Which of the three “grand” sociological theories would best fit research conducted on the following topics: (Hint – check the level of analysis – whether “macro” or “micro” in Module 1 Figure 1). Please provide a brief explanation for your choice.
· Current U.S. immigration policies
· Reasons for an increase in violent crime among adult females in the U.S.
Three “grand” sociological theories
Which of the three “grand” sociological theories would best fit research conducted on the following topics: (Hint – check the level of analysis – whether “macro” or “micro” in Module 1 Figure 1). Please provide a brief explanation for your choice.
· Current U.S. immigration policies
· Reasons for an increase in violent crime among adult females in the U.S.
Module 1: The Individual and Society—A General
Introduction
After completing this module, you should be able to:
· identify the three questions grounding the discipline of sociology
· summarize how sociologists differ from both philosophers and other social scientists in their approach to the relationship between the individual and society
· frame the question, “What is the relationship between the individual and society?” sociologically, as one of the individual’s interaction and connections to larger social wholes
· identify and summarize the concepts and premises grounding sociology’s three main theoretical frameworks for analyzing the connections between the individual and society
· list and illustrate the four challenges faced by traditional theory as it addresses the ways in which individuals and society are connected
· define such general concepts as groups, social structure, social interaction, culture, the social order, society, and the social system
· distinguish the defining elements of a society from the more widely known theoretical construct, the social system
Module 1: The Individual and Society—A General Introduction
Topics
Introduction
The Distinctiveness of the Sociological Perspective
The Individual and Society: Three Theoretical Perspectives
Four Challenges Facing Contemporary Sociological Theory
Resources for Rethinking the Relationship between the Individual and Society
The Individual and Society: A Preliminary Perspective
Introduction
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, few Americans imagined the events that would come to characterize a new sense of national identity and the norms that would be called upon to support it. The period from 1945 to 2000 witnessed not only an altered world map, but, among other things:
· the rise of the “baby boom generation”
· the flowering of the American civil rights movement (together with the movements that followed it)
· the rising (albeit selective) levels of educational and occupational achievement that burst open in the sixties
· Vietnam and the American peace movement
· inflation, OPEC, and the 1973 oil embargo
· new patterns of immigration
· the West’s widening recognition of Holocaust horror
· inflation, globalization, and the first Gulf War
· the Internet and politics unbounded (read: impeachment, hanging chads, a downward DOW)
and early into the twenty-first century, the moments of 9-11 that without question, Americans everywhere share.
So one has to wonder: How does a society maintain itself in the face of so much change? How do international events impact individuals in their daily and role-based lives? How do social structures continue—or not? How do people—real individuals with their multiple social, occupational, family, online, and other roles—maintain a focus? And, equally important, how do individuals participate in such change beyond being mere recipients? Put more dramatically, whether online or off, how and in what ways are individuals both the products and producers of the societies in which they live?
This course addresses these and related questions in the light of sociological theory as it developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (in its European and American settings), and it locates a discussion of the individual and society within the context of global and national social change.
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The Distinctiveness of the Sociological Perspective
Sociology as the Study of Societies and Social Change
Since its beginnings in the nineteenth century, sociology has worked to address several questions, but three are basic. First, early sociologists asked, “How is it that society comes into being?” That is, how is it that people and/or groups interact and become so set in their ways such that over time one can see a specific geographic entity we call a society? Second, these theorists also asked, “How is it that societies change?” That is, how do societies lose, redefine, or otherwise reconfigure their set ways? Third, the early sociologists asked, “Given the fact of change in a society, what are the consequences of social change for the individuals who make up the members of a given society?”
Nineteenth-century sociologists asked these questions because during the periods of the
Enlightenment
and the
Industrial Revolution
Western Europe experienced three types social change:
1. change that affected the political make-up of societies—as monarchies gave way to the rise of democracy
2. change that affected the economic realities of societies—as bartering gave way to the rise of capitalism
3. change that affected the cultural and normative expectations of societies—as estate-based custom and tradition gave way to cities, their impersonalism, and bureaucratic structures
Some early sociologists, such as
Max Weber
(1864–1920) and Karl Marx (1818–1883), came to these changes by way of history and philosophy, and as a result, their answers to the above three questions mirrored those of their earlier intellectual interests. For example, Weber’s historical and philosophical background is reflected in his methodology of verstehen, or the emphasis that sociologists should study the context and intentionalities individuals bring to interactions, whether interactions are with others or among larger social units. Similarly, Marx’s philosophy is reflected in his hope that inequities will be resolved with the advent of a socialist state in which no individuals own property, and “class” differences are, thereby, precluded.
A third early social theorist,
Emile Durkheim
(1858–1917), stands out particularly. Durkheim stressed the need for both conceptual and quantitative responses to the questions noted above, so that sociology would be recognized as a valid science of society. In fact, one of his most noted early works was his classic study of suicide. This study compared suicide rates of different countries in order to test specific hypotheses that would indicate how even this highly privatized act was, in the end, itself social.
By the time sociology became established in American and European universities during the mid-twentieth century, generations of sociologists had combined the historical, philosophical, and statistical roots of sociology’s early days to engender an approach to research that paralleled those of the natural sciences. As a social science, sociology’s answers to questions had also to be rooted in logical and systematically collected observations about presumed or “hypothesized” realities. Further, any conclusions drawn from such research were to remain open and provisional pending the discovery of new data that might require a different conclusion. Thus sociology became its own social scientific enterprise, and was no longer an auxiliary effort tied to either philosophy or other social sciences. What then, is the distinctiveness of the sociological perspective? The answer is presented below two parts: (1) the differences among sociology, philosophy, and other social sciences; and (2) the specific object of sociological research and analysis.
Differences among Sociology, Philosophy, and Other Social Sciences
The differences between sociology and philosophy, and sociology and other social sciences are easy to see if we take our overall question, i.e., “What is the relationship between the individual and society?” and ask how either a philosopher or other social scientist (other than a sociologist) might approach it.
Sociology versus Philosophy
From the perspective of philosophy, one might say that this relationship is, first and foremost, singular and not multiple. In other words, there is really one and only one relationship at play between the individual and society: namely, that the individual should uphold the social order, howsoever that social order is defined. The political philosophies of Plato (427–347 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) each reflect these emphases, as do the philosophies of such later thinkers as of Machiavelli (1469–1527 CE) and Mussolini (1883–1945 CE). Second, a philosophical approach to our question directs attention exclusively to the logical (and perhaps even metaphysical) grounds of individual-societal interaction, such that the answer to our question rests with what can be argued rationally, rather than by any other criteria.
A sociological approach to our question, however, stresses first that there are several ways in which individuals and their societies may be related to each other. Thus one’s interaction with his or her local grocery chain is a part of one’s relationship to society, as are a person’s memberships in social clubs, educational groups, and political or other voluntary organizations. Second, a sociological approach to our question notes that given this variation, these ways must be detailed empirically as well as conceptually. For this reason, sociologists engage in statistical analyses of social phenomena and strive for comparative perspectives. Third, a sociological approach to our question stresses, further, that given the many ties one may have to society, these ties themselves may be contradictory—as for example, when one holds memberships in organizations that bespeak “equality” yet practice inequality among membership roles. The experience of women in many religious organizations illustrates such a circumstance, as did the experience of African Americans in the period prior to the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
To sum up these differences between philosophical and sociological approaches to studying the relationship between the individual and society, we may say the following:
1. Whereas philosophy rests primarily on abstract and logical reasoning about the relationship between the individual and society, sociology demands confirmation of logical assumptions by facts.
2. Whereas philosophy tends to be univocal in its emphasis about the relationship between the individual and society, sociology looks to a variety of possible patterns and not those imposed by logic only.
3. Whereas philosophy may be static, given its foundation on abstract and logical reasoning, sociology is provisional in that it must revise its insights when confronted with new and/or additional facts that challenge previous conclusions.
It is important to note that these differences do not mean that sociologists ignore philosophical or rational insights; in fact, they do not. Rather, what these differences do emphasize is that (1) sociology focuses on the pluralism and empirical variation that exist in human experience—and in our case here, the pluralism and variation evident in the “relationship between the individual and society,” and (2) sociology stresses that all insights must be confirmed by empirical and/or systematic investigation before being expressed as “truths,” and that these expressions are themselves provisional and contingent upon further investigation.
Sociology versus Other Social Sciences
A second set of arguments explains the differences between sociology and other social sciences, e.g., psychology, political science, or economics. Here, what is important is the “object” of sociological thinking and research. In brief, the widest object of sociology’s research is that of how what is “social” comes into being. That is, how is it that societies, groups, or other multiple member entities happen, become organized in patterned ways, and remain so or change? This is clearly not the question of psychologist, whose object of analysis is that of the individual and his or her personality, whether that analysis is conducted through the use of Freud’s psychoanalytic categories (1961), Jung’s grounding “archetypes” (1981), or Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” (1973).
Nor is the object of sociological analysis and research the same as political science’s concern, i.e., the analysis of power and authority within the world—although as well shall see, sociology often ventures into this domain. Nor, as a last example, is the object of sociology’s research that of the economist’s main effort, i.e., the understanding and analysis of “how people go about coping with the central problem of economic life…” which is “scarcity” (Strada 2003, p. 391) or understanding “the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, in domestic and international contexts (Strada 2000, p. 7).” Although once more, sociology often addresses this domain.
Rather, what sociologists try to understand is society itself, and with this, the elements of sociation itself, i.e., the process(es) by which individuals (or more broadly, “social actors”) connect to one another and/or their societies, and maintain, change and/or modify those connections. How then, do sociologists understand their distinct subject matter of society—that is, its origins and means of stability and/or change? And how do sociologists understand the implications of these for the individuals or social actors who variously contribute to the making and/or remaking of society’s components? How indeed!
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The Individual and Society: Three Theoretical Perspectives
As indicated above, the relationship between the individual and society is multi-faceted. To understand its many aspects, sociologists have developed several concepts which, over time, have coalesced into three main theoretical frameworks (also termed perspectives):
1. structural functionalism
2. conflict theory
3. symbolic interactionism
Each of these perspectives provides different insights about the following four things
1. what society is
2. how and why society operates the way it does
3. how individuals connect with and are connected to society
4. how individuals connect with and are connected to the social wholes of which they are a part
To introduce these insights, we shall begin with structural functionalism, a theoretical framework that has been dominant in American sociology since the 1950s, largely through the influence of Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), a sociologist at Harvard University.
Structural Functionalism
Structural functionalism, also termed functionalism, stresses several aspects of social interaction, but three are crucial: the idea of action systems, society’s subsystems, and the character of change.
Action Systems
The first aspect of social interaction of importance to functionalism is the idea that society is but one of several “action systems.” In a hierarchy of four systems by which one can explain human interaction as a whole, society is, in effect, third from the bottom up. This is because it is preceded first by the “biological organism” (today we would say the ecosystem) and second, by the “personality system,” or life as experienced by individuals. Society, or the “social system,” then follows, and after it, is the “cultural system,” which represents the society’s most general and abstract set of ideas and values, or what Parsons considered society’s “patterns” of self-understanding. Figure 1.1 below portrays the four-level framework developed by Parsons.
Figure 1.1
Hierarchy of Talcott Parsons’s Action Systems
Level of Human Behavior
Object of Analysis
Expressed Through
Studied by
Culture
Cultural system
Symbols/values/ideas
Anthropology
Society
Social system
Social structure
Sociology
Individual
Personality system
Individual personality
Psychology
Physical environment
Biological organism/Ecosystem
Laws of nature
Natural sciences
It is important to note that these four action systems do not emerge in pure sequence, nor do they remain in complete isolation from one another. Rather, they evolve over time, and over time, exert mutual influence on one another. This is because cultural norms and values gradually become formalized from lived experience and are in turn, subsequently institutionalized as specific social structures. In this light, then, the cultural system becomes the normative framework for the social system, and according to Parsons, it thereby provides the basis for consensus in the society, with change occurring at limited and gradual rates.
Society’s Subsystems
This gradual evolution of the social system brings us to the second main emphasis in functional theory, i.e., the idea that society (or the “social system”) is made up of specific institutions which function to meet the general needs of the society as a whole. Parsons called these institutions society’s subsystems, and for Parsons, five were key:
1. government (or “the polity”)
2. religion (or “the sacred”)
3. the economy
4. education
5. the institution of the family
Each of these subsystems has particular functions it performs on behalf of society as a whole, and for Parsons, each thereby contributes to the overall stability of society or its “hang together” quality. For Parsons, then, the function of the government, or political system, is to distribute power and its use within the society, whether that society is a democracy, a monarchy, or something else. Similarly, the function of the religious system is to answer the society’s questions of deepest meaning (e.g., Why does injustice exist? What happens at death? What is the purpose of life?). As a final example, the function of the family system is (among other things) to provide future members for the society (through birth) and to pass on the society’s heritage to these new members through effective socialization. In sum, according to Parsons, the point of these subsystem functions is their contribution to the system as a whole, so that system stability and equilibrium may be maintained over time.
Parsons’s theory provided basic answers to sociology’s main questions. That is, society comes into being through the institutionalization of patterned interaction, it continues through reproduction and the socialization of its young, and it maintains its stability through the interactive functions of its several subsystems. Parsons’ framework, however, was not without its critics, and chief among them was a second influential functionalist,
Robert Merton
(1910–2003), who spent virtually his entire teaching career at Columbia University.
Merton stressed what he felt were two important correctives to Parsons’ general theoretical framework. The first of these was the need for a clearer theoretical statement about how the social, cultural, and personality systems are actually connected to each other during interaction experiences. To address this need, Merton emphasized social roles as the connectors or midpoints between individuals and the social wholes of which they are a part. In fact, Merton’s work on “role theory” is among the most classic of twentieth century sociological writings.
Second, Merton felt that just as some things “functioned” positively on behalf of society’s stability and equilibrium, others functioned negatively—or even surprisingly. Merton thus distinguished between an institution’s latent functions (i.e., unintended and unexpected functions) and its manifest functions (i.e., expected and intended functions). Some examples from the educational world will make the point. Generally, speaking, one of the main “purposes” or functions of the educational system is to maintain literacy within the population. In Merton’s terms this would be a manifest function of the educational system. At the same time, though, the grading and tracking features of the educational system also maintain social class differences within the general population, and it is this latter function which in Merton’s terms is latent or unexpected. Some theorists also use the term dysfunctional for what is latent, because generally latent functions are those of negative and unintended consequence. Merton’s own terminology, however, was limited to manifest and latentwhen describing intended and unintended consequences of social-system functions. Merton’s critique of Parsons’ work was extensive and we shall return to it later in the course, but here it highlights the need for clear theoretical concepts that express directly what sociologists are striving to say.
The Character of Change
The third main emphasis of functional theory is its grounding assumption about the character of “change.” Over all, because each of society’s institutions functions to maintain system equilibrium, change is presumably held in check by a balance of internal efficiencies that theoretically keep system stress to a minimum. Change is, therefore, something that happens gradually (if at all) and its presence is (for functionalists) dependent on minimizing stress within the overall system. As we shall see, this point is contested by conflict theory, which argues that “stress” within the system is often the indicator of a potential problem in the system and typically one of systemic inequality.
Conflict Theory
Sociology’s second major theoretical framework is that of conflict theory. Conflict theory has its roots in the writings of Karl Marx and his theory that capitalism is an exploitative and inherently conflict-producing economic system, because it is premised upon the power-based profit advantage of one group of people (those with extensive resources) over a second group of people (those who lack resources) who are, thereby, economically dependent on the first group.
Conflict theory is especially helpful in addressing questions of social and political inequality, e.g., patterns of bias and their systemic outcomes. This is because conflict theory presses one to examine latent as well as manifest functions of power, particularly with respect to the types and amounts of access that individuals and groups have to limited social resources. For this reason, then, conflict theory has figured prominently as a framework for analyzing patterns of dominant and subordinate relations in American political and social experience.
Although rooted in European Marxist thought, conflict theory became an established perspective within American sociology during the 1950s and 1960s, and as used by contemporary theorists, its application highlights exploitation that can exist at both society’s macro (i.e., institutional or system-wide) and micro or interpersonal levels. Moreover, as most commentators point out, because conflict theory argues that exploitation is endemic to social interaction, conflict theory prioritizes exploitation as a topic of analysis in sociology, and tends, thereby, to be less conservative in its political orientation than is functionalist theory. Put differently, conflict theory is directed more to changing, rather than upholding, society’s status quo. The sociological literature on dominant and subordinate group relations as rooted in patterns of prejudice and discrimination is an example of conflict theory’s main contribution to sociology in the last half century, as is almost the entire field of social problem analysis.
Explaining Society and Its Processes
Like functionalism, conflict theory also provides answers to sociology’s basic questions. First, societies come into being as a result of exploitation and the struggle of groups and individuals for scarce resources. Moreover, societies continue because a society’s more powerful members maintain themselves (and society) through the use of power over those who are dependent upon them for such important things as food, shelter, work, and income. Finally, societies change either because it is to the benefit of those in power for such change to happen, or because at times, those who are exploited realize their exploitation and are in differing ways empowered to do something about it. At a later point in the course we will put some specific questions to conflict theory concerning the conditions that make some people more or less aware of the power imbalances they are experiencing. For now, however, our emphasis is on the main ideas expressed by conflict theorists and the implications of these ideas for understanding the character of society as conflict-ridden.
Symbolic Interactionism
The third main perspective sociologists use to understand social and human behavior is symbolic interactionism, or the idea that although institutionalized social structure is always the backdrop of micro and macro interactions, it is actually through the media of symbols and the definitions of things that individuals relate and meet in social connection(s). Generally, symbolic interactionism stresses the face-to-face level of interaction, and in this it contrasts clearly with functionalism and conflict theory, which typically stress the macro or social structural level of social interaction. Symbolic interaction is not without some implications for large-scale interaction, however, because symbols and social meanings (i.e., shared definitions of a situation) can be either highly personalized (such as family traditions during the holidays) or culture-wide, as is the case with the significance of one’s flag or national anthem. For symbolic interactionism, it is, however, the symbols themselves that are the keys to understanding interaction and all related social phenomena, because, according to this view, without the shared understanding of those symbols, interaction could not and would not happen.
As a rule, symbolic interactionism does not address all of sociology’s main questions. Its focus on shared symbols as contexts of understanding, however, draws attention specifically to the role of language and metaphor as elements in the theorizing process, and for this reason it is very suggestive of insights that can complement those of functionalism and conflict theory. Moreover, its particular attention to language and metaphor make it very useful in analyzing micro or face-to-face levels of interaction. It is, therefore, an important factor in the development of social constructionism, a theoretical perspective that we will examine later in the course.
G. H. Mead
(1863–1931) is the theorist most associated with symbolic interactionism, but there are others: Herbert Blumer (1900–1987), one of Mead’s graduate students, is also well known in this framework, as are the “sociologists of knowledge,” Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966), who have combined Mead’s work with many emphases of functionalist and conflict theory.
As our discussions progress over the topics of this course, we will flesh out other aspects of these dominant theoretical frameworks. At this point, however, it is enough to note that each framework makes specific assumptions about: (1) how societies develop, (2) how they continue, change, or remain largely the same; and (3) how human development is a dynamic of interaction between individuals and the social wholes of which they are a part.
Socialization
An important concept that cuts across each of the three theoretical frameworks described above is socialization, or what theorists have generally described as the internalization of a society’s language, norms, and values. In each of these perspectives, socialization is seen as multi-staged. First, there is primary socialization, which occurs during childhood. Following this, secondary socialization begins. Secondary socialization continues throughout life and includes adolescent socialization during the teen years and role-based or occupationally specific experiences of socialization as one passes through various aspects of adult life.
These experiences of socialization are coordinated by the individuals making up society’s various subsystems. In primary socialization, these include family members, school teachers, social and community leaders, and increasingly, the impact of media and popular culture. Similarly, the agents of secondary socialization also include family members and popular culture, but in addition, role models who personify life goals and how to reach them, as well as cultural norms about what is possible within one’s circumstances.
Each of sociology’s three theoretical perspectives has a particular view about socialization. In the functionalist perspective, primary and secondary socialization are seen as functional or positive for society, because they engender cooperation among society’s members. That is, individuals learn the norms and roles appropriate to various institutional subsystems, and they thereby learn how to maximize their efficiency within them. In turn, this minimizes potential strains within the system.
A different perspective about socialization is held, however, by conflict theorists. This is because in the conflict perspective, attention is focused on how socialization engenders compliance to society’s norms rather than commitment to society’s norms. This difference in perspective is not a simple matter; nor is simply it a matter of ideology—although ideologies are often at play in discussions of this topic. Rather, what is at issue here are two distinct things. The first includes the value-based assumptions particular to the functional and conflict-theory perspectives, i.e., the idea that society rests either on consensus as borne by effective socialization (the functionalist view) or alternatively, compliance as also borne of effective socialization (the conflict theorist view).
The second point at issue in this consensus-compliance distinction is whether the individual has influence over his or her own socialization. This issue was raised in a now-famous essay by Dennis Wrong in 1961. At that time, Parsons’s functionalist framework was quite prevalent in American academic circles, and as laid out by Parsons, his overall theory stressed that the “personality system” is adequately explained by Freudian theory, with society’s subsystems providing the arenas for the resolution of Freud’s variously detailed psychosexual conflicts. In a critique of Parsons’s work, however, Dennis Wrong argued that Parsons’s understanding of socialization was flawed in at least two ways. First, it equated socialization with internalization, but did not spell out how internalization actually occurs. Second, Parsons’s application of Freud’s theory was rigid and reductionistic in that it limited personal development to the dynamics of psychosexual crises only, and ignored other flexibilities that Freud himself discussed. According to Wrong (1961), each of these flaws contributed an “oversocialized conception of man” [sic] within the social sciences, such that individuals emerged as simply automatons of society’s various institutions. Wrong argued against such oversocialization because, in effect, it presumed that individuals are powerless before the elements of their socialization, and that they are, therefore, the pawns of social processes only.
Oversocialization is a logical implication of the functionalist perspective, and for many years it was a dominant emphasis within the theoretical literature. Since Wrong’s critique, however, oversocialization has received extensive discussion, such that the concept of socialization is now a more nuanced “both-and” topic. That is to say, socialization produces both compliance and commitment, and theorists must take both ideas into account as they describe how socialization happens. The implications of oversocialization, together with the idea that socialization is a process directed to both compliance and commitment, will be an important subtext in our analysis of the relationship between the individual and society. For now, however, it is sufficient to note these differences and their relationships to the functionalist and conflict perspectives, as summarized in figure 1.2 below.
Figure 1.2
Sociology’s Main Theoretical Perspectives
Topic |
Structural Functionalism |
Conflict Theory |
Symbolic Interactionism |
Level of analysis |
Macro—emphasis on social structures |
Micro—emphasis on individuals |
|
Society |
Society is a social system made up of large scale institutions (or sub-systems) that function together for the good of the whole. |
Society is a social system made up of large scale institutions (or sub-systems) that function together for the good of those holding power. |
Presumes backdrop of large-scale social institutions, but does not make main theoretical statements about them. |
Interaction |
Is structural and grounded in cultural patterns that engender norms; occurs through structures embodying those norms with actors including individuals and/or institutions. |
Is face-to-face and grounded in symbols of individual’s day-to-day experience as learned through socialization. |
|
Important ideas |
System equilibrium—harmony or balance of society’s subsystems. |
Conflict—Society is based on the struggle for scarce resources. |
Symbols—primarily linguistic and are the primary media through which individuals and others interact. |
Social stability and change |
Society coheres through structurally embodied consensus; change is predictable but generally not desired; occurs from elements seen generally as dysfunctional for system integration, so system integration works to contain it. |
Society is potentially unstablebecause of inherent conflicts, but those with resources seek to maintain those resources (power) and generally do not desire change |
By presuming backdrop of large-scale institutions, symbolic interactionism generally does not address issue of structural change. |
Interaction between self and society |
Socialization engenders cooperation between self and society and enables goal attainment. |
Socialization engenders compliancebetween self and society and enables status quo maintenance. |
Socialization occurs through language, gesture, and social definitions. |
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Four Challenges Facing Contemporary Sociological Theory
As indicated earlier, sociology’s three main perspectives differently address the main questions defining sociology as a discipline. Since the 1980s, however, four developments have occurred that challenge sociology’s main theoretical perspectives: social location; globalization; virtual reality and the advent of online interaction—or more generally, the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web; and postmodernism.
Social Location
Social location is a reasonably new term in the vocabulary of sociology. It is borne of the insights of feminist and other rights-based social movements, and it made its debut within the literature during the mid- to late 1980s. In concrete terms, social location refers to the standpoint or social grounding of one’s personal identity, as rooted in such seemingly unalterable characteristics as time, race, ethnicity, sex, and age—and as some might argue, sexual orientation. The critical words in this definition, however, are those of social groundingand seemingly unalterable characteristics, for no matter what one does or where one goes, such things as one’s age, race, sex, and ethnicity—as defined by one’s society—come along as well. The examples of age and sex (including sex changes) will illustrate the point.
There is no denying that age and the aging process occur regardless of one’s efforts to stop them. To be sure, one can work hard at “slowing” the aging process down—one can eat well, exercise, and the like—but the process continues no matter what we do. With each day, our bodies literally get older. This we cannot change. What can change, however, and what often do change, are the many assumptions society makes about what age and aging mean. In the United States, for example, being over 60 no longer means one is “old” and readying for retirement, but rather, in many cases, it means preparing for a second career to occupy one’s “retirement years.” In fact, “old” is something Americans don’t really want to be, and much of the popular culture attests our efforts to postpone aging as much as possible. In summary terms, then, although our bodies actually do age, we find that society has differing expectations about how and what we should do and be in those older bodies, and many of these expectations differ widely from those of an earlier generation. To speak about the ways society defines the meaning of age, therefore, is to speak about the social location of age or its social grounding, as distinct from its physical or biological characteristics.
An even more dramatic example of social location has to do with sex. At birth, each of us is typed as either female or male, depending on whether our bodies exhibit female or male genitals capable of classification. And, like age, one’s biological sex was once thought to be permanent and given, regardless of other factors. Science, medicine, and biology, however, have changed our knowledge of sexuality, and now, although statistically rare, individuals can and do change their primary and secondary sex characteristics. This type of change notwithstanding, sex is also socially defined, in that it is marked by specific gender expectations, or specific assumptions about what is appropriate for male and female behavior, and these tend to follow us even if one has experienced a sex change. By way of illustration, Jan Morris’ book, Conundrum (1974) provides a vivid account of the expectations Jan experienced once travel author James Morris became the woman he always felt he should be.
To sum up this description of social location, then, we may say two things: first, that as the examples of age and sex indicate, social location refers to the fact that there are some characteristics that are defined for us as we come into the world and assume various places within it. Second, because these characteristics are defined for us as we come into the world, they are the filters through which we experience the world. Thus, as one engages others in conversation, one never stands as a man or woman only, or as light- or dark-skinned man or woman only, or even as young or old, light- or dark-skinned male or female only. Rather, one stands as all of these, as defined by a given society, and with all that the combined effects that such characteristics might imply for self-understanding and the way in which one interprets, engages, and is engaged by the world.
The concept of social location is an important challenge facing sociological theory, and although many sociologists today incorporate it into their introductory or more advanced texts, it is yet a source of bias when not acknowledged. Moreover, it is an observation of enormous significance as one considers the ways in which individuals are connected in their day-to-day interactions. As we continue in the course, we will have the opportunity to look at social location as a factor that conditions the relationship between the individual and society, and we will examine its impacts in various sectors, but notably those of institutional and interpersonal interactions.
Globalization
A second recent challenge to sociological theory is that of globalization—again a theme evident from the 1980s onward, but with ongoing tensions as one reviews the literature (cf., e.g., Giddens, 2003; Stigliz, 2002; The International Forum on Globalization, 2002; and Soros, 2002). In brief, globalization refers to the world-wide network of monies, persons, economies, and communication systems, and the combined effects these have for both developed and developing nations. Globalization has both its advocates and opponents, and among the challenges it poses to a discussion of the individual and society are (1) the theoretical need for world-based conceptual frameworks (rather than frameworks that address individuals and societies only), and (2) the need for an interdisciplinary perspective on economic and political structures, and the role of poverty as a tool of political and military power. As this course progresses, we will examine several different theories about globalization and its impact on social policy. In addition, we will look specifically at the role of gender in policies of global scope, for it is in the experience of women worldwide that policy implications of globalization become screamingly clear.
Virtual Reality and Online Interaction
A third challenge facing an understanding of how individuals and society interact (or are connected) is that of virtual reality and the power of the Internet. Perhaps because it is now the medium of our own interaction, it would appear to need little comment or explanation. However, to the extent that individuals interact through Web-based worlds such as this one, their self-concept (and subsequent behavior) may be modified, as might their assumptions about societies and other cultures, which, for political or other reasons, may “lag” behind the electronic curve. Virtual reality is an important factor conditioning the relationship between the individual and society, if for no other treason than that it is both there and not there. It thus raises a host of legal questions which, in turn, recondition the interaction of individuals in society. Indeed, some have even argued that the advent of virtual reality poses anew the philosophical question of visible and invisible, “heaven-and-earth”-like realities that emerge as religious traditions undergo change and/or secularization! As we look at the interaction between society and our “cyber selves,” we will indicate some of the manifest and latent functions that virtual reality has for people in their day-to-day life and why one might see it as symbolic interaction at the most diffuse level.
Postmodernism
A fourth challenge facing sociological theory today—and particularly the sociological discussion of how individuals and society are connected—is that of postmodernism. The full ramifications of this challenge will become more evident as the course progresses, but for now it is sufficient to note that postmodernism is a framework that focuses on the specific and seemingly unrepeatable particulars of human experience. Postmodernism’s particular challenge to sociology is that it undercuts the theoretical ability to make meaningful statements about the lasting features of social and, ultimately, intellectual organization. Put somewhat differently, postmodernism is, at one level, a theory against theories, for its basic argument is that real theory cannot be created simply because no human experience is ever repeated in exactly the same way. Postmodernism is one of the most strident of challenges facing sociological theory today because it cuts at the heart of continuity over time, a basic ingredient in the stability of social interaction or the relationship between the individual and society.
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Resources for Rethinking the Relationship between the Individual and Society
There are several theoretical resources that sociology offers as tools for understanding how individuals and society interact or are connected. We have already described, for example, such concepts as the social system and manifest and latent functions through our discussion of sociology’s main theoretical perspectives. By way of brief overview then, it will be helpful to describe a handful of concepts that are yet relevant to our analytical discussions, but not yet formalized. Further, we may divide these concepts into three separate groups. First, and at the most general level, there are what social theorist Robert Nisbet (1966) has described as sociology’s “unit ideas,” i.e., those concepts that provide thematic unity to both the classical and contemporary literature of the field. According to Nisbet, classical and contemporary sociological thinking is grounded in five pairs of concepts that include the contrasts between (1) community and society, (2) authority and power; (3) status and class; (4) the sacred and the secular; and last (5) alienation and progress.
In our theoretical overview, most of these concept pairs would fall within one or more of Parsons’ many subsystems. For example, the concept pair, community and society would be seen as the two most abstract levels of individual-society interaction, because the individual would be interacting with both cultural norms (community) and social structures (components of society). At the same time, concept pairs of authority and power and status and class would be seen as falling within political and economic subsystems, and often within the intersection of work and gender roles. Similarly, the concept pair of sacred and secular would fall within the subsystem of religion (understood as a cultural system of patterned meaning), while that of alienation and progress would return us to work and the economy. We will, as the course progresses, touch on each of these, and expand them beyond a functionalist perspective. For now, however, it is sufficient to note them as some of the building blocks we will employ.
Theoretical Paradigms
A second set of resources for discussing the relationship between individual and society stems from the writings of sociology’s classical theorists, and these also bear mention as a background to our work:
1. Marx’s idea of capitalism as the vehicle of both exploitation and alienation
2. Durkheim’s idea of society as a sui-generis reality—that is, a reality that both precedes and postdates the life of the individual, and together with this, his idea of morality or social norms as the vehicle of social cohesion
3. Weber’s concept of bureaucracy as a form of social organization
4. Weber’s idea of modernity as both disenchantment and rationalization
These concepts will figure prominently as we make our way through the course, and particularly as we examine sociologies of work and gender in American society and the impacts of globalization and virtual reality in each of these areas.
Micro and Macro Perspectives
Our third set of resources for understanding the relationship between the individual and society includes concepts drawn from the wider vocabulary of sociology itself, including the three theoretical frameworks we have earlier described. These concepts include such ideas as groups, interaction, social order and/or social organization, institutions, social structure, culture—and once more, society. These concepts are introduced briefly below.
Groups, Social Structure, and Social Interaction
If there is any concept that is basic to sociological analysis, it is that of the group, or what virtually all introductory textbooks describe as “any number of people with similar norms, values and expectations, who interact with one another on a regular basis” (Schafer 2005, 109). Some examples of groups include workplace colleagues, other parents at your child’s dance class, the two-person group of the married couple, and of course, the members of this class. Moreover, as these examples illustrate, groups can and do vary in size, and this is an important fact. For example, the Boy Scouts of America is a group, just as is the married couple, yet the interactions with and within each are far from similar. In the larger social group there are additional layers of formalization that have specific implications for group experience not present in the intimacy of the two-person couple group. At the same time, however, this larger group is still a “number of people with similar norms, values, and expectations, who interact with one another on a regular basis.”
Social structure is also a basic sociological concept, for it refers to “the way in which society is organized into predictable relationships” (Schafer 2005, p. 103) or again, as Anderson and Taylor (2005, p. 5) describe it, “the patterns of social relationships and social institutions that comprise society.” These institutions and their relationships are what we take for granted; they are the macro level units of society, and they include such things as the government, the educational system, family structure(s), religion, and the economy—many of the things which in Parsons’ terms are the subsystems within a society.
Third, the concept of social interaction is, as we have seen from our discussions of sociology’s main theories, quite important. As defined by introductory textbooks, social interaction is “what people do when they are in one another’s presence” (Henslin 2005, 95). This definition, of course, presumes that one is dealing with micro (or face-to-face level) interactions, and not macro-level or institutionally based interactions. The concept of interaction, however, is not and should not be limited to face-to-face encounters, because interaction occurs between organizations and their counterparts, as, for example, when banks cash checks or when lobbyists increase political influence.
Culture, Social Organization, and the Social Order
In the discussion on functionalism we noted that for functional theorists such as Parsons, culture or the cultural system is the collection of patterned meanings that characterize or define society or the social system. More formally, however, culture is “…the totality of learned socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior” (Schaefer 2005, p. 58) that exist in a society. In this light, then, culture is not only the norms and aspirations a society has for its members, but is also a society’s media of entertainment and recreation, its language and ethnic indicators, its technologies and system-based norms for all interactions. In a word, it is the identity of the society and the “stock of ideas” and heritage upon which the society’s members consistently draw.
A concept closely related to that of culture is social organization, or the formal and informal ways a society organizes its general ways of being and living. For example, the idea that football is a fall (but not a spring) sport is part of America’s informal social organization because for many, much of life is organized around this fact. There is, however, no law or compelling force that requires football to be played through the fall; it just, in fact, is. Football’s financial foundations, however, are a different story, for these are tied to the sports industry generally, as well as to the educational system and clothing industry, and these ties are anything but informal.
Sometimes, theorists combine the ideas of culture and social organization to speak abstractly about the “social order.” In essence, the social order is this combination, but it is also the idea that this combination of culture and social organization is relatively stable and continuous over time.
Finally, as if enough had not already been said about it, the concept of society needs one further refinement, and that is its formal definition. You will no doubt recall that in the discussion of sociology’s three theoretical perspectives, the idea of society was described through Parsons’s language of the social system. This is entirely appropriate and valid, but it needs to be pointed out here that the phrase the social system is itself a theoretical construct. It is a term one uses to make sense of a specific reality, but it is a metaphor, not something that is necessarily the encompassing definition of a reality. Put this way, any society may (in the context of sociology) be analyzed as a social system, but by way of definition, societies are actual concrete things. They are those realities comprised by specific geographic boundaries within which people live and share a culture (or perhaps even dominant and subcultures), but the defining emphases of a society are its territorial character and general culture, which members, as well as others, recognize. The importance of the definitional emphasis is twofold: first, by emphasizing that societies are things members and others recognize about each other, this definition presumes the presence of at least some developed social structure. Second, it provides a basis by which one may make comparisons about different types of societies and the range of structural development one may find within them, a point of particular importance when we consider issues of globalization.
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The Individual and Society: A Preliminary Perspective
We began module 1 by noting that this course is about the way individuals are connected to each other and connected to the many other connections that already exist in the world and precede our knowledge about them. To close this module, it will be helpful to anticipate some of the specific contexts through which those connections take shape, and what we shall be asking about them as we examine them.
Making the Connections
In the remaining modules, we will look at several aspects of work and social change within American society. We will examine the routinization of work in what George Ritzer calls our “McDonaldized” society, and we will consider its recasting within contexts beyond the food industry as described, for example, by Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America and Arlie Hochschild in The commercialization of intimate life: Notes from home and work. We will examine the American civil rights movement as an example of cultural and social change and we will examine how symbols are often a part of our own social constructions of reality. We will examine virtual reality, globalization, and postmodernism, and as we undertake each of these analyses, we will regularly ask how individuals are connected to one another and the social wholes of which they are a part, and further, how sociology’s theories themselves ground these questions by the metaphors they employ, e.g., the image of society as a “system” requiring either maintenance or critique, or alternatively, a symbol requiring interpretive construction.
Finally, as we explore the ways in which individuals connect and are connected to one another in increasingly diverse and diffuse social settings, we will look specifically at the conditions affecting trust in the social order, and why the “sociology of trust” with its implications for socialization, interaction, and commitment and compliance has, since the 1990s, become such an important topic. These discussions will take us variously into the areas of social change, civil and human rights, and a variety of visions that might characterize a full and challenging understanding of
This reading discusses how social scientists analyze religion in terms of what it does for the individual, community, or society.
http://www.sociologyguide.com/religion/social-functions-and-dysfunctions-of-religion.php
This article talks about the allegation that some clergy are suspected of helping those causing unrest in the Ukraine.