Simmel did an experiment in which they showed the observers a short clip of random motion of  a circle and two differently sized triangles. At the end of the experiment they asked the observers to report their observations. The people tended to attribute some cause to the movement of the objects. Heider believed that all humans tended to try to interpret and attribute a cause for the behaviour of other humans. Some evolutionary psychologists came up with an explanation that either humans or one of our evolutionary ancestors must have developed the tendency to anthropomorphize the movements around us as it gave them the evolutionary advantage of being on guard for their predators.

Humans make two types of attributions. They make either a dispositional attribution or a situational attribution. Dispositional attribution is one in which the observer attributes the cause of a person’s behaviour to that subject’s internal states like the personality etc. Situational attribution is one in which the observer attributes the causes of a subject’s behaviour to the situation that prevailed before or during the course of that behaviour. Social Psychologists have found a variance in the type of attributions we make based on the observer’s position in the situation. The possibilities are listed below considering myself as the observer:

I see someone do something (good or bad)

                                      I make a Dispositional Attribution saying that the incident happened because of the individual’s ability or disability.

I do something good

                                     I make a Dispositional Attribution saying that the incident happened because of my own hard work and ability.

Thus looking at these observations we can get to a conclusion that motivated reasoning has its effect on all the cognition that takes place in our brain. This also contradicts to the belief of many people that the human brain and human cognition are flawless. To err is human. 

                             I would never die for my belief because I might be wrong.
                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                    -Bertrand Russell

The Sociological Study of Religion

     Religion has been part and parcel of almost all the cultures. This hold of religion in almost all aspects of an individual and a social life has stuck sociologists. As usual there have been many different approaches towards the study of religion. One of the first studies of religion in sociology was by Emile Durkheim. He studied the aborigines of Australia who practised totemism. He believed that totemism was the most primitive form of all religions. He made this assumption viewing that totemism is purely independent of any other form of belief. He said that by studying the primitive religion we will be able to find the reason for the existence of religion (in sociological sense). In his work “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life” he does not study much about the present day religions. This is just one way in which religions were studied by sociologists.

     I, in this article would just highlight the important conditions in my view to be followed by a sociologist in his or her study of religion. A sociologist’s work is not to argue the presence or absence of god (the so called unseen supernatural power).It would be more appropriate if sociologists stop to study religion based on their beliefs or preconceived notion so that their work would not become futile. Religion had turned into something that is an integral part of all societies and in recent past has started to lose its earlier sort of dominance over all aspects of society (secularisation). A sociologist should remember that he or she is not a theologian but a sociologist. “Has religion been the binding force of the people” was the question that drove throughout Durkheim in his study. Such has to be the goal of a sociologist while trying to learn sociology of religion. He or she must try to study the reasons, effects and consequences of religious beliefs, practices and rituals. To be more precise a sociologist should alienate himself from his belief. As in any research work, he got to make sure that all his claims are supported by evidence. Durkheim once said “religion is thee projection of the society”. Such are the statements that are supposed to come from a sociological study.  I write this article as a tribute to those who think sociology of religion is equivalent to study of religion itself. This article is not intended at anyone.

The Social Evolution (2)

                                                            

The term survival of the fittest in the Darwinian evolution refers only to the survival of the species as a whole and never to the individual.to be broader it more likely refers to the next generation that would be more adaptive in nature to its surroundings.I did not try to establish the similarities between social evolution and biological evolution,but tried to say that they are both overlapping and highly interdependent.

In today's society individuals have become highly interdependent in such a way that an individual survival is highly impossible.The division of labor is on is something that is taking place in all aspects of society.And is something that is inevitable.In my view social evolution will take place proportional to the division of labor.As the division of labor increases the interdependence will increase to such an level that individual survival will impossible.So I would say that division of labor is inversely proportional to the survival of the individual.Evolution will always be aiming at the betterment of the ways of survival of the individual.And we got to know that there might be negative steps that may be taking place in the society or the surrounding in the process of evolution.For example though humanity has been marching towards an better future wars were and are inevitable.they have caused millions of death within the species and by the species.Evolution can be just referred to as change taking place(in a positive direction but may take a negative path).

Now we have to think of the consequences.The industrial revolution which was one of the greatest changes that took place int he society has led to various consequences like pollution and many more.It has put the whole of earth's population in threat.What has the evolution caused in this case?That is a disaster coming up!These will be referred to by me as the unexpected end undesirable consequences that come by during the process of evolution.We have to tackle these problems or we will perish like those beautiful looking creatures which have become valuable fossils today.      

 The Social Evolution

  Evolution in both biological and social sense did not start with Charles Darwin and Auguste Comte.It came into the minds of humans as soon as man started to think of his origin.Darwin was the first one to write about it in the biological sense.But we have to remember that the father of sociology,Auguste Comte himself looked at the society as a result of evolution. Herbert Spencer who lived in the time of Darwin in 1852 coined the term "survival of the fittest " seven years before the release of The Origin Of Species. 

 Is social evolution some thing different from biological evolution? I think this topic has to be given importance in the modern time.This study will surely bring sociology out of the "abstract" tag.

  The first question here is "Is the social behavior only related to man?".This can be answered by observation of other species.If you have watched Animal planet or Discovery you would not doubt what I say.The process of living in society did not evolve after the human evolution .It was practiced for millions of years by various species of animals.This was because it was the most important process of survival for many organisms.

  Then was man the first one to live in a social group? It is clearly evident from our surroundings that even ant lives in a social group.So it is evident that living in socially interacting groups was a primarily necessary for the survival of the animal.The process of group hunting in many species is a great example that it was necessary for its survival.

   

  The question "Is social evolution related to biological evolution?" is weird to me.It is clearly evident from our surrounding that we are products of evolution.The difference lies in that social evolution does not take place over a long period of time when compared with biological evolution.The process of social evolution should not be considered something far apart from biological evolution.

  The relation is clear because the relation within herds of other species of animals are patterned.The proofs as I said are around us.So I think its time to study sociology with biology(the closest relative for sociology in Comte's hierarchy of sciences).