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Norms of distributive justice (NDJ) are those norms that arise when people must cooperate which embody a sense of elementary justice or fairness in sharing good & services | |||||
As demonstrated by the history of inequality, during the 1.5 mm yrs that people lived in Hunter Gatherer Society, there were very strong NDJ | |||||
During the H-G Era, NDJ were communal or tribal in that people shared ALL of the work & bounty they harvested | |||||
During the H-G Era, if one was hungry, all were hungry; when one killed a beast or found a patch of berries, all shared in that bounty | |||||
In some tribes the potlatch ceremony was developed whereby a rich person, w/ lots of food & wealth, gave it all away at a large, lengthy festival | |||||
There may have been some inequality of food dist during famine times w/ child bearing age women & men, i.e. the core of adults of the tribe, eating first, children second, & the old or sick people last | |||||
Fundamentally, the only thing that was not shared equally in the tribe was status in that good hunters, gatherers, & individuals w/ other skills could gain high status compared to others | |||||
When humankind transitioned from Hunter Gatherer Society to the Early Empire Era, circa 10 K BC to 3 K BC, more individualistic & family oriented norms of distributive justice (NDJ) emerged w/ civilization | |||||
Because humankind came to live in close proximity, & because a farmer was more independent of others than a tribal member, NDJ became more individualistic |
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SOCIAL PSYCH & NDJ | |||||
From a soc psych pt of view, NDJ are the result of psychological understandings of equality based on the contributions we make, & based on the needs we each have | |||||
Festinger views NDJ from a social psych pt of view |
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Because NDJ originate in the psyche, NDJ are present in all humans, & thus the NDJ exist universally, though they vary widely |
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For Festinger, since people strive for cognitive consistency, which reduces anxiety, people hold norms where rewards are proportional to investments & contributions |
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Because people have different perceptions of the value of rewards, investments, & contributions, people can hold nearly the same NDJ but see the distributive justice of a particular situation very differently |
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Another soc psych factor which affects NDJ is empathy |
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Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, & vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, & experience of another of either the past or present w/o having the feelings, thoughts, & experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner |
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Because empathy is the ability to identify w/, understanding of, & vicarious experience of another person's situation, feelings, & motives, NDJ are also the result of need |
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People have NDJ because they recognize the needs of others & understand they too had those needs in the past, the present, or may have them in the future |
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Small grp research consistently demonstrates that people possess NDJ |
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In the US, people make judgments based on both merit & need, w/ some consistency & some variability |
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In terms of merit, those w/ a higher level job & ed are judged to deserve more income |
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In terms of need, those w/ a larger family are judged to deserve more income | |||||
Research shows some agreement upon the fairness of max & min income levels |
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Alves & Rossi (1978) estb an average fairness judgment that ranges from $7 K to $44 K in yearly income in mid 1970s $, which is much narrower than the actual level of income inequality at the time |
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Alves & Rossi also found that the higher one is in the class system, the more one bases one's NDJ on merit; & conversely, the lower one is in the class system, the more one bases one's NDJ on need |
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Thus there is support for inequality based on NDJ, as well as differences among people in applying NDJs |
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While values vary to measurable extent, they are ambiguous, & become even more ambiguous & variable in concrete situations | |||||
People vary in their application of NDJ because contributions & needs cannot be judged w/ much accuracy | |||||
There is the potential for elites to manipulate judgments of contributions so their greater rewards seem justified (Moore, 1978; Della Fave, 1980) | |||||
NDJ do exist & there is some agreement on what they should be, but also a wide enough range of variability for our present society to exist w/ one of the widest income gaps in its history |
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Summary: The self evaluation of non elites as being to blame
for their own position in life & their parallel belief that those above
have created their position in life as a result of their own efforts, legitimizes,
in their mind, their low level of reward
The self evaluation of elites as being competent & superior & their parallel belief that those below them are incompetent & inferior, legitimizes, in their mind, their high level of reward |
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Many argue that it is simple a different in perception that creates feelings of legitimacy for the level of inequality in our present strat system | ||||
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Research demonstrates that the perception of inequality & the processes that create inequality do vary |
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In both the US & the UK, minorities are more likely to perceive greater income inequality | ||||
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In the US there is more overall variance in the perception of inequality & the processes that create inequality than the US |
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People more often differ in their in their estimates of inequality in the US than in the UK |
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People accept the present level of inequality because they do not recognize, or have been mislead about, the extent of inequality & opportunity |
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However, the perception explanation of inequality does little to explain why an unequal system has legitimacy & thus social science needs to explain the processes that create these different perceptions |
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If the problem of legitimacy were simply a problem of perception, then simple info & ed would change peoples' perceptions & delegitimize the system; however, rarely does info & ed change a persons' life long held opinion, esp if it is supported by the present culture & social structure |
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Social scientists examine the many factors which legitimize the system, creating varying impressions of inequality | ||||
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From Mead, our self concept is 1st developed through interactions w/ significant others (SO) |
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Later, the self concept is developed through interaction w/ generalized others (GO) | |||||
Through the process of socialization, we come to define who we are |
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In examining the impact of socialization on legitimation & strat, we focus on the fact that those toward the bottom of the strat system usually have a lower self evaluation | |||||
The lower one moves down the occupation authority ranks, the lower the self evaluation | |||||
The develop of the self through interactions w/ SOs, & GOs occurs through the processes of socialization of selective exposure, modeling, identification, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, & nurturance ( SMIPNN ) | |||||
The family structure is an important source of socialization for children & adults that establishes a particular level of self evaluation & legitimizes the system in which one exists |
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Kerbo discusses how the working class & the middle class raise their children differently raise their children differently [ in C 8: Wking Class & Mid Class ] | |||||
Working class children are more likely to be taught to respect authority w/o question | |||||
Middle & upper class children are taught to be more self reliant & to have greater self confidence in themselves | |||||
Early on, children ask parents about the status of their family | |||||
The parents justify their status to their children in the same way they justify it to themselves | |||||
The educational structure is an important source of socialization for children & adults that establishes a particular level of self evaluation & legitimizes the system in which one exists |
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School age children move into the world of evaluation by peers & the generalized other ( teachers, peers, parents of others, strangers, etc. ) | |||||
Kerbo describes how ed systems treat children differently by class background [ Chpt 11: Social Mobility: Class Ascription & Achievement ] | |||||
Peer groups & teachers & other generalized others react to children based on class | |||||
Tracking affects life chances & self evaluation | |||||
Class background shapes educational & occupational aspirations through the influences of significant & generalized others | |||||
Aspirations & self evaluations are both outcomes of this socialization process | |||||
The occupational structure is an important source of socialization for adults that establishes a particular level of self evaluation & legitimizes the system in which one exists |
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Research shows that self evaluation is more strongly related to class position in adults than in children (Rosenberg & Pearlin, 1978; Demo & Savin Williams, 1983) | |||||
Adults have contact w/ a wider range of class members, making their own class position seem more significant | |||||
Children interact w/in the same class background because of class segregated neighborhoods, schools, & even classes | |||||
In the workplace, when workers are treated in a dependent & degraded manner, when work is organized so that workers cannot come to feel self reliant then self esteem is low |
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Lower level workers are more often dependent, degraded, & controlled than are higher level workers (Sennett & Cobb, 1973; Pfeffer, 1979) | |||||
Those in higher authority positions, esp. in the US, seldom assume that workers are self reliant, or possess intelligence or good sense, or can function w/o supervision (Turner, 1992; Lincoln & Kalleberg, 1985, 1990) |
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The lower one moves down the occupation authority ranks, the lower the self evaluation | |||||
Wider society is an important source of socialization for adults that establishes a particular level of self evaluation & legitimizes the system in which one exists |
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Here feedback becomes more generalized in depicting stereotyped images of class members as a group. | |||||
Socialization in relationship to the legitimation of strat comes from | |||||
- the mass media: movies, new stories, TV | |||||
- degrading views of welfare recipients & the poor by peers, the media, etc. | |||||
- working class characters in films | |||||
- the fact that TV & movie heroes are usually from the Middle & Upper Classes | |||||
The self evaluation of those in the higher classes can be seen as a complementary process to that in the lower classes |
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Those in higher classes have a wider audience from which to receive feedback on their self evaluation |
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They are more widely known in the community |
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This wider audience appears to be made up of more objective outside observers |
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Family, friends, peers may provide positive feedback, but you can seldom escape the feeling that these | |||||
Significant Others have a positive bias. | |||||
Thus the more positive feedback obtained from a wider audience can contribute even more to a person's self evaluation | |||||
Higher level classes have more class solidarity & support each other more | |||||
There is more internal strife & conflict at both a personal &
structural level in the lower classes than in the higher classes.
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The values & norms of individualism & equal opportunity ( I & EO ) are the primary aspects of our culture which support, legitimize, our class system & wide income gap |
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While people in modern, Western societies find it difficult to conceive of a society w/o I & EO, such societies have existed in only a very small proportion of the societies that have ever existed |
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In societies w/o a culture of I & EO, the legitimazation of class inequalities falls to other ideologies including religion & tradition |
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Religious justification for inequality was the most widespread ideology used to justify inequality until the Pre Industrial Era |
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Once old ideologies were broken when Feudalism transitioned to Pre Industrial Society, the beliefs in I & EO proved to be new & powerful tools of legitimation of inequality, supplanting religious legitimation |
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The belief in I & EO provides both support & danger for higher class privilege because these values must have at least some basis in reality if it is to legitimate the class system |
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W/ the hope & expectation for a better life is raised, if the society provides no opportunity for it, then is is possible for some classes to seek revolution or a significant change in the social order towards higher level of equality |
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Merton's analysis of anomie demonstrates that whatever sanctioned goals society socializes it's members toward, if it does not provide institutionalized means for achieving those goals, then individuals or classes may pursue alternative goal or means such as innovation, ritualism, retreatism, or revolution |
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See Also: Merton on Anomie | |||||
The expansion of industrial societies has provided more upward than downward mobility thus validating the values & norms of I & EO for much of the mid class |
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However, the expansion of industrial societies has not validated the values & norms of I & EO for all in society such as blacks & Hispanics, & much of the lower class as seen in the fact that the US has a chronically high underclass living near or below the poverty line |
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The US embraces a strong value of individualism partially as a result of its history of immigration & western expansion |
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The US embraces a strong value of individualism & equal opportunity ( I & EO ) partially as a result of its history of immigration & western expansion |
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The US was taken away from Native Americans by Euro immigrants beginning in the early 1600s |
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The Euro immigrants were religious refugees, members of extreme Protestant religious sects who believed in strict independence & individualism |
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In the American Creed (1996), Lipset discusses the development of a value system stressing liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, & laissez faire |
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The Protestant religion of the Americans taught that all are equal in the eyes of God, and that one had direct access to God, eschewing the authority of priests & religious leaders, giving them an ideology of egalitarianism, I & EO |
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Weber has also examined the importance of religion & esp Protestantism in shaping Western values | ||||||||||||||
In the Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber found that the Protestant ethic was the new moral value that emerged w/ the religious changes of the 1500s | ||||||||||||||
In the Protestant ethic Weber found that Protestants believe, contrary to earlier Christian views, that through their own actions, they could improve this world | ||||||||||||||
See Also: Weber: The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism | ||||||||||||||
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The frontier made Americans even more egalitarian in that all suffered equally under it's hardships & all were seeking greater opportunity |
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Breaking from family & community roots, those who moved westward lost their old status ranking |
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Populism & laissez faire were the values that frontiers people directed to the govt, believing that govt should stay out of their lives |
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In the Significant of the Frontier in American History, (1920) Turner is parallel to the work of Lipset, noting that in no other nation could so many people break from their family & community roots & live an independent life |
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The radical individualism & independence of the Euro founders of Am were strengthened & also transformed from an ideology to reality |
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Am Euro founders brought w/ them the ideal of independence from state
religion & state govt and embraced most of the ideals of the Enlightenment,
including
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See Also: The Enlightenment | ||||||||||||||
Hofstede (1991) found that the attitudes of early Am provided a foundation for our values of today, making Am embrace individualism more than any other nations around the world |
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Today Am are less likely to support govt action to solve social problems or to create & manage a social safety net such as the maintenance of the health care system (Lipset, 1996) |
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Compared to Euro, Am are more likely to reject govt efforts to help the poor & reduce inequality, showing the highest % of people believing that equal opp exists | ||||||||||||||
While Am believe that equal opp exists, there is no more soc mob in the US than other ind nations | ||||||||||||||
The values of individualism & equal opp are different for each class of people | ||||||||||||||
Working class values of I & EO are related to low self esteem & one ups manship |
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Lane's study of wking class men in the Northeast (1962), found that white blue collar men had strong beliefs in individualism & equal opportunity ( I & EO ) which was based on comparing themselves to higher classes & finding some defect in themselves to justify their status, & further legitimated their position by scapegoating those below them in the class structure |
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Lane found that wking class men felt they had more opportunities than they were using; in short, they felt they had let opportunities slip away |
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Many wking class men regretted not furthering their ed |
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The missed opportunities & ed legitimized wking class men's position for them |
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Wking class men, or people of any class, have psychologically invested in the present system & psychologically, most change causes anxiety |
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People want to believe, & do believe, that they have worked hard for what they have achieved |
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Our families have sacrificed to ensure that we achieve a particular class position |
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To criticize the system, to question their position is to question the hard work, & sacrifice of oneself & of one's family |
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People in most classes fear greater equality because of the competition from the people classes below their present position |
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Undoubtedly, equal opportunity would create greater competition among all classes & reduce class differences, including the closing of the income gap | |||||
Thus the fears of the wkr competition that would accompany equal opp is justified | |||||
People fear that their life's hard wk would be of little value if those in the classes below them, whom they view w/ contempt, were given equal rewards |
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Many people assume that equal opportunity is a code for giving or allocating equal rewards, i.e. a simple redistribution of wealth |
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Equal opportunity, on the contrary, is simply what it's names implies, an econ system which allows all people evenly matched opportunities for ed, training, & ultimately jobs, & does not discriminate on ascriptive characteristics but only only merit & achievement |
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Compared to other indl nations, the US views the poor w/ a higher level of contempt because they are believed to be lazy, cheating, etc. |
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Thus the fears of lower classes being unworthy & simply squandering opp are not justified | |||||
Negative feelings for classes below one's own position are common among all the classes & to a certain extent is a normal ethnocentric reaction |
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It is only when the ethnocentric of class negativity gets to great, not allowing one to break through stereotypes & see how an individual may be different than their class that class ethnocentrism becomes prejudice | |||||
Gans (1972) demonstrates how contempt for the poor serves the function of legitimating inequality by making those just above the poor feel better about their own low rewards | |||||
The ideological debate has been limited to inequality vs. equality while a more reasonable controversy over degrees of inequality is absent | |||||
While every society provides some legitimating ideology for inequality of the strat sys is to remain stable | |||||
Because there is a lack of opp in the US, it has created a mythology to justify inequality | |||||
In England, people are taught to reconcile themselves to their lot in life; the English have historical traditions which lead them to a greater acceptance of ascription | |||||
In the US, our historical traditions preclude aristocratic privilege, & ascription must be denied w/ the belief that anyone can achieve success through hard work | |||||
While the British accept inequality as a fact of life, Am accept inequality as a result of an ideology of equal opp leading people to blame themselves & scapegoat those below them |
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Part of legitimization for individualism & equal opportunity (I & EO) in the US is based on religious values |
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It is widely recognized that one of the major functions of religion is to support, maintain, a society's values | |||||
See Also: The Principles of Functionalism | |||||
In general, religion today supports present day values, whether they are functional or dysfunctional | |||||
Furthermore, religion has it's own set of values on the after life & on the present life & these may prove to be functional or dysfunctional for society depending on the particular historical context | |||||
Religious values are broadly interpreted to include solidarity rituals & the emotional support for society's basic institutions & values gained through collective rituals |
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When collective rituals take place, people emphasize their commonality, the social values, institutions, & social relationships they have in common | |||||
I & EO, other dominant values, the form & extent of strat are given positive meaning through rituals of solidarity | |||||
Durkheim & others have recognized that collective emotional rituals strengthen social bonds & provide an almost godly respect for human institutions |
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Traditions of unequal power & wealth may come to appear almost sacred in nature |
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W/ strong sacred support for the legitimacy of I & EO, or any structure of society, it becomes difficult for someone to question the legitimacy of these conditions & structures while continuing to desire membership in that society |
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Religion has also been used to support inequality, as Marx & Feuerbach stressed |
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Religion can be used to support or challenge inequalities |
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In the Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber notes how Catholic ideology supported passivity on Earth holding that life's events are predetermined & that just rewards & punishments will come after death, not in life |
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For Weber, Protestant ideology supported activism on Earth holding that one's actions could affect one's destiny & that rewards & punishments come in life; furthermore, rewards & punishments in life were signs of god's favor / disfavor |
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See Weber: The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism |
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American's, regardless of religion have come to embrace the Protestant's view that one is responsible for one's own destiny |
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Fundamentalist rural people in OK mixed Christian ideals & socialism & protested exploitation by wealthy landlords btwn 1912 & 1920 |
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Many comparative opinion polls on religious beliefs indicated that the US is the most religious of all indl societies |
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The mixture of religion & Americanism provides emotional support for the basis inequality |
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Religion in the US when mixed w/ politics & public displays comes to be a civil religion in praise of country the flag, anti communism, & Americanism | |||||
Even before the rise of fundamentalist Christian political action in the 1980s, Am religious beliefs were recognized by sociologists as mixing religious ideals w/ Americanism | |||||
The concept of a civil religion holds that nationalistic values & institutions are given emotional support to such a degree that to question such values & social arrangements is akin to immorality | |||||
Civil religion in the US makes significant contribution to the legitimating of I & EO & other dominant Am values | |||||
Emotional collective rituals are important because they create a reality which seems more meaningful or unquestioned | |||||
W/ the emotional collective rituals of civil religion, I & EO, other dominant Am values, social structures, culture, etc. seem more transcendental rather than simply man made | |||||
Elites often seek control of solidarity ritual in order to legitimate their position in society, but control by elites is not always necessary or possible | |||||
If power & privilege by an elite are an aspect of common reality, they will be supported as the overall social reality & given legitimacy through rituals of solidarity | |||||
When power & privilege of the elites are threatened or weakened, support through rituals is useful, & is often accompanied by finding or mfring a threat | |||||
Erikson (1966) found that the Salem witch hunts of the 1600s strengthened status quo values by creating the threat of witch craft, restoring support for authority | |||||
Coser (1967) demonstrated that out group conflict tends to produce in group solidarity | |||||
Recent threats to the US include Communism, terrorism, & Jihadism |
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The social structures peers, family, religion, econ, govt, military, charity, ed, media, & leisure ( PF REG M CEML ) create the macro processes to legitimation which complement the micro processes |
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While the micro processes of legitimation are inherently abstract because of the personal / subjective nature of symbolic interactions, the social structural processes of legitimation largely objective & thus observable & measurable |
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While the micro processes of legitimation create a tendency in people to accept inequality as a value they adhere to, it is only exists in a very general sense |
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Social structural processes of legitimation create, demonstrate, & validate the actual state of inequality in detail which impacts individual's lives |
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Social structural processes of legitimation estb the degree of individualism & equal opportunity ( I & EO ) in a society & thus estb a large / small income gap |
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Social structural processes of legitimation are the processes the elites estb to build upon the micro processes of legitimation to estb legitimacy for themselves & the particular political econ they represent |
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While inequality, individualism, & unequal opportunity are legitimized at a personal / value based level, if elites seek legitimacy for their particular role w/in a particular sys of strat, they must work for it because there is no automatic acceptance & because the realities of inequality continually erode the basis of legitimacy |
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Because the realities of inequality continually erode the basis of legitimacy, the elites must maintain continual processes of legitimation w/in the soc strucs which people interact w/ peers, raise families, worship, work, govern, defend the nation, give charitable gifts, educate, receive the news, & play |
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The task of the elites is to turn the general or abstract acceptance of inequality into the specific acceptance of their high rewards, the policies that favor their interests, & the general political & econ sys that provides the basis of power & privilege |
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The elites must beyond a socio psychological tendency for the acceptance of inequality to legitimation of social arrangements |
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Elites use the norms of distributive justice to convince non elites that: |
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a. elite contributions to society are in proportion to the rewards they receive |
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b. the abilities of elites are superior to those of non elites |
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Legitimation must create a justification of exploitation w/o those being exploited realizing what is going on |
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While legitimation takes place in each of the soc structures, it is clear that they work in concert by overlapping & reinforcing each other | |||||
The process of legitimation in the social structures is an interrelated process w/in the system & it's nested subsystems | |||||
If one part of the system is not performing, the whole process may be weakened | |||||
If one part of the system is not performing, it becomes more difficult for each part to serve its overall function | |||||
If the legitimation system is functioning well, the task becomes easier for each part | |||||
An example of the networked functionality of legitimation can be seen in the fact that if the ed sys is legitimizing the system adequately, then it becomes easier for the media to fulfill their legitimation function |
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The soc structures ( PF REG M CEML ) utilize the processes of socialization of selective exposure, modeling, identification, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, & nurturance ( SMIPNN ) to legitimize the stratification is a society | |||||
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1. SELECTIVE EXPOSURE | ||||
People are exposed selectively to info about the system | |||||
The ed sys media pass on info that helps support a particular set of elites their policies, & / or a particular sys of pol econ | |||||
To the extent that soc strucs selectively expose info, they are involved in propaganda & indoctrination | |||||
In convincing, socializing, legitimizing info is usually accurate but biased or slanted to favor the view & interests of those providing the info | |||||
The very act of attempted persuasion implies a conflict relationship | |||||
Socialization is one method for overcoming conflict | |||||
2. MODELING | |||||
The elites, as celebrities, are models which we are socialized to emulate & honor | |||||
The poor provide models that serve as warnings | |||||
3. IDENTIFICATION | |||||
Celebrity worship, fan mags, the high pay of athletes, actors, & other pop performers demonstrates all demonstrate extreme forms of legitimizing identification | |||||
4. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT | |||||
We are actually rewarded to the extent that we strive for eliteness & / or emulate their life style despite lower class status | |||||
5. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT | |||||
We are actually punished to the extent that we reject for eliteness & / or emulate their life style despite lower class status in that the culture of the mid wking class is that of a professional | |||||
To the extent that wkrs do not exhibit professionalism, they find it difficult to find employment | |||||
6. NURTURANCE | |||||
Nurturance typically is the positive reinforcement offered by significant others (SOs) | |||||
To the extent that we pursue eliteness & / or emulate their life style despite lower class status, we are nurtured by friends & family |
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