Unilineal cultural and social evolution is a Western myth

こうしたUS人の勘違い癖を支えているのは2つの前提

1. USAは世界一'進んだ'国である
2. 世界中の国は全て同じ手順で進化する

1はそう信じるのもまあ結構で少なくても部分的には正しいだろう。凶悪なのは2で日本人にも多い間違い。マーガレット・ミード以前の世界観。https://t.co/UUCVfEYO7r

— Spica (@Kelangdbn) June 15, 2020

Later critics observed that the assumption of firmly bounded societies was proposed precisely at the time when European powers were colonising non-Western societies, and was thus self-serving. Many anthropologists and social theorists now consider unilineal cultural and social evolution a Western myth seldom based on solid empirical grounds. Critical theorists argue that notions of social evolution are simply justifications for power by the élites of society. Finally, the devastating World Wars that occurred between 1914 and 1945 crippled Europe's self-confidence. After millions of deaths, genocide, and the destruction of Europe's industrial infrastructure, the idea of progress seemed dubious at best.

Thus modern sociocultural evolutionism rejects most of classical social evolutionism due to various theoretical problems:

1 The theory was deeply ethnocentric—it makes heavy value judgments about different societies, with Western civilization seen as the most valuable.
2 It assumed all cultures follow the same path or progression and have the same goals.
3 It equated civilization with material culture (technology, cities, etc.)