Cultural Lag

Cultural lag occurs when the proliferation of technological and material advancement outpaces the normative dimensions of a civilization's blueprint for social existence. When technology advances more quickly than the social expectations and considerations surrounding new innovations, cultural lag is present.

Although technological development and knowledge for knowledge's sake are indicators of heightened human evolution, without shared rules and understandings to govern such creations, these developments can nullify any potential social improvement. Without social consensus of new folkways, mores, and laws to understand, contextualize, and utilize new technology, knowledge without immediate application or without foresight of consequences prior to its development and introduction into a society can be deleterious to a culture's well-being. For example, computerizing tollbooth collections can result in more efficient highway vehicular movement and aid in the reduction of environmental pollution, but changing the behaviors of drivers to convert and conform to this change cannot be done with technology. In fact, driving accidents and billing mishaps may initially increase at the onset of implementing this technological innovation.

Technological change and advancement encompass all areas of social life, including warfare, engineering, transportation, communication, and medicine. Social beliefs and the need for immediate change often dictate the rate of introducing these changes into a society. When considering the merit of these changes, one must take into account the consequences of displacement of the old with the new. Does the innovation offer more utilitarian value, and are moral and ethical conditions improved? Are innovators producing change without regard to consequences? For example, is the rate of semiskilled labor displacement considered when computerizing tollbooth collections or retooling workers to keep pace with technological change? What happens to the profit margin when calculating a cost-benefit analysis, and what happens to unemployment rates in society? At what rate can new technology be introduced into a society without having adverse effects? Also, if human embryonic stem cells provide better material for fighting degenerative diseases than do adult stem cells, does the potential of curing and understanding chronic disease outweigh the extinguishing of the embryo during the stem cell harvest? Who gets to define and put a value on life? Who gets to prioritize various stages of the life course? Is society better and more efficient as a result of these changes and possessing this type of technical know-how?

Proponents of technological development view technology as advancement and key to improving social conditions, for example by reducing poverty and economic dependence. They see technology as making social processes more efficient, where individuals would have access to better living conditions and more leisure time, thus providing expanded opportunities for all under the banner of democratic idealism. Individual citizens would also benefit by having more freedom and not having to rely on traditional social arrangements and interactions within socially established institutions.

For example, the introduction of in vitro fertilization (IVF) as an alternative in the procreative process and in family planning led to contested legal issues and trials. IVF forced society to reconsider the definitions of family, fetal ownership, motherhood, and parenthood. Another new definitional reconsideration was using the body for economic gain (prostituting [Page 191]oneself), as some thought that renting out a womb and being a gestation mother (also called “surrogate mother”) for the money or the joy of allowing a childless person or couple to experience parenthood were honorific uses of the body. Yet traditional sex workers who used their bodies (sex/reproductive organs) for financial gain in the name of sex for recreation remained stigmatized as morally debased. At the same time, many people consider gays and lesbians who use this reproductive technology as contributing to the decay of the traditional family, morally scrutinizing them differently than they would a single and financially successful female who might choose single parenthood. However, to be a gestation/birth/surrogate mother, an egg donor, a sperm donor, and so on was not considered sexualized or corrupt. Instead, the initial issues raised by this technology were embedded in the threat to the traditional family structure, fetal ownership, and adoption law.

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