Sociology ~What is it?

“Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche philosopher

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Sociology ~What is it?

“Hell is other people.”

~Jean Paul Sartre philosopher

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In short, it is us.It can be said that the first wisdom of

sociology is this: things are not what they seem.

~Peter L. Berger(1929 -)

Sociology … is a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.

~Max Weber (1864 - 1920)3

States one sociologist:

What makes sociology deceptively subtle and powerful is that a sustained examination of the seemingly obvious usually requires that honest or thoughtful people reexamine the assumptions that sustain their identity.

Rousseau (not Jean Jacques). 2013

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C. Wright Millsand the

Sociological Imagination

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C. WRIGHT MILLS 1916-1962

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It is the political task of the social scientist — as of any liberal

educator — continually to

translate personal troubles into public issues, and public

issues into the terms of their human

meaning for a variety of individuals.

~C. Wright Mills

What is the sociological imagination?

Biography and history Personal troubles versus public issues The social versus the individual

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Sociology is where biography and history meet. It is where you, as a person, interact with those larger forces around you – what Durkheim called social facts.

What is your history, your epoch or social environment like? What does it contain?

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The epoch and social conditions of my first twenty years:

Civil Rights movement Assassination of Martin Luther King Assassination of President Kennedy Assassination of Robert Kennedy Charlie Manson The (second) feminist movement LSD The American Indian movement (AIM) The Vietnam War and the ant-war

movement9

My epoch and social conditions (my first twenty years) continued

The draft Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) The Weathermen revolutionary group Nixon and the Watergate scandal The Pentagon Papers Hippies Assassination of John Lenon Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis

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Your (most of you) epoch and social conditions

Smart phones, tablets, twitter, Facebook…

9/11 Trade Towers attacked First black president Iraq and Afghanistan Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Water boarding Wikipedia WikiLeaks Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden

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Your epoch continued

Banking and mortgage crash Growing educational costs Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Reversal of Voting Rights Act Cyber war, hacking, “Anonymous” Drones Globalization and corporate

“personhood” Same sex marriage (some states) Legalization of marijuana (some states) Massive increases in prison populations

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Biography and History

Your history helps shape you just as you participate in the shaping of history.

History cannot exist, per se, without people both living it and making it. You live in an historically specific moment that was constructed out of a series of such moments.

As well, you are making history now.

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Mills was concerned with class issues. The working class had changed after WWII. There was now a “new middle class” of white collar workers.

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Contrary to Marx’s reasoning, for Mills, the next revolution would not come from a blue-collar, so-called, working class. (The proletariat)

Perhaps necessary change would come from this “new middle class.”

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Status Panic!But for Mills, this new middle class had become “a kind of hypercompetetive marketplace of status-hunting that he called ‘the status panic.’” ~Collins & Makowsky, 2005

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Work is an anonymous “great salesroom” The trades are no longer independent but

merely “tools of the establishment.” People have become “cheerful robots.”

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“The new middle class is superficially satisfied, but inwardly anxious, and dishonest about admitting it to themselves …

They have no independent source of power.” (ibid.)

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So Mills offers the concept of “The Power Elite”

In the power elite world organizations converge causing the collective biographies of the individuals within them to come to resemble one another.

Does this sound like now?Does this sound like your epoch?

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More on Mill’s perspective of society and its problems:

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Mills saw social problems as social ills that arise from contradictions.

What are some social contradictions? (Also called antagonisms)

Contradictions you may recognize

EXPECTATIONS REALITY Education A quality job Owning a home Having a family

Health

Optimism toward the future

Trust in social institutions

Freedom

Higher Tuition Layoffs and off shoring Costs Putting off for education Lack of or limited health

care program Changing and uncertain

social structure Banking crisis and Iraq

Freedom to do what?

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Finally, what do sociologists actually do?

AndWhat might you do as a

sociologist?

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There is:

General enlightenment – the ways in which social arrangements shape our lives; sociology affects public understanding. (I’m just plain curious. And you?)

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The possibility for designing solutions – sociologists can function as advisors, and can recommend solutions to social problems as a way of influencing public policy. To wit:

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From ASA Footnotes, July/August 2002, by Lee Herring, ASA Director of Communications “Sociology’s presence on Capitol Hill has increased this spring, as ASA has collaborated with sister social science organizations to co-sponsor or participate on speaker panels conducting four high-visibility congressional briefings.”

Sociology is special because:

Sociology is an empirical discipline

It relies on evidence Is systematic observation and

experimentation Is verifiable through independent

observation There is a demand for proof (hunches are

for direction only)25

It is a public venture

Results are public for other’s verification (peer review)

Open discussion and examination of research

Conclusions are never final or absolute-they are open to question

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In the process it is:

Questioning public assumptions – Peter Berger’s “debunking motif” comes to mind, or the notion of urban legends.

(Alligators in the sewer, California falling off the continent Nostradamus and the apocalypse.)

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Also sociology is used for…

Identifying social problems – calling attention to hidden, ignored, or misunderstood social problems; Example: family violence. The first national survey on family violence was done in 1976 and surprised the public in that it showed family violence as a pervasive phenomena.

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A list of examples would include:

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In general:

Gender Education Race Sexuality Media and technology Family and marriage Ethnicity Social stratification

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And more specifically:

• Crime and deviance• Drugs• Environment• Sexism• Globalization• Work and the economy• Health and medicine• …and on and on

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So, just what …

Interests you Worries you Frightens you Makes you angry Makes you want to help Makes you happy Gives you hope Makes you despair

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GO FOR IT!

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FINIS

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