Information Explosion and Social Control (From Problems, Thoughts, and Processes in Criminal Justice Administration, 1969, P 285-307, Alvin W Cohn, ed. - See NCJ-84895)

• NCJ Number: 84907
• Author(s): L T Wilkins
• Date Published: 1969
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Available on microfiche as NCJ-84895

Annotation

Varieties on information content are necessary for various segments of society to codify differing experiences and adapt to change, such that formal social control should be broad enough to permit a wide spectrum of information input that can guide adaptive behavior in a variety of changing circumstances.

Abstract

A social system which has the means to adapt must accommodate variation and deviance. Variance generates information, and information can provide the means for prediction and control in a probabilistic system. In terms of 'moral' language, this means that for a social system to survive under conditions of rapid change, it must tolerate a certain level of deviance. This analysis suggests that law can specify functional boundaries, but it should not regulate the finer details of behavior and perception. Attempts to enforce too rigidly that which is viewed as 'good conformist behavior' can only defeat creative efforts at adaptive behavior under the pressure of environmental and experiential change. Social systems and subsystems must be arranged so that power is perceived as accessible and capable of being influenced to change. Power not accessible to information input that can produce rational adaptive change will inevitably meet disruptive resistance from those adapting to experience according to information and perceptions not received or experienced by those in formal positions of power. Two footnotes are listed.