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Sociology

• Emile Durkheim-focus was on the unity of society and why society stayed together
• He distinguished between two types of social solidarity
• 1. Mechanical solidarity-traditional societies where everyone is pretty
much the same, society is small, has a simple division of labor, uncomplicated
technology
• Also, everyone participates in the same social life within the same culture,
and they come to share the same values
• many people don’t even realize their society is like this3
• 2. Organic Solidarity-industrial societies where people perform specialized
tasks using complex tools and they seldom interact directly-they may share
some values, but disagree on many others
• Durkheim said differences among people make them interdependent
Durkheim’s Four Theories of Suicide
• Durkheim linked each of the types of suicide to the degree of integration into
society, or regulation by society
• Integration refers to the degree to which collective sentiments are shared
• Regulation refers to the degree of external constraints on people
• Egoistic suicide is when integration into society is too low. It is likely to be found in
those societies, or groups in which the individual is not well integrated into the
larger social unit. This lack of integration leads to a sense of meaningless among
individuals as one may not be married, have no kids, or no community ties.
• Altruistic society is when integration into society is too high. It is more likely to
occur when social integration is too strong. The individual is literally forced into
committing suicide. For example, dying for some greater reason such as a suicide
bomber. It is committed for the benefit of others
• Anomic suicide is when regulation by society is too low. It is more likely to occur
when the regulative powers of society are disrupted. The rates of anomic suicide are
likely to rise whether the nature of the disruption is positive (economic boom) or
negative (depression). These are periods of disruption which unleash currents of
anomie, which are moods of rootlessness and normlessness.
• Fatalistic suicide is when regulation by society is too high. Durkheim described
those who are more likely to commit fatalistic suicide as persons with futures
pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline-prisoners,
slaves, people that think they have no future.
Karl Marx
• goal was to liberate workers form the poverty and oppression brought on by
industrialization
• in his terminology, production plants and steel mills are what he called the means
of production, and the people that own them are called the Bourgeoisie
• workers who sell their labor to the bourgeoisie are called the proletariat
• According to Marx, any capitalist society will eventually be torn apart by the
struggle between these two groups.
• Capital is the social relationship between the buyers and sellers of labor and Marx
said capitalism exploits the workers and the workers forget that they are the ones
that have produced this system through their labor and they have the ability to
change it
• The base of Marx’s conception of human potential were on his ideas on the powers
and needs of people
• Powers are defined as the abilities and capacities of people
• Needs are the desires people feel for things that are usually not immediately
available
Alienation
• alienation is a situation in which people are estranged from their social world and
feel that life is meaningless. People have lost control over their lives
• Marx recognized a crucial weakness in industrial society: the impersonal,
meaningless nature of work and the alienation that flows from it
• Marx identified four theories of alienation: alienation of the worker from the work
he produces (worker produces something that is then owned by someone else,
cannot further things that are produced), alienation of the worker from working
(cannot control working conditions, labor process, how things are produced),
alienation of the worker from himself as a producer (human beings naturally want
to shape world around them but work under capitalist system labor is forced-people
have no personal inclinations or liking for the work they do) and alienation of the
worker from other workers or producers (workers relate to others in sense of what
they buy and consume-no direct relationships, don’t see each other on equal
footing)
Functionalism
• Functionalist theory says that we need inequality in society. They say that
everything meets everything else and that people try to make things balanced.
However, this does not work and it leads to conflict, which leads to inequality, which
leads to change. Functionalist theories think inequality in society promises better
rewards because it motivates people to take risks, pursue difficult goals, and
challenge existing ideas.
• Symbolic Interactionism-based on symbol system. It says that we attach symbols
to everything and we all have an agreed upon meaning showing us how to interact
in society (we all know what a peace sign is)
Culture
• culture is a human society’s total way of life. It is learned and shared and includes
the society’s values, customs, material objects, and symbols. A culture has a
mutually shared knowledge and beliefs of a society
• Society is a grouping that consists of people who share a common culture, obey the
same political authority, and occupy a given territory
• Culture can be divided into 2 major segments
• 1. Material culture: includes tangible artifacts, physical objects, and items that are
found in society. It consists of the physical objects used by people to accomplish
goals, such as the tools and machinery used in construction, or the computers and
calculators used to analyze math problems
• 2. Nonmaterial culture-includes a society’s intangible and abstract components
such as values, beliefs, and traditions. It also consists of art, language, worldviews,
and other symbolic representations of the social and physical world (Ex: fairy tales,
complex legal codes, music, ideas we learn as adults)
• Each society has its own set of values and norms
• Values are cultural ideals or preferences about what is considered moral and
immoral, good or bad, proper or improper, or desirable or undesirable
• These values influence behavior, emotion and thought. They serve as standards for
social life
• Robin Williams did a study in US to see what values people thought were
important (1. Personal achievement, 2. Activity and work, 3. Material comfort
(Desired lifestyle), 4. Morality, 5. Humanitariansim (concern for the welfare of
others), 6. Individuality, 7. Conformality)
• Norms are rules of conduct that guide people’s behavior in specific situations.
They are specific expectations about how people behave in a given situation
• Within norms are:
• Mores are norms that members of a society or culture consider vitally important
and necessary. Mores frequently deal with the welfare and continued existence of
the society (Ex: do not kill or steal) they usually provide the basis for law
• Taboos are norms about things that are so serious as to be almost beyond
comprehension

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