Fred Cottrell's Contributions to Political Sociology and Demography

Fred Cottrell's contributions to political sociology and demography consist largely in his herculean efforts to trace out the impact on society of the transition from low energy technology to a high energy technology. Energy and Society (1955) is basically a treatise on the evolution of a new species of society ? one that is fundamentally different from the species that preceded it in terms of family structure, social structure and organization, spatial organization, values and ideology, population size and diversity, and politics. Almost nothing is left unchanged in the process of this evolution. In the realm of political sociology, Cottrell's contributions primarily consist of his tracing out of the impact of high energy technology on the evolution of the political state, and his recognition of the impact high energy technology has on international affairs. In another paper, Tibbitts has discussed Cottrell's contributions to the politics of aging. Departing from the Darwinist model of evolution, Cottrell pointed out that man's ability to transform nonhuman energy to suit his own pur poses disrupted whatever natural forces were operating in the en vironment to keep a balance in the ecology. Where the flow of energy in a habitat is greatly enlarged, culture thus becomes more and more contrived; that is, its continuity depends increasingly on man's ability consciously to understand how (culture) works and to be effectively able to manipulate the elements that make it work. As a consequence, discontinuity in culture becomes more common because much of what was there was never understood, verbalized, or integrated by conscious process. (1972, p.29) There are two important implications of this shift to a more active culture-building role for man. First, everyday life involves more con scious choices and fewer situations can be handled routinely, especially at the societal level. This means that the processes of decision-making assume a much more important role in the dynamics of culture than was

Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Demography · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Law

• Explaining technological impacts without determinism

  Open Access•R Gunderson•Energy Research & Social Science•2018

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