Lecture Notes for First Midterm Exam, Thursday February 19 in class
What is theory?
In the world right now there are thousands of students taking classes that are about only theory, smart people are writing books about theory. Some people spend their careers studying only theory.
So we will have to be brief here, because this is an introductory course.
Sociological theory is the ‘queen of sociology,’ as philosophy has been called the queen of the sciences.
Sociological theory involves the analysis, critique, and development of the ways in which we think about and discuss social reality.
The American sociologist C. Wright Mills argued, in “The Sociological Imagination,” that
the facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a person is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a person takes new heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesperson becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar operator; a wife or husband lives alone; a child grows up without a parent. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.
Yet people do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of people they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography and history, of self and world. They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them.
So C. Wright Mills argued that people need, or at least can benefit from, a “sociological imagination,” or a way of thinking about the world in terms of large-scale processes and historical changes.
That is Theory, but what is A Theory, and how do we know one when we see one?
One definition of a theory is: A theory is a statement of how and why specific facts are related (this is on page 22 of the textbook).
Theories are general, not specific like facts.
Theories are important because when we try to explain things, no matter who we are, we use theories, although we don’t always know what theories we are using. We’re usually not reflective about our theories.
Philosophy and theology are, basically, concerned only with theory. Sociologists and theologians ask, what is time, what is reality, what is truth, does God exist, etc, etc.
Theory is important in sociology too, but sociology is different from philosophy and theology because in sociology, theories are about people and societies and culture and history, not truth, time, reality, god, the devil, etc. Sociological theories are about real things that we all experience in our lives, and that we tend to think are important.
Also, sociological theories are about how things are, i.e. how societies actually work, not how society should work. Sociological theories are almost always explanatory, not normative.
e.g. Karl Marx on religion as “false consciousness”
e.g. Emile Durkheim on suicide and social integration
Classical Theoretical Perspectives
The theoretical perspectives we turn to now are a little more general than theories.
These are basic images that guide thinking and research. Here are some of the classical theories. These are considered classical because they are not new, but they are, for the most part, still talked about.
(and keep in mind that some of them might be wrong…they might be bad ideas)
Claude Henri de Saint-Simon… biology, Darwinism, organicism, scientific positivism in 19th-century France à Auguste Comte, considered the founder of sociology
Functionalism is one of the oldest theoretical perspectives in sociology. It began with August Comte, the French thinker who coined the term Sociology.
The basic image here is of society as a system or organism.
e.g. a human body
The imagery comes from biology
Both societies and human bodies have different levels of organization
| Whole Body Organs, e.g. Brain, Heart, Hand Cells Molecules Atoms | Nation Groups, e.g. ethnic groups, professions, organizations Families Individuals |
The molecules, cells, and organs of the body work together so that the body functions.
We don’t know what our cells and organs are doing, and our cells don’t “know” what the rest of the body is doing (e.g. they don’t know where we are walking, what we want to do today)
But our cells and organs are functional for survival
In the same way that bodies have organs and cells that are needed for the functioning of the whole body, societies have institutions that are functional.
E.g. governments
Laws
The family
Greetings
A division of labor
Professions
Why do we have these things? Because societies need them to function and survive
How does this work?
How does social change happen?
- August Comte: differentiation, complexification, evolution
3 stages of society
1. theological—militaristic communities led by priests
2. metaphysical—legalistic, ruled by lawyers
3. positivist—scientific, industrial, ruled by sociologists
2. Herbert Spencer (from
From Charles Darwin, one of the most important scientists in history
In
Spencer coined the famous expression “survival of the fittest” (p. 84 of the reader)
Has anyone heard this expression before?
What does it mean?
For Spencer,
“Natural selection” ensured that the best institutions and people succeeded in societies. This is good for everyone because it is good for the whole society. Processes of natural selection, when left alone, ensured that the best forms of government would survive, the best religion would survives, the best ideas would survive, and the best people would survive and succeed.
For Spencer, and for many other thinkers (mostly in
Thomas Malthus provided a more pessimistic view of the human consequences of natural selection.
Malthus was a demographer and political economist who argued, from
Starvation and conflict over scarce resources were inevitable
How would functionalism explain universities? Why are we here?
This explains, e.g., wealth and poverty. In a free capitalistic society, people who are wealthy become so because they are better than other people at something. And the whole society will improve if these people are allowed to succeed and other people are allowed to fail.
This is sometimes called Social Darwinism
Politically, it is associated with free-market ideologies: weakening central governments and lowering taxes on the wealthy
Why would social Darwinists want to lower taxes on wealthy people?
Why would they want to make governments smaller?
stratification is beneficial, good for society, ‘functional’
society is complex, jobs are complex, and the best people need to be placed in the most complex and important jobs (e.g. president, operator of a nuclear power plant, heart surgeon)
therefore modern societies need to be Meritocracies
The Conflict Perspective
If functionalism were your only sociological theory, it would probably seem pretty good. It was a dominant theory in the 19th century in
Functionalism has a lot to recommend it: it provides a coherent set of explanations for societal development, it is ambitious and broad, and it links sociology to other sciences.
Functionalism has been mostly rejected by sociologists because of its innate conservatism, its post hoc style of explanation, and its inability to explain much of social life.
The next perspective, the conflict perspective totally rejects functionalism.
In the conflict perspective, societies aren’t like biological organisms at all.
Instead, societies are arenas of inequality that generate conflict and change
Forms of inequality include:
Class
Race
Ethnicity
Gender
Money
Power
Prestige
The focus here is on social divisions
Privileged groups try to keep their privileges, and pass them on to their children
Non-privileged groups sometimes resist, sometimes do not resist
This perspective is, again, radically different from functionalism
Question: What would each say about university education?
The conflict perspective is associated with two famous German thinkers:
Karl Marx and Max Weber
The next classical theoretical perspective is cultural theory, although you should note that the way I’m presenting this is a bit different from what’s in the book.
This is the newest of the classical theoretical perspectives, although in sociology it’s at least a hundred years old.
In this perspective, societies are guided not, or not only, by functions or conflict,
But also by shared values, symbols, ideals, ideas, beliefs, religions, and rituals
Cultural theory is associated with Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, and also with anthropology
In cultural theory, scholars pay a lot of attention to language, symbols like flags and statues and national anthems, rituals like national holidays and religious rituals, and lots of other kinds of symbolic and ritualistic behavior.
They also pay a lot of attention to cultural difference between and within societies. This perspective is very international—probably more international than the functionalist or conflict perspectives.
So if we ask our usual question of why we have universities, cultural theory provides different types of answers. For cultural theory, education is like a religion, and we build universities because we believe in education.
Secular education is part of our value system.
Also, we build universities so that we can socialize children to have the right kinds of beliefs and attitudes.
It’s important for universities to have rituals like graduation ceremonies and symbols like diplomas, in order to make the experience of graduating meaningful to the students and parents.
The Transition to Modenity: Capitalism and Urbanization
Explaining Industrial (and Postindustrial) Societies
Sociology has always concerned itself with industrial and postindustrial (or modern and postmodern) societies.
Early sociologists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and others) were particularly concerned with the transition, that is the change, to industrial society. Why did this happen? How? Is it positive or negative?
These questions are not of only historical interest. Why else would questions about the transition to industrial (and postindustrial) societies be important? (A: some countries have not made the transition)
President of the German Society for Sociology until he was ousted by the Nazis in 1933
Gemeinschaft – tight-knit communities, intimate relations of kinship, friendship, trust, reputation
Often translated as “community”
e.g. rural villages, farming communities
Tonnies argued that Gemeinschaft relations were organic, natural, healthful
Gesellschaft
modern urban relations – impersonal, based on money and prestige, and on rationality, efficiency, and instrumental value
Often translated as “”society”
Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society
(1893, from his doctoral dissertation)
Durkheim was especially interested in morality as a social phenomenon
He wanted to understand how people could remain socially integrated in a modern, capitalistic society
He was not romantic, as were Marx and Toennies
He was not interested in developing a critique of modern society. Rather,
Mechanical Solidarity, in which everyone knows everyone, and people are tied together through similarity
People work together (e.g. in the fields), and they share culture and “collective consciousness”
Organic Solidarity, here Durkheim reverses Toennies’ use of the term organic. For Durkheim, organic solidarity is like the solidarity of the heart and the liver. They are highly specialized, and work together.
People operate in complex webs of interdependent relations.
People cultivate individual differences for the good of the whole.
People do not necessarily share culture or a “collective conscience” as in mechanical solidarity.
OS arises from the natural development of the division of labor, although this can lead to anomie and over-individualization.
Brilliant itinerant German social theorist who wrote on an extraordinary number of topics.
Like Toennies and Durkheim, he argued that there was something fundamental about the transformation from rural life to modern urban life.
He argued that society is an event, it is interaction of individuals in groups
He developed a geometry of social life, an analysis of the “web of associations” that, for Simmel, make up society. Simmel’s ideas have reemerged almost 100 years later in the form of network analysis.
In modern societies, people have larger social, occupational, and associational networks. This leads to individualization, as people are more likely to develop social networks that are unique.
Simmel wrote about many topics: money, fashion, commodity fetishism, alienation—but his writings on the city are among his most influential.
this is the Marx lecture, so if you don’t know much about Karl Marx, here’s your chance
his most famous books were The Communist Manifesto and Capital
1) theorist of the relationship between capitalism and class conflict; this was his first major concern
2) the second major concern was alienation
lived 1818-1883
Ph.D. in philosophy in
became a newspaper editor and writer
unlike most philosophers at the time, he thought you needed to understand society to understand ideas
unlike most academicians, he wanted to change society, not only to understand it better
1) capitalism and class conflict
Marx wrote his articles and books during a time when the British Empire was at its strongest, when the Industrial Revolution had made
At the same time, most British citizens were part of the proletariat, the factory workers, who were terribly poor, worked in polluted factories all day (remember there were no weekends), had no homes or lived in slums, and rarely lived past 30.
At the same time, aristocrats, industrialists, and capitalists, who owned the factories, were unimaginably rich.
They lived lives of luxury in mansions with hundreds of servants.
Marx saw society, not only British society but all societies, as based on conflict between social classes.
He saw societies as made up of a base and a superstructure.
The base is economic; it is the mode of production of goods and services.
The superstructure is nearly everything else: the government, religion, culture, the family, and ideas
Social change occurs from the base, from the mode of production of goods and services. Whoever controls the mode of production controls the society, including the government, religion, culture, the family, etc.
So for example, British capitalists were able to control virtually all of British society because they were able to control
Marx thought that this was true of horticultural and pastoral societies, agricultural societies (e.g. slavery in ancient
So economic classes struggle over control of the means of production. But in industrial societies, the proletariat is much, much larger than the capitalist class. And they are terribly poor, and they generally know that the capitalists are amazingly rich.
If the workers got together and attacked the capitalists and took control over their factories, they could gain control over society.
So why don’t they revolt?
Marx had trouble with this question, and his answer was what he called false consciousness.
False consciousness is a kind of confusion about how society works. For example, poor workers blamed themselves for their poverty, when they should blame the rich capitalists. Because there’s really very little
they can do to improve their lives.
Capitalists create false consciousness in the proletariat because they control the schools, the church, the press, and the whole “superstructure” of society. They control these things because they control the means of production. They control pretty much everything.
For the proletariat to revolt, false consciousness would have to be transformed into class consciousness. Workers would become aware that they were in the same economic class, and would organize themselves to challenge the capitalists.
How would the proletariat switch over from false consciousness to class consciousness? A revolutionary elite group of intellectuals would help them.
Also, capitalism would collapse due to its internal contradictions. Capitalists do everything possible (like what??) to increase profits, and would be driven to reduce wages so much, to pay workers so little, that the workers would be forced to start a revolution.
This is an important idea for Marx. It comes from some of his earliest writings, which were much more psychological than his later writings.
He was concerned, as many people were, with the change from farming and craftwork to factory work
ciftcilik, zanaat à industrial work, factory work
Consequences of factory work
de-skilling of work
routinization
boredom
workers see themselves as a commodity, as something capitalists can buy and sell
workers see themselves as machines, not as full human beings
Alienation (separation, or distancing) from the products of work
factory workers do not see the products of their work. they get no satisfaction from their efforts
Alienation from their friends and families
workers are not allowed to socialize with friends
they work so long that they have little time left for their families
Workers cannot grow or evolve as human beings. Work should allow people to evolve and improve themselves. Instead, workers can only learn and grow as human beings during their leisure time.
This can only get worse, as capitalists try to make bigger profits.
Revolution
The only way for workers to escape from alienation is to revolt, to start a revolution against capitalism.
Workers would take over the factories from the capitalists, and would replace capitalism with socialism
Socialism would be a humane, equal economic system that preserves social ties. Workers would take care of each other, and everyone would work for the good of the society.
Marx thought this revolution would occur in
Eventually it would happen everywhere else. For Marx, it was inevitable.
Was he right?
Did socialist revolutions occur?
Where?
What happened in
