Social Inertia

Social inertia, also called cultural inertia, is resistance to change, or the persistence of stable relationships that may already be outdated, within a society or a social group, functioning within psychology and sociology as essentially the opposite of social change. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu originated the concept: in his framework, people occupy positions within a social space defined by social class and by their relationships and networks, and through their ongoing engagement in that space they develop behaviors, lifestyles and habits, which Bourdieu termed habitus, that work to maintain the existing status quo, encouraging people, in Bourdieu's words, to accept the social world as it is rather than to rebel against it. Sociologists have documented how economic and cultural heritage passes from one generation to the next, producing strong social inertia even during periods of broader social progress; Bourdieu's own research in Algeria found that cultural and symbolic factors limited the society's flexibility to adapt even amid rapid economic change. Social inertia is used today to explain how dominant social classes preserve their status and privilege over time, a pattern actively debated in the United States in discussions of equal opportunity and social mobility.