Ethnocentric Trends in Sociology A Critical View

Abstract

Sociology was developed in the western intellectual ethos within a
distinct sociopolitical milieu rooted in a postrevolutionary Europe
characterized by new tmds of thought that represented serious and sharp
teLtctions to the prevailing social situation. Social thinkem of the period
expressed an intense desire to develop a new science of Society that, once
equipped with adequate methods and theoretical constmcts, could be used
to study and better understand society and social phenomena. This new
tool would then be used to analyze how the construction and teconstruction
of society could be carried out to ameliorate the lot of people.
During the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, European society passed
through a tumultuous state and witnessed drastic changes in its Social and
intellectual fabrics. The expansion of trade in the sevenknth century led
to the crumbling of the economic order and the emergence of its new
mastem: guilds and charted corporations. The eighteenth century replaced
this system with that of free labor and competitive production. The
emergence of large-scale industries structured the economic organization
anew and accelerated both pduction and profit. Competition fotced
industries to develop new technology in order to increase production and
produce better quality goods. Markets were explod and expanded, and
trade was encouraged. This economic mrganization affected the pattern
of social life, as the ensuing population shift from the rural to urban areas
altered the extant family structure. In addition, the rule of law began to
be considered necessary for the smooth functioning of the new economic
order. These developments gradually transformed the feudal order and the
transitory mercantile order into a capitalist economic system that created ...