Developments in Evolutionism1 - uchitel-izd.ru.doc

Developments in Evolutionism1 Henri J. M. Claessen Leiden University ABSTRACT In the article some developments in evolutionism have been discussed. It was established that the traditional approach of evolution in terms of growing complexity and unilinearity is not completely satisfying. Developments such as stagnation, decline, and collapse were excluded from the evolutionary analysis, as were transformations that, though bringing about important changes in societies, did not lead to the emergence of a ‘higher’ level of development. When, as is proposed here, emphasis is laid on the fact that evolution means structural change, such phenomena can very well be included in evolutionary studies. This approach, it seems, does more justice to the views of Darwin than the more traditional ones. Sociopolitical evolution is considered here to be the result of a complex interaction of changes in a limited number of factors (the societal format, the domination and control of the economy, and the ideology). Together these changes produce a sociopolitical structure which, in its turn, influences the other factors. In this way structurally different sociopolitical forms emerge. Such changes occur in the most instances as the unforeseen results of decisions and choices made earlier, which in their turn had been occasioned by larger and smaller changes which had happened earlier in the lives of people. In this approach evolution is no longer considered unilineal; preference is given to a multidirectional approach. There can be discerned a number of separate evolutionary streams. Cultures that developed in one stream cannot be traced back to cultures that developed in other streams. An evolutionary stream is formed by a number of more or less interrelated societies within a certain region, the cultures of which display communal features which are based on the transformation of a limited number of ‘core principles’. As examples were given the precolonial streams of Polynesia and Af