THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL LAG

One of the concepts related to the introduction of change that received wide currency is that of Cultural Lag, proposed by William F. Ogburn. This concept refers to the disorganization ‘produced by unequal rates of change in society’. When two correlated parts of a culture change at different rates—one slower and the other faster—the gap between the two is defined as lag.

Let us understand it by some examples.

1. Growth of cities and the police force: ‘For instance, cities with increasing population have fewer police per 10,000 inhabitants than cities with decreasing populations. The growing cities do not expand their police force fast enough; the decreasing cities do not reduce theirs soon enough. The change in the number of police lags behind the change in the population.’
2. Adaptation to new cultural setting: Yet another instance can be of a refugee population suddenly arriving in a different country. As they arrive all of a sudden, their adaptation to the new environment takes time. Learning the language, local customs, different food habits, etc., are part of the re-socialization process, which is time consuming. Children are quicker in learning a new language than adults; even when they do learn, their accent is conditioned by the language of their original culture.
3. Adoption of a new practice: Despite the availability of effective means of birth control, many couples do not plan their families as artificial birth control may not be endorsed by certain religious faiths. Recent advances in biotechnology have made it possible, for example, to harvest organs from babies with abnormal brains, or to donate eggs to fertility clinics for in vitro fertilization, transplanting tissues from other animals, but these are still resisted by many on religious grounds, seen as interfering in the sphere of God.

The time taken by non-material culture to adapt to new material conditions is the period of cultural lag. Ogburn believes that such maladjustments, caused by cultural lag, ‘are often not so much disorganization as inefficient organization’. The concept of lag invites attention to the need for corrective action to speed up changes in the correlated sector, in order to ensure better readjustment. Once the change has taken place, the theory alerts us to the need for adjustment to new conditions in other variables. With the arrival of computers, the pattern of maintaining office files has been changed. Information can be stored and easily retrieved by saving them on the computer or on a CD or a pen drive. The old system of maintaining files and storing them in filing cabinets now becomes time-consuming and a waste of human effort, which can be utilized for other productive purposes within an organization. And yet, many in the present office culture resist these innovations. Old habits die hard.

The key point is that while technology changes fast, social effects unfold slowly. Initially, there is resistance to change. Ogburn, however, feels that the concept is broader in its scope. Changes occurring in the social sphere, or in demography, also create lags because their consequences—both intended and unintended—are not properly gauged, and the needed interventions are not planned well in advance.

Ogburn provides several examples of social disorganization that are the result of unequal rates of cultural change. Thus, unemployment is the consequence of poor adjustment between population and industry. Malthus attributed poverty to the unequal rates of growth in population and in food supply—population following the exponential law of geometric progression, and food supply that of arithmetic progression. Ill health is caused by the rapid expansion of an urban-industrial culture, to which the health system is unable to adequately respond.