CYCLICAL THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL SUBMITTED IN THE PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT OF THE COURSE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
FOR THE REQUIREMENT OF THE DEGREE B.A. (LLB) SESSION

2019-2020

SUBMITTED BY

NAME – ASHISH VIDYARTHI

ROLL NO – 1919

SUBMITTED TO

DR.SHAKIL AHMAD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT

CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

NYAYA NAGAR MITHAPUR, PATNA (800001)

AUGUST 2019

1
ACKNOWLEGEMENT

The researcher takes this opportunity to express his profound gratitude and deep regards to his
guide DR. SHAKIL AHMAD for his exemplary guidance, monitoring and constant
encouragement throughout the course of this thesis. The blessings, help and guidance given by
him time to time shall carry the researcher a long way in the journey of life on which the
researcher is about to embark.

The researcher is obliged to staff members of Chanakya National Law University Patna, for
the valuable information provided by them in their respective fields. The researcher is grateful
for their co-operation during the period of his assignment.

Lastly, the researcher would like to thank almighty, his parents, brother, sister and friends for
their constant encouragement without which this assignment would not be possible.

THANK YOU
ASHISH VIDYARTHI

2
DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the work reported in the B.A. LLB (Hons.) project report entitled

“CYCLICAL THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE” submitted at Chanakya National Law

University Patna, is an authentic record of my work carried under the supervision of DR.

SHAKIL AHMAD. I have not submitted this work elsewhere for any other degree or

diploma. I am fully responsible for the contents of my project report.

ASHISH VIDYARTHI

CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

3
 Table of Contents
1. ACKNOWLEGEMENT ........................................................................................................................ 2
2. DECLARATION .................................................................................................................................. 3
3. I.INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 7
4. RISE AND FALL THEORIES OR CYCLICAL THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE ............................................. 9
5. Pitirim Sorokin’s theory of socio-cultural epelic order of social change ....................................... 11
6. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ................................................................................................... 19

Social cycle theories are among the earliest social theories in sociology. Unlike the theory
of social evolutionism, which views the evolution of society and human history as progressing in
some new, unique direction(s), sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society
and history generally repeat themselves in cycles. Such a theory does not necessarily imply that

4
there cannot be any social progress. In the early theory of Sima Qian and the more recent
theories of long-term ("secular") political-demographic cycles as well as in the Varnic
theory of P.R. Sarkar an explicit accounting is made of social progress.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1. IS THERE NEED SOCIAL CHANCE IN SOCIETY.

2. WHAT WOULD BE IMPACT AFTER THE SOCIAL CHANGE.
3. WHATS THE SOCIOLOGIST THOUGHT ABOUT THE SOCIAL CHANGE.

HYPOTHESIS

The researcher has formulated the following hypothesis, the validity of which has been tested in
the course of the research project:

SOCIAL CHANCES IN THE SOCIETY TAKE PLACES IN ONE DIRECTION OR THE

CYCLICAL MANNER.

RESEARCH METHEODOLOGY

For the project research, researcher will rely upon doctrinal method of research.

SOURCES OF DATA

The researcher will be relying on the secondary sources to complete the project.

5
SECONDARY SOURCES – book, website etc.

LIMITATION

The researcher has time and territorial limitation in completing the project.

MODE OF CITATION

The researcher will follow BLUE BOOK (9TH) edition.

6
I.INTRODUCTION

Social cycle theories are among the earliest social theories in sociology. Unlike the theory
of social evolutionism, which views the evolution of society and human history as progressing in
some new, unique direction(s), sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society
and history generally repeat themselves in cycles. Such a theory does not necessarily imply that
there cannot be any social progress. In the early theory of Sima Qian and the more recent
theories of long-term ("secular") political-demographic cycles as well as in the Varnic
theory of P.R. Sarkar an explicit accounting is made of social progress.

Interpretation of history as repeating cycles of Dark and Golden Ages was a common belief
among ancient cultures.

The more limited cyclical view of history defined as repeating cycles of events was put forward
in the academic world in the 19th century in historiosophy (a branch of historiography) and is a
concept that falls under the category of sociology. However, Polybius, Ibn Khaldun (see
Asabiyyah), and Giambattista Vico can be seen as precursors of this analysis. The Saeculum was
identified in Roman times. In recent times, P. R. Sarkar in his Social Cycle Theory has used this
idea to elaborate his interpretation of history.

7
Cyclic model

A cyclic model (or oscillating model) is any of several cosmological models in which the
universe follows infinite, or indefinite, self-sustaining cycles. For example, the oscillating
universe theory briefly considered by Albert Einstein in 1930 theorized a universe following an
eternal series of oscillations, each beginning with a Big Bang and ending with a Big Crunch; in
the interim, the universe would expand for a period of time before the gravitational attraction of
matter causes it to collapse back in and undergo a bounce.

In the 1920s, theoretical physicists, most notably Albert Einstein, considered the possibility of a
cyclic model for the universe as an (everlasting) alternative to the model of an expanding
universe. However, work by Richard C. Tolman in 1934 showed that these early attempts failed
because of the cyclic problem: according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy can
only increase. This implies that successive cycles grow longer and larger. Extrapolating back in
time, cycles before the present one become shorter and smaller culminating again in a Big Bang
and thus not replacing it. This puzzling situation remained for many decades until the early 21st
century when the recently discovered dark energy component provided new hope for a consistent
cyclic cosmology. In 2011, a five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies and spanning 7 billion years
of cosmic time confirmed that "dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds."

One new cyclic model is brane cosmology model of the creation of the universe, derived from
the earlier ekpyrotic model1. It was proposed in 2001 by Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University
and Neil Turok of Cambridge University. The theory describes a universe exploding into
existence not just once, but repeatedly over time. The theory could potentially explain why a
repulsive form of energy known as the cosmological constant, which is accelerating the
expansion of the universe, is several orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by the standard
Big Bang model.

1
R. Penrose (2010). Cycles of Time: an extraordinary new view of the universe. London: The
Bodley Head.

8
RISE AND FALL THEORIES OR CYCLICAL THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE

The theory advocates that social chance in the society take place not in one direction but in a
cyclic manner. According to this approach, all societies have periods of rise and fall, growth and
decline. The main component of this theory are Oswald Spengler, pitirim Sorokin, max weber
etc.

Cyclic Theory of Oswald Spengler and Toynbee

Theory of Oswald Spengler and Toynbee, Pareto’s Theory of Circulation of Elites and Sorokin’s
Theory of Cultural Dynamics are eminent among the cyclic theorist. Here we will discuss cyclic
theories of Oswald Spengler and Toynbee

In the view of cyclical theorist, only one cycle takes place for change in society. To confirm this
they described many civilisations and said history is the witness. Today the civilisations which
are flourishing and are at top most point of progress, they were sometime at primordial and
backward stage. The civilisations that seem to be derelict today, in the past they seem to be the
world’s superior civilizations. In this way, cyclic theorist see the social change in the form of life
cycle.

Theory of Oswald Spengler

About the social change ,the German scholar Oswald Spengler in 1918, presented his cyclical
theory in his book “The Decline of the West”. In this book he has criticised the Evolutionary
theories of social change and said that change never happens in a straight line2. In his view social
change occurs in a cycle. where we started. We see in nature, one cycle of season takes place.
Winter, summer and rainy season comes one by one after each other. In the same way, cycle of
day and night and night after day goes on. Similarly living beings also goes through the phase of
life and death. We take birth gets young, then old and then we die and take birth again.This cycle
is also found in human society and civilisations.

2
http://www.mysocietymyworld.com/theory-of-oswald-spengler-and-toynbee/

9
Human civilization and culture also undergo through rise and fall, formation and destruction. To
prove this, they described eight civilisations of the world( Arab, Egypt, Megan, Maya, Russia
and western culture etc). And also presented their rise and fall. Spengler said about western
culture that it has reached its uppermost position of development. In the field of trade and
Science it has done unprecedented progress. But slowly and slowly it is reaching its stage of
attenuation and stability. Hence its destruction is for sure. Similarly he has given his views about
German culture and said that it has reached its uppermost position and its declination is nearby.

According to Spengler, the grandeur of western society will diminish and their power and
affluence will be destroyed. Whereas on the other hand the countries of Asia which are not
developed, weak and lethargic with their economic and military power will move forward on the
roads of progress and production. Thereby become a challenge for western countries.

Theory of Toynbee

Arnold J. Toynbee was an English historian. He studied 21 civilisations of the world and
presented his theory of social change in his book “A Study of History “. After studying the
development of different civilisations, he found a simple example and created his theory. His
theory is also called “Challenge and Response Theory of Social Change”. According to Toynbee,
every civilization is given a challenge by nature and man. To face this challenge, man requires
adaptation. Also to respond to the challenge he forms civilization and culture.

After this, in place of geographical challenges, social challenges are given. These are in the form
of internal problems or are given by external societies. The society which is able to face these
challenges remains intact and those who are unable to do this are destroyed. Thus, in this way a
society goes through the phase of formation and destruction and coalition and disruption.

10
According to Toynbee, In Sindhu and Nile Valleys, same thing has occurred. Natural
environment has given challenge to the people living at those places. To which people answered
by formation. The civilisations of Egypt and Sindhu has developed the same way.

Pareto’s residues theory of social change

According to pareto, the society is normally divided into two groups , namely, social elite and
normal classes. The member of the society are considered as social elite or the lower class based
on the virtue of their qualities. These position are not static. The people who acquire those
quality of elite, enter the classes of elite and if they are loss their qualities they come down to the
lower status

According to pareto’s social chance is caused by two residues namely,( 1) residues of

combination and (2) residues of persistence aggregates. Every member of the society posses
these both residues. The residues of the combination are meant for the fulfillment of immediate
needs of the individual while residues of the persistence aggregates lay stress on the idealism and
values. They make the individual idealistic and the considerate about values. Both these residues
are responsible for the social change.

Pitirim Sorokin’s theory of socio-cultural epelic order of social change.

An outstanding trait or characteristic of importance in Sorokin's work is its concentration on

social change after his arrival in America. He devoted most of his time to social change or
"dynamics" as he calls it. He sought to find out what social change meant, why it has occurred,
what it did to the person and the societies, and what were the eventual destinations of persons
and societies in the new forms3.

3
https://library2.usask.ca/sorokin/about/theories/socialchange

11
His first book in his "second life"—after remission of the death sentence (at least
temporarily) and permanent banishment which he was able to secure by a ruse was Sociology
of Revolution. His second was Social Mobility, or movements and changes of persons, classes,
ideas, values and other social things. Contemporary Sociological Theories was essentially a pot-
boiler and an adjunct to his own aims and purposes to make a success in his new life. Rural
Sociology with Zimmerman was really rural-urban sociology, the study of mixed vertical and
horizontal mobility between town and country and its meanings in terms of change. From that
time on the major problems studied concerned only social and cultural dynamics and the ideas
which arose out of writing these four volumes.

In this respect Sorokin had one "writing life" before banishment and another one after. His first
concerned crime, law, peasant conditions (traditional sociology) plus professional chores such as
Elements of Sociology (1919, Russian) and Systematic Soci-ology, (2 Vols., 1920-21, Russian).
His second in the United States was mainly about social change and dynamics, plus a few
professional chores.

In the process of life each of great philosophers had been deprived of a social status which was
more valuable to them than any other possession except life itself. As Sorokin wrote it in italics
upon leaving Russia

Life, even the hardest life, is the most beautiful, won-derful, and miraculous treasure in the
world. Dante was banished for life and then sentenced to be burned at the stake if he returned to
Florence. Before that he had been a prose writer on political4 reform and government. (We do
not even know where he lived while banished.) His outstanding writing after banishment (in this
new language for writing—Italian) was the Divine Comedy. (Why it is called either "divine" or a
"comedy" is completely unclear because it is, par excellence, a political polemic of a profound
social change nature.)

4
https://library2.usask.ca/sorokin/about/theories/socialchange

12
It is highly possible that the analysis of social change, its importance and comprehensiveness,
made by Sorokin may be a permanent contribution toward the science of sociology and our
knowledge. It will take time to tell the answer to that. But even if Sorokin is forgotten his
contributions to the develop-ment of objective sociology as contrasted with subjective sociology
of many (i.e. by Max Weber) will long be a landmark in the development of a useful social
science.

Sorokin as a Social Change Writer

If we take Sorokin as a member of a species of Philosophers of History, or Social Change

writers, the following observations might be of in-terest in understanding him, or if in not
under-standing, placing him within a tangible milieu.

1. He is a man originating outside of the cul-tures about which he writes, and coming into them
with some of the dispassion of the visiting scholar from afar. In a technical and a psychological
sense Sorokin was not a mass or orthodox Russian by cul-ture. His constant movements have
ever been into new cultures, from the fringes of the Arctic to Har-vard University in the U.S.A.
In this respect he has always had the objectivity of an outsider, only mag-nified.

2. A second characteristic is Sorokin's early engagement in political agitation with a resultant

broadening of experience and close physical contact with the tangible and intangible good and
evil forces of a Machiavellian nature in the ordinary manage-ment process of society. It might be
pointed out that most great social change writers, and these philoso-phers of history, had
considerable "experiences" of this nature.

13
3. A third characteristic shared by most of these social change philosophers has been that of
un-orthodox educations arising largely out of the situations in which they found themselves.
They did not ordinarily receive formal educations in standard subjects in which they later made
their names.

4. Finally a fourth characteristic in common with many great philosophers of history is that of
imprison-ment, punishment, and death sentences for their activities and views, and the fortunate
ability to recover and unwillingness to be crushed by this psychological passage out of life, and
then return. In these cases, their great work of a creative nature might be said to have been made
in their second lives or their "reincarnations". Most of these writers were in danger much of the
time and escaped by narrow margins. They were always living on time which had been gained
by accident.

Augustine would have been put to death when Africa was overrun by the barbarians, had he
lived three or four years longer. These invaders blinded all churchmen before killing them. He
mentions the usual.

That is, of those things which had made geniuses great philoso-phers of history, Sorokin had a
liberal dosage of all kinds.

14
Social Change and Sorokin's Philosophy of History

What is the most general relation of time to man's culture? In that respect a philosophy of history
by a sociologist ought to be different from one by an historian. We should expect an historian to
be more specific and a sociologist more general. We might think that the historian would speak
of specific change in a dynasty but the sociologist would try to enunciate general principles
concerning the creation and decay of dynasties.

It is clear that Sorokin is only dealing with modern integrated societies and cultures of the
"civi-lization" types as Toynbee classifies them. These types have been characteristic in parts of
the world for the past seven or eight thousand years. Sorokin finds the relation of these
civilizations to time a very involved one.

It would be simplest to say there are small changes, large changes and super changes. It is in the
nature of these civilizations to change. A vast number of smaller changes make for a large
change; and a few larger changes make for a super change. In a "meaning sense" it is the super
changes only, in Sorokin's suggestion of cycles or recurrences, which clearly reverse themselves.
The smaller changes ordin-arily are integrational and can appear more or less linear for a short
period of time, at least.

The smaller changes may tend to have motives of different types from the larger ones. The
eventual breaking of a grand system spews out a vast amount of material for new intermixed but
disjointed con-geries. But these congeries eventually tend to move towards similar colorations or
new social systems which have logical-meaningful integration. In so doing they take on both the
"goodness" of the logical meaningful system and its eventual weaknesses.

15
In a most general sense this is Sorokin's Philos-ophy of History, or broad idea of the relation of
time-change to human events. It is a very complicated one but the complexity is inherent in the
material of the study. If it is true, as Sorokin believes (his data show it to be), the problem of
sociological analysis becomes very much more complicated than ordinarily pictured. Method in
sociology will have to be improved greatly to deal with the necessary complex analysis. A given
event at one time may be in the process of getting impetus from a number of cross currents. If we
have to decide "what next" then we ought also to com-mence visualizing what could be next
after "what next".

Systematization of Social Change

Sorokin tried to systematize the whole problem of social change. This is important. In J. T.
Fraser's (ed.) Theories of Time 26 essays are given but none about time and its meaning in
sociology. One reason for this lack is because there are many times (many forms of change) in
sociology and one essay could hardly touch the problem. Sociology has more permutations and
combinations than other fields and both and all are often operating at the same time. However,
Sorokin gives a resume of the field.

The prime principles of sociocultural change are, for him, immanent dynamism and limits. He
surveys at length the history of preceding theories using these principles in one form or another.
His own sophisti-cated version he represented in his general statements (a) that "immanency of
change is the unexceptional, ever-present, permanent, universal and necessary rea-son ('cause')
of their (sociocultural systems) change"; and (b) that "an enormous number of sociocultural
systems and processes have a limited range of pos-sibilities in their variation, in the creation of
new fundamental forms" {Dynamics, Vol. IV, p. 667 and p. 710). In other words the Nature of
Society and all its parts is to change. However since there are limits on each system, change
eventually has to re-verse its direction. The complexity and profundity of his analysis, however,
can be only viewed dimly in such summary statements, Sorokin's views are counterpoised, in his
exposition of them, to all "externalistic" viewpoints, to all ideas of monocausal, unilinear, and
hodge-podge "multi-causal" theories of social and cultural change.

16
In the light of his prime "Why's of sociocultural change," important corollaries are developed
and many lesser principles and procedures for the study of social and cultural dynamics are
elaborated and applied. Developing the two prime principles system-atically, and applying them
to the problems of "re-currence, rhythm, linearism, and eternal novelty," Sorokin comes to the
conclusion that the most general pattern of sociocultural change is one of incessantly varying
recurrent processes. Since a society tends to integrate itself into a system, the systems also tend
to recur at least in a considerable degree. Perhaps we may best point this out by summarizing his
own findings of his four-volume study of Social and Cultural Dynamics (see also the one-volume
edition chs. 38, 39, 40):

"Identically recurrent sociocultural processes are impossible.""Eternally linear sociocultural

processes are also impossible.""But a linear trend limited in time (whose duration is different for
different systems and processes) is to be expected and is factually found in almost all
sociocultural processes. In some it lasts only a few moments or hours or days or months; in
others many decades and even centuries, but in all, it is limited in time and is shorter than the
time of the whole existence of the system.""The sociocultural processes with an unlimited
possi-bility of variation of their essential traits are also impossible—factually and logically."
Hence, "history is ever old and repeats itself.""As to the possibilities of variation of the
accidental properties of the system, the range of the possibilities here is wide, in some cases, at
least, theoretically, almost unbounded. Hence, an incessant change of the system in these traits as
long as the system exists. Likewise, almost unlimited are the possibilities of variation of the
ever-new systems through the method of substitution or replacement of the exhausted systems by
new ones. Hence, history is ever new, unrevealed and inexhaustible in its creativeness.""Since
practically all the sociocultural systems have limited possibilities of variation of their essential
forms, it follows that all the systems that continue to exist after all their possible forms are
exhausted, are bound to have recurrent rhythms. Hence, the inevi-tability of recurrence in the life
process of such systems.""Other conditions being equal, the more limited the possibilities of
variation of main forms, the more frequent, conspicuous, and grasping are the rhythms in the
process of the system, and the simpler the rhythms from the standpoint of their phases. And vice

17
versa, if in some of the processes we cannot grasp any recurrent rhythm, the reason is either that
the process has comparatively large possibilities of vari-ation that empirically prevent us from
noticing the infrequent rhythm; or that it endures a shorter life span and dies earlier, before it has
had a chance to run through all its forms (just as some organisms die at the prenatal stage or in
childhood, before they have a chance to run through all the main phases of human life from birth
to senility. Or the inability to grasp any recurrent rhythm may be due to a co-existence and
mutual "interference" of several con-temporaneous and different rhythms in the same system that
change them into an unrhythmical "noise" for the listener or observer; or to the excessively long
duration between the recurrences, which makes the rhythm also unobservable; or to the
exceedingly complex and many-phased nature of the rhythm.""Thus history ever repeats itself
and never repeats itself; both seemingly contradictory statements are true and are not
contradictory at all, when properly understood.""This means that the strictly cyclical (identically
recurrent) conception of the sociocultural process; the linear, in the sense of unlimitedly linear;
the unicist, in the sense of the nonexistence of any recurrent rhythms in the sociocultural
processes, they being "brand-new" and unique in the totality of their traits and properties at any
moment; the static conception that there is no change, and that the sociocultural world ever
remains strictly identical with itself—all these conceptions are fallacious. The valid conception is
that of an "incessant variation" of the main re-current themes, which contains in itself, as a part,
all these conceptions, and as such is much richer than any of them." (Dynamics, Vol. IV, pp.
731-2).

In these partial quotations of Sorokin's own summary, one sees both his stress on social change
in contrast to most of his colleagues in the socio-logical fraternity, and sees also that he makes
clear that "recurrence" is a complicated problem. History does not repeat itself; but much of any
present may be understood more thoroughly if we look at the repetitive elements in the culture.

18
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Although the theory of Spengler attracted many people for a long time. But cannot be accepted
completely. Spengler has compared culture and civilisation with trading, which nobody accepts
today. He confirmed his side by modifying the historical facts. He announced the destruction of
western societies by wars on fictional basis.

His views on development of western societies, that it has reached its uppermost form is also
defective. As the work of its development is still going on. Hence we cannot consider the theory
of Spangler as completely Scientific. His theory signifies his pessimism.

The theory of Toynbee was far from scientific rationale. It seemed to be a philosophical theory.
But Toynbee is more optimistic as compared to Spengler. He tried to give a Sociological
explanation to social change.

Weber envision on oscillation between three kinds of authority, namely, traditional, charismatic
and the rational. In the course of social development a point is reached when an the old structure
loses its legitimacy. At this point of charismatic leader takes over and starts building the new
structure. His charismatic authority tends to become routinized over the time either in the
traditional or the national direction according to the historical condition under which he arises. In
the courses of the time this authority structure also exhausts it’s legitimacy and paves the way for
the emergence of a new charismatic leader or grate man. The grate man employ , in the crude
and refine forms , the various techniques of propaganda and the pressure. Mass movement
inspire by these individuals have swept across the whole countries.

With regard to the cultural development, weber sees a path of leaner movement towards grater
rationality, inner consistency and coherence. While he acknowledge the role of the economic
factors in the structural change, he refuses to accept the primacy attributed to economic factors
by marx.

19
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sociology by DR.S.R. MYNENI.

Modern sociological theory by M. francis Abraham.

Sociological thought by francis Abraham and john henry morgan.

Sociology by T.K.ommen and C.N.venugopal.

Websites

https://library2.usask.ca/sorokin/about/theories/socialchange

http://www.mysocietymyworld.com/theory-of-oswald-spengler-and-toynbee/

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/sociology/social-change-and-movements/social-
change-defined

20