REM 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Paradigm Shift, Social Evolution, Environmental Protection

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Resource & Environmtl Mgmt
• Course: REM 100
• Professor: Ken Lertzman

Document Summary

The most widely held set of beliefs, values and ideals that guide thinking about society, governance, and the roles of individuals. A dsp may be deined as a society"s dominant belief structure that organizes the way people perceive and interpret the functioning of the world around them. The dsp includes the totality of our institutions. The dominant social paradigm for western societies includes democracy, acceptance, of regulated capitalism, individualism, economic growth, the notion of progress, and a faith in science and technology. Society"s intuitions depend on a suicient consensus" that the values, norms and roles are valid. A society has a problem when it perceives that it departs from the values and beliefs embodied in its institutions. Occurs when a society changes one or more of its institutions. Abrupt wholesale paradigm shift occasionally take the form of revolutions with violent social upheaval. Societies are learning to avoid these by accepting gradual social change through evolution in their institutions.