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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 January 2018
Some maladjustments exist in all living, functioning cultural systems, even the most isolated and the most stable. This is merely to say that no cultural system (other than Utopia) is perfect. The possibilities of maladjustment or imperfect function rise with the increased size and complexity of a culture. Modern complex sociocultural systems or civilizations are therefore much more liable to suffer the difficulties of maladjustment than were the primitive and folk systems that preceded them, even in the same territory. Not only do modern systems contain more custom-patterns and institutions in absolute numbers, but they involve numerous subcultures and specialties serving the many differentiated groupings and categories that make up a modern society. Furthermore, all modern systems are in process of rapid change for they are in close and rapid contact with the constant flow of innovations from other modern systems.
From a paper read at the 35th International Congress of Americanists, Mexico, August, 1962.
1 I first stated several of the present concepts and postulates in 1944, ( Gillin, J., “Cultural adjustment,” American Anthropologist, 46:439–447, 1944 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). This was modified and expanded somewhat in my book, The Ways of Men (New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts, 1948), chapters 10, 23, 24, and passim. At present I am not satisfied with the statements as presented in those works.
2 See Crevenna, Theo R., ed., Materiales para el estudio de la clase media en la América Latina, 6 v., Washington: Pan American Union, 1950-51Google Scholar; Iturriaga, José E., La estructura social y cultural de México, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1951Google Scholar; Germani, Gino, Estructura social de la Argentina, Buenos Aires: Editorial Raigal, 1955 Google Scholar; Gillin, J., “Cultura emergente,” Integración Social de Guatemala, Arrióla, Jorge Luis, ed., Guatemala: Seminario de Integración Social Guatemalteca, 1956, pp. 435–459 Google Scholar; Johnson, John J., Political Change in Latin America: The Emergence of the Middle Sectors, Stanford University Press, 1958 Google Scholar; Adams, R., Gillin, J., Holmberg, A., Lewis, O., Patch, R., Wagley, C., Social Change in Latin America Today, New York: Harper, 1960 (Vintage paper-back edition, New York, 1961).Google Scholar
3 See Pike, Kenneth L., Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Glendale, Calif.: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1954 Google Scholar; “Towards a theory of the structure of human behavior,” Estudios Antropológicos Publicados en Homenaje al Doctor Manuel Gamio, Mexico: Dirección General de Publicaciones 1956, pp. 659-671.
4 Linton, Ralph, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York: Appleton-Century, 1945, p. 33, 38-39, 41Google Scholar; See Kluckhohn, Clyde, “Covert Culture and Administrative Problems,” American Anthropologist, 45: 213–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 E.g., Parsons, Talcott, “Culture and the Social System,” in Parsons, et al., eds., Theories of Society. Glencoe: Free Press, 1961.Google Scholar In the present connection, I am not quarreling with Parsons’ “social system” as a theoretical construct distinct from “cultural” system. For certain purposes it may be useful, but for approach to the questions I consider in this paper it is unnecessary.
6 Reichard, Gladys, Prayer: The Compulsive Word (Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, VII), New York: J. J. Augustin, 1944, p. 12.Google Scholar
7 Some readers may prefer some other word. One of the difficulties of theory construction in the social sciences, particularly that involving the introduction of new concepts, is the lack of specialized vocabulary. One has to chose words from the general public vocabulary, words which sometimes carry connotations and emotional associations for the reader that are out of place in the scientific theory being discussed. It should be evident that my present use of “consistency” does not mean “logical consistency” only.
8 Bunge, Carlos Octavio, Nuestra América: Ensayo de Vsicólogia Social. 6th ed. Buenos Aires: Administración General, 1918.Google Scholar
9 See Hirschman, Albert O., ed., Latin American Issues, New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1961 Google Scholar, for a recent discussion; also the publications of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America.
10 United Nations Statistical Yearbook. New York: 1961.
