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<P align="justify"> According to the … <P align="justify"> According to the evolutionist view, life and its associated phenomena develop in stages, from simple to complex and internally more systematic organisms. This idea, which goes back at least to the Age of the Enlightenment, began its triumphal progress as a theory of development in the natural sciences with the publication of Charles Darwin s book On the Origin of Species in 1895. Its ideas were soon adopted in cultural studies and applied analogically to culture and cultural phenomena (like religion), which were seen as developing in the same way as phenomena in the natural sciences; for example, religion was believed to have developed out of the stage of [[Animatism|animatism]] into a polytheistic system of gods, and from this into a monotheistic, high form of religion. The evolutionist paradigm was for a long time almost unquestioned as a scientific model (J. K. Qvigstad, E. [[Reuterskiöld, Edgar (engl. ver.)|Reuterskiöld]], R. [[Karsten, Rafael|Karsten]], U. [[Holmberg, Uno (engl. ver.)|Holmberg]]). Evolutionism was applied to relations between peoples and to cultural policy in a form known as cultural or social Darwinism, in which (from the Western point of view) stronger, more developed cultures and peoples were given a licence to patronise weaker, less developed peoples and their primitive cultures. Because it was assumed that more developed cultural features would naturally spread and displace less developed principles and practices, evolutionism is inextricably linked with the idea of diffusionism. At the same time, it was assumed that the displaced cultural features would degenerate and disappear (devolutionism). Behind evolutionist thinking lies an idea of the monolithic nature of human culture. This, however, must be regarded as an unproven assumption. </P><P align="justify"> Most scholars in cultural studies today reject the general principle of evolutionism; it is frequently possible to follow the evolutional development of a particular cultural phenomenon, but renouncing the monolithic conception of human culture makes it possible to regard all the cultures of mankind as equally valuable and as developing according to their own laws. And this means that the principles of cultural and social Darwinism, diffusionism and devolutionism become irrelevant.</P>devolutionism become irrelevant.</P> +
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