In the discipline of sociology, social complexity is a conceptual framework useful in the analysis of society. Contemporary definitions of complexity in the sciences are found in relation to systems theory, where a phenomenon under study has many parts and many possible arrangements of the relationships between those parts. At the same time, what is complex and what is simple is relative and may change with time.
Read more about Social Complexity: Overview, Theoretical Background, Methodologies, Areas of Application
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or complexity:
“The prime lesson the social sciences can learn from the natural sciences is just this: that it is necessary to press on to find the positive conditions under which desired events take place, and that these can be just as scientifically investigated as can instances of negative correlation. This problem is beyond relativity.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. When you think of all the effort you have to put in—telephonic, technological and relational—to alter even the slightest bit of behaviour in this strange world we call social life, you are left pining for the straightforwardness of primitive peoples and their physical work.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)