Social change resists purely instrumental explanations because actors inhabit multiple temporalities

Evidence

Thus theoretically, Schulze’s perspective on the reasons behind discursive and behavioral shifts in Islamic tradition is too instrumental. (Whereas Nathan Brown explains the reform of the Egyptian system of justice in terms of tools for resisting imperialism, Reinhard Schulze sees Islamic reform in general as a means of claiming political independence.) When major social changes occur people are often unclear about precisely what kind of event it is they are witnessing and uncertain about the practice that would be appropriate or possible in response to it. And it is not easy to shed attitudes, sensibilities, and memories as though they were so many garments inappropriate to a singular historical movement. New vocabularies (“civilization,” “progress,” “history,” “agency,” “liberty,” and so on) are acquired and linked to older ones. Would-be reformers, as well as those who oppose them, imagine and inhabit multiple temporalities. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1064

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The contrast between instrumental-vs-inhabited explanations of major social change, with the ‘multiple temporalities’ claim, is a genuinely paradigm-level insight that resists one-sentence summary.
• XREF: connects to: Shifts in spatial and temporal representation drive shifts in social relations — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1584; Social change resists explanation within any single social science — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 28; Devoted actor behavior resists instrumental cost-benefit reasoning. — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor: Unconditional…, 23 (+1 more)