Continuity and Change Flashcards
(34 cards)
1
Q
Define sociology
A
- A mindset that uses observation and theory to systematically link what happens in our everyday lives to the changing social contexts in which we live
- A way to methodically make connections between individual lives and larger social contexts
2
Q
Describe coffee as an example of sociology
A
- Useful outlet for get togethers due to its widespread consumption
- People either use disposable or reusable cups
- Maintaining public image or genuine concern about environment
-
Global involvement for creation of coffee
- Harvesting beans
- Packaging
- Brands
3
Q
What is emotional labour?
A
-
Management of facial and bodily display for a wage → Smiling despite not being happy
- Negative when it comes at the sacrifice of one’s autonomy
- Ingenuine emotional reactions = Mentally exhausting in comparison to being authentic
4
Q
What is sociological imagination?
A
- How individual lives are affected by various factors
- Connection between individual and society
- Personal troubles → Not just one person but stems from a broader issue
5
Q
What is reflexivity?
A
- Awareness of how something affects your research
- Acknowledging who you are as a person, how that causes people to respond to you
6
Q
What is capitalism?
A
- Economic system in which the means of production are held privately and operated for profit
- Private property
- Wage labour
- Competitive markets
- Voluntary exchange
7
Q
What is feudalism?
A
- Economic and social system in which those who owned land controlled the peasants farming that land and had rights to a part of their produce, labour or to charge a rent
8
Q
Explain Marxism
A
- Bourgeoisie
- Class which owns and controls the means of production within the capitalist system
- Proletariat
- Class which does not own and control the means of production within the capitalist system
- Must sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie for a wage
- Marx argued that the 2 groups were dependent on each other but had rival interests
- Class Consciousness
- One’s awareness of one’s class, it’s interests and its relationship to the means of production
- Foundations for a revolution → Communism
- Alienation
- Workers are separated from the products of their labour
- Capitalist system → Workers lose control over their labour = Labour is foreign
9
Q
How did Marx envision future societies?
A
- Characterised by a shift from realm of necessity
- Individuals constrained by the necessity of working to meet their material needs
- To realm of freedom
- People are free to act as they please, unconstrained by material necessities
- Work would be more varied
- One thing today, another tomorrow
10
Q
Where was Marx incorrect?
A
- Predicted communist revolutions to occur in the most advanced capitalist countries → Germany or England
- Instead the major revolutions happened in Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia
- Countries that were communist have transitioned into versions of a capitalist system
11
Q
What is the Protestant Ethic?
A
- Belief in hard work, thrift, and personal discipline → Seen as common to the values of the Protestant faith
- Weber saw it as a cultural spark that had an elective affinity with capitalism and allowed it to grow in influence
12
Q
What is elective affinity?
A
- Relationship between cultural or social elements → Each reinforces, supports or affirms the other
13
Q
What is a sect?
A
- Group that breaks away from an established church
- Based on denying or chaning key beliefs of the established group
14
Q
What is Calvinism?
A
- Belief adopted by a sect
- Predestination → Fate is pre-determined
- Weber argued that this caused caution
- Avoid lavish consumption
- No partying
- Prohibitions on…
- Luxury
- Most charity → Money neither spent or given away = Investment only option
15
Q
What is bureaucracy?
A
- (Weber) Form of administrative organisation characterised by…
- Hierarchy
- Chain of command
- Division of labour
- Formal procedures
- Impersonal interaction
16
Q
What is the ‘iron cage’ of rationality?
A
- Situation in which people are increasingly compelled to act in accordance with dictates of…
- Efficiency
- Calculation
- Rationality
- Trapped → Become accustomed
- (Weber) Saw little chance that it could be overthrown by revolution
- Evole into tighter sets of rules and guidelines
- Dominate lives until last tonne of fossil fuel
17
Q
How did Durkheim see the emergence of modernity?
A
- Shift from mechanical solidarity
- Integration of a group through similarity by way of shared values, norms, ideas and behaviours
- To organic solidarity
- Integration of a group by way of mutual interdependence
Solidarity = Glue
18
Q
What was the true nature of humanity in Durkheim’s eyes?
A
- Challenge of maintaining solidarity
- Argued that other institutions were needed to support the economic integration provided by the division of labour
- Legal system
- Meritocratic education system → Best people taking right jobs
- Set of shared norms (inc. religious)
19
Q
How did Durkheim view change?
A
- Did not dismiss importance
- People who challenge norms are essential because norms can lag behind needed social change
- However, change without regulation leads to social disintergration
20
Q
What is fatalism?
A
- (Durkheim) Social state characterised by excessively strong norms/ over-regulation
- Freedom of behaviour is heavily constrained
- Feelings of fatalism associated with…
- Oppression
- Hopelessness
21
Q
What is a state of ‘anomie’?
A
- (Durkheim) Social state characterised by dramatic shifts in individual status
- As the result of rapid, unregulated economic change
- Feelings of anomie associated with…
- Frustration
- Uncertainty
- Unhappiness
22
Q
What is a blasé attitude?
A
- (Simmel) Detached attitude towards events and other people required to navigate life in a city
- Need to not attend too closely or be too invested in events and other people
- Not being too spontaneous or unpredictable
23
Q
How did Parsons critique Spencer?
A
- Spencer → Critic of war and imperial expansion
- Believed that some societies were superior to others
- Interracial marriage and children should be discouraged because the child would not find them suited to either race
- Parsons → Quipped that no one reads Spencer anymore
- Book synthesising work of Weber and Durkheim
- Sociology should focus on the way that social rules and values integrated people voluntarily
24
Q
Why are Durkheim, Marx and Weber considered ‘canon’?
A
- They were not explicitly evolutionary in their writing
25
What are the limitations of basing the foundations of sociology around Marx, Durkheim and Weber?
* When early modern sociologists wrote about modernity, they meant 'Western Europe'
* Rest of world reduced to being used as comparison
26
What is ethnocentrism?
* Act of judging other cultures based on the standards, values and ideas common to one's own culture
* Ignoring different perspectives of other groups
27
What is extraversion?
* (Hountondji) Intellectual work being extraverted when oriented to the ideas and problems of other societies or cultures
* Particularly the way that colonised societies and settler colonial societies are oriented intellecturally to the Global North
28
What is double consciousness?
* Feeling of internal conflict and estrangement arising from oppression
* Occurs when one's identity is divided into distinct sets of thoughts, strivings and ideals → Individual struggles to reconcile
29
What is globalisation?
* Ongoing process of social change by which regions and nations become increasingly interconnected with one another
* Especially in regard to economic, poltical or cultural phenomena
30
What is liquid modernity?
* New type of modernity associated with the contemporary era
* Describes a condition of constant change, instability and mobility affecting all areas of human life
31
What is methodological cosmopolitanism?
* Approach to social science that sees social phenomena as taking place in an increasingly globalised context
* Attention to processes that transcend national borders
32
What is methodological nationalism?
* Approach to social science that sees the nation-state as the primary object of analysis
33
What are survival circuits?
* Dynamic networks of people and money which help support the economies of Majority World countries
* Involve women who, as low-wage migrant workers send remittances back to their home countries
34
What is cultural imperialism?
* Process by which the culture, values and norms of one society are imposed on another
* Typically reference to global dominance of Western culture and ideals
