A Micro-Analysis Approach to Modernization Process: A Case Study of Modernity and Traditionalism Conflict

Abstract

In order to achieve socioeconomic progress in a developing society, it is important that modern technology, which is Western in genesis and has evolved over the past three centuries, be imported and applied. Modern technology requires not only the instrumentalities of technology and pure science as a body of knowledge and a dominant institution, but also a social and psycho-social structure at least compatible with, if not reinforcing of, the drive towards better technology and scientific inquiry. Developing societies, however, usually have an institutional apparatus and value system which are indifferent to, incompatible with, or hostile to, modernization. A process of modification, adaptation and reform of many social institutions and values is necessary in order for these societies to appreciably benefit from the introduction of science and technology. People and organizations must also restructure their modes of behavior in productive processes so that the full productivity of modernization can be obtained. The transfer of science and technology from modern to pre-modern societies is really a process of social change within the developing society, and not solely the physical importing of equipment and scientific-technical manpower, useful as these are in the modernization process.