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A Dysrhythmic Process of Political Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
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With several notable and recent exceptions, the current literature on “modernization” in “developing countries” implicitly or explicitly assumes an inherent irreconcilability between “modern” and “traditional” values, institutions, and behavior patterns. Related to this assumption is the expectation that whenever important elements off these two social systems collide, the natural result is social convulsion.
It is typical of this literature to qualify these assumptions with the caveat, commonly employed in conjunction with the use of “ideal j types,” that differences between these two apparent classes of society are only relative, or that “pure” cases of either type are never manifested.
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References
1 It is obvious that modifiers which indicate relative contrasts of the so-called mini-max variety must imply mutual exclusivity no less than absolute differences. Thus, if the proposition is that a given social quality necessarily conflicts with another to any degree, then maximization of both qualities in the same context is precluded. To that extent, in other words, they are mutually exclusive. Statements in connection with the use of the supposedly heuristic concepts “traditional” and “modern” typically suggest that “most people” in the one type of society behave one way with respect to certain values or activities, or that each type of society behaves as a whole in a certain way in “most instances.” Indeed to claim that qualities associated with the terms “traditional” and “modern” do not diverge significantly would be to nullify the supposed significance of the terms, namely, that they identify distinguishable classes of societies.
Concerning the logical status of the Weberian “ideal-type” formulations and similar constructs, the philosopher of science C. G. Hempel demonstrated some time ago that any distinction between this sort of mental operation and a hypothesis in the strict sense is simply spurious. See American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division), Science, Language and Human Rights; Symposium: Problems of Concept and Theory Formulation in the Social Sciences (Philadelphia 1952), 71–134.Google Scholar
2 It is important to note that the terms “eurhythmic” and “dysrhythmic” are not synonymous with “smooth” and “rough,” or “peaceful” and “violent.” In the present discussion, “eurhythmic” (consistent and supportive) change means further change toward the characteristics of the society from which the original change derived. Conceivably, both eurhythmic and dysrhythmic processes could be either smooth or rough, peaceful or violent. However, if a eurhythmic process involves the interaction of mutually exclusive qualities, then rough or violent change seems indicated. Thus it is that a combination of dichotomous and eurhythmic conceptualizations of phenomena of change have typically produced pathological characterizations of a supposed “transitional” or intermediate phase. Use of the very term “transitional” as a general category connotes unilinear direction, i.e., from one known type or class of society to another already defined one.
3 In Hoselitz, Bert F., ed., The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas (Chicago 1952), 113–25.Google Scholar
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5 Cf. Wittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism (New Haven and London 1957), 420Google Scholar–21; and Hoffer, Eric, The Ordeal of Change (New York 1964), 25–26Google Scholar.
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15 Whitaker, C. S. Jr., “The Politics of Tradition: A Study of Continuity and Change in Northern Nigeria,” unpubl. diss., Princeton, 1964Google Scholar.
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32 “Whitaker, “The Politics of Tradition,” 408.
33 Levy, cited n. 4.
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