Differences between Social Evolution and Revolution
Evolution and Revolution are two words that are often confused due to the appearing similarity in their concepts. Actually, there are some differences between the two words. Evolution refers to the change in the behaviour of man over a period of time. It also speaks about the changes in social conditions over a period of time.
According to Herbert Spencer, “Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from a relatively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.”
SOCIAL EVOLUTION
Evolution is a process of differentiation and integration. The term ‘evolution’ comes from the Latin word ‘evolvere’ which means ‘to develop’ or to ‘to unfold’. It is equivalent to the Sanskrit word ‘vikas’. It means more than growth. The word ‘growth’ connotes a direction of change but only a quantitative character, e.g. we say population growths.
Social evolution takes place through the process of differentiation. In order to understand this, the history of society need to study over a long period of time, and you will find that its associations, institutions, etc., are constantly evolving or developing. In social evolution new and ever newer circumstances and problems are constantly appearing and in order to cope with the new associations and institutions are evolving. For example, the community in a town. Previously, when the town had been a small community its management was the responsibility of a panchayat or a town area committee. Now that town has become a big commercial centre, its management is in the hands of a dozen different committees. One of them looks after the educational facilities; another after sanitation, a third is deputed to look after the octroi while a fourth manages the markets, and so on. In this way, this differentiation increases with the evolution of the town.
The principle of social evolution maintains that there is linear progress in society, but all scientists do not accept social evolution as a linear process. Some scholars believe it to be unilineal while others consider it to be cyclical. According to Morgan, Haddon and Engels, the evolution of every society passes through the three following stages:
Savagery
Barbarism
Civilization.
In the same way, these scholars have held that there are four stages in the economic development of every society:
Hunting
Pastoral
Agricultural
Industrial stage.
According to evolutionary principle, there are three recognized stages in the development of technology:
Stone Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age.
In the same way, the evolutionists have attempted to show that there are stages of development in the various institutions of human society, such as marriage, family, religion, property, law, government, etc.
Thus evolution deals with the changes that take place in populations over a period of time. It deals also with the theories that speak about these changes. It is important to note that evolution is based on observations, empirical data and tested hypotheses. The various theories about the evolution of man are arrived at by observation of man’s response to social conditions, his behavioural changes over a period of time brought about by the influence of growth in civilization, and the like.
REVOLUTION
On the other hand, the word ‘revolution’ is derived from the Latin word ‘revolutio’ meaning ‘a turn around’. It consists of a fundamental change in organizational structures or political power that takes place in a staggeringly short period of time. This is the major difference between the two words evolution and revolution.
Whereas in revolution, it is a rapid change to some degree. When we overview the existing and traditional institutions, dogmas, customs, mores and traditions etc., becomes continuously less capable of satisfying the needs of the people, the society becomes marked with unrest and perturbation and disturbance. The people revolt. And the residents of urban districts have a particular role in the revolt. Because of the more facile availability of the means of suggestions and propaganda in the urban areas in comparison with the rural areas, revolutionary ideas circulate more rapidly among the urban population, on the whole, is more in favour of progress and novelty and opposed to tradition and stagnation. And it is in this class that the revolutionary spark finds the most receptive substance and it easily produces a conflagration.
On the other hand, the connotation of the term revolution is clarified and explained by the distinction drawn between it and the process of evolution. It is employed in the following senses:
Political revolutions and uprisings are common and almost normal incidents in the histories of most nations since revolutions of this kind keep taking place from time to time. Revolution denotes the sudden and abrupt change in the customs, behavioural patterns, values, etc., of a society. In this process, the beliefs, attitudes and habits of the general public are completely changed.
Cultural revolution comprehends religious and economic revolutionary process but the most comprehensive is the social revolution in which process the entire social structure or organization undergoes very considerable change and modifications as a result of which the patterns of social institutions, classes, status, action, etc., are suddenly and greatly changed.
According to Aristotle, there are two types of political revolution and they are a complete change from one constitution to another constitution and modification of an existing constitution. It is indeed true that human history has seen several revolutions over different periods of time. It is important to know that revolution brings about changes in culture, economy and even socio-political conditions. Sometimes, the word revolution is used to denote changes that take place outside the political arena. There were a number of cultural revolutions and social revolutions too in the past. Philosophical revolutions also shook the world in the times of the past.
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SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
In the earlier theories of biological evolution, the concept of social evolution was intimately connected with social progress. For the social evolutionists of the nineteenth century from Auguste Comte to Herbert Spencer and Lester F. Ward, social evolution was, in effect, social progress. Modern sociologists, particularly Americans, do not hold this proposition.
They point out that evolution does not mean progress, because when a society is more evolved it does not necessarily follow that it is more progressive. If it would have been progressive, Maclver and Page remark that people in the more evolved society are better or better fitted to survive or more moral or more healthy than those we call primitive. Even if the opposite were true, it would not refute the fact that their society is more evolved.
Social evolution should also be distinguished from social progress. Firstly, L. T. Hobhouse says, evolution means a sort of growth while social progress means the growth of social life in respect of those qualities to which human beings attach or can rationally attach value. The relation between the two is thus a ‘genus-species’ relation. Social progress is only one among many possibilities of social evolution; any or every form of social evolution is not a form of social progress. For example, the caste system in India is a product of social evolution. But it does not signify progress. Hobhouse concludes, that it is good, the fact that society has evolved is no proof that it progressed.
Secondly, evolution is merely a change in a given direction. It describes a series of interrelated changes in a system of some kind. It refers to an objective condition that is not evaluated as good or bad. On the contrary, progress means a change in a direction determined ideally. In other words, it can be said, progress means change for the better not for the worse. It implies a value-judgement. The evolutionary process may move in accordance with our notion of desirable change, but there is no logical necessity that it should. The concept of progress necessarily involves a concept of end. And the concept of end varies with the mentality and experience of the individual and the group.
The affirmation of evolution “depends on our perception of objective evidences, whereas the affirmation or denial of progress depends on our ideals.” It follows that evolution is a scientific concept and progress is an ethical concept. Evolution is a demonstrable reality; the term progress is very much subjective and value-loaded and is not demonstrable with a degree of certainty.
While social evolution is clearly distinguished from social progress, we must not loose sight of their relationships. Ethical valuations or ideas (Progress) are socially determined and hence determine the objective phenomena (Evolution) of society. They have always been powerful in shaping and moving the world. In some manner, they are active in every process of social change. “All social change has this double character.”
Though the three concepts, social change, social evolution and social progress share many common reference points, they have different intellectual frameworks. They all articulate the same consequential effects. In all the three processes, one cause produces a number of effects, the effect and cause get intermixed to produce other new effects, again new connections between cause and effect are established and so on goes the process.
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