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Show 66 Utah Acedemqo] Sciences, Arts and Letters permit such scientific information to become the property of. an immoral government or an uncivilized people would be to. ;'\l. the risk of possible extinction for all of us. The unprecedented power and energies uncovered by the breath-taking discoveries of the physical sciences creates a problem which, according to Ralph Barton Parry, calls 'for nothing less than "a morally unified mankind on a physically unified recent earth." To the social psychologist, the present dilemma in civili an illustration of the well-known principle of a cultural lag. Briefly stated, this principle states that culture, as the an .... thropologist defines it' [i.e., all of the physical and social arrange ments which man has collectively evolved to satisfy his expanding' needs.) may be divided into two main divisions: the on k1i6wll'as material culture and the other best described as adaptive culture. Man's material culture includes, of course, his machines, his gaqgets, his material things. Adaptive culture means all those artificial arrangements by which man has slowly-all t60 slowly: '-attempted to regulate and control his material culture in the interests of the general welfare, (Le., such institutions as' law, government, the family, the church, the community, etc.}. For, the past few centuries-certainly since the dawn of the scientific era which began with Sir Francis Bacon, Galileo and Descartes =-these two divisions of culture have been diverging farther and farther apart. Material cuture has' been changing at an accele-' rated, rate, whereas by 'comparison,' adaptive culture has been. poking along at a snail's pace. The increasing disparity between these two divisions of culture is the basic sociological reason for those recurrent and intensified dislocations which, in our day' and time, have produced wider and deeper depressions and biq ger and' better wars. zation is What, therefore, we social psychologists hope and believe President Truman had in mind when he referred to the "frame work of our old ideas" was the relative backwardness-of govern ment, the archaic nature of law, the pharisaical character of much so called religion, and the superficial parochialism of education. Man's adaptive culture was evolved at a time when it was reason ably well suited to a society made up of small groups remote from each other, with little need to overcome the barriers of-time and space which our material culture has .inevitably produced -. The peoples of the earth were scattered vig, remote areas, and there evolved a unique system of human relationship, especially governments, which naturally produced the system of nation .... states. In the same way the peoples of the world were divided. racially, and religiously. These forms of produce a .socio - ... ... ... .. iS9.J9tio ... - |
