sociology 36 hours

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SOC 1020

Lecture 1 Prof. D. Fasenfest

Sociology is the systematic study of human society. When we look at society with a sociological perspective, it means that we can see the “general in the particular” and the “strange in the familiar”. So, what does this mean exactly? Let’s say that I am interested in knowing what kinds of clothing fashions are popular for 18-24-year-olds today. I could walk into any undergraduate class and observe the ways that students dress. I could then make an educated guess that these are the styles that are generally favored by young people. To be certain, I would also need to see if young adults in the community dressed similarly. The class may only reflect what is worn by college students. It stands to reason young adults would dress similarly across our culture since they are all exposed to the same media, the same music, the same fashion magazines, etc. We could also observe independent cultural differences across various social groups. For example, is this an urban or rural community, a large or small city, a coastal or mountain area, and does that matter. In the US there are very few styles that are 100% group specific. Increasingly, we cannot even make any assumptions about gender based on how one is dressed. Seeing the strange in the familiar requires you to step outside of your culture and look at it with a new set of eyes. For example, think about the 4th Thursday in November (Thanksgiving). Walk into nearly any household in the US and you will probably find a turkey on the table. There may be other foods as well that are linked to family and/or cultural traditions, but turkey tends to be front and center. Doesn’t it seem odd that nearly all of us sit down to practically identical meals on that one day? And this practice is imbedded in our culture. How would you feel if you went home on Thanksgiving and there was a pot roast or roasted lamb on the table? Sociologists try to look at other cultures with a non-discriminatory eye. Each culture is equal, though they may be different. Also, we try to look at our own society with a non-discriminatory eye, recognizing what motivates and encourages our behaviors, without automatically assuming that our ways are right, and all others are wrong. Every human being is a social scientist. Think about the ways you navigate the world. You collect data every day to negotiate the circumstances in which you find yourself. Social interaction becomes a trial-and-error practice of working out situations. Unfortunately, while this trial-and-error practice is very useful to our social survival, it is also the stuff that stereotypes and generalizations are made of. When I ask students to describe the average alcoholic for me, students invariably answer that they are dirty, unemployed, perhaps homeless, usually non-white, always poor, and usually male. We tend to view alcoholics as homeless individuals, and we typically feel the homeless are on the street because they have substance abuse issues. So, in general, since this is the assumption we make based on the data that we’ve collected (i.e. characters in the movie and in the media, the homeless people that we see who appear to be either high or drunk, etc), we might draw the conclusion that alcoholics are worthless individuals who are the living outcasts of society.

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And this is where the study of sociology is useful. The individual collects data based on their day-to-day experiences. This data is then interpreted from the perspective of that person’s values and cultural beliefs. The sociologist however collects much more data from a wide range of individuals, not just from personal experience. The data is then interpreted from the perspective of a theoretical understanding of the social experience rather than the personal values and opinions of the researcher. When we broadly collect data on alcoholism, what we find is that most alcoholics are highly educated, middle to upper class whites, especially males. Black females are the least likely to be alcoholics and black males are the next lowest on the list. Data proves that our casual assumptions about alcohol addiction are incorrect. When these statistics became well know, alcoholism began to be classified as a disease rather than a failing of the individual. In fact, we find through research that the poor and the working class have less money to spend on alcohol and have more to lose in terms of employment loss if they drink to excess. Pre-dinner cocktails are a habit of the wealthier in society, not the poor. Just think about all those soap operas that are so popular—the rich and the beautiful always have a drink in their hand. The sociological perspective helps us uncover the myths in informing our common sense. It asks us to look at what we believe and question why we believe it. It challenges us to find data to either support our beliefs or to disprove them. It also helps us to understand ourselves and others better. It helps us to find opportunities and to avoid constraints. It helps us to actively participate in making our society a better place for all of us to live and it helps us to not only encourage but to thrive on diversity. The Role of Theories in Understanding Society Sociology, like many of the behavioral sciences, was born during the social changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Imagine what it must have been like to live during this era. For the first time, people began to take real control of the environment. The introduction of the steam engine made geographical distances manageable. The telegraph, telephone and radio gave us control of the airwaves and fostered communication. The ability to harness electricity gave us control of time as we were able to extend our “daylight” through artificial means. While on the surface, all of these changes were good, they took their toll on the social fabric. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, generations of families lived and died in the areas in which they were born. Inheritance (even if it was only a claim on the family homestead) was typically restricted to the oldest son and any younger brothers were expected to pursue other occupations or means to survive. The introduction of factories however, provided new opportunities for occupational choices and the promises of class mobility for the poor. People were drawn to these factories for jobs. This meant leaving behind their families and their way of life. Once in the cities, they were often met with severe poverty, unemployment, substandard and/or inadequate housing and disease. The dramatic growth in the cities stressed the social and physical infrastructure. Imagine, for example, if the population of Detroit more than quadrupled over the next year with people looking for jobs. Not only would we not have the ability to

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employ them, but we would also not have the ability to house them. Would the city’s sewers be able to handle the growth in the population? Would our garbage collectors be able to keep the litter from this population under control? And what sort of people would we encounter? [Erik Larsen’s historical novel The Devil in the White City gives a good account of the chaos and feel of Chicago as it grows rapidly in the new industrial era in turn of the century Chicago.] Cities with low crime rates quickly became overcrowded. For every job, there might be 10 or more applicants. For every apartment, there might be 5 families needing housing. The sewers were not able to handle the waste. The city management couldn’t handle the increase in garbage production. In the absence of hygiene and antibiotics (not to mention immunizations), disease began to spread. There were multiple epidemics here and in Europe like Scarlett Fever, Smallpox, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Typhoid, and Influenza, to name a few. All these negative consequences caused society to do two things. First, there was the belief, as we got closer to 1900, that these changes were apocalyptic. There was a growth in religion as society attempted to manage the fear that life as we knew it was about to end. (Compare this to our Y2K scare two decades ago…. once again, the fear is that our new technology is throwing us into anarchy.) The second thing that happened is that philosophers began to look at society as a growing, changing, living thing. They began to look at the consequences of these technological changes on the social fabric. They began to develop theories to explain society. For the purposes of this course these theories can be divided into three paradigms. The word “paradigm” is borrowed from the biological sciences. It means “category” or “classification”. For example, we know that an eagle, a sparrow, and a robin are all birds. Bird is the paradigm, the category in which we classify animals is based on shared characteristics (feathers, wings, they can fly, they lay eggs, etc). Likewise, social theories can be divided into the following paradigms, based on their characteristics. Structural Functionalism – This paradigm includes all theories that view society as a system of structures or institutions, each with its own unique function. These structures work together to promote solidarity and social growth. Conflict Theory – these theories view society as an arena of inequality. These inequalities not only create problems in society, but also provide the catalyst for social change. Symbolic Interaction – these theories argue that we create society through our interactions with other humans. Society is made up of individuals with a number of shared values and expectations. What follows provides a broad overview of each: I. Structural Functionalism While there are many theorists who provide a structural functionalist perspective on society, one of the first was Emil Durkheim. Durkheim looked at the changes in society around the Industrial Revolution as a series of birthing pains. He argued that this introduction of technology plus the

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greater density and complexity of society had created a sense of “normlessness” or “anomie” in society. This anomie meant that we no longer knew, as individuals within society, how to deal with our day to day lives. Durkheim also argued that new technology created a need to develop new norms and so there was a delay in society’s ability to stabilize. Furthermore, Durkheim argued that the structures of society worked together to keep society stable. Social problems occurred when old structures failed in new social realities, or when this state of anomie prevented the structures from being able to function appropriately. After adjusting to these new circumstances, he assumed new norms would emerge and institutions would work together to develop and ensure stability once again. There are common institutions in every society, though they may not appear or function in the same manner everywhere. For example, medicine may mean hospitals and clinical intervention to one society and traditional or herbal healing in another. However, these medical institutions serve the same role in every community, providing for the health of the citizens. The common institutions are Family; Religion; Education; Medicine; Government; Economy; Science; Technology; The Media. What we must consider is that as society changes, and as society gets more complex the relationships and practices once considered appropriate might become a problem to some. This will generate new rules and relationships that may or may not return society to some balance. Consider the case of music as it represents the intersection of Technology and The Media. Think of all the adolescents that were prosecuted for copyright violation for downloading free music from the internet. Teens have shared music since the introduction of cassette taps with dubbing capability. This was a normal expectation. With the spread of simple record players and later tape decks it was each to share music with friends, though at first the quality wasn’t good. You could sit in front of the speaker of the record player (or if you were clever figured out how to redirect the speaker wire) and recorded your albums onto a tape recorder, or tape directly from the radio. By the early 80s, double cassette players were introduced and became affordable. Rather than an album, you could now purchase a cassette tape and dub it in the second cassette deck, producing a very good copy of the music. Of course, today that quality is even better and it’s quicker to share. It takes less than a minute to burn an entire copy of a music CD. Finally, the Internet resulted in quick and easy access to music, and all along sharing the music had never been a problem. It became a problem when shareware began to show up on the Internet and people began to copy entire CDs to these programs. Why is this a problem for some? Before the shareware, you might burn one or two copies of your CDs for close friends. After shareware, tens of thousands of downloads might be made of the CD that you upload to share. This creates an economic problem for the music industry when a practice initially seen as free marketing and word of mouth promotion of a group’s music (and thereby a boost to sales) because a large-scale by- passing of the marketplace and the lost revenues that ensued. Now we have this dysfunction that has created a problem, so we need the institutions of society to band together to create and enforce a new norm of behavior. Economic institutions in the economy initiate a complaint. The government is required to determine that copyright laws

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apply and to enforce these laws. Parents are expected to enforce these values at home as well or be held accountable if they don’t. Science and technology work together as many of these download sites, such as Kaaza, are intentionally infected with a virus or implanted with a filter that makes web access impossible. Technology is now being used to make copying a CD difficult if not impossible. The media begins a campaign to inform young people that this is illegal behavior and spells out the consequences of violating the rules. Legal sites, such as Itunes, begin to show up to provide an affordable alternative to sharing music. You’ll notice that not every institution is involved because they may not relate to the problem at hand. But in theory, structures and systems have functioned to return this part of society to a semblance of order and routine. II. Conflict Theory A criticism of structural functionalism is that it tends to see society as being correctly organized and any disruption is a problem that will be addressed so to return society to this normal state. Therefore, when a social problem occurs, it is because one of the institutions isn’t doing its job or some change has created an anomaly. Conflict theorists, in contract, reject this out of hand, saying that the fabric of society has intrinsic conflicts of interests by different segments of society, and that power imbalances lead to social inequality. Most conflict theories are based on the works of Karl Marx. Marx argued that each epoch in social history was organized around some principle of production generating specific social and political structures and institutions designed to reproduce and sustain that system. However, Marx argued, each epoch had within it inherent contradictions, and as society grew more complex and dealt with those contradictions the tension continued to build. In the end the essential conflict would lead to a change in how society was organized. Consider briefly feudal Europe. Marx argued that its primary organizing principles were monopoly of power and agricultural production. As technological improvements in agriculture led to more production those who controlled the instruments of power (local chieftains, lords, nobility or royal families as the sphere of control get wider) appropriated as much of the agricultural product as they could from farmers who, to varying degree, were forced to remain on the land (serfs). This is a complex story that includes a discussion of the type of government (monarchy) and religious institutions (Catholicism) designed to protect and reproduce the social order and rationale for feudalism. Eventually, Marx argued, the limitations on the productive forces and the inherent tensions within the system gave birth to a revolutionary force which challenged the nature of production (from agriculture to manufacturing), the nature of government (from monarchy to some form of democracy) and social institutions (for example the Protestant Reformation in reaction to the Catholic Church). In other words, the NORMAL functioning of one system gave rise to conditions that necessarily generates conflict, and under the right conditions will lead to social change. We can apply the same sort of analysis on capitalism, the system that followed, and was the revolutionary force challenging, feudalism. To understand the fundamental lines of conflict and crises that we can anticipate within capitalism Marx undertook a similar exploration of how the system worked, what were the social and political institutions which supported and rationalized

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that system, and whereas a consequence the tensions and conflict will emerge which will have the potential for making a similar revolutionary change. For Marx every epoch is challenged by a revolution—capitalism with its banner of freedom and democracy was just such a revolution (a mild one is England, and a very bloody one in France). To understand capitalism, we must understand how work became transformed from pre-capitalist to capitalist society. Assume that you lived in a small agrarian village. You earn your living by growing grain to take to the market. A cobbler earns his/her living by making shoes. How do you manage the exchange of grain for shoes? In essence it is a marketplace like all marketplaces. You barter…both giving a little more than you want and getting a little less that you’d hoped. Each of you has participated in determining what the product of your labor is worth. And most important for Marx, this was possible because each of you had control over what you produced. Even the feudal lords who came and took some of your product did so under their right backed by their control of force, but there was no question it was the products of your labor. It is different under capitalism. At first people who went to work controlled what they made and were paid for the product of that labor, initially produced at home and later produced in the back of the artisan’s shop—but now with the artisan’s tools and materials. Eventually the need to exert control over the quality of work led to standardized production under the watchful eye of the owner. This led to what many call “scientific management” of the work process (see the work of Frederick Taylor) where the worker’s every action is measured and controlled. In this way, workers increasingly lost control over the knowledge required to perform work and became valued for the time spent in the shop rather than for the product they could produce. For Marx this meant that labor time rather than labor became what the worker could sell—in other words, labor became a commodity like all others. But unlike all others, Marx argued labor- time was the only commodity that could generate more commodities than it took for the owner of a company to pay the worker. In other words, in our example above you exchanged grain for shoes as an exchange of equals based on the values of the commodities and the time that went into producing each. Now, says Marx, unable to control the means of production (you no longer control tools or raw materials) and forced to sell your time at work, workers’ labor power (time at work) produces more in commodity form than they get paid in money (and the commodities that can purchase). The difference, argues Marx, is the source of all profit in the capitalist system. This surplus goes into creating all the social and political institutions we have come to see as our society—much in the same way the lavish spending of the feudal nobility and heavy taxation let to the fine cathedrals, magnificent castles and even opulent town centers of wealthier merchant cities. And for Marx the productive energies and potential of capitalism, and the dynamic nature of technological change, meant that there was more and more produced exceeding the limits imposed by the land for a social system based on agriculture. However, instead of a society based on control over the forces of power (weapons and armies) we now have a society based on a seemingly voluntary exchange but limited by the control and ownership of those means of production. We now have capital (machines, raw materials, credit)

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essential for production controlled by one class of people while the rest have to sell their labor power to survive, and in that exchange capitalist benefit. Initial lines of conflict for Marx become that of the conflict of the haves versus the have-nots and his belief that sooner or later all members of society will either be owners or workers. Eventually the workers will see that the system is unjust and restrictive and forge their own revolutionary movement for change—like capitalism before it in the face of feudalism, a change of economic relations, the nature of government, and all the other institutions of society. More contemporary theorists argue that this framework, while useful, ignores other important social divisions that are the cause of structural conflict in society. We are divided by race, age and sex, to name some prominent divisions. We can add to that religion, ethnicity, and other cleavages that create conflict and tension in any society. Unlike structural functionalists who see society, when it is “functioning” properly, in harmony and peace, conflict theorists argue that when there is no tension it usually means the dispossessed or subordinate groups are necessarily suppressed and in reality, the normal state of any society is conflict—one that inevitably leads to social upheaval and development, and hopefully positive change. Symbolic Interaction Both Conflict and Structural Functionalist theories are macro level theories. This means that they look at the big picture of society, paying closer attention to how social institutions work together and/or against one another to promote social growth and stability. On the other hand, symbolic interaction looks at society from the micro level, focusing on the individual and the way that we interact with one another and with social institutions. Symbolic Interaction argues that society is essentially created and maintained through the interactions of individuals. Two early theorists in this area were Mead and Cooley. Mead’s theory of self development resembled Freud’s theory of personality development. While Freud identified the Id, Ego and Superego as parts of the personality, he placed their development in very early childhood, within the family, putting the largest responsibility of childhood development on the parents. Mead’s theory placed personality development with the context of society, with the parents playing a role but not the only role. Furthermore, he argued that the personality continues to develop much later into adolescence and early adulthood. Mead identified three parts of the personality; the Me, the I and the Other, and one social characteristic; the Generalized Other. Imagine what happens when parents have their first baby. At first, they may be overwhelmed with the knowledge that they are truly expected to take care of this little human! For Mead the initial interaction is clear: baby screams, parents jump. Mead identifies this first social interaction as the “Me”. The baby is really not aware of the parents as individuals. It is aware that it is wet and cold, so it cries. Like magic it has a dry warm diaper. It realizes it’s hungry. It cries. Like magic it is fed. This simple interaction is based only on the needs of the infant without any awareness that it is 2 am and the parents are exhausted. The baby just doesn’t care. For Mead this stage of the personality continues until the baby is a toddler.

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Something interesting happens then. The baby learns to walk and begins to talk. One of its first words is guaranteed to be “no” and the baby will use it often. Now the parents have more of a challenge in parenting. If they don’t restrict baby’s behavior it will stick a fork in a power outlet or run into traffic, and baby can now get its toys from the toy box. Parents can either continue to react or they can insist that children need to have consistent boundaries on their behavior in order to function well in society. So they begin to teach the baby to behave properly using some age appropriate discipline to encourage certain behavior. Baby will react to this by entering the “I” stage of development. It is now aware that not only are its parents real, but that they have power to control behavior. Baby now does what is expected because it wants to avoid punishment. Mead argues that this stage will last until the child is around 7 or so (each child being different). The more consistent the discipline, the quicker the child will learn the desired behaviors. The next stage of development is the “Other”. One day the child realizes for itself that there are consequences of actions and realizes that his or her safety and cleanliness are important to the parents. It now begins to behave not only to avoid punishment, but because it understands why the rules are necessary. Now the rules are also important to the child. It can view society from the perspective of others. This stage begins when child truly begins to understand the difference between right and wrong. Mead’s last stage of social development is formulation of the Generalized Other. Think about the men and women that we see in movies and magazines. These people are supposed to be (for the most part) models of ideal people. We try to do everything we can to emulate them. We cut our hair the same way, wear the same types of clothing, diet to be model thin or lift weights to be model pumped. We are striving towards (even if only in our dreams) this ideal, one that for the vast majority of us is unattainable. Even the models have their imperfections airbrushed away! Mead argues that this social ideal is intended to be unattainable. It keeps us constantly striving to be better which means that society will maintain control by setting these ideal targets for behavior. Cooley looked at how we interact in society as well. He developed the theory of “the Looking Glass Self”. Cooley was on faculty at U of M. and was abnormally shy. While he wrote many books, he avoided face to face professional interactions. Even as he did this, he understood that his shyness was a function of self-esteem. His theory argues that when we view ourselves socially, we are not seeing ourselves as we truly are, but rather as a reflection in the reactions of others. Society becomes the mirror in which we view ourselves. So consider if a professor comes to class one morning and looks out at a sea of sleeping or yawning faces. That person can assume that the class had a late night, or think the lecture is boring. If the latter, the professor may try to spice up the class lecture a little. Or the professor may have a harder time teaching because he or she believes that they are not good at it. Either way, the professor is going to look for an explanation of the class’s behavior. The healthier one’s self esteem, the more likely the individual will look to others for an explanation of a social interaction. The less healthy, the more likely the individual will look inward. Now of course the professor may truly be boring, but only if the professor can’t find an explanation in the crowd for the behavior will there be some self-reflection to change my behavior. A really good example of Cooley’s theory is the problem of anorexia. She (although

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more men are becoming anorexic, this is still primarily a female illness) judges the reactions of others incorrectly, seeing an overweight image reflected back to her even as she slowly starves. Sociologists have been studying social problems for almost 150 years. The discipline grew out of the social upheaval of economic change accelerated by the industrial revolution, a time when society became increasingly urban and denser. The cities were overcrowded, and disease was rampant as people literally starved to death on the streets. The infrastructure of the city was unprepared for the influx of new folks, and housing was inadequate, substandard and overcrowded. For this country the Great Immigration that started by the end of the Civil War meant that there were also diverse cultures and languages trying to coexist. Competition for jobs was fierce and crime rates increased dramatically as this nation was transformed from a rural to an urban society. Today Sociologists struggle to make sense of many of these same problems: poverty, substandard education and housing, crime, poor health and racial and ethnic discrimination remain problems today. The study of social problems remains an important concern and likely will for generations to come. .