Cultural lag

The fact that cultural and regulatory institutions are often outpaced by technological change.

The idea of ‘cultural lag’ was developed by Professor William Ogburn, of the University of Chicago, in the 1920s. Ogburn believed that there was often a ‘lag’ between the advent of an innovation and cultural realignment. Inheritors of his idea have argued that cultural catch-up often depends upon a new generation of politicians, business people and religious leaders – perhaps the generation who came of age during the period of innovation.

Eighty years after Ogburn’s theory was introduced the pace of technological change – supported by increasing economic wealth - is accelerating. It took 38 years for fifty million Americans to get a radio from the time when it was first introduced. The same number of Americans had a computer within sixteen years of its advent. The internet was available to fifty million Americans within just four years.

The rapidity of technological change is foxing those to seek to regulate it. Libertarians will conclude that the technological fox’s ability to outpace the regulatory tortoise is probably a good thing. But conservatives will be much less relaxed.

Regulating biotechnology and pre-empting weapons technologies

The fields of biotechnology and weapons technology are two worrying examples of accelerating technologies.

Some fear that biotechnology has the capacity to create a species of transhumans but society and politicians are struggling to understand the implications of scientific procedures that almost irresistibly promise healthier, happier and more vigorous lives. Will society understand the profoundly divisive implications of these procedures before it is too late to regulate them?

Weapons technologies are also becoming more portable at the same time as they are becoming more potent. In the hands of terrorists these weapons could be devastating. Some far-sighted governments – possessing a 9/11-rooted worldview - understand the umbilical cord between such terrorists and the rogue regimes that habour them. They understand the importance of pre-emptive action against such regimes. But out-dated multilateral institutions like the UN have been constructed to regulate conventional conflicts between nation states. Otherwise-still-important theories like just war are struggling to keep pace with the new realities being forged by changing weapons technologies.

Comments

[UGG stovler stovler til maend]

Your method of describing all in this post is actually pleasant, every one can simply be aware of it, Thanks a lot
UGG stovler stovler til maend http://www.causaklinikken.dk/uggs-stovler/UGG-stovler-stovler-til-maend.html