社会进化这一术语一般描述的是一种线性向上运动的认知图式,即技术发展和文化发展从低级阶段向高级阶段的进步。但是,显而易见,历史曾经被大规模的技术退化的时期——如古希腊和中世纪黑暗时代——所阻滞,而且甚至技术的进步也不是线性的。对这种非线性发展现象,美国著名文化人类学家理安·艾斯勒教授,提出文化转型理论①加以解释。她指出,通过观察和研究,在社会进化的漫长历史中,始终存在着两种广泛的基本运动过程。 The term social evolution generally describes a cognitive schema that moves linearly upward, from the low-level to the high-level of technological and cultural development. However, it is clear that history has been stalled by periods of massive degeneration of technology - such as the ancient Greeks and the dark ages of the Middle Ages - and even technological advances are not linear. To this phenomenon of non-linear development, Professor Li An Eisler, a famous American cultural anthropologist, put forward the theory of cultural transformation. She pointed out that through observation and research, in the long history of social evolution, there are always two broad basic movement processes.