CLASS STRUCTURE AND NON-LINEAR SOCIAL DYNAMICS

T. R. Young
The Red Feather Institute

and

Texas Woman's University
Denton, Tx., 76204



Prepared for the 1995 Meetings of the North Central Sociological Association
and the session on Social Stratification, Wm. Flint, Organizer.
Distributed as part of the Red Feather Institute Transforming Sociology Series.
The Red Feather Institute, 8085 Essex, Weidman, Michigan, 48893.

CHAOS AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUCTURE.

A. THE PROBLEMATIC: Postmodern critiques of structure and 'grand narratives' are pointed at modernists conceptions of structure and process. The new sciences of chaos and complexity render such critiques of limited scope. The geometry of actually existing 'structures' do not fit the tight and tidy models of structures such that boundaries can be clearly drawn, cases assigned unambiguously and correlations derived which are always and everywhere valid.

Instead, we see that in nonlinear social dynamics:

B. THE POLEMICS OF STRUCTURE IN MODERN AND POSTMODERN SENSIBILITY.

B. CLASS STRUCTURE AND NONLINEAR DYNAMICS:


Figures:

Fig. 1. The Soliton Fig. 2. The changing shape of Structure. Fig. 3. From Process to Structure.


ARTICLES IN PRINT ON CHAOS & NONLINEAR SOCIAL DYNAMICS

1991 Change and Chaos Theory. The Social Science Journal. 28(3). Fall.

Chaos theory and Symbolic Interaction. The Journal of Symbolic Interaction, 14:3, Fall.

Part I: Chaos and Crime: From Criminal Justice to Social Justice. The Critical Criminologist. V. 3., No., 2. Summer.

Part II: Chaos and Crime: The ABCs of Crime. The Critical Criminologist. V. 3., No.3. Fall.

The Archeology of Human Knowledge: Premodern, Modern and Postmodern Missions and Methods for the Knowledge Process. The Michigan Sociologist. Fall.

1992 Chaos Theory and Human Agency. Humanity and Society. V. 16: 4. November.

1993 The Great Flying Chaos Learning Circus: A Strangely Attractive Way to Teach Large Sociology Classes. With Anna Zajicek, Jennifer Sult, Tim Wolfe and with the assistance of Ruan Hoe, Andrew Philaretou and Joanne Glago. The Wisconsin Sociologist. Fall.

1994 Chaos Theory and Social Dynamics: Foundations of Postmodern Social Science. In Robert Robertson (ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference on Chaos theory. Forthcoming.

ARTICLES IN DRAFT: Available from T. R. Young, Sociology, TWU, Denton, Tx., 76204.

Chaos Theory and Management Science: Control, Prediction and Nonlinear Dynamics. With L. Douglas Kiel.

CHAOS, CLASS AND COMPLEX SOCIAL DYNAMICS: Structure and Process in Postmodern Philosophy of Science.

Chaos and Causality in Complex Social Dynamics.

STANDARD REFERENCES:

Berry, Brian J.L.
1991 Long-Wave Rhythms in Economic Development and Political Behavior. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Braudel, Fernand.
1980 On History. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press.

Briggs, John and F. David Peat.
1989 Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness. New York: Harper and Row.

Casti, John L.
1999 Searching for Certainty. New York: Wm. Morrow and Co.

Ekeland, Ivar.
1988. Mathematics and the Unexpected. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press.

Feigenbaum, Mitchell,
1978 Quantitative Universality for a Class of Nonlinear transformations, in the Journal of Statistical Physics, 19:25-52. Cited in Gleick, p. 157.

Gleick, James,
1988 Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books.

Glass, Leon and Michael Mackey
1988 . From Clocks to Chaos, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Holden, Arun
1986 . Chaos, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986 .

Hübler, A.
1992 Modelling and Control of Complex Systems: Paradigms and Applications. Modeling Complex Phenomena. L. Lam, ed. New York: Springer.

Kahn, Peter B.,
1990, Mathematical Methods for Scientists & Engineers, Ch. 16, One-Dimensional Iterative Maps and the Onset of Chaos, p. 421. New York: John Wiley and Son.

Mandelbrot, Benoit
1977 The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York: Freeman.

Penrose, Roger,
1989 The Emperor's New Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Prigogine, Ilya and Isabelle Stengers,
1984 Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. New York: Bantam Books.
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