Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

We Should Embrace Positive Changes

It is the nature of culture which directs social change. There are cultures around the world which encourage social change in technology, others in biological factors of individual, and some in other cultural factors. The Western cultures direct social change towards industrialization. They emphasize on technological and industrial expansion. Our culture, to a certain extent, encourages our activities towards a new phase of life and that is developing state of agriculture, peace and tranquility and education.
Most of the cultures encourage technological development but there are a few cultures that undergo faster changes in the social implications of non-material culture. So, the structure of a society on its patterns of normative behavior will determine social changes slowly or rapidly and in any field of life first. A culture, keeping its dogmatic values hardly changing, will show changes hardly in attitude and in the application of material objects. On the other hand, the other culture not holding its cultural values as stagnant is likely to accept social changes in technology and other environmental factors.
Some of the cultures provide a condition for resistance to change. The customary ways of life and cultural values have been laid so deeply in their nature that any external element does not find a room as to become a part of their culture. Such a way of life does not accept social change due to cultural inertia. Nomadic people wandering from one part of the region to another and contacting people of various regions stick to their own cultural ways of life. It is basically due to their cultural inertia.
It is important to understand that the aspects of human life do not accept changes altogether and at the same time. Human life is a component of various material and non-material aspects of environment. Material includes tools, implements and their complex systems of mechanical plants. It gets a change in its structure and function readily, but the methods and techniques in handling them and attitude about their use and the adoption of machine products in society are matter resting with non-material culture. It also happens that the material aspect of culture changes rapidly than the non-material one. Both the material and non-material aspects are related and must go hand-in-hand. By this irregularity, the non-material aspect remains behind the material one. This creates disharmony and disorganization between the two aspects. This unequal rate of change creates social disorganization in people. They are unable to adjust themselves in such rapidly changing economic order. This leads to frustration, aggression and even neurosis, which then lead to serious social problems.
Our country Afghanistan is facing this issue to a large extent. The tribal values are not able to cope with the technological developments, therefore, the cultural as a whole faces a cultural lag and also giving birth to frustration, aggression and even contempt.
Moreover, economic factors can also play a role in hindering cultural change. For example, people may want to live in modern buildings equipped with most of the facilities of life, but they cannot do so because of insufficient economic resources as their disposal.
On the other hand, geographical factors, and even certain religious beliefs isolate the people to a certain extent and then when they are brought into contact with the speedy technological changes, they may fail to absorb most of the things in their culture and bring required changes in their non-material culture and they may not be allowed to do so, as well.
Social and cultural changes are inevitable and the rich and successful cultures mostly have mechanism that help them in readily accepting those changes and making them a valuable part of their society. There are certain factors that are really necessary for a society, like that of Afghanistan, which can support it in making the changes acceptable.
There should be high prestige for the innovators and innovations. The higher the prestige of the innovator the more readily the innovation may be accepted. By finding the society giving honor and respect to those who are involved in paving the way for innovations, the people would definitely turn in the favor of the changes. For example, currently our society values money and give prestige to the people who are wealthy and can earn money; therefore, wealth and wealth earner are readily accepted by our society.
Therefore, our society requires changing its ethical values regarding the worth of the positive changes within the society. It is now an accepted fact that we cannot live with the advancements in science and technology and we need to make use of them in the most beneficial ways; therefore, they must become part of our everyday life and we must change our attitude and behavior towards them and also towards the modern developments and researches in the various fields of life. It is the only way we can move towards a better society.