Final

Question 1

Marx was wrong to say that our identities and our consciousness derive largely from our position in the class structure. To the contrary, such factors as race, nationality, gender and sexual identity are much more important.

Answer 1

1. Identify Marx’s concept of class
   - The relationship that groups have to the means of production, with different modes of production
   - What forms our identity has changed since the Industrial society Marx was writing about
   - In today’s capitalism we do not necessarily relate to others who share our class position
2. Black Lives Matter
   - Blacks coming together to fight injustices that are still present after the successes of the Civil Rights Movement;
   - Even those who don’t directly associate themselves with the movement, many blacks speak out against it from varying social classes:
   * former president Barak Obama
   * students in Ferguson, Missouri
   - The strength of their identity as African Americans have several influences (racist experiences, cultural upbringing)
3. Me Too Movement
   - International
   - Began after the exposure of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct allegations
   - Celebrities in high power such as Jennifer Lawrence and Uma Thurman have shared their sexual violence stories, same with everyday women
   - Unfortunately, sexual harassment and assault seem to be an aspect of womanhood, and this is something that brings women together and shapes their identities
4. Reaction to the Humboldt Broncos bus crash
   - Compared to negative nationalism in the US
   - Hockey as an aspect of Canadian culture, relatable
   - Actions showing solidarity
   1) Jersey Day, in which people wore hockey jerseys to school or work
   2) #SticksOutForHumboldt in which people placed their hockey sticks out by their front door
   3) Increase in blood and organ donation pledges since the accident

Question 2

Science and religion are largely incompatible. If you have faith in one, you must reject the other.

Answer 2

• Fundamentalism vs bible as myth

1. Fundamentalism
   
   • If creationism and Genesis is true, evolution and natural selection can’t be
   • What is the purpose of human life?
   • Fundamentalists typically have difficulty accepting change
2. Bible as Myth
   
   • Bible as a teaching tale rather than literal truth, a guide to a life of purity to get to heaven
   • The tale of Creation is not the truth, meaning evolution and natural selection can be accepted
   • Able to balance a life-purpose (serving God) while still accepting natural selection which doesn’t have an inherent purpose for being
   • Able to combine the two: maybe God created natural selection
   • Those who view the bible as myth are more likely to accept change

Question 3

Montgomery andChirotargue that the thinkers at thecentreof their account—Smith, Marx, Darwin, Hamilton and Jefferson—all represent the ideals of the Enlightenment, including faith in reason and progress, and that the Enlightenment generated acounter-Enlightenment, culminating in fascism and the Holocaust. They are wrong; the Nazis were deeply rational. What the Holocaust represents is not the rejection of the Enlightenment but the failure of the Enlightenment.

Answer 3

• Rather than making a reasonable action, they responded with emotion.
• Failure to be enlightened
• he Holocaust as an emotional response, a “quick fix” to problems they believed were caused by a marginalized group, and attempted to eradicate them.

1. Religion
   - Religion in itself is the opposite of the reason and science, cannot be proven
   - The conflict between the Christians and the Jews was deeply caused by disagreements on interpretation on the word of Jesus
   - This eventually led Jews to be seen as betrayers of the truth
   - This aspect of anti-semitism was carried into the conflict between the Nazis and the Jews
2. Harmful stereotypes
   - The stereotype of the “money grubbing, greedy Jew” was created from Jews being forced to live in urban areas and therefore working in finance
   - This stereotype was created as an emotional response to Jews who were already facing discrimination.
   - The creation of harmful stereotypes is innately against reason, as they are usually not based in any factual information.
3. Convincing
   - These 2 influencs made it easy for people to agree with anti-semitism
   - Eventually, many were falling victim to the Nazi propaganda demonstrating the failure of the Enlightenment

Question 4

Marxists claim that virtually everything can be explained by class structure. Some economists, deriving their ideas from Adam Smith,claim that virtually everything can be explained by the model of rational choice. Some biologists believe that all behaviour can be explained by natural selection. They cannot all be right, and in fact none of them are right.

Answer 4

• Intellectual imperialism: the belief that any one theory can explain virtually anything is dangerous because it is unlikely that humans have discovered an explanation for everything.
• Just because one theory works well in one field doesn’t mean it will work well in every field

Class structure:

• Class structure may be a good way of explaining how one’s identity is shaped just after the industrial revolution, and when capitalism was new
• Today, class structure does not have as strong of an impact on their identity, rather factors such as race, gender, and nationality have more of an influence

Model of rational choice:

• Smith’s Homo Economicus: humans act in ways to advance their personal interests (i.e. rational)
• successful: in the study of the sociology of the family
• unsuccessful: behavioural economics suggests that humans aren’t always rational in terms of economics

Natural selection:

• non-controversial aspect of sociobiology: the understanding that our brain has evolved as a process of evolution
• controversial aspects of sociobiology: the belief that animals act out of instinct but humans act out of free will
• do humans even have free will or are all our actions a result of our genetic make up?