Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change Macrosociology: Four Modern Theorists A Commentary on Malthus" 1798 Essay as Social Theory Great Classical Social Theorists In the Classical Tradition: Modern Social Theorists Dr. Elwell's Professional Page
|
rbert Spencer's Evolutionary
Sociology Marvin Harris [1927-2001] | |
Harris on the Universal Structure of Societies By Frank W. Elwell
Cultural materialism is a systems theory that attempts to account for
the origin, maintenance, and change of societies.
Marvin Harris (1927-2001), a cultural anthropologist, is responsible for
the most systematic statement of cultural materialist principles. The
perspective is
based on two key assumptions about societies. First, the various parts
of society are interrelated; when one part of society changes, other
parts must also change. This means that an institution, such as the
family cannot be looked at in isolation from the economic, political, or
religious institutions of a society. Viewing society as a system of
interrelated parts is at the core of most sociological theory.
Difference in most theories is in terms of organizing principles. The
second assumption of CM is that the foundation of the sociocultural
system is the environment.
Like all living organisms, Humans must draw energy from their
environment. The environment is limited in terms of the amount of
energy and raw material it contains, and the amount of pollution it can
tolerate. The need to draw energy out of the environment in order to
satisfy the biological needs of its p
A society’s infrastructure is its most basic component in the sense that
without it physical survival is literally impossible. All societies must
exploit the natural environment to survive. The environment includes the
physical, chemical and biological constraints to human action. It
involves such things as types of soils, the nature of plant and animal
life, and the availability of natural resources. It is the external
environment to which sociocultural systems must adjust. Adjustment takes
place through the infrastructure of societies. The material
infrastructure consists of the technology and social practices by which
a society fits in to its environment. Infrastructure is the principal
interface between a sociocultural system and its environment.
All societies must life within the constraints of the natural
environment (depletion and pollution). While these constraints can be
modified, they cannot be escaped. It is through the infrastructure that
society manipulates its environment by modifying the amount and type of
resources needed. The infrastructure consists of two parts, the “mode of production,” and the “mode of reproduction.” The mode of production consists of the technology and social practices used to draw energy and raw materials from the environment and fashion them for human use. The mode of reproduction refers to the demographic factors of human populations such as the size and density of the population, its growth, decline or stability, and its age and sex composition are important in determining the amount and type of resources needed from the environment. Demographic factors also include techniques of population regulation or birth control, mating patterns, sexual behavior, infanticide, and other behaviors aimed at controlling destructive increases or decreases in population size. In general, the modes of production and reproduction are attempts to strike a balance between population level and the consumption of energy from a finite environment.
It is upon this environmental-infrastructural foundation that the
remaining parts of the social system are based. The social structure
refers to actual behavior patterns, as opposed to images or mental
conceptions about those patterns--what people actually do, not what they
say or do. Each society must maintain secure and orderly relationships
among its people, its constituent groups, and with neighboring
societies. The threat of disorder, Harris asserts, comes primarily from
the economic processes which allocate labor and the products of labor to
individuals and groups. Thus Harris divides the social structure into
two parts: the “Political Economy,” and the “Domestic Economy.”
The political economy consists of groups and organizations that perform
the functions of regulating production, reproduction, exchange, and
consumption within and between groups and sociocultural systems.
Examples include:
•
Political organizations, factions, military,
•
Corporations, Division of labor, police,
•
Education, media, taxation, urban, rural hierarchies, war, class, caste,
•
Service and welfare organizations,
•
Professional and labor organizations.
The domestic economy consists of the organization of reproduction, basic
production, exchange and consumption within domestic settings (such as
households, camps, apartments). Examples include:
•
Family structure, domestic division of labor, education, age and sex
roles,
•
Community, domestic discipline, hierarchies, sanctions,
•
Voluntary organizations,
•
Friendship Networks,
•
Some religious groups.
In sum, the social structure consists of all human groups and
organizations responsible for the production and allocation of all
biological and psychological needs to the society’s population. Elite
groups and hierarchies exist throughout all social structures, and it is
their needs that have the highest priorities.
Given the importance of symbolic processes, Harris also posits the
universal existence of a superstructure. Again, Harris divides this
component into two parts, “Behavioral,” and Mental. Whereas the
structure refers to behavior, the superstructure refers to mental
thought. It includes beliefs (shared assumptions of what is true and
false), values (socially defined conceptions of worth), and norms
(shared standards or rules regarding conduct.
The Behavioral Superstructure includes recreations activities, art,
sports, empirical knowledge, folklore, and other aesthetic products
including art, music, dance, literature, rituals, advertising, sports,
games, hobbies, and the practice of science. The mental superstructure
involves the patterned ways in which the members of a society think,
conceptualize, and evaluate their behavior. Examples include religious
ideology, the products of science and art
(symbolic images or representations having esthetic, emotional, or
intellectual value), ritual, sports, empirical “knowledge.” Harris
posits that these mental categories actually run parallel to the
universal behavioral components of the social structures--that is, there
are belief systems that serve to justify and encourage behavior in each
of the three components of society. However, for the sake of simplicity
he designates them as the “Mental Superstructure” by which he means “the
conscious and unconscious cognitive goals, categories, rules, plans,
values, philosophies, and beliefs about behavior elicited from the
participants or inferred by the observers” (Harris 1979, 54).
All sociocultural systems, according to Harris, have these three major
components: Infrastructure, Structure, and Superstructure. The major
principle of Cultural Materialism, or the Primacy of the Infrastructure,
concerns the relationships among these components. For a more extensive discussion of Harris’s theories refer to Macro Social Theory by Frank W. Elwell. Also see Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change to learn how his insights contribute to a more complete understanding of modern societies.
Bibliography
Elwell, F. (2006).
Macrosociology: Four Modern Theorists,
Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Elwell, F. (2013), Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and
Change. Alberta: Athabasca University Press.
Harris, M. (1981). America Now: The Anthropology of a Changing
Culture. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Harris, M. (1977). Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures. New
York: Vintage Books.
Harris, M. (1974). Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of
Culture. New York: Vintage Books.
Harris, M. (1979). Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science
of Culture. New York: Random House.
Harris, M. (1971). Culture, Man, and Nature: An Introduction to
General Anthropology
Harris, M. (1989). Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, and
Where We Are Going. New York: HarperCollins.
Harris, M. (1968). The Rise of Anthropological Theory. New York:
Crowell.
Harris, M. (1998). Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times. Walnut
Creek: AltaMira Press.
To reference Harris on the Universal Structure of Society you should use the following format: Elwell, Frank W., 2013, "Harris on the Universal Structure of Society," Retrieved August 31, 2013, [use actual date] http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Essays/Harris1.htm
©2007 Frank Elwell, Send comments to felwell at rsu.edu |