Midterm 2 Flashcards
(42 cards)
1
Q
what is authority?
A
individuals willingness to comply with an order, motivated because the person is seen as legitimate
2
Q
what is power?
A
the ability to get your way in face of opposition
3
Q
why do people grant authority to the powerful?
A
- they have no choice; if you don’t own the forces of production you have no choice but to accept exploitation and inequality because you have no other way to produce your life
- ideology; powerful groups seem justified, strong understandings justifies power inequality
4
Q
what is traditional authority?
A
- based on the sanctity of tradition, belief in the value and importance of continuing to do something gives it a sense of legitimacy
- willingness to comply is shrinking
- ex. wearing hats inside
5
Q
what is charismatic authority?
A
- willingness to comply based on persons charisma
- often linked to social change; challenge rational forms of authority or have a new way of thinking which sends a message of power to change the world
- unpredictable, irrational, train track analogy; leaders flip the switch
- ex. trump; impossible to predict
6
Q
what is legal rational authority?
A
- transforms our lives into a series of means-end calculations
- taking over modern world
- calculations are superior to meaning and quality; quantitative over qualitative
- ex. “show me the numbers” vs. “take my word”
7
Q
what is Benjamin Franklin’s famous saying? what does it mean?
A
time is money
- not working was literally a waste of time; if you were spending money you spend the money you earned and waste the money you could’ve made instead of spending money
- he was an ideal type of capitalist entrepreneur
8
Q
what is bureaucracy?
A
form of administration or management with very specific tasks and responsibilities, managed and run differently and specifically
- main empirical form of legal rational authority
- primary means of carrying out power; as vital to modern society as machinery
9
Q
what is the ideal type of bureaucracy?
A
- governed by formal, codified rules and procedures
- must have formal qualifications to hold a position
- little individual discretion or qualitative concern
10
Q
what is the difference between booty capitalism and modern capitalism?
A
- booty is risky and hard to predict; irrational and not systematic
- spoils of war; treasurers
- modern is slow, accumulation of capital; rational and systematic
11
Q
what is weber’s thoughts on causation?
A
- impossible to produce laws in society; no straight forward cause and effect relationships
- not literally caused to act in certain ways ; thoughts and interpretations lead us to act in certain ways
12
Q
what is class in the 3 axes of power?
A
- composed of people whose market opportunities and life chances are broadly similar
- may not own forces of production but can run them; middle ground
- largely involuntary; constrains us but is power
13
Q
what is status in the 3 axes of power?
A
- groups characterized by a style of life; need material conditions to have certain lifestyle (money)
- seek to monopolize prestige and social honour
- don’t want just alone in the group have to be people of certain quality
14
Q
what is party in the 3 axes of power?
A
- voluntary organizations
- systematically organized for the collective pursuit of interests
- specifically aimed at changing society
- ex. MADD; anyone can join, taking frowned upon issue and creating huge social change
15
Q
what is credentialism?
A
- people doing things just to get the credentials associated with it
- ex. going to school to get a degree
16
Q
what does comparative method look at?
A
how societies are similar and how they differ
17
Q
what is disenchantment?
A
the world becoming a blasé set of facts rather than an intriguing mystery
18
Q
what is dehumanization?
A
- life has become a rat race chasing goal after goal
- science dehumanizes the world
- ex. eating food, calories come into consideration; human love is pushed aside for blasé facts
- meaningless existence
19
Q
what is elective affinity?
A
- everything clicks in place and changes society in some fundamental way
- train track analogy; unpredictability
- no linear evolution; things can change at any time
- unique socio-historic factors change peoples perceptions
20
Q
what are ideal types?
A
an abstraction that defines, classifies and categorizes social phenomena
- need a way to make more generalized constructions that capture the essence of what something is
21
Q
what is the iron cage of bureaucracy?
A
- we have built an administration which essentially traps us
- formal rules and procedures constrain our freedom
- based on rational calculations
22
Q
what is interpretive methodology?
A
- trying to understand social behaviour rather than explaining it
- interpretations are used to understand what we do
23
Q
what are interpretations, meanings and perceptions?
A
- lead us to act in certain ways
- the way we interpret things changes our perception
- society is shaped by them
24
Q
what is JS Mills method of agreement and differences?
A
- why certain phenomena only emerge in certain places
- ex. capitalism in the west; all societies that became capitalist came from certain features
25
what features influenced capitalism in the west?
1. tools/ machinery
2. large population
3. available labour
4. advanced education
26
what is Martin Luther responsible for?
- conception of the calling
- people are morally obligated to work for the glory of god
- find salvation in this world
- against the buying of indulgences
27
what is John Calvins theological debate within Christianity?
1. god is all knowing and infallible
2. god knows everything that will happen
3. you cannot change your destiny; your fate is predetermined
4. you are either a chosen one or not, you cannot change this
28
what is the protestant ethic?
- how people should lead their life
- look for signs of being chosen
- idea of predestination and salvation
29
Weber's thoughts on priests?
- fixed doctrine
- authority is based on tradition and rational (institutions encourage this)
- part of bureaucracy
30
what is rationalization?
1. development of capitalism
2. rise of bureaucracy
3. social action and rational legal authority
4. social change
5. cumulative effects of rationality
31
what is Robert Michels idea of the iron cage of oligarchy?
- oligarchy; small collection of people
- social movements start as grass roots movements and end up being formal administrations led by experts
- all organizations become bureaucratic despite their original organizational form and goals
- leaders eventually come elite decision makers
32
what is the paradox of science?
1. must have a calling for science
- work must be inherently rewarding and meaningful because work may go unnoticed or become outdated and irrelevant
2. science isn't meaningful to the average person
- most people have an idea of how the things they use work (unlike premodern societies) but have the belief they can figure it out if they wanted to
33
what is social action?
any action oriented to the past, present or future behaviour of other people
- productive forces develop from social action
34
what are the 2 requirements of social action?
- must be oriented towards the behaviour of others
- must be meaningful to the actor
- not all social interactions are meaningful, ex. shaking hands at end of game
35
what is zweckrational?
- weighing pros and cons of each action
- calculated, not meaningful
- most common social action in society
- locks in iron cage of bureaucracy
36
what is wertrational?
- no calculation is needed, just a means
- end goal is never up for discussion
- valued goal is put before everything
37
what is affectual/ traditional?
- with affection; love, jealousy, desire
- social action
- meaningful to actor; can't be jealous without inherent meaning from interpretations
- oriented towards others; jealous of someone else
- tough to analyze and is irrational; emotions are not calculable
- traditional: some forms of tradition don't count, mindless isn't social action
38
what is social honour/ social order?
- the manner which social honour is distributed among status groups
- form of honour that different groups hold in society
not just a byproduct of the economy
39
what is traditionalism?
accumulate only what is needed, follow tradition rather than rational modes of behaviour
- strictly calculated
- class possessing labour destroys traditionalism and moves to franklins time is money
40
what is verstehen?
empathetic engagement with other peoples lives
- need to put ourselves in other peoples shoes to see the world through their eyes
- ex. what does it mean to be 20 years old in 2019?
41
what is vocation?
- something you feel compelled to do, drawn into it
| - need this for the calling of science
42
what is world rejecting and inner worldly in reference to islam and buddhism?
buddhism
- world rejecting; the world is not important to ones salvation
- meditation is about pushing away the world
- ultimate goal is to leave this world and enter nothingness; nirvana
islam
- inner worldly; labour is interested in action seeking a worldly purpose
- no way to associate work with salvation
- contemplation leads to salvation
