Rev: Later Yrs of Sociology

Some early sociologists believed, just as many do today, that the govt should aid / engineer social reform while others believed in social laissez faireism

Unlike liberals of today, early sociologists refrained from criticizing the system as a whole, not questioning the fundamental tenets of Am. religion, capitalism, govt, race relations, etc.

Because early sociologists refrained from criticizing the system as a whole, this meant that while the early sociologists were helping individuals, at some level they helped rationalize exploitation, imperialism & social inequality

Sociologists, all social scientists, govt employees, activists, politicians, religious leaders, et al, all struggle w/ the dilemma of how to help people & improve the system while not becoming part of the problem

In the post Civil War era, social scientist became well aware of the power & the danger of industrialization

IN THE 1900s, AM SOCIOLOGISTS EMBRACED A MINISTERIAL TYPE OF ACTIVISM

According to Vidich & Lyman (1985), early Am. sociologists retained the Protestant interest in saving the world & merely substituted one dialogue ( science ) for another ( religion )

Many sociologists were midwestern ministers who supplemented their ministry w/ an education in the social sciences

The fact that early Am. sociology developed as the Am. university system developed, allowed it to develop in a more liberal vein, since it did not have the conservative force of an existing education system as was the case in Europe

Early Am. sociology turned away from a historical perspective examining long term social trends, which was the focus in Europe, toward a "positivistic," "scientistic," or activist orientation examining short term social problems

Despite all the differences that Am. sociology had compared to European sociology, the well established though ot Durkheim, Weber, Marx, & other Europeans remained very influential in Am.

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Outline on Herbert Spencer 1820 - 1903

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INTRO: SPENCER'S SOCIAL DARWINISM MADE HIM THE MOST WELL KNOWN SOCIOLOGIST

Spencer was more popular & widely read than even such important European contemporaries such as Comte, Marx, Durkheim or Weber because his theory was soothing & reassuring to a society struggling through industrialization, urbanization, etc.

Spencer was an English philosopher who applied a wide study of the natural sciences & psychology to philosophy & social problems

Spencer was a laissez faire Social Darwinist who was influenced by Lester Ward, Charles Horton Cooley, E. A. Ross, & Robert Park

SOCIETY WAS EVOLVING, BUT EVOLUTION SHOULD NOT BE TAMPERED W/ BY SOCIAL SCIENTISTS OR OTHERS

According to Spencer, society was moving, improving, progressing, evolving

Because of this natural, evolutionary, progress, Spencer believed the world should be left alone

For Spencer, activities by social scientists, govt officials, activists, social reformers, etc. were outside interference which could only worsen the situation

Spencer developed the doctrine of evolution into a social philosophy that could be universally applied to all phenomena

Spencer was a materialist in that he dealt only w/ those things which could be compared w/ & related to other things

The laissez faire Social Darwinist theory holds that some races & ethnic groups were superior to others, evolution was continuing & superior humans were evolving & evolving their superior social systems

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS, THE STATE, ETC. SHOULD NOT INTERVENE IN SOCIAL AFFAIRS

The state should not intervene in individual affairs except in passive functions such as protecting people

Thus, Spencer, unlike Comte, was not interested in social reforms

Spencer wanted life to evolve free of external control

Social institutions, like plants & animals, adapted progressively & positively to their social environment

Spencer coined the phrase, "Survival of the fittest" before Darwin & applied it to the social world

If unimpeded, people who were fit, would survive & proliferate whereas the "unfit" would die out

Spencer emphasized the individual, whereas Comte focused on the family & other larger units

THERE IS AN INCREASING COMPLEXITY OF INSTITUTIONS & THEREBY FUNCTIONS / OPERATIONS OF SOCIETY

Comte, Spencer & Durkheim were committed to a science of sociology

Comte, Spencer & Durkheim saw society as an organism where the study of sociology should examine the interrelationship of the parts of society, & the functions of the parts for each other as well as for the system as a whole

Spencer, like Comte, had an evolutionary conception of historical development, but rejected Comte's law of the three stages

Spencer's evolutionary theory looked at the size of society as the increased numbers of individuals & compounding, which is the union of groups

The greater the size of a society, the greater its differentiation of functions, thus making society more complex

The greater the size of a society, the greater its level of compounding, i.e. the greater the unification of adjoining groups

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The Figure on Spencer's General Model of Evolution shows that social evolution follows a meandering path from pop growth, to differentiation, integration, disintegration, solutions, interdependence or collapse, adaptation, all of which will spur pop growth

In compounding, Spencer sees a transition from simple to compound, to doubly compound, & trebly compound organizations

INDUSTRIALISM WOULD EVENTUALLY MAKE MILITARISM OBSOLETE

On war, Spencer saw a transition from militant to industrial societies

The militant society brings societies together & prepares them for the evolutionary leap to industrialization

In industrial society, war ceases to be functional because industrialism is based on friendship, altruism, specialization, recognition of achievements, voluntary cooperation, & contractual relations

War replaces all these relationships w/ power / force & industrial society replaces power / force w/ altruism, etc.

Spencer & many social theorists today believe that modern industrial societies are less warlike

SPENCER'S SOCIAL DARWINISM WAS NOT ONLY CRITIQUED BUT ALSO 'ACADEMICALLY EXILED'

Spencer's laissez faire Social Darwinism was rejected by any social scientists in the US & Europe who believed that the task of the social sciences was to aid the poor, correct social problems, etc.

By the 1930s, Spencer's laissez faire Social Darwinist ideas fell out of favor in the US because they seemed ineffective in light of the massive social problems, a world war, & the Great Depression

Even the conservative Talcott Parson's abandoned Spencer's line of thought

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Figure on Spencer's General Model of Evolution

The Figure on Spencer's General Model of Evolution shows that social evolution follows a meandering path from pop growth, to differentiation, integration, disintegration, solutions, interdependence or collapse, adaptation, all of which will spur pop growth

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Herbert Spencer
1820 - 1903
Born in Derby, England
Was educated in technology & was civil engineer for a railway until he was 26 yrs. old
Then became editor of The Economist
Had insomnia & nervous breakdowns
Had an inheritance that allowed him to live as a gentleman scholar
Following the Civil War, any educated person knew of & studied Spencer
Andrew Carnegie studied Spencer & respected him very highly

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Major Works of Spencer

Social Statics.        1850
First Principles. 1862
the Principles of Biology   1864-67
The Principles of Psychology 1855
The Principles of Sociology 1876-96
The Principles of Ethics    1891

CVDE

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Outline on William Graham Sumner 1840 - 1910

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Sumner was a sociologist & economist at Yale

In economics, he advocated an extreme laissez faire policy

Sumner taught the first course in the US that could be called sociology

SUMNER ADVOCATED SOCIAL DARWINISM, OPPOSED GOVT
INTERVENTION, & BELIEVED IN THE 'SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST'

Sumner was the major advocate of Social Darwinism in the US, though he changed his view in later life

Sumner adopted a survival of the fittest approach to the social world

Like Spencer, Sumner saw people struggling against their environment, and the fittest were those who were successful

Like Spencer, Sumner was opposed to any govt intervention

"If we do not like the survival of the fittest, we have only one possible alternative, and that is survival of the unfittest."

Sumner's sociology & Social Darwinism fit well w/ the development of capitalism because it provided legitimacy for the existence of great differences in wealth & power

Sumner concluded that human folkways & customs were so entrenched as to make reform useless

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William Graham Sumner 1840 - 1910
American sociologist & economist, professor at Yale

CVDE

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Major Works of Sumner

Folkways. 1907
Science of Society. 4 vols. w/ A. G. Keller, in 1927

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Outline on Lester Frank Ward 1841 - 1913

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WARD BELIEVED IN SOC DARWINISM, ADVOCATED GOVT INTERVENTION,
& THOUGHT SOC SCIENTISTS SHOULD BE ACTIVISTS

Like Sumner, Ward was influenced by Spencer

Ward accepted the idea that people evolved form lower forms

Early society was characterized by its simplicity & moral poverty, whereas modern society was more complex, happier, & offered greater freedom

One task of sociology, pure sociology, was to study the basic laws of social change & social structure

But unlike the laissez fairist Sumner, Ward advocated an applied, i.e. active sociology

Ward believed the conscious use of scientific knowledge to attain a better society

Ward believed in the need for & importance of social reform

Ward developed the concept of telesis

Telesis is the process whereby people, through education and development of intellect, could direct social evolution

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Lester Frank Ward 1841 - 1913
Spent most of his career working as a paleontologist for the fed govt
1906 Elected the first president of the American Sociological Society
1906 took an academic position at Brown

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Major Works of Ward

Dynamic Sociology. 1883

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Outline on the Chicago School

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THE C-SCHOOL WAS THE FIRST MAJOR AM SOCI DEPT

The first major American Dept. of Sociology was founded in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion Small

In 1895, Small founded the American Journal of Sociology

In 1905, Small cofounded the American Sociological Society (ASS), later, 1959, it was renamed the American Sociological Association (ASA) for obvious reasons!

The Chicago School dominated until the 1930s when Harvard & Parsons ascended

The Chicago School was instrumental in institutionalizing sociology as an academic discipline in the US through the founding of the AJS, the ASA & the first sociology textbook

THE C-SCHOOL WAS EMBEDDED W/ RELIGION & AN ACTIVIST AGENDA ON SOC PROBS

The Early Chicago school had a strong connection w/ religion

The Chicago school had a focus on social problems & used Chicago as a laboratory

The focus on social problems predated Functionalism and Conflict Theory

The Chicago school focused on social deviance which was seen as a violation of society's norms or rules for appropriate behavior

For the Chicago school, the term social deviance became synonymous with the term social problems

According to many thinkers at the Chicago, school social problems were caused by factors external to the individual (ecological)

THE C-SCHOOL DEVELOPED THE IDEA OF SOCIAL FORCES,
MOVING OUR UNDERSTANDING AWAY FROM STRICT INDIVIDUALISM

The Chicago School observed that the individual had little or no control and little or no responsibility in modern, urban society

The cause of social problems was the unhealthy social environment of the inner city

Social problems can be solved by integrating the groups in the unstable areas into mainstream American life; another version of the melting pot

W. I. Thomas ( 1863 - 1947 ) was one of the earliest members of the Chicago School

Ecological Sociology has its origins in the work of Thomas & the Chicago School

The Chicago School is credited w/ developing Urban Sociology

Urban Sociology often divided the city into the inner, middle, & outer zones

The Chicago School theorists saw that the delineation of the urban zones were based on income

Each type of urban zone had it's own unique type of social problems which were common to a zone from city to city

The Chicago School theorists saw that the social problems of each urban zone stayed the same as the people changed

Social problems were result of social factors in the city & not the result of various ethnic or immigrant groups

THE C-SCHOOL LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR FUNCTIONALISM & MOVING SCHOLARSHIP AWAY
FROM SOC DARWINISM & INDIVIDUALISM TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL FORCES

Durkheim's findings, that social organization is more linked to social density (frequency of contacts and exchanges) than with physical density, were consistent w/ the Chicago School's findings

Both the Chicago School & Durkheim found that social problems were not the result of population density only

The Chicago School laid the foundation of the contemporary examinations of modernity, community & human nature

After Tonnies, the concern w/ the natural human becomes hard to find

The Chicago School was concerned with human nature & how communities form themselves

The Chicago School explicitly recognizes that we have a biological & cultural basis

The Chicago School accepted Darwinian & Spencerian competition for survival as the main mechanism of social change, adaptation & spatial organization

The Chicago School fostered dualisms that still exist to this day; i.e., the dualism of community & society, as well as the dualism of the natural & the social

For Chicago School theorists, people are partly natural & these inborn instincts giving rise to community life

Community is both an underlying mechanism which affects people as well as an observable object

The Chicago School developed the idea that social differentiation is functional because specialization results in the most effective action

A key Chicago School theorist, Hawley, held that there are key units that are important for adaptation such as manufacturing

Hawley also developed the concept of Dominant Units (DUs), which holds that DUs have a high degree of influence over other units in the env

	THE C-SCHOOL WANED AS THE FOCUS CHANGES TO FUNCTIONALISM, SOCIAL FORCES, & EURO SOCI
	The Chicago School peaked in the 1920s & the death of Mead & the departure of Park in the 1930s caused a loss of prestige
	The Chicago School had become preoccupied w/ being scientific through the use of sophisticated methods & statistical analysis
	The use of statistics conflicted w/ Thomas' methodology of descriptive, ethnographic studies focusing on the subjects' personal orientation, i.e. their definitions of the situation
	Park despised statistics because it prohibited the analysis of subjectivity
	Thus the division btwn qualitative & quantitative methods, which still exists today, began in the Chicago School
	The Chicago School declined because it became a victim of its own success because a number of other schools sought to challenge its supremacy
	Sociology became important at Harvard in the 1930s as the Chicago School began to decline
	Pitirim Sorokin organized the sociology department at Harvard
	From Harvard, Parsons became the dominant figure in American sociology for introducing European theorists
	DESPITE THE DECLINE OF THE C-SCHOOL IT DEVELOPED SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM GIVING SOCI A MICRO LEVEL THEORY IN CONTRAST TO SOC DARWINISM & INDIVIDUALISM
	The Chicago School was declining compared to the ascendancy of Harvard, but still produced major scholars, such as Anselm Straus, into the 1950s
	Herbert Blumer, 1900 - 1987, who was the symbolic interactionist who coined the term, was the central figure at the Chicago School during its decline

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Outline on W. I. Thomas 1863 - 1947

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SOCI SHOULD BE ACTIVIST & REFORMIST; QUALITATIVE METHODS ARE EFFECTIVE

His landmark study, The Polish Peasant in Europe & America, (1918), co-authored w/ Florian Znaniecki, reflected the American, & the Chicago school position that sociology should be activist & work toward actual social reform rather than merely, in the European tradition, an academic endeavor

Representative of the ecological viewpoint, the Polish Peasant was a study of social disorganization among Polish immigrants

The Thomas' used a unique methodology using sources such as autobiographies, paid writings, family letters, newspaper files, public documents & institutional letters

PERCEPTIONS ARE AS IMPORTANT AS 'REALITY' IN UNDERSTANDING PEOPLES' SOCIAL ACTION

In the Polish Peasant, Thomas coined his now famous phrase, "If men (sic) define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." (Thomas and Thomas, 1928)

Thomas made the connection which emphasized the importance of what people think and how this affects what they do

Thomas' microscopic, social psychological focus contrasted w/ the macroscopic, social structural & social cultural perspectives of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, et al

Symbolic interactionism was to become a major movement w/in the Chicago School

SOCIAL SITUATIONS HAVE AN 'AGREED UPON' REALITY

Thomas' work, in emphasizing the power of people's definition of the situation, thereby emphasized the importance of the social situation

The social situation is a reality that is "agreed upon" that is ad hoc (exclusively for a special purpose) for those who participate in it

Each situation confronts one w/ specific expectations & demands specific responses to these expectations

Powerful social pressures exist in just about any social situations to ensure that proper responses occur

Most times, people's definitions of the situation at least approximately coincide even though there can be quite divergent interests

Example of man w/o a shirt: I construct meaning around this

In actuality, there are only a few unique situations in our life that require definitions that are "societally new"

Examples
Writer & publisher: each has their expectations about what a book will be about, the style, etc.
Students in a class: Different students have different preconceived notions about a
      discipline
      Professor
      the subject, etc.
People in a relationship: friends or lovers or associates
Each of these social groups has expectations that will impact the social construction of their reality

DEFINITIONS OF SOC SITUATIONS CREATE 'SELF FULFILLING PROPHECIES'

Thomas is famous for his quote: “If men (sic) define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

"You are my best friend."
One's interpretation of a social situation influences the way they act

Much of social behavior is a self fulfilling prophecy in that our expectations determine our behavior & the behavior of others

You will come to believe your own act
You will believe it faster if others reinforce it

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W. I. Thomas 1863 - 1947

Thomas is noted for his pioneering work on the sociology of migration on which he co-operated with Florian Znaniecki, and for his formulation of what became known as the Thomas theorem, a fundamental law of sociology: "If men define situations as real they are real in their consequences". [Thomas, William I.; Thomas, Dorothy: The Child in America (Alfred Knopf, 1929, 2nd ed., p. 572)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I._Thomas

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Major Works of WI Thomas

Sex and Society. 1907
The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. 1918-1920
With Robert E. Park and Herbert A. Miller as main authors: Old world traits transplanted. 1921
The unadjusted girl. With cases and standpoint for behavior analysis. 1923
Edited by Morris Janowitz): W.I. Thomas on social organization and social personality. 1966

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Outline on Robert Park 1864 - 1944

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INTRO: PARK DEVELOPED THE SOCI OF RACE, CULTURAL ANALYSIS, THE PRESENTATION OF SELF, & ECOLOGICAL SOCI

Park had been a reporter & this experience tuned him to the importance of urban problems & the need to go to the field to collect data through personal observation

Park studied in Europe under Georg Simmel & was important for bringing those ideas to the Chicago School

After Europe, Park joined the Congo Reform Association which worked to alleviate the exploitation in the Belgian Congo

Here he met Booker T. Washington & became his secretary

Under Washington, Park worked at the Tuskegee Institute

W. I. Thomas was giving a presentation at Tuskegee, met Park & invited him to give a course on "the Negro in America" at the University of Chicago

This connection eventually resulted in Park moving to the University of Chicago

Park & Burgess published the first important sociology text: An Introduction to the Science of Sociology. (1921)

CULTURAL ANALYSIS FOCUSES ON THE CONCRETE & ABSTRACT SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATIONS OF SOCIETY

Park was interested in the cultural level of analysis & he focused on:

a. systems & beliefs

b. artifacts & technology

c. non material cultural forms

d. the natural resources of the habitat

THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IS THE 'SEMI-CONSCIOUS' DISPLAY OF OUR CONCEPTION OF OUR SELF

Park developed some concepts that were important to symbolic interactionism, such as the Presentation of Self or Impression Management

Park said of impression management, "One thing that distinguishes man from the lower animals is the fact that he has a conception of himself, & once he has defined his role, he tries to live up to it. He not only acts, but he dresses the part, assumes quite spontaneously all the manners & attitudes he conceives as proper to it."

ECOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGY EXAMINES HOW THE PHYSICAL & HUMAN ENV IMPACTS SOCIETAL RELATIONS

Park was also important in the development of Human Ecology, also called Ecological Sociology, or Urban Social Ecology

Ecological Sociology is concerned w/ the interrelationship btwn people & territory including how people adjust & adapt to their environment

Park is an important figure in the study of collective behavior, offering perhaps the first sociological analysis of crowd behavior, noting that people imitate each other & under stressful conditions this imitation increases dramatically giving the impression that 'behavior has become contagious'

'Contagious behavior' manifests itself in a number of stage, the most notable being the circular reaction wherein when the behavior of a person is imitated that original behavior is reinforces, or encouraged, thus motivating the first person to repeat or act out in an even more extreme behavior, estbing a circular reaction feedback loop

Due to his interest in race relations, he took a position at Fisk University (a black university) in 1934

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Robert E. Park 1864 - 1944

Robert Ezra Park (February 14, 1864 - February 7, 1944) was an Am urban sociologist, one of the main founders of the original Chicago School.

Park was born in Harveyville, PN, & grew up in MN. He was educated at the U of Michigan, where he was taught by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. His concern for social issues, & especially issues related to race in the cities, led him to become a journalist in Chicago.

After being a journalist in various U.S. towns 1887-1898, he then studied Psychology & Philosophy for an MA at Harvard 1898-9, being taught by another prominent pragmatist philosopher, William James. After graduation, he went to Germany, studying in Berlin, Strasbourg & Heidelberg btwn 1899 & 1903, before returning to the USA. He studied philosophy & sociology in 1899-1900 w/ Georg Simmel at Berlin, spent a semester in Strasbourg 1900, & took his PhD in Psyc & Phil in 1903 at Heidelberg under Windelband (1848-1915). He returned to the USA in 1903, briefly becoming an assistant in philosophy at Harvard 1904-5.

Park taught at Harvard, until Booker T. Washington invited him to the Tuskegee Institute to work on racial issues in the southern US. He joined the Dept of Sociology at the U of Chicago in 1914, staying there until his retirement in 1936. He continued teaching until his death, however, at Fisk University. Park died in Nashville, TN at the age of seventy nine.

At various times from 1925 he was president of the ASA & of the Chicago Urban League, & was a member of the Social Science Research Council.

Park was influential in developing the theory of assimilation as it pertained to immigrants in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Park

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Major Works of Park

Dissertation on Crowd Behavior in 1904 resulted in: Park, Robert. The Crowd & the Public. 1904.
1912: The Man Farthest Down: a Record of Observation & Study in Europe w/ Booker T Washington, New York: Doubleday
Park, Robert & Ernest Burgess: Introduction to the Science of Sociology. "Collect Behavior." 1921. (with Ernest Burgess) Chicago: University of Chicago Press
1921: Old World Traits Transplanted: the Early Sociology of Culture w/ Herbert A Miller, & Kenneth Thompson, New York: Harper & Brothers
1922: The Immigrant Press & Its Control New York: Harper & Brothers
1925: The City: Suggestions for the Study of Human Nature in the Urban Environment (with R. D. McKenzie & Ernest Burgess) Chicago: University of Chicago Press
1928: Human Migration & the Marginal Man, American Journal of Sociology 33: 881-893
1932: The University & the Community of Races Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press
1937: Cultural Conflict & the Marginal Man in Everett V Stonequist, The Marginal Man, Park's Introduction, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
1939: Race relations & the Race Problem; a Definition & an Analysis w/ Edgar Tristram Thompson, Durham, NC: Duke University Press
1940: Essays in Sociology w/ C W M Hart, & Talcott Parsons et al., Toronto: University of Toronto Press
1946: An Outline of the Principles of Sociology, w/ Samuel Smith, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc
1950: Race & Culture, Glencoe Ill: The Free Press, ISBN 0029237807
1952: Human Communities: the City & Human Ecology Glencoe, Ill: The Free Press
1955: Societies, Glencoe Ill: The Free Press
1967: On Social Control & Collective Behavior, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 113554381X
1975: The Crowd & the Public & Other Essays, Heritage of Society

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An Overview on Charles Horton Cooley 1864 - 1929

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THE LOOKING GLASS SELF TAKES ACCT OF OTHER'S IMPRESSION OF US & OUR OWN IMPRESSION OF US

Cooley had an interest in the nature of consciousness

Cooley saw consciousness as integrally related to it's social context

Cooley's view of a social consciousness contrast's w/ Mead's view that consciousness is, at some level, independent of it's social context

Cooley developed his understanding of a social consciousness in the concept of the Looking Glass Self

PRIMARY GRPS ARE FAMILY & CLOSE FRIENDS; SECONDARY GRPS ARE ACQUAINTANCES OR LESS

Cooley also explored the nature of primary & secondary groups, where the former is characterized by intimate, face to face, regular contact that plays a key factor in linking the actor to the larger society

Critical primary groups include the family & the peer group

W/in the primary groups of the family & the peer group, the individual grows into a social being

It is w/in the primary group that the looking glass self emerges & the ego centered child learns to take others into account &, thereby, to become a contributing member of society

BEHAVIORISM COULD NOT ACCT FOR HOW WE INTERPRET OUR & OTHER'S ACTIONS & RESPOND TO THEM

Cooley & Mead rejected a behaviorist view of humanity where people blindly & unconsciously respond to external stimuli

Cooley & Mead's views directly contradicted the behaviorism that was important at that time (and remains a major force in psychology today) which held that psychologists should ignore people's consciousness, feelings etc. & instead focus only on observable behavior

For Cooley & Mead, people had consciousness & a Self

Cooley urged sociologists to try & put themselves in the place of those they were studying through a method called sympathetic introspection

Through sympathetic introspection, sociologists could understand meanings & motives that are at the base of social behavior

Cooley & Mead believed the focus of sociology should be on such social psychological phenomena as consciousness, action, & interaction

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Charles Horton Cooley

1864 - 1929

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Major Works of Cooley

Charles Horton Cooley. Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. (1909).

Charles Horton Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956.

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Overview of George Herbert Mead 1863 - 1931

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THE SELF EMERGES AS A RESULT OF INTERACTION W/ THE ENV & OTHERS

Mead is the most important thinker of the Chicago School & of symbolic interactionism

Mead taught that people & their environment created the unity of the individual

Mead emphasized natural emergence of self & mind w/in the social order

For Mead, the emergence of self & mind comes about as a result of interaction w/ the environment & other beings

The self emerges from social experience & this social experience is based on the exchange of symbols

THE "I" & THE "ME" REPRESENT THE INSTINCTUAL & SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE SELF

When fully developed, the self is composed of the "I" & the "me"

The I is the self as subject & the me is the self as object

See Also: Mead on the Genesis of the Self

WHILE BEHAVIORISTS' VIEW OF SOC INTERACTION WAS MECHANICAL, MEAD ADDED PEOPLE'S UNDERSTANDING / CONSCIOUSNESS

Mead's work must be contrasted against psychological behaviorism

Mead accepted may of the tenets of psychological behaviorism, but also reject many others

Mead adopted the focus on the actor & his/her behavior

Mead accepted behaviorism's focus on observable behavior, rewards, & punishments

Mead & Cooley did not accept the behaviorists insistence on excluding any examination of the consciousness of the Actor

The term symbolic interactionism was not used during Mead's life, but his work on consciousness & Simmel's interest in action & interaction served as the foundation for that school

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George Herbert Mead 1863 - 1931

American pragmatist, philosopher, & social psychologist
b South Hadley, MA
Educated at Oberlin College, Harvard University, & in Europe
Taught at the University of Chicago from 1894 - 1931
Influenced by theory of evolution & the social nature of experience & behavior
At the U of Chicago in the 1920's, Mead worked w/ colleagues
Charles H. Cooley, W. I. Thomas, and others to develop field of Symbolic Interactionism

Timeline on Mead: The Mead Project, Dept of Soc, Brock U, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1 Link

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Major Works of Mead

Mead published very little. His students compiled his work

Mind, Self and Society. 1934, 1962

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Outline on Women in Early Sociology

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WOMEN IN EARLY SOCIOLOGY EMPHASIZED WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE & WOMEN'S LIVES & WORK AS BEING EQUALLY IMPORTANT AS MEN'S

Female contemporaries of Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Cooley, Mead, et al, formed a well connected network of social reformers who develop important sociological theories

Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797

Harriet Martineau 1802 - 1876

Harriet Taylor & John Stewart Mill 1807 -1857 1806 - 1873

Beatrice Potter Webb 1858 - 1943

Anna Julia Cooper 1858 - 1964

Jane Addams 1860 - 1935

Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1860 - 1935

Ida Wells-Barnett 1862 - 1931

Marianne Weber 1870 - 1954

Many who lived in the mid 1800s except Cooper were connected through Jane Addams

Sexism resulted in the ideas & work of women in early sociology being oppressed, ignored, or marginalized

Addams, et al, developed the idea that women, all people, speak from a situated & embodied standpoint

Because we all speak from a position in society, history, gender, etc., the tone of male objective theory was misleading if not incorrect

Addams, et al believed that the focus of social theory should be social reform

Addams, et all believed that inequality was the major social problem

There are different types of inequality that need addressing including, class, race, & gender

As did Marx, Addams, et al believed in the interaction & simultaneous development of theory & social activism, which Marx called Praxis

Addams et al were marginalized by labeling them as reformers and activists & therefore not sociologists

However, the ideas of the early women in sociology were incorporated into much mainstream sociology

The tactic of marginalizing activists frequently occurs even today in academe

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Outline on Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797

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- Project: Can education eliminate sexism?

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- Project: Wollstonecraft, Education, Rousseau

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WOLLSTONECRAFT BELIEVED THAT THE ENLIGHTENMENT HAD NOT IMPROVED WOMEN'S LIVES

Wollstonecraft was aware that the Enlightenment had improved the lives of the common man, but not women's lives

Wollstonecraft recognized that the failure of the Enlightenment to improve the lives of women could be traced to:
- no education for women
- men's control of "things"
- the Bible
- classical Greek thought

WHILE ROUSSEAU HAD ALWAYS BEEN VIEWED AS VERY PROGRESSIVE, WOL REVEALED THE SEXISM OF A MAN WHO ELEVATED WOMEN IN HIS TIME

Wollstonecraft attacked Rousseau's point of view on education & women in her famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women

Rousseau believed that men & women should be taught differently, while Wollstonecraft believed that women could rise to a higher position w/ a better ed

WOMEN NEEDED EQUAL EDUCATION TO BE EQUAL TO MEN

Wollstonecraft distinguishes btwn political & intellectual freedom & women's freedom

For W, unwilling submission to any person, institution, or custom is limiting, degrading, & destructive

Wollstonecraft believed sexism could be eliminated through the education of women

Women must have the freedom to cultivate reason, the key to self improvement & social change

Is education enough to end sexism?

Today, it is naïve to imagine that simply equalizing educational opportunity will ensure true equality for women

But the century after Wollstonecraft was a progression of newly opened doors for women's education, & that ed significantly changed the lives & opportunities for women in all aspects of their lives

Without equal & quality education for women, women would be doomed to Rousseau's vision of a separate & always inferior sphere

One's social env & education shape character & morality

Ed is the right of all humankind & he vehicle through which women can gain independence & equality

EDUCATION & REASON CAN ELIMINATE SEXISM

Is Wollstonecraft correct? Can education eliminate sexism?

Education is certainly part of the solution to eliminating sexism

Education may not be sufficient, but it is one path to ‘enlightenment’

In viewing education in the larger sense, one sees that many cultures do not/did not have formal education, but they did teach equality

Wollstonecraft believes that women should be educated, because they educate the young

She also argues for the right of woman to be educated, because she is primarily responsible for the education of the young

Before 1789 & her Vindication of the Rights of Man, Wollstonecraft was known primarily as a writer about the education of children, & she still accepts this role as a primary role for woman as distinct from man

Reason, infallible & God given, should control all human thought & action

EDUCATION & WOMEN'S EQUALITY IMPROVE RELATIONS BTWN MEN & WOMEN

Wollstonecraft believes that education will improve marriage because marriage is a contractual partnership & thus the woman needs equal knowledge & sense to maintain the partnership

Wollstonecraft also argues that educating women will strengthen the marriage relationship, & her concept of marriage underlies this argument

A stable marriage, she believes, is a partnership btwn a husband & a wife

For Wol, a marriage is a social contract btwn two individuals

A woman thus needs to have equal knowledge & sense, to maintain the partnership

A stable marriage also provides for the proper ed of children

Education will rarely convert someone, but it does add weight to convictions already held

Education may teach that all people are equal

Education gives women employability, & thus economic power

EDUCATION BENEFITS HUMANITY IN GENERAL

Education is power

Education makes people aware of inequality

Education makes people aware of mechanisms of inequality

Education gives tools to work for equality

Humankind is evolving social toward perfectibility

WOL'S IDEAS OF EQUALITY FOR WOMEN & THE POWER OF ED INFLUENCED MANY IMPORTANT THINKERS OF THE TIME

These thinkers influenced/agreed w/ Wollstonecraft:

In agreement w/ Wollstonecraft, Baron d’Holbach advocated education for women in System Social (1773)

In agreement w/ Wollstonecraft, Condorcet supported ed for women in his “Memoir on Public Instruction” in 1790

Catherine Macauley, English author of History of England & Letters on Education, 1790, advocated ed for women, in agreement w/ Wollstonecraft

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Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797	William Godwin

Eldest daughter of a drunken, brutish father & a weak but harsh mother
Had a troubled youth, not untypical for Women of the time
Wollstonecraft educated herself by studying books at home
She & her sisters ran a school for a short period
From this she wrote, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, 1787.
She attacked the cruel treatment of girls, that was common at the time
She also wrote other essays, stories & translations
1797: married William Godwin, a British political reformer
Their daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, wrote the horror novel, Frankenstein in 1818

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Quotes by Wollstonecraft

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.

Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice.

Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; — that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.

It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy & sorrow, should be only organized dust, ready to flay abroad the moment the spring snaps or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable, & life is more than a dream

A Short Residence in Sweden

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An Overview of Harriet Martineau 1802 - 1876

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- Supplement: Video: The Rosa Parks Story

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- Biography & Major Works

THE 1st STRUGGLE OF DEMOCRACY, OVER THE LEGITIMACY OF DEMOCRACY, WAS BTWN ITS OPPONENTS & SUPPORTER; I.E. THE ARISTOCRATS & THE COMMONERS

Democracy demonstrated that people can rule themselves, but aristocrats doubted this & feared the people

The first struggle of democracy took place primarily in Europe

Martineau agreed w/ James Madison & Tocqueville, that the US was proving things that had long been regarded as impossible, i.e. that a people can govern itself

Martineau saw two classes, or parties, the aristocratic & the democratic

The men of learning, feared the ascendancy of the uneducated & allied w/ the aristocratic & they also feared the principle of merit would no longer prevail

Martineau saw the classes in America embodied in the parties of 1799 of the Jacksonian era as the Federal ( aristocratic ) & Republican ( democratic )

The democratic ( Republican ) party consisted of the hopeful who had not yet risen, people who had gained knowledge from life, not books

Martineau noted that Jefferson said one party, "fears most the ignorance of the people, the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them."

IN THE US, THE STRUGGLE OVER THE LEGITIMACY OF DEMOCRACY DID NOT OCCUR BECAUSE OF THE FEW ARISTOCRATS, THE MERITOCRACY, THE CHANCE FOR ADVANCEMENT, & THE GREATER GENERAL EQUALITY

The first struggle over the legitimacy of democracy did not occur in the US

Like Tocqueville, Martineau recognized that this class division bore no resemblance to the classes in Europe

For Martineau, the classes in America are different because here the poor respected the institution of private property

Martineau was in awe of the energy, intelligence, & competence & the absence of poverty & ignorance & that there was nosign of servility

Martineau noted that in Am even villages had libraries, factories, newspapers & public debates

Yet poverty did exist, & the rich did flaunt their wealth

Thus, for Martineau, the question in America must be framed as the nature of the struggle btwn aristocracy & democracy

BECAUSE THERE WAS SOMEWHAT OF AN ARISTOCRACY IN THE SOUTH, DEMOCRACY WAS LESS POPULAR & EFFECTIVE

For Martineau the question is 'Should the people govern or should the rich, who were also, presumably, the wise, save the people from themselves, and rule?'

The aristocrats believed the rich, i.e. the govt of the rich should rule

The aristocrats saw the will of the majority as the flaw in the new republic because, for example, the poor might overtax the rich

The democrats believed in a govt of the people & that rulers in general are prone to use their power for selfish purposes

While the Southerners saw this as a struggle between pauperism & property, the Northerners saw it as a question of who should win... & they both should win

When property succeeds, it becomes despotic

Martineau believed that the new system promised & delivered better material conditions than could be expect elsewhere

While the system posited that the majority wills the best policies & elects the best officials, this was not true in practice

Yet the Federal (rich) party had produced superior leaders

For Taylor & Mill the dilemma of democracy was choosing better leaders w/ aristocratic values or worse leaders w/ popular values

America had a self correcting feature: the ability to throw out corrupt politicians

ABOLITION WAS THE ONLY MORAL STANCE ON SLAVERY BECAUSE OF ITS VIOLENCE & CORRUPTION OF THE GENERAL POPULACE

From 1834-1836 she traveled in the US & met leading abolitionists & became a strong opponent of slavery

She attacked slavery in her book Society in America, 1837

A democratic republic that is half slave, half free is a contradiction in terms

But the threat of slavery to freedom was caused not only by the Southern states but by the Northern states as well

The Southern media took no notice of slave burnings

A St. Louis paper feared retaliation for reporting on white on black violence

The mobs in the North, the South, & in Europe were very different

In Europe, mobs were an expression of the exasperated misery of workers & peasants rebelling against oppression

In the US, a Boston mob was wholly composed of gentlemen of social status

Northerners became compromised in that the merchants & professional men of Boston & other New England cities were fond of Charleston because of commerce

People learned that friends & relatives were ostracized if they criticized slavery

There was no law limiting the expression of opinion on moral & political subjects, but many wanted it

Martineau was temporarily taken in by the anti abolitionist propaganda

While Southerners complained that Northerners distributed anti slave into, she never found any

Abolitionist meetings were followed by mobbing & rioting, & ironically it was the abolitionists who were blamed

Women played a central role because they were not silenced by the anti abolitionists, & continued to pursue abolition

George Thompson was a well known English, antislavery orator who was threatened & then did not speak

US abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, spoke & was attacked by the mob

Garrison published The Genius of Universal Emancipation & was thrown into jail for libel & later he helped found the Liberator in 1831

Garrison also adopted other unpopular causes: feminism, anticlericalism, anarchism, further estranging himself

On visiting the South, Martineau learned that opposition to slavery & abolition were not the same thing to Southerners

Thus, Martineau concluded that Garrison & other abolitionists were retarding the antislavery movement

Segregation & discrimination were facts of life in the North & black schools were often not tolerated

SLAVERY DEMEANED LABOR & JUSTICE

Martineau demonstrated that the institution of slavery contradicted democracy

By 1834, when Martineau visited the US, indentured servitude of white immigrants had been abolished

13 Southern states allowed slavery, numbering 2.5 mm slaves

Some states produced slaves to sell to the other states

In the North, work was respected & acquired a moral significance but in the South, work was stigmatized & was seen as degrading

In the South, there were two classes, the servile & the imperious

The fundamental morality of the slave system was that labor is demeaning & disgraceful

Children grow up pitying all whites who have to work

This produced the another class among whites: the mean whites

Those who have the stigma of work w/o the color are despised among the blacks

Those who have the color w/o the stigma of work are despised among the whites

Martineau asks, where there is no justice, what other social virtues are possible?

Mercy, the affection that slave holders often showed for their slaves, was mistakenly regarded as an adequate substitute for justice

Martineau became weary of explaining that indulgence cannot atone for injury

	SLAVERY INJURED THE WHITE FAMILY MORALITY BECAUSE OF THE INHERENT PROSTITUTION IN THE INSTITUTION
	The Quadroon girls of New Orleans were mistresses of white gentlemen & boys were also sex slaves
	Quadroon girls were educated & refined & had a master/lover for life or until the white man was married
	Then Quadroon girls often committed suicide or remained his mistress
	Conjugal relations were also common on the plantations btwn slaves & masters
	Wives of planters were only "the chief slave of the harem."
	Female slaves became mothers at 15
	The stricter emancipation laws were a response to the mixed races resulting from these relations
	To set them free would have been a serious breach of the slave system
	Martineau notes that the planter accused the abolitionists of their own practice of mixing the races
	The cruelty to slaves & the sex system created a deep hatred of whites
	The ideology of the South was such that they did not grasp the true nature of their relationship with the slaves
	In religious matters there was segregation in church w/ the proclamation that god loves all equally
	To Martineau, the contradiction btwn segregation in church & god's love was an insult
	SOCIETY IS WASTING THE RESOURCES OF HALF IT'S POPULACE, IT'S WOMEN
	If the US govt derives its power from the consent of the governed, then how can half the people have no voice?
	Why should women obey laws that they never consented to?
	Jefferson had excluded infants, women & slaves from the US democracy
	Because women were denied education, their intellectual & other creative capacities remained undeveloped
	The denial of education & undeveloped capacities reflects Wollstonecraft's analysis
	But true love ran smoother in the US than in Europe in that there was less abuse & easier divorce
	Marriage vows were reciprocal, property arrangements were more favorable to the wife, & the wife was not totally a slave of the man
	The emancipation of any class takes place primarily through the efforts of the individuals of that class
	It is not known if Martineau encountered any of the writings of Marx, but her belief that individual emancipation was impossible, that the emancipation of a class of people was the only route to freedom is exactly what Marx believed
	THE ECONOMY IS ONE OF THE CENTRAL FEATURES OF SOCIETY IN THAT IT SHAPES MANY OTHER TYPES OF SOC RELATIONS
	Martineau first gained notoriety w/ a series of stories & dialogues illustrating classical economics, esp the ideas of Malthus & Ricardo
	After a visit it the US from 1834-1836 she began promoting the abolition of slavery & she abandoned her belief in a laissez faire econ for a more utopian system
	She visited almost every type of institution: prisons, asylums, hospitals, literary & scientific association, factories, plantations, farms & lived in palatial homes & log cabins
	A trip to the near east in 1846 led to a study of the evolution of religious beliefs & an increasing skepticism
	Her chief historical work, The History of the Thirty Years Peace, 1816-1846 (1849) was very popular & widely read
	Her unorthodox views gain hear a reputation for radicalism that alienated some of her friends but failed to impede her pursuit of ideas
	She became an adherent of positivist philosophy of Comte which today is known as positivism
	She translated Comte's Positive Philosophy & offered an insightful discussion of it

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Harriet Martineau 1802 - 1876

Martineau was born in Norwich, England. She was educated at home because of poor health.
Harriet Martineau was the sister of James Martineau, the Unitarian leader. Member of a literary circle including John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor, & Thomas Carlyle. Martineau lost most of her hearing at age 12 & had to use a large ear trumpet. Her father, brother & lover all died before she was 24, leaving her impoverished & dependent on her pen for a livelihood. She was the first English woman journalist writing for the Monthly Repository, the Unitarian journal, in 1821 when she was 19. Martineau was known as a British writer & social reformers who wrote widely on economic, philosophic, & social issues.

She wrote more than 30 books & thousands of articles in spite of nearly constant illness. She became famous for a series of stories called Illustrations of Political Economy, 1832-1834.
These stories explained economics for the ordinary reader. Martineau also wrote biographies, essays, fiction, history, poetry, religious works & children's stories. In her writing, Martineau opposed cruel treatment of children in factories & supported voting rights for women. She called for better education & health care for the poor & mentally ill.

She wrote her Autobiography in three volumes & translated Comte's The Positive Philosophy & believed before she encountered Comte, that the study of society ought to become a rigorous discipline.

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Major Works of Harriet Martineau

Illustrations of Political Economy, 25 vol. 1832-1834
Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated, 10 vol. 1833-34
Illustrations of Taxation, 5 vol 1834
How to Observe Manners and Morals, 1834

Society in America, 1837
Retrospect of Western Travel, 1838
Eastern Life, Past and Present, 1848
Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, 1851
The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, Freely Translated and Condensed, 1853

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An Overview of Harriet Taylor & John Stewart Mill
1807 -1857 1806 - 1873

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TAYLOR & MILL WERE CONCERNED W/ THE 'TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY," I.E. THE TENDENCY FOR DEMOCRACIES TO RULE IMPULSIVELY & W/O REGARD FOR BASIC RIGHTS

Zeitlin believes that Taylor's work was in many ways more important than Mill's work, & many others agree

Mill embraced the Greek insight that how to think was more important than what to think

Taylor & Mill began the strand of thought that anticipated what Tocqueville later called the "tyranny of the majority"

The tyranny of the majority was the danger of social conformity

"What is called the opinion of society... is a combination of the many weak, against the few strong; an association of the mentally listless to punish any manifestation of mental independence. The remedy is, to make all strong enough to stand alone, and whoever has once known the pleasure of self dependence, will be in no danger of relapsing into subserviency"
Thus Taylor's influence can be seen in Mill's On Liberty

TAYLOR & MILL THOUGHT THE PURSUIT OF LIBERTY WAS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL STRUGGLE & A FACET OF THAT WAS THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN

Taylor & Mill had TWO missions in their life, the emancipation of women & the enhancement of liberty for all

Taylor & Mill's missions of the emancipation of women & the enhancement of liberty had to be accomplished w/o repressing the few

The influence of Comte & St. Simon on Taylor & Mill can be seen in there embrace of the idea of societal progress but in a rejection of an intellectual elite designing & ruling such a society

Taylor & Mill's economic theory stresses personal responsibility, allows people to get wealthy, & is a mix of socialism

On the subjugation of women, Taylor & Mill demonstrate that we are not going to talk or educate people out of being sexist, rather women will have to become educated & defeat sexist policies & prejudices

Taylor & Mill's political theory advocates the development of govt that protects liberty by protecting the weak from the strong & from the govt

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Harriet Taylor
1807 -1857
Born Harriet Hardy, the daughter of a surgeon. Both families were Unitarians and Dissenters. The Unitarians were almost entirely free from bigotry. ( Zeitlin, p. 124 )
Born Harriet hardy in Walworth, near Durham, England.
1826 married John Taylor, a merchant.
Met JS Mill about 1930, and became close friends.
Taylor died in 1849; she married Mill in 1851
While all of Mill's main works were published after her death, they all were greatly influenced by her. Only the essay “Enfranchisement of Women” bears her name. It appears in her husband's Discussions and Dissertations, a four volume work published from 1859 to 1875.
WBE, 1991, Vol. 13, p. 552
Mills became distressed, Taylor brought him back to health & he wrote on corporal punishment, punishment of children, wife murder, & more
They now both had tuberculosis and so outlined their intellectual goals
Mill retired from a position at India House in 1858, they went together to the south of France, where Taylor died at Avignon on November 3rd. She was 51 years old. Zt0612p128
JS bought a house there so he could always be near her.
JS died 15 years later at the age of 67 after a brief illness attended by his wife's daughter Helen, who had looked after him since her mother's death EP314

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John Stewart Mill
1806 - 1873

Mill was the most influential philosopher in the English speaking world during the 19th century. ( Encyclopedia of Phil, p. 314 ) Mill was born in London and educated by his father, James Mill, 1773-1836. By the age of 14 he had mastered Latin, classical literature, logic, political economy, history, & math. He entered the East India Company as a clerk at 17. Like his father, he became director of the company. He retired after 33 years of service and was elected to Parliament in 1865. Was the leader of the utilitarian movement. [ The utilitarian movement today is not highly regarded. But his other works are widely respected. ] Mill tried to help the English working people by promoting measures leading to a more equal division of profits. He favored a cooperative system of agriculture and increased rights for women. WBE, 1991, Vol. 13, p. 552 1826 JS Mill had an attack of intense depression. It took the poetry of Wordworth to help cure him. Mill felt he had been overly rational and that his capacity for emotion had been unduly weakened by strenuous training in analytical thought, with the result that he could no longer care for anything at all EP315. William John Fox was the most prominent Unitarian of the time and ran the Monthly Repository. In 1830, after her second son was born, Taylor remarked to Fox that she needed a discussion partner. Fox introduced her to JS Mill. Zeitlin. In 1831 when he was 25 and she was 24. they developed a deep though Platonic love and for the next 20 years they saw each other almost constantly despite the increasing social isolation this created EP315. Dissenters and Radicals became closer. The Unitarians and the Utilitarians became closer ( Zeitlin )

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Major Works of Harriet Taylor & J.S. Mill
Mill:
He served as editor of the Westminster Review from 1835 to 1840 and wrote many articles on economics.
His greatest philosophical work, System of Logic, 1843, ranks with Aristotle's work in that field.
Mill applied economic principles to social conditions in Principles of Political Economy, 1848.
Utilitarianism, 1863
On Liberty, 1859
The Subjection of Women, 1869
Autobiography, 1873
WBE, 1991, Vol. 13, p. 552

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James Mill, father of John Stewart Mill
1773 - 1836 1806 - 1873

Mill was born in Scotland and graduated from Edinburgh University where he studied for the ministry. he became a Presbyterian minister in 1798 but left the ministry in 1802 to become a journalist. Established a reputation as a writer with A History of British India, 1817. this work influenced changes in the Indian government. It won him a job with the East India company in 1819 which he headed from 1830 until his death. In 1808, Mill met Jeremy Bentham, a political economist and the father of utilitarianism. The utilitarians believed that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the sole purpose of all public action. Mill followed Bentham and became editor of the utilitarian St. James’ Chronicle. Mill's writing helped clarify the meaning of utilitarianism. Analysis of Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1829: a study of psychology
Elements of Political Economy, 1821: wrote it for his son and became the first textbook of English economics. Fragment on Mackintosh, 1835: views of utility as the basis of morals.
WBE, 1991, Vol. 13, p. 552

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Outline on Jane Addams 1860 - 1935

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ADDAMS WAS A PRAGMATIC PROGRESSIVE WHO, MORE THAN MOST SCHOLARS, COMBINED ACTION & THEORY

Jane Addams can be labeled the first woman "public philosopher" in US history

Addams is best known for her pioneering work in the social settlement mvmt, the radical arm of the progressive mvmt whose adherents so embraced the ideals of progressivism that they chose to live as neighbors in oppressed communities to learn from & help the marginalized members of society

Addams is part of the progressive / pragmatist phil mvmt & she worked w/, influenced & was influenced by other pragmatists & social scientists of her time such as John Dewey, William James, & George Herbert Mead

Her dozen published books & over 500 articles display a robust intellectual interplay btwn experience & reflection

Like any true pragmatist, Addams experiences & actions provided the foundation for a robust intellectual perspective

Addams viewed her settlement work as a grand epistemological endeavor but in the process she also never forgot the humanity of her neighbors

Addams was indeed a public philosopher, one who was not afraid to get her hands dirty

Addams’ philosophy combined feminist sensibilities w/ an unwavering commitment to social improvement through cooperative efforts

Although she sympathized w/ feminists, socialists, & pacifists, Addams refused to be labeled

This refusal was pragmatic rather than ideological in that Addams' commitment to social cohesion & cooperation prompted her to eschew what she perceived as divisive distinctions

Active democratic social progress was so essential to Addams that she did not want to alienate any group of people from the conversation or potential participation

Her audience varies as she directs her writing toward influencing different constituencies of the public

Addams did not intend to engage in philosophical narratives removed from social improvement, but neither did she intend to pursue social activism w/o theorizing about the nature of her work

In this respect, through her integration of theory & action, Addams carried pragmatism to its logical conclusion taking up applied philosophy

THE HULL HOUSE OFFERED A COMPLETE RANGE OF SOCIAL SERVICES & WAS PRAGMATICALLY BASED IN THAT MANY DIFFERENT APPROACHES WERE TESTED

While in London, Addams was influenced by Andrew Mearn's essay, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, which highlighted slum & visited Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in the East End of London

In 1889 she & her friend, Ellen Gates Starr cofounded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, one of the first settlement houses in the US

At its height, Hull House was visited each week by around two thousand people

Hull House's facilities included a night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a coffeehouse, a gymnasium, a girls club, a swimming pool, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group, a library, & labor related divisions

She is probably most remembered for her adult night school, a forerunner of the continuing education classes offered by many community colleges today

Hull House also served as a women's sociological institution

Addams was a friend & colleague to the early members of the Chicago School of Sociology, influencing their thought through her work in applied sociology &, in 1893, co-authoring the Hull House Maps & Papers that came to define the interests & methodologies of the School

The near half century that she lived & worked as the leader of the social settlement, Hull House, gave her an opportunity to bring her commitment to social improvement, feminism, diversity, & peace to direct action

The diversity & oppression in the neighborhood surrounding Hull House was staggering

Accordingly, her writing is replete w/ examples from her Hull House experience addressing untypical topics for philosophic discourse such as garbage collection, immigrant folk stories, & prostitution

Hull House also offered an employment bureau, an art gallery, libraries, & music & art classes.

Among the projects that the members of the Hull House opened were the Immigrants' Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the US, & a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic

ADDAMS INTERMIXING OF ACTION & THEORY RESULTED IN A MORE RADICAL PRAGMATISM, WHICH COMBINED SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM, PHIL, FEMINISM, SYMPATHETIC KNOWLEDGE, & 'STANDPOINT EPISTEMOLOGY

She worked w/ George H. Mead on social reform issues including promoting women's rights, ending child labor, & the mediating during the 1910 Garment Workers' Strike

Although academic sociologists of the time defined her work as "social work", Addams did not consider herself a social worker

She combined the central concepts of symbolic interactionism w/ the theories of cultural feminism & pragmatism to form her sociological ideas (Deegan, 1988)

Within Addams' work, a wellspring of nascent feminist philosophical insight can be found. Addams' ethical philosophy was guided by the notion of sympathetic knowledge that she described as, "the only way of approach to any human problem" (NCA)

Sympathetic knowledge is a mingling of epistemology & ethics: knowing one another better reinforces the common connection of people such that the potential for caring & empathetic moral actions increase

Addams not only theorized about the idea of sympathetic knowledge, but she lived it

Sympathetic knowledge underwrote Addams' approach to the diversity that she confronted in the immigrant neighborhood surrounding Hull House & allow her to develop a precursor to standpoint epistemology

Addams' leadership among the American pragmatists in understanding the poor & oppressed resulted in a more a radical form of pragmatism than Dewey & James, imbued w/ a class & gender consciousness

Addams' development of the ideas of sympathetic knowledge & standpoint epistemology are leading edge ideas in the social sciences today as seen in the contemporary pursuit of post modernists & others who seek understandings that move beyond individualist methodology towards a version of a perspectival truth that reconciles many diverse points of view

Ultimately, Addams exemplifies & theorizes about what today is described as care ethics

Addams' version of care ethics does not privatize caring relationships in metaphors of parent child relationships, but assertively extends the notion to the community & society

AFFILIATIONS

Addams helped organize the Women's Peace Party & the International Congress of Women in an effort to avert the first World War

In 1917, after America entered the war, she was expelled from the Daughters of the American Revolution

Jane Addams was a member of the NAACP, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, & the first vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Assoc in 1911

She was also actively involved w/ Pi Gamma Mu, the social science honor society

In 1901 she founded the Juvenile Court Committee which has since become the Juvenile Protective Association, a private nonprofit organization in Chicago that protects children from abuse & neglect

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Jane Addams 1860 - 1935

Laura Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, IL on September 6, 1860. She grew up in the shadow of the Civil War & during a time when Darwin's Origin of the Species achieved widespread influence. Her childhood reflected the material advantage of being the daughter of a politician & successful mill owner, John Addams. When Jane was 2 years old her mother, Mary, died in childbirth. She went to the all women's institution, Rockford Seminary (renamed later, Rockford College).

After college she failed at medical school & then slipped into a decade long malaise over the direction of her life. In searching for direction, she trekked to Europe, & visited Toynbee Hall, which was a community of young men committed to helping the poor of London by living among them. Addams eventually decided to replicate the settlement in the US, as Hull House. Although Hull House was co-educational, it was clearly a woman identified space.

Addams became one of the most respected & well recognized individuals in the nation. She played a key role in numerous progressive campaigns. Addams was a founding figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, & the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom.

Addams had challenged the borders of the public & private spheres, but after World War I broke out in Europe, her outspoken pacifism & refusal to endorse the war or the U.S. entry into it, was more gender role transgression than the public could tolerate from a woman. Addams' popularity fell & she became the victim of vicious gender specific criticism. From 1914 through the end of her life, Addams' publications became decidedly more focused on issues of peace & war including two books exclusively dedicated to the topic Although initially criticized, Addams' pacifist tenacity was recognized w/ the Nobel Peace Price (1931). In the last years of her life, she spent less time at Hull House & more time working for world peace & an end to racism. Addams died of cancer on May 21, 1935, leaving a tremendous intellectual legacy that has yet to be fully explored.

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Major Works of Jane Addams

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Outline on Pitirim Sorokin 1889 - 1968

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SOCIAL CHANGE OCCURS IN CYCLES OF SENSATION, IDEATION, & IDEALISM

In his Social & Cultural Dynamics Sorokin developed a general theory of social & cultural change

In contrast to evolutionary theories of social change, Sorokin developed a cyclical theory

Societies oscillate among three different types of mentalities: the sensate, the ideational, and the idealistic

Sensate societies emphasize the role of the senses in comprehending reality

Ideational societies have a transcendental & religious way of understanding reality

Idealistic societies balance the senses & the transcendental understanding of reality

Social change occurs as a result of the internal logic of each of these systems

Each type of society extends it mode of thinking to its logical extreme so that it provides the groundwork for its own demise

As people reach the end of the development of the sensational understanding, they turn to the transcendental mode of understanding

As the society becomes excessively religious, the stage is set for the rise of an idealistic culture

And this cycle of the three mentalities will repeat itself

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Pitirim Sorokin 1889 - 1968
Established the Harvard School of Sociology which came to
displace the Chicago School as the dominant force in American Sociology

Supporting himself as artisan & clerk, he was able to study at the U of St. Petersburg & to teach sociology. Sorokin was imprisoned 3 times by the czarist regime of Russian Empire; during the Russian Revolution he was a member of Alexander Kerensky Russian Provisional Govt. After the October Revolution he engaged in anti Bolshevik activities, for which he was condemned to death by the victorious Bolshevik government; the sentence was commuted to exile. He emigrated in 1923 to the US & was naturalized in 1930. Sorokin was professor of sociology at the U of MN (1924–30) & at Harvard University (1930–55), where he founded the Dept of Sociology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitirim_Sorokin

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Major Works of Sorokin

Social Mobility. (1927)
Contemporary Sociological Theories. 1928
Principles of Rural Urban Sociology. 1929 with Carle C. Zimmerman
A Systematic Source Book in Rural Sociology. 1929 with Zimmerman and Charles J. Galpin
Social and Cultural Dynamics. 4 volumes. 1937 - 1941
Facts and Foibles in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences. 1956
The Crisis of our Age.
Power and Morality.

His writings cover the breadth of sociology; his controversial theories of social process and of the historical typology of cultures are expounded in Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 vol., 1937–41; rev. and abridged ed. 1957) and many other works. He was also interested in social stratification, the history of sociological theory, and altruistic behavior.

Sorokin is author of books such as The crisis of our age and Power and morality, but his magnum opus is Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937-1941). His unorthodox theories contributed to the social cycle theory and inspired (or alienated) many sociologists.

In his Social and Cultural Dynamics he classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational (reality as spiritual), sensate (reality is material), or idealistic (a synthesis of the two). He has interpreted the contemporary Western civilization as a sensate civilization dedicated to technological progress and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitirim_Sorokin

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Outline on the Introduction to Functionalism

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FUNCTIONALISM VIEWS SOCIETY AS A LIVING ORGANISM

Functional theory is often traced from Durkheim to the Chicago School to Parsons & Merton

Early social thinkers likened the operation of society to that of a living organism, such as the human body, exemplifying the quality of consensus

LIKE AN ORGANISM, SOCIETY EXEMPLIFIES THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LIFE: NEEDS, REPRODUCTION, COMPETITION, COOPERATION, & ORDER

Like an organism, society exemplifies the FIVE characteristics of life:
- has needs (need inputs)
- has ways to reproduce
- competes
- cooperates
- needs order or it is "sick" or has "cancer"

THE QUALITIES OF SOCIETY ARE THAT IT HAS PARTS CALLED SOCIAL STRUCTURES, THAT ARE INTERDEPENDENT, & THEY FUNCTION TO PRODUCE CONSENSUS & STABILITY

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Functionalism views society as having FOUR qualities:
Society has
- parts                                    ( social structures ) ( PF REG M CEML )
- that are interdependent         ( mutual interrelations )
- that function to produce       ( functional requisites )
- consensus & stability           ( society is in equilibrium )

FUNCTIONALISM IS A MACRO PARADIGM

Functionalism is a macro paradigm / perspective (set of theories)

Functionalism is a paradigm & is therefore contains many theories such as:
- order perspective - systems theory
- structural functionalism - neo-functionalism
- consensus theory

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4. Society is made up of interdependent parts:
The parts / components of society are termed Social Structures

1. Peers	6. Military
2. Family	7. Charity
3. Religion	8. Education
4. Work (economy)	9. Media
5. Government	10. Recreation/leisure
PF REG M CEML

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An Overview of Talcott Parsons 1902 - 1979

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PARSONS DEVELOPED A NATIVIST FUNCTIONAL THEORY WHICH VIEWS SOCIETY AS A COMPLEX MECHANISM OF INTER-RELATED SOCIAL PROCESSES ORGANIZED BY SOCIAL STRUCTURES

Parsons was responsible for making the Harvard School the dominant school of American sociology from the 1930s & into the 1960s

In 1937 Parsons wrote the Structure of Social Action which introduced many American sociologists to Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, & other European sociologists

Parsons elevated theory to a position above social reform & activism, reversing the activist trend of the Chicago School

Parsons' body of theory grew to have profound influence on American sociology

Parsons' structural functionalism & structural functionalism in general examined relationships among large scale social structure and institutions

Because of the nearly exclusive focus on large scale social structure and institutions, Parsons' structural functionalism was unable to explain social change & behavior at the individual level

Parsons was concerned w/ how order was maintained in & by the various elements of society

Change was seen as an orderly process

Parsons examined social systems as well as how these systems interacted w/ cultural & personality systems

Cultural & personality systems operated in the same manner as the social system in that they are defined by cohesion, consensus, and order

Cohesion, consensus, and order are maintained in any system because of the functions that any system must carry out

Most writers now recognized that Parsons' interpretation of European sociologist reflected his own orientation & omitted much that contradicted his orientation, totally ignoring such theorists as Marx

Like many other sociologists he attempted to combine human agency and structure in one theory and was not confined to functionalism

Parsons had a vision of an integrated social science, he produced a general theoretical system for the analysis of society

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Talcott Parsons 1902 - 1979

Talcott Parsons was for many years the best known sociologist in the United States, and indeed one of the best known in the world. His work was very influential through the 1950s and well into the 1960s, particularly in America, but fell gradually out of favor from that time on. The most prominent attempt to revive Parsonian thinking, under the rubric "neofunctionalism," has been made by the sociologist Jeffrey Alexander, now at Yale University.

Parsons served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927-1973. A central figure first in Harvard's Department of Sociology, and then in its Department of Social Relations (created by Parsons to reflect his .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talcott_Parsons

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Major Works of Parsons

The Structure of Social Action (1937)
The Social System (1951)
Economy and Society (with N. Smelser) (1956)
Structure and Process in Modern Societies (1960)
Sociological Theory and Modern Society (1968)
Politics and Social Structure (1969)
The American University (with G. Platt) (1973))
Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory (1977)
Action Theory and the Human Condition (1978)

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Outline on the Frankfurt School

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THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL LOOKED AT ECON FORCES, THEN CULTURAL FORCES IMPACT ON SOCIETY

From the 1900s to the 1930s Marxism developed outside of mainstream sociology

The Frankfurt School was perhaps the only mainstream school of Marxism

The Frankfurt School was the product of Felix J. Weil

The Institute of Social Research was officially found in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923

Because of Nazism, the Frankfurt School moved to Columbia University from 1934 - 1949

The Frankfurt School thinkers focused on the economic domain until the 1930s when they also focused on the cultural system

Thinkers at the Frankfurt School began to see the cultural system as being as important as the economic system in understanding the functioning of capitalism

The emphasis on the economic system or the cultural system is one of the major aspects that separates orthodox Marxists from Neo Marxists

The focus on the cultural system is similar to that taken earlier by Hegelian Marxists such as George Lukacs & is also more in line w/ conflict theorists & pluralists today

In order to understand the cultural system, the Frankfurt School adopted many of Weber's ideas

Many at the Frankfurt School adopted the methodologies, including statistical analysis, of the American sociologists

Many at the Frankfurt School also integrated the work of Freud into their analyses of culture

MODERN ASPECTS OF INDUSTRY, CAPITALISM, FASCISM, & WAR WERE IMPACTING SOCIETY

The Frankfurt School tried to diagnose the ruined, pathological world of the early 20th century which was dominated by industrial capitalism, national socialism (Nazism), and war

The Frankfurt School consistently returned to two questions: How did we get here? and Where does salvation lie?

The Frankfurt school turned away from the solutions of traditional Marxists & other activists who focused on political activism, a revolutionary labor movement, etc.

Instead, the post 1930 Frankfurt School advocated the positive, liberation qualities of avant garde art, psychoanalysis, dialectical philosophy, messianic religion, etc.

These analysis at first went under the name of Critical Theory and were the first embodiments of truly interdisciplinary theory

By the time of Horkheimer & Adorno, the Frankfurt School thinkers no longer referred to their work as philosophy, sociology, aesthetics or psychology; was, simply, "Theory"

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Outline on Karl Mannheim 1893 - 1947

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Mannheim is responsible for the creation of the field known as the sociology of knowledge

Mannheim also examined rationality in a manner that picks up on Weber's views but offers a more concise examination

FOR MANNHEIM, EPISTEMOLOGY: THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE,
SHOWS THAT KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED IN / BY SOCIAL EXISTENCE

Mannheim's first area of exploration was of epistemology & the sociology of knowledge

Mannheim's developed a comprehensive sociological analysis of the structures of knowledge

Mannheim follows Comte & Hegel who believed that in the past people had been dominated by histl processes, but in the future we would gain ascendancy over them

For Mannheim, the sociology of knowledge is the systematic study of knowledge, ideas, or intellectual phenomena in general

Mannheim fundamentally agrees w/ Marx on the relationship btwn econ structure & culture, the base & the superstructure

See Also: Primary & Secondary Groups

Another theorist, Mannheim, has a similar schema

We relationships are intimate, face to face relationships

They relationships are distant & impersonal

It is easier to study they relationships scientifically

Schutz moved away from examining consciousness & examined meaning & motives

Schutz saw a dialectical relationship btwn people's construction of the life world & the obdurate social & cultural reality that they inherit

PEOPLE ARE REFLEXIVE IN THAT THEY SEE SITUATIONS & REACT TO THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITY; THUS PEOPLE ARE NOT JUDGEMENTAL DOPES, I.E. MERE PAWNS OF SOCIAL FORCES

Schutz, ethnomethodologists, & phenomenologists do not see actors as judgmental dopes, but yet they do not believe that people are "almost endlessly reflexive, self conscious & calculative"

Like Schutz, the ethnomethodologists recognize that most often action is routine & relatively unreflective

Coleman's rational choice theory has been applied to Schutz's phenomenological approach

Many sociological models of subjectivity, visa vie Mead & Schutz, assume that in role taking the actor learns to see the self through the eyes of others, & thus the actor is deemed more or less the same as the actor

A validation of Schutz can be seen in feminist sociology, where women are socialized to see themselves through the eyes of men

SCHUTZ WISHES TO OVERCOME THE INDIVIDUAL / SOCIAL, SUBJECTIVE / OBJECTIVE SPLIT BY NOTING THAT SOCIAL STRUCTURES ARE THE HABITS / PROCESSES THAT PEOPLE CREATE; I.E. THEY ONLY APPEAR OBJECTIVE

Pierre Bourdieu wants to overcome the 'false opposition btwn objectivism & subjectivism, i.e., the absurd opposition btwn individual & society

To overcome the false opposition btwn objectivism & subjectivism, Bourdieu moves to a subjectivist position similar to that of Sartre's existentialism, Schutz's phenomenology, Blumer's symbolic interactionism, & Garfinkel's ethnomethodology

Phenomenological theorist's subjective actor examines who agents think about, account for, or represent the social world while ignoring the objective structure in which those processes exist

Habermas addressed the ideas of Schutz, Mead, Parsons, Durkheim, et al when he examined the colonization of the life world

Colonization of the life world addresses the agency structure issue through paradigm combination which sees structure as a social process that invades, i.e., colonized the life world

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Alfred Schutz 1899 - 1959
Alfred Schutz (1899-1959, aka Alfred Schutz) was a philosopher & sociologist. He was born in Austria & studied law in Vienna, but moved to the US in 1939, where he became a member of the faculty of the New School for Social Research. He worked on phenomenology, social science methodology & the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, William James & others.

Schutz's principal task was to develop the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl as a basis for a philosophy of the social sciences. Although Schutz was never a student of Husserl, he, together w/ a colleague, Felix Kaufman, studied Husserl's work intensively in seeking a basis for a "sociology of understanding" derived from the work of Max Weber. This work & its continuation resulted in his first book, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (literally, The meaningful construction of the social world, but published in English as The phenomenology of the social world). This work brought him to the attention of Husserl, w/ whom he corresponded & whom he visited until Husserl's death in 1938. In fact, he was offered the position of assistant to Husserl at Freiburg University in the early 1930s, but declined.

Schutz is probably unique as a scholar of the social sciences in that he pursued a career as a banker for almost his entire life, teaching part time at the New School for Social Research in New York & producing key papers in phenomenological sociology that fill three volumes (published by Nijhoff, The Hague).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schutz

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Major Works of Schutz

The Phenomenology of the Social World. 1932, English Trans. 1967.

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Outline on an Intro to Ethnomethodology

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- Project: Assessing Ethnomethodology

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- Project: Breaching Experiment

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- Project: Your Ethnomethodological Research

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- Project: Mediation

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ETHNOMETHODOLOGY IS AN OFF-SHOOT OF DRAMATURGY, PHENOMENOLOGY, & SIMILAR FIELDS

Harold Garfinkel, a student of Alfred Schutz & Parsons, is the founder & major contributor to ethnomethodology

Ethnomethodology is a subfield of sociology which studies the way people make sense of their everyday lives

Ethnomethodology was founded by Garfinkel in late 1940s

The first systematized publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology occurred in 1967

Garfinkel coined the term ethnomethodology in the 1960s to signify the methods members of the society use to make & maintain sense of the social world around them

Ethnomethodology was the first distinctive, significant theory of the American West Coast

Ethnomethodology is now considered mainstream sociology in that ethnomethodologists regularly publish in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, & so on

However, the criticisms of ethnomethodology are stinging

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY EXAMINES PEOPLES' EVERYDAY KNOWLEDGE & HOW THEY USE IT TO LIVE IN & CONSTRUCT THEIR DAILY WORLD; IT IS 'THE STUDY OF THE PEOPLES' METHODS'

Ethnomethodology is the study of the "body of common-sense knowledge & the range of procedures & considerations [the methods] by means of which the ordinary members of society make sense of, find their way about in, & act on the circumstances in which they find themselves

Ethnomethodology examines the methods people use daily to accomplish their everyday lives

Ethnomethodology is the body of common-sense knowledge & range of procedures & considerations by means of which ordinary members of society make sense of, find their way about in, & act on the circumstances in which they find themselves

Theorists in ethnomethodology are interested in the study of everyday life

While phenomenological sociologists tend to focus on what people think, ethnomethodologists are concerned w/ what people actually do

Ethnomethodologists study conversations & eschew the study of bureaucracy, capitalism, the division of labor, & social systems

Ethnomethodologists are interested in how the social forms of bureaucracy, capitalism, the division of labor, social systems, etc. are created in everyday life

Ethnomethodology is empirical & does little theorizing

Accounts are the process by which people offer accounts of the world; that is, make sense of the world

People are reflexively accountable: we make sense of our internal world & the external world simultaneously via description, criticism, idealization, etc., & as we do so, we alter both worlds

The concept of the double hermeneutic, made popular by Schutz & advanced by Giddens, holds that others can never know our world or the world we see because they are both hermeneutically sealed

An examination of accounting practices, which detail how members make sense of the world & create micro & macro structures, is the project of ethnomethodology

STRAINS W/IN ETHNOMETHODOLOGY / CRITIQUE / WEAKNESSES: ETHNOMETHODOLOGY FOCUSES ON THE MARGINS OF SOCIETY, WHICH SOME CONSIDER TO BE TRIVIAL

Ethnomethodology focuses on trivial matters such as game rules, deviant sexuality, conversation, laughter, applause, booing

Sociology should not lose track of it's consideration of "serious social problems" such as poverty, alienation, etc.

In it's pursuit of the trivialities of everyday life, Ethnomethodology lost sight of its phenomenological roots & the concern for conscious, cognitive processes

While the micro macro link has been central to the theory of Ethnomethodology, a valid examination of the micro macro link has not materialized

Ethnomethodology lost sight of its original radical reflexivity where social activity is always bi directional & is "accomplished" i.e. modified in process to accompanied actors & audience

Ethnomethodology & conversation analysis have split into two factions

Lewis Coser, the President of the ASA in 1975, said ethnomethodology is trivial, a massive cop out, an orgy of subjectivism, & a self indulgent enterprise

Coser says ethnomethodology fails to generate any insights at all: 'it elaborates points which are so commonplace that they are banal'

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY EXAMINES PEOPLES' ACCTS: HOW THEY MAKE SENSE, CONSTRUCT UNDERSTANDING, DISPLAY MEANING, USE UNDERSTANDING, ETC.

Ethnomethodology means, literally, 'the study of people's methods'

Ethnomethodology focuses on the way people:
- make sense of the world, the way they
- construct their understanding of the world, the way they
- display their understandings, & the way they
- use their understanding

Our understanding of the world is not simply an individualistic, unorganized random body of knowledge, rather it is shaped by many forces, physical, natural, social, etc. & it is sociology's job to uncover & understand these forces

The term accounts is used to describe a person's, or several person's understandings of a situation

Accounts make one's actions & interpretations mutually intelligible meaning that they are commonsensical & intuitive to others

Accounts are more or less reflexive in that at times they are flexible & adapting to changing understandings & situations, which at other times they may be solid, maintained by existing culture & social structure

Ethnomethodology focuses on how accounts, our systematized understandings, are organized in the ongoing moment to moment maintenance of social order

The social sciences seeks to provide accounts of society which compete with those offered by other members; all accounts compete w/ other accounts

The documentarian method is used to read every day events as opportunities by which members of the community use their cultural competence & indexical (contextual) knowledge to make sense of the world

To say that words, behavior, understanding are indexical means that they are reliant for their meaning on the context in which they are used

Ethnomethodology provides insights into the objectivity of social science & the difficulty in establishing a description of human behavior which has an objective status outside the context of its creation

Ethnomethodology has had an impact on linguistics & particularly on pragmatics, spawning a whole new discipline of conversation analysis

Ethnomethodological studies of work have played a significant role in the field of human computer interaction, improving design by providing engineers w/ descriptions of the practices of users

ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL INDIFFERENCE IS THE RELUCTANCE TO EMBRACE THEORY FROM OTHER SCHOOLS, OR EVEN FROM THEIR OWN SCHOOL

Ethnomethodological indifference is a policy of deliberate agnosticism towards social theory

It is a specialized application of the phenomenological technique of bracketing

By deliberately suspending our preconceived notions of how the social order is maintained, we are able to more clearly see the social order in its actual, real time, moment to moment production

DURKHEIM WOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AN ETHNOMETHODOLOGIST, BUT HE DID ADVOCATE 'TREATING SOCIAL FACTS AS THINGS'

Durkheim famously recommended that we 'treat social facts as things'

Treating social facts as things is usually taken to mean that we should assume the objectivity of social facts as a principal of study

For Durkheim & many others the establishment of social facts provided the basis of founding sociology as a science

Garfinkel's alternative reading of Durkheim is that we should treat the objectivity of social facts as an achievement of society' members, thus making this achievement of objectivity the focus of study

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Outline on an Intro to Harold Garfinkel

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GARFINKEL'S ETHNOMETHODOLOGY HOLDS THAT BEHAVIOR JUSTIFIES ITSELF THROUGH THE PROCESSES OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Harold Garfinkel, a student of Alfred Schutz & Parsons, is the founder & major contributor to ethnomethodology

Garfinkel rejected Parsons' structural functional perspective & rediscovered the classical sociological ideas of Durkheim & Weber

Ethnomethodology and Garfinkel rejected Parsons' notion that the normative order is separate from the behavioral order & yet still controls the behavioral order

Behavior creates its own norms/justification; i.e., the social world was not reified (i.e., an independent thing) but linked to everyday life activity

Garfinkel focused mostly on trivial or deviant behavior and thus earned the disdain of many mainstream sociologists

Garfinkel worked on the Parsonian issue of order not from the theoretical direction but rather from the direction of the details of their workings, in their achievement

THE SOCIAL WORLD IS NOT REIFIED NOR OBJECTIFIED; RATHER ALL SOC SYSTEMS INCLUDING CULTURE, ORGS, & STRUCTURES CAN BE UNDERSTOOD THROUGH THE PROCESSES OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Garfinkel found that the social world was not reified, in contrast to Parsons' tendency to reify cultural & social systems

Garfinkel's refusal to reify was similar to that of Weber and Durkheim

Durkheim's orientation was to study, not reify, external and coercive social facts

Garfinkel, like Durkheim, holds that social facts are fundamental in sociology

Durkheim's social facts were external to & coercive of individuals

For Durkheim, actors are constrained/determined by social structures & institutions

For Garfinkel, social facts are the accomplishments of members as a product of member's methodological activities which Garfinkel believes are reasoned & patterned

PEOPLE ARE REFLEXIVE, NOT MERE PAWNS OF SOC FORCES

For Garfinkel, Durkheim treats people as "judgmental dopes" because Durkheim does not treat them as active actors

The production of objective reality, of social facts, is society's fundamental phenomenon & it is the fundamental project of sociology to examine it

Classic studies of social order & ethnomethodological studies agree that the social relationship they are researching is the production & accountability of the phenomena of order, reason, logic, etc., which is the same early question that social scientists such as Hobbes & Durkheim explored

For Garfinkel, social life is the the great recurrences of immortal ordinary society, really, actually, evidently, distinctively, and in detail

Some ethnomethodological studies offer evidence for locally produced, naturally accountable phenomena of order, logic, reason, meaning, method, objective knowledge, evidence, detail, structure, etc.

Everyday life exhibits unavoidable & irremediable individuality / singleness of immortal ordinary life

The point of view of ethnomethodology that the creation of everyday life is continuous, fragile & on going is contrary to the classic policies, methods, claims, & findings of professional sociology & the world wide social science movement

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES SHOULD FOCUS ON RADICAL BEHAVIOR, SUSPEND ALL JUDGEMENT, USE BRACKETING, & STUDY THE PRACTICE OF LANGUAGE

In contrast to the social constructionist version of phenomenological sociology, Garfinkel emphasizes a focus on radical phenomena, rather than on the various ways they are interpreted

Garfinklel's recommendation that sociologists suspend their assumption of social order is often wrongly taken to mean that he believes social life to be chaotic, or that members of society are free agents

The suspension (bracketing in the phenomenological jargon) is merely an analytic move designed to bring the existing social order more clearly into focus

Garfinkel emphasizes the indexicality of language & the difficulties this creates for the production of objective accounts of social phenomena

Objective accounts of reality are reflexive to the settings in which they are produced in that they depend upon that setting for their meaning

Ethnomethodological studies come in a wide variety of forms, including:
- the sequential analysis of conversation
- the study of social categorization practices, through membership category analysis
- studies of workplace settings & activities
- studies of deviant human behavior such as drug use, prostitution, crime, sexuality, etc.

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Harold Garfinkel 1917 -

Harold Garfinkel is Professor Emeritus in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Garfinkel is one of the key developers of the phenomenological tradition in American sociology

PROFESSOR EMERITUS
Ph. D., Harvard University
Phone: 310-825-3328
E-mail: GARFINKEL@SOC.UCLA.EDU
Office: 264 HAINES
Mailing Address:
UCLA Department of Sociology
264 Haines Hall - Box 951551
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551
Fax: 310-206-9838

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Major Works of Garfinkel

1946 "Color trouble." in Primer for white folks. Edited by B. Moon, 269-286. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Doran
1956 "Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies." American Journal of Sociology 61: 420-424.
1956 "Some sociological concepts and methods for psychiatrists." Psychiatric Research Reports 6: 181-198.
1963 "A conception of, and experiments with, 'trust' as a condition of stable concerted actions." in Motivation and social interaction. Edited by O.J. Harvey, 187-238. New York: The Ronald Press
1967 Studies in ethnomethodology . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
1967 "Practical sociological reasoning: Some features in the work of the Los Angeles suicide prevention center." in Essays in self destruction. Ed by E. Shneidman, 171-186. NY: Science House
1968 "Discussion: The origin of the term 'ethnomethodology'." in Proceedings of the Purdue Symposium on Ethnomethodology. Ed. by R. Hill and K. Grittenden, 15-18. Institute Monograph Series #1
1970 (with Harvey Sacks) "On formal structures of practical actions." in Theoretical sociology: Perspectives & developments. Edited by J. McKinney and E. Tiryakian, 337-366. New York: Meredith
1972 "A Comparison of Decisions Made on Four 'Pre Theoretical' Problems by Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schultz" in . Edited by, . ms.. [first published in 1960]
1972 "Studies in the routine grounds of everyday activities." in Studies in social interaction. Edited by D. Sudnow, 1-30. New York: The Free Press. [first published in 1964]
1972 "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies." in Symbolic Interactionism. Edited by J. Manis and B. Meltzer, 201-208. New York: Allyn and Bacon
1976 "An introduction, for novices, to the work of studying naturally organized ordinary activities." in . Edited by, . ms.
1981 "The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar." Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11: 131-158.
2002 Ethnomethodology's program: Working out Durkheim's aphorism . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,

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Outline on Early Marxism in America

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BEFORE THE 50s, MARXISM WAS NOT ACCEPTED IN THE US, BUT W/ THE WORK OF MILLS ET AL, & THE RADICALIZATION OF THE 60s, IT ENTERED AM ACADEMIC CIRCLES & SOCIETY IN GENERAL

In the 1960s, because of the groundwork laid by C. Wright Mills, Marxism began to be accepted by American sociology

When Marxism was first accepted in the US, the dominant theory of structural functionalism was under attack because it was too conservative, could not explain change, was too macro oriented, etc.

Marxism addressed many of the problems of structural functionalism

The 1960s & the 1970s was the era of black protests, the women's mvmt, the student mvmt, & the anti-war in Vietnam mvmt & people were energized by this radical thinking & were thus more accepting of new ideas like Marxism

Henri Lefebevre's, The Sociology of Marx, 1968, was an important work in the era of early Marxism in America

American theorists were drawn to Marxists off shoots such as the critical school of the Frankfurt School which combined Marxism & Weberianism

Important journals of Early Marxism in America included Theory & Society, Telos, Marxist Studies, The Insurgent Sociologist, etc.

Jurgen Habermas, perhaps the most important scholar in Europe, was tied to Marxism & the Critical School

American Marxism declined in the late 70s, & then the Fall of Communism in the 1990s made most Marxism illegitimate to American sociologists

With the Fall of Communism, Marxists felt like they had theory w/o practice, which contradicted their central purpose

Some important post Fall of Communism publications include the journal Rethinking Marxism & Ronald Aronson's After Marxism, 1995

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Outline on Early Feminism in America

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FEMINISM GOES THROUGH STAGES REPRESENTING ITS VARIOUS CONCERNS W/ TRADL WOMEN'S ISSUES AS WELL AS ISSUES RELATED TO SOC PROBLEMS & SOC MVMTS

In the late 1970s, when Marxism was gaining acceptance, contemporary feminist theory became well established & challenged sociological theories, as well as Marxism

This era of Feminism is known as Second wave feminism

after the First Wave Feminism, circa 1700 - 1920s

Three factors helped create Second Wave Feminism

a. Women activists in civil rights, the anti Vietnam War mvmt, student mvmts encountered sexism from liberal & radical men in those mvmts & therefore became energized to confront sexism

b. Women experienced prejudice & discrimination as they moved into other spheres of life

c. Women understood that their experience was significantly different from that of men & that theory, practice, etc. would have to be reconsidered to take into account women's views

Feminism has continued to grow in the 90s & 00s even as other mvmts come & go

Feminist theory is now frequently intl in scope

Third wave feminism is now active, focusing on women around the globe & the diverse types of women

Women's studies programs are now common in all major universities

Feminism now examines substantive issues such as gender in the workplace, rape, popular culture, motherhood, writing, etc.

Feminism often uses contextualize theory / research similar to Weber's verstehen or Schutz's phenomenology

Important journals in feminism include Signs, Feminist Studies, Sociological Inquiry, Gender & Society, etc.

Professional associations include Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), the National Women's Studies Association (NSWA)

Feminism looks at the world from a vantage point, the vantage point of women

Feminism examines the ways in which the activity of women, subordinated by gender & various stratificational practices such as class, race, age, heterosexuality, geosocial inequality, etc., recreate the world

Feminists & women have been marginalized from society in general, but also from academe, & even sociology

As a social science, feminism is unique because it has the goal of social reform

Feminism focuses on sexism, or gendered inequality, but also on inequality in general

Feminists believe that gender is perhaps the fundamental stratification or inequality, visa vie economic inequality, race inequality, national inequality, etc.

Feminism has often become tied to sexual politics, including abuse, rape, sexual preference, abortion, etc.

Germaine Grear, Female Eunich, Betty Friedan

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Outline on the Introduction to Structuralism

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STRUCTURALISM HOLDS THAT SOCIAL GROUPS, STRUCTURES, ETC. ARE PRIOR TO THE PERSON; I.E. THEY CONSTRUCT THE PERSON & ARE CENTRAL TO UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL RELATIONS

Structuralism was a reaction against French humanism, the especially existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre

Structuralism has enjoyed periodic revivals, mostly, as now, in response to new ideas about language, rhetoric, or the function of criticism vis à vis other disciplines

Review: Jean-Paul Sartre

Structuralism is a generic term denoting the school which believes that society is prior to the individual

Structuralism is often used to refer to a particular style of sociological work, although it is not at all distinctive

Structuralism focuses on structures that are fundamentally different than Marxist structures or functionalist structures

In many ways, structuralism, functionalism, conflict theory, modernism, & others are the opposite of dramaturgy, exchange theory, phenomenology, ethnomethodology in that the former see various types of structures as central to understanding society while the latter sometimes even deny the existence of such structures & see the interaction w/in the consciousness or btwn people as central

There are several variants of structuralism, including: psychological, Marxist, & linguist

a. PSYCHOLOGICAL STRUCTURALISM EXAMINES THE "DEEP STRUCTURES OF THE MIND"

Psychological structuralism examines aspects of consciousness that are more fundamental than instincts

Freud & Marcuse are examples of psychological structuralism

Structuralism focus on the unconscious structure which leads people to think & act as people do

b. MARXIST STRUCTURALISM LOOKS AT ALL THE SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF SOCIETY ESP THE ECON STRUCTURES

Marxist structuralism focuses on the invisible large structures of society & see them as determinants of the actions of people as well as of society in general

Marx examined the unseen economic structure of capitalist society

The works of Marx, Mills, Dahrendorf are examples of Marxist structuralism

At its most general level structuralism simply refers to a sociological perspective based on the concept of social structure & the view that society is prior to individuals

c. LINGUIST STRUCTURALISTS FOCUS ON HOW LANGUAGE, ITS CONSTRUCTION & USE IMPACT SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Linguistic structuralists believe that the individual & the individual structures they create are prior to society

Note that most linguists today, contrary to structural linguists, believe that society & language evolved simultaneously & that one could not arise w/o the other

For contemporary linguists, language is such an important part of society & human consciousness that one could not exist w/o the other

The anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss is an example of a linguist structuralist

Structuralists see a link btwn the structures of the mind & the structures of society

Linguist structuralism focuses on the dialectical relationship btwn individuals & social structures

Structuralism, as constituted by the linguistic turn, is a part of that wider formalist enterprise in the humanities which may be seen in Aristotle's Poetics which analyzes language

The linguistic turn is the idea that all perceptions, concepts, & truth claims are constructed in language, along with the corresponding 'subject positions'

For structuralists, subject positions are nothing more than transient epiphenomena of this or that cultural discourse

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Outline on an Intro to Post Structuralism

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POST STRUCTURALISTS EXAMINE WHAT THEY BELIEVE TO BE THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL OF STRUCTURES SUCH AS POWER, KNOWLEDGE, SEXUALITY, CRIME, & MORE

Jacques Derrida's 1966 speech proclaimed the dawning of the post structuralist age

Review: Derrida

The major post structuralist is Michel Foucault, but he is also considered to be a post modernist

Review: Foucault

Foucault focused on structures, but he later moved beyond structures to focus on power & the linkage btwn knowledge & power

Post structuralism is the school of thought which emerged in the late 1970s, claiming to supersede, or at any rate to 'problematize,' the earlier structuralism

Post structuralists accept the importance of structure but go beyond to encompass a wide range of other concerns

Post structuralists have the most in common w/ the linguistic structuralists

It is difficult to differentiate btwn structuralists, post structuralists, & post modernists

LANGUAGE / COMMUNICATION / DISCOURSE IS A FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF SOCIETY SINCE WHAT WE SAY ABOUT 'REALITY' DEFINES THAT REALITY

Post structuralism is best understood as a French inspired variant of the so called 'linguistic turn'

The linguistic turn is the idea that all perceptions, concepts, truth claims & their corresponding 'subject positions' are constructed in language & thus are nothing more than transient epiphenomena of this or that cultural discourse

From Saussure, post structuralism takes the notion of language as a system of immanent relationships & differences 'without positive terms'

Post structuralism takes from Nietzsche its outlook of extreme epistemological & ethico evaluative relativism

Post structuralism takes from Foucault the counter Enlightenment rhetoric of 'power/knowledge' as the motivating force behind the talk of reason or truth

Post structuralist is vulnerable to all the familiar criticisms - including forms of transcendental refutation - rehearsed against thorough-going skeptics & relativists down through the ages

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Outline on the Intro to Micro / Macro Integration

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MICRO / MACRO INTEGRATION EXAMINES THE RELATIONSHIP BTWN THE MICRO LEVEL / THE INDIVIDUAL & INDIVIDUALISTIC PROCESSES, W/ THE MACRO LEVEL / SOCIAL STRUCTURES & LARGER SOCIAL FORCES

The micro macro problem is, in many ways, the American version of the European agency structure problem

Micro means small, minute or diminutive & in social theory usually refers to the range of social behavior including the personal, individualistic, the lived life world, everyday life, social psychological, subjective etc. spheres

Macro means large, significant, or outsized & in social theory usually refers to the range of social behavior such as structural, objective, large group, societal, cultural, systemic, etc. spheres

Micro macro integration became a central problem in sociology in the 1980s

Norbert Elias (1939 - 1994), a European sociologist was a leader on the micro macro issue

The micro macro problem is concerned w/ several issues including whether social behavior is the result of micro or macro forces, whether the micro sphere creates the macro sphere or vice versa, whether there even is a micro or a macro level, whether the differentiation of the two levels is false, & so on

Ritzer (1979, 1981a) has developed a paradigm that integrates micro & macro levels in both their subjective & objective forms

MOST ATTEMPTS TO INTEGRATE MICRO & MACRO LEVEL ANALYSIS FOCUS ON HOW EACH LEVEL CONSTITUTES & IS CONSTITUTED BY THE OTHER LEVELS

For Ritzer there are four major levels of social analysis, including

- macro subjectivity

- macro objectivity

- micro objectivity

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The Table on Ritzer's Major Levels of Social Analysis shows that Ritzer accords priority to no level of analysis, & is instead concerned w/ the dialectical relationship among all of them

Jeffry Alexander (1982-83) has formulated a schema, similar to Ritzer's, which is called Multidimensional Sociology

As a functionalist, Alexander develops his model around the concepts of Order & Action

Each of Alexander's structures has an individual (micro) level & a collective macro level, creating four major levels of social analysis

- collective idealist

- collective materialist

- individual idealist

- individual materialist

In his schema, Alexander accords priority to the collective idealist level

Norbert Wiley (1988) delineates four major levels of analysis that are similar to Alexander's schema, including the:

- self or individual level

- interaction level

- social structure level

- culture level

James Coleman (1986) has concentrated on the micro macro problem & later extended it into a Rational Choice Model (1990)

Allen Liska (1990) extended Coleman's work

	INTRO TO MICRO / MACRO INTEGRATION	Top
	The Micro / Macro Question
	Social Insight
	C W Mills: The Sociological Imagination
	MANY THEORIES HAVE APPROACHED THE MICRO / MACRO ISSUE, USUALLY FROM A MICRO PERSPECTIVE
	Overview of Marx
	Base & Superstructure
	The Mode of Production
	Alienation
	Ideology
	Marx on Micro / Macro Integration
	Overview of Weber
	Rationality
	The PESC
	Weber's Debate w/ the Ghost of Marx
	Weber on Micro / Macro Integration
	Overview of Durkheim
	Mechanical & Organic Solidarity
	The Division of Labor
	Durkheim on Micro / Macro Integration
	Goffman on Micro / Macro Integration
	Intro to Blumer: Micro / Macro Integration in Symbolic Interactionism
	Ethnomethodology on Micro / Macro Integration
	Intro to Baldwin: Symbolic Interactionism & Micro / Macro Integration
	Coleman's Rational Choice Theory
	Burt's Structural Theory of Action
	Why Study Orgs? Because the orgl level encompasses mid range theory & the micro / macro integration
	Intro to Marcuse: A psychological theory is a foundation of social theory, bridging the micro / macro chasm
	Figurations
	Micro Figurations
	Macro Figuratons
	SOME THEORIES HAVE ACHIEVED MICRO / MACRO INTEGRATION
	The Micro / Macro Continuum
	Micro to Macro Models
	A Micro / Macro Model

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Table on Ritzer's Major Levels of Social Analysis

Objective

Macroscopic

Subjective

I. Macro objective
e.g. society, law, bureaucracy, architecture, tech, language, etc.

II. Macro subjective:
e.g. culture, norms, values, etc.

Microscopic

III. Micro objective:
e.g. patterns of behavior, action, interaction, etc.

IV. Micro subjective:
e.g. perceptions, beliefs, social construction of reality, etc.

The Table on the Major Levels of Social Analysis shows that Ritzer accords priority to no level of analysis, & is instead concerned w/ the dialectical relationship among all of them

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Outline on an Intro to Agency Structure Integration

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AGENCY STRUCTURE INTEGRATION EXAMINES THE NATURE OF INDIVIDUALISTIC POWER / REFLEXIVITY INTERACTS W/ STRUCTURAL FORCES INCLUDING CULTURE, POWER, THE ECON, STRUCTURES OF THE MIND, ETC.

The agency structure problem is, in many ways, the European version of the American micro macro problem

Agents are usually micro level actors but may also be collective level actors such as families, churches, businesses, unions, etc.

Structures are usually macro level phenomena, but structures also impact & operate in everyday life

AGENCY STRUCTURE ANALYSIS TENDS TO SEE THIS SPLIT AS A DICHOTOMY WHEREAS MICRO MACRO ANALYSIS IS LIKELY TO VIEW SEVERAL LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

Giddens' structuration theory sees agency & structure as a "duality"

Giddens' concept of a duality denotes that the parts of the duality cannot be separated from one another if one is to depict an accurate understanding of the phenomenon

Agency is implicated in structure & structure is implicated in agency

Giddens sees structure as both constraining & enabling

Margaret Archer (1982) views agency & structure as a "dualism"

In a dualism, the components can & should be separated for examination

Thus, for Archer, agency & structure can & should be separated

Archer is also examines the relationship btwn culture & agency & recently developed a more general agency structure theory (1995)

Pierre Bourdieu differentiates btwn habitus & field

Habitus is an internalized mental, or cognitive, structure through which people deal w/ the social world

Habitus both produces, & is produced by the society

The field is a network of relations among objective positions

The structure of the field serves to constrain agents, be they individuals or collectivities

THE RELATIONSHIP BTWN AGENCY & STRUCTURE IS NOT OF INDEPENDENCE BUT RATHER OF MUTUAL INTERACTION, EACH CONSTITUTING THE OTHER

The relationship btwn the habitus & the field of one of mutual interaction:

Mutual interaction is seen when the field conditions the habitus & the habitus constitutes the field

Jurgen Habermas, a critical theorists, & viewed as being sympathetic to the modernist school, examines the agency structure problem in his consideration of the colonization of the life world

The system arises from the life world but ultimately the system comes to develop its own structural characteristics & colonization of the life world

The life world is a micro world where people interact & communicate

The system has its roots in the life world

As structures grow in independence & power, they come to exert more & more control over the life world

In the modern world, the system is "colonizing, " that is exerting control over the life world

Ulrich Beck's The Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992) discusses the unprecedented risks facing society today

	THEORETICAL SYNTHESIS BTWN MICRO MACRO ANALYSIS & AGENCY STRUCTURE ANALYSIS IS ON-GOING, BUT THERE IS STILL A WIDE GAP BTWN MICRO ANALYSIS SUCH AS DRAMATURGY, WHICH DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF STRUCTURE, & STRUCTURALISM, WHICH SEES MICRO RELATIONSHIPS AS CONSTITUTED BY STRUCTURES / SOCIAL FORCES
	The micro macro & the agency structure problems bring to light the overall problem of fragmentation in sociology
	Many theorists are attempting to combine theories to come up w/ a general theory of Society
	Levine (1991a) is synthesizing Simmel & Parsons
	Alexander is examining neofunctionalism to combine it w/ symbolic interactionism, feminism, exchange theory, etc.
	Elster, 1985; Mayer, 1994; Roemer, 1996c are post Marxists who are bringing mainstream ideas to Marxism
	Harvey, 1989; Jameson, 1984; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985 are bringing post modernism ideas to Marxism
	Crippen, 1994; Maryanski & Turner, 1992 are working w/in sociobiology
	Coleman, 1990 is working on rational choice theory which combines sociology & economics
	Systems Theory has its roots in the physical science but Niklas Luhmann, 1982, has applied it to the social world
	Marcuse develops a social theory based on psychology, esp Freudian psych, thus illuminating the relationship btwn free will & the social structures that limit & empower it

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Outline on an intro to Metatheorizing

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- Project: Metatheorizing

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METATHEORIZING IS THE SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE UNDERLYING STRUCTURE OF THEORY

While metatheorists take theory as their subject of study, theorists think about the social world

Many theorists are also metatheorists in that they examine theory and the process of theory construction, as well as the social world

Fuhrman & Snizek, 1990 are metatheorists

Marx was a metatheorists in that he examined Hegel, the Young Hegelians, political economists, and the utopian socialists

Parsons describe his The Structure of Social Action, 1937, 1949, as an "empirical" study of his theoretical ancestors

Paul Furfey, 1953, 1965 offered the first, but flawed, effort to define metatheory

Gouldner, 1970, wrote The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology to define a sociology of sociology

Friedrichs, 1970; Ritzer, 1975a, examined the concept of the Paradigm, which is key in metatheoretical work, in light of Thomas Kuhn's, 1962, 1970 work

Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1970. 2nd ed. 1970. Chicago, University of Chicago Press which is an examination of theoretical models as paradigms which compete w/ each other on a variety of levels

METATHEORIZING CREATES NEW THEORY, DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTING THEORY, & A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

For Ritzer, there are three types of metatheorizing are delineated on the basis of their end products including the:
a. creation of new theory
b. attainment of a deeper understanding of theory
c. creation of an overarching theoretical perspective (a metatheory)

Metatheory is inherently interdisciplinary & thus should be thought of as a dialogue with other nearby disciplines and with contemporary political and moral conversations about the social world

Metatheory exposes the assumptions of social scientists so as to make them more aware of where they stand in relation to other contemporary dialogues

Metatheory has a commitment to give up assumptions which have weakened other perspectives, such as positivism

Metatheory gives up positivistic assumptions & instead rests on the epistemological ground of relativism and, more importantly, on judgmental relativism

Metatheory pulls social theory into reviews of the history of ideas, textual debate, philosophical discourse, ideological critique, & other unresolvable intellectual issue

Metatheory directs attention away from the analysis of the operative dynamics of the social world

Despite the possibility of metatheory to move away from scientifically testable proposition, metatheory can also be used to produce better, testable, theories

Ritzer holds that social theory is improved by systematic, comparative & reflexive attention to implicit conceptual structures & oft hidden assumptions

For Ritzer metatheory has an integrating impulse that differentiates it from grand theory

The difference btwn meta & grand theory is that the former has a commitment to interdisciplinary exploration, i.e. a theory constructed of theories, as opposed to grand theory which may or may not be composed of other theories, which attempts to explain everything

Ritzer’s metatheorizing depicts & analyzes the strengths & weaknesses of a variety of major & less common paradigmatic approaches to the conceptualization of society and culture

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Outline on an Introduction to Modernity

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- Project: Most Important Features of Modernity

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MODERNISTS HOLD THAT SOCIETY CONTINUES TO EXIST AS THE RATIONALIZATION OF SOCIAL RELATIONS & OTHER ENLIGHTENMENT PRINCIPLES

Today, social theorists are trying to determine whether society, as well as theories about it, have undergone a transition from the modern era to a new & fundamentally different post modern era

Modernists such as Habermas, Giddens, et al, believe we continue to live in a society that is still best described as modern

Modernists believe we theorize & research in much the same way that social thinkers have always done

Post modernists, such as Jean Baudrillard, Jean Francois Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, et al, believe society has changed so dramatically that we now live in a qualitatively different world

Post modernists believe we theorize & research in new & different ways in the post modern world

Giddens uses terms like radical, high, or late modernity to describe society today & to indicate that it is not the same society as the one of the classical theorists, but it is continuous w/ that society

WHILE SOCIETY CONTINUES TO RATIONALIZE, SOME BELIEVE THIS IS AN OUT OF CONTROL RATIONALIZATION, & A LIMITED RATIONALIZATION

Giddens sees modernity today as a juggernaut that is, to some degree, out of control

Structuration theory best describes the processes & consequences of the juggernaut

In Modernity & Self Identity (1991) Giddens views the self as developing reflexively w/in the juggernaut of modernity

In The Transformation of Intimacy (1992) Giddens examines how intimate relations are affected by modernity, & how intimate relations may transform the structures of modernity itself

Ulrich Beck holds that classic modernity was an industrial society concerned w/ maximizing production / wealth & its distribution, while the new modernity is a "risk society" concerned w/ prevention, minimization, & channeling of risk

In Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity, (1992) Beck examines how modernity has generated both unprecedented risks & unprecedented reflexive capacities to deal w/ those risks

FOR HABERMAS THE PROBLEM IS LESS THE OUT OF CONTROL RATIONALIZATIONS, THAN THE REMNANTS OF TRADITIONALISM INCLUDING CORRUPTION, PATRIARCHY, RACISM, CRONYISM, ETC.

Habermas sees modernity as an unfinished project

For Habermas, the central phenomena of the modern world today continues to be rationality as it was in Weber's day

For Habermas, the utopian goal is still the maximization of rationality both in the system & in the life world

Ritzer examines the growth of formal rationality & the danger of an "iron cage of rationality"

While Weber focused on bureaucracy in general, Ritzer examines specific bureaucracies including McDonalds & American Express

In The McDonaldization of Society, (1993) & Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society, (1995) Ritzer examines operation & impact of hyperrationality in Modernity

Touraine, 1995; Wagner, 1994 see the world in modern terms & they use modernist techniques of standing apart from society, from a vantage point, rationally & systematically analyzing & describing & portraying using grand narratives

	Pre Enlightenment ideas had few glimpses of what modernity was about in terms of progress, science, rationality, etc.
	The Enlightenment thinkers developed & made popular the idea of modernity
	Marx viewed the development of the modern era as fraught w/ both immense problems & immense potentials
	Weber viewed the development of the modern era as dominated by the iron cage of rationality
	Durkheim viewed the development of the modern era as a difficult transition from traditional society to a new one characterized by isolation, the division of labor, etc.
	Simmel viewed the development of the modern era as allowing people to express potentialities that were repressed in pre modern society
	Rationality
	An example of globalization can be seen in the US & Japanese auto industries
	Fordism is an example of formal rationality
	Globalization requires the development of rationalization
	Americanization is a powerful quality of globalization

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An Introduction to Post Modernity

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- Project: Post Modernism & Optimism

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POST MODERNISM HOLDS THAT RATIONALIZATION ULTIMATELY HAS NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON SOCIETY & THAT RATIONALITY WHEN PURSUED TO ITS FULL DEVELOPMENT BECOMES IRRATIONAL

Post modernity (P-M) is an ideology/ school of thought/ which holds that through rationality, as embodied in the social sciences, we are lead to exploitation & oppression

Post modernism developed as a philosophical view from romanticism, which directly followed the Enlightenment & was a reaction against the Enlightenment

For P-M, Friedrich Nietzsche is an important influence; Nietzsche saw Weber's rationalization as mere regimentation & constraint

Post modernism evolved out of the principles of Marxism which hold that we need to reject mainstream culture & create a new culture

For Marx, the proletariat had to create a non bourgeoisie culture, a workers' culture

P-M EMBRACES A FORM OF RADICAL ATHEORETICALITY, METHODS, & FORM OF PRESENTATION

Post modernism embraces a complete openness to perspectives in social inquiry, art, political empowerment, etc.

Many post modernists will not define their position in the affirmative because to do so, is too rational, limiting, oppressive

Post modernism's critique of modernity is that it is a flawed ideology or school of thought because rationality crushes the human spirit

Post modernity is a new historical epoch that has succeeded the modern era, modernity

Post modern social theory is a new way of thinking about post modernity

According to the P-Ms, the world is so different it requires a new way to think about it

Post modernists ask whether technology, rationality, science, etc. have been given too great a role in society today

Post modernists believe that technology, rationality, science, etc. as characterized in modern, industrial society are harmful to society in various ways

P-M ADVOCATES MULTI PERSPECTIVALISM WHEREIN ALL POINTS OF VIEW / KNOWLEDGE ARE TAKEN INTO ACCT

See Also: Mannheim on multi perspectivalism

P-M believes that no one kind of knowledge can tell us, or society, what we need to do

P-M believes that only one way of knowing things, whether it be science, religion, or an ideology such as Marxism, is inadequate to provide the knowledge we need because there are multiple ways of knowing

For the P-M, no one paradigm can tell us "the truth"

P-M believes that knowledge consists of more than what can be tested scientifically

Ways of knowing embraced by P-M include cultural knowledge, artistic knowledge, ethics & examine fields such as justice, happiness, beauty, etc.

P-M HOLD THAT SOCIETY NEEDS TO ESCHEW OR EVEN DESTROY THE LARGE BODIES OF 'TAINTED KNOWLEDGE' WHICH EXISTS TODAY BECAUSE IT IS EXPLOITATIVE, BIASED, ETC.

Postman argues that modern societies are technopolies which are societies in which technology defines religion, art, family, politics, history, truth, privacy, intelligence, etc.

For Postman, technopolies have robbed modern people of their souls & invalidated alternative ways of living & believing

P-M rejects the positivist notion that things have one meaning

For P-M, art, religion, even scientific findings have different meanings to different people

Like ethnomethodology, subjective, interpretive meaning is the only valid type of meaning

Post modernism rejects mainstream culture to create greater freedom & respect for all

P-M rejects mainstream culture because each school, culture, etc. in some way rejects or limits others

P-Mism advocates total inclusion

CULTURE IS A WINDOW TO UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY; ALL ASPECTS OF CULTURE, ESP MARGINALIZED CULTURE, ARE IMPORTANT

P-M rejects the stratification of culture into "high" & "low" or popular culture & embraces the values of all cultural representations

P-M views high culture as merely culture that, in the past was created for the upper class & was a cultural representation used to differentiate the rich from the poor

An example of the stratification of culture is classic music where the elites paid composers, who were usually lower class, who were elevated to a medieval professional class, to write music that took hundreds of performers

The film Amadeus depicts the relationship of lower class composers writing music for the elites

P-M notes that an example of the stratification of culture is the early depiction of jazz as unsophisticated & not suitable for the upper class

Today jazz & much music of the middle & lower classes, i.e. folk, appalachian, hip hop, etc. are all respected forms of music

For P-M, the people need to create a range of alternative cultures from punk & alternative rock to classic

Post-modernism rejects many schools of thought such as:
- positivism
- functionalism
- Marxism
- conflict theory
- Weberianism

For Christopher Lash, P-M is an outgrowth of post-industrial society because the "new classes" of information specialists, & people who have "expressive occupations" such as writers, researchers, entertainers, etc., like Nietzsche embrace diverse forms of knowledge & lifestyles

RATIONALITY IS AN INCOMPLETE METHOD OF UNDERSTANDING / KNOWLEDGE

P-M demonstrates that while scientific knowledge is useful, it cannot by itself solve problems

While modern medicine has the ability to provide better healthier than the world has ever seen, business, ethical, political, & philosophical factors determine the level of access & benefit people receive

The development of P-M demonstrates an important social dynamic in that modern, industrial society calls on people to reject tradition, while post-modern, post-industrial society calls on people to reject science, rationality, etc.

From the point of view of traditionalists, science & rationality offer no real life or morality & instead offer only chaos & nihilism

From the point of view of modernists, post-modernism offers only chaos & nihilism

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For the post modernists, progress is an illusion

Post modernism abandons focus on economic & scientific progress by asking questions such as:
- Have we really made progress?
- Who has benefited under "progress"?
- Under what criteria does "progress" exist?

Post-modernism opposes globalization because it is the ultimate imposition of rationalization

Deconstructionism is a branch of post modern philosophy which emphasizes tearing down "popular culture," e.g., global culture

THE MAIN CRITIQUE OF P-M IS THAT IT ONLY OFFERS CRITICISMS OF SOCIAL THEORY, & NO ALTERNATIVE THEORY OR VISION OF SOCIETY

Critics of P-M note that P-M is very good at deconstructing society, but it really offers no alternatives

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The critique of post modernism is that it substitutes only individualism, cultural diversity, etc. for all of Modernity & popular culture

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Jurgen Habermas' critique of post modernism is that post modernism is merely an embrace of radical individualism. The

For Habermas, the post modernist's rejection of rationality offers nothing in its place

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Outline on an Introduction to Theories of Consumption

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THEORIES OF CONSUMPTION EXAMINE THE INDIVIDUAL & SOCIAL FORCES WHICH SHAPE CONSUMPTION OF MATERIAL GOODS

Consumer theory exists in both the modernist & post modernist schools

Coming of age during the Industrial Revolution, energized by the ensuing social problems, sociology has always focused on industry, industrial organizations, work, & workers

The industrial / economic focus of social theory is most obvious in Marx, Marxism, etc., Durkheim and the division of labor, Weber on capitalism & bureaucracy, the interest of the Chicago school in work, etc.

Simmel looks at consumption in his examination of the tragedy of culture produced by the proliferation of human products

Simmel also examined money and fashion

Thorstein Veblen, 1889, 1994, has a famous work on conspicuous consumption

Post modernism defines post modern society as a consumer society w/ the result that consumption plays a central role in that theory

Baudrillard, 1970/1998 wrote the Consumer Society

Lipovetsky conducts a post postmodern work on the importance of fashion

Urry, 1995, Consuming Places

Ritzer, 1999, Enchanting a Disenchanted World

Humphrey, 1998, Shelf Life

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