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The Mechanisms of Social Reality
Sociology in the Fastlane:
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY
• Age of Enlightenment •A collapse of the old medieval order that required unquestioning obedience to the religious and royal order. • Important ideas: • Progress • Political and economic freedom • Individualism • Scientific method • Positivism
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BASIC IDEAS
• Belief that human beings could solve social problems • Faith in God and Devine power replaced by reason and
science (Age of Reason)
• Sociology emerges at a time of chaos and revolution (Industrial and Political) • The Industrial Revolution caused great social upheaval
• Industrialization was changing the way people looked at the world – especially politics • Cries for democratic revolution
PROBLEM OF ORDER
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BIG NAMES IN SOCIOLOGY
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
• Known as the father of sociology
• Believed that sociology was a science just like the natural sciences
• Sociology was a “positivist” philosophy with a focus on:
• WHY SOCIETY DOES AND DOES NOT CHANGE
• Two components:
• Subject Matter: Society is more than the sum of individual actions
• Methods: Scientific method using careful observation, objective measurement, and comparison
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BIG NAMES IN SOCIOLOGY Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Two underlying themes: unity and strength • Social Integration and Social Solidarity
• Two types of societies:
• Mechanical Solidarity: Simple Division of Labor • Organic Solidarity: Complex Division of Labor
• Sui Generis: Society is its own entity
• Anomie: Normlessness or a conflict in norms
• First Sociological Study
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SUICIDE
CATHOLIC PROTESTANT
MARRIED UNMARRIED
FAMILY NO FAMILY
POOR WEALTHY
KNOWN UNKNOWN
ANOMIC
INTEGRATED NOT INTEGRATED
FEMALE MALE
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BIG NAMES IN SOCIOLOGY
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Social scientists should actively work at making a better society
• Lived in 19th Century London: A time of unrestrained capitalism
• Owners hire workers, compete, strive for as much profit as possible
• Creates exploitation
• History was the history of class struggle
• Bourgeosie: Owners of the means of production
• Proletariat: Workers
• Solution was communist revolution
• Workers would unite, overthrow the wealthy, and create a single classless society
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ALIENATION • Capitalism transformed work from something meaningful
to meaningless
• Driven by profit alone people are appendages to the machine
• People become separated from”
• What they do (the product of their own labor)
• From other people
• From society
• From themselves
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BIG NAMES IN SOCIOLOGY
Max Weber (1864-1920)
• Formal Organizations
• Bureaucracy
• Rationality
• Deliberate Calculation
• Efficiency
• Goal-directed
• Self-Control
• Impersonality
• Iron Cage of Rationality