The Mechanisms of Social Reality

Sociology in the Fastlane:

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

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

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

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

SUICIDE

CATHOLIC PROTESTANT

MARRIED UNMARRIED

FAMILY NO FAMILY

POOR WEALTHY

KNOWN UNKNOWN

ANOMIC

INTEGRATED NOT INTEGRATED

FEMALE MALE

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

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

BIG NAMES IN SOCIOLOGY

Max Weber (1864-1920)

• Formal Organizations

• Bureaucracy

• Rationality

• Deliberate Calculation

• Efficiency

• Goal-directed

• Self-Control

• Impersonality

• Iron Cage of Rationality