Before I describe this extra credit follow-up to our first exercise, just a couple reminders for next week. First, there are still a few of you who have not posted a comment on that first exercise and you need to do so ASAP. On Tuesday, I will hand out a write-up of our first essay which will be out-of-class. I'll be talking mainly about Auguste Comte on Tuesday.
EXTRA CREDIT follow-up to first exercise:
At some point during the remainder of the semester, you may briefly discuss (one or two paragraphs) how what you wrote about in your first exercise relates to anything you encounter in the text or class lecture. You may run across a concept or perhaps a broad theoretical perspective which helps shed light on the question you posed and your tentative answer. You may respond to this at ANY time during the semester. The deadline will be the last day of classes,FRIDAY, MAY 9. This is worth 3 points.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Last week, as a social theorist, I was interested in discovering and answering the question of why women/men stay in abusive relationships. After reading a few of the theories and theorists in our text, I have already acquired insight to explain, predict occurrence rates, and tentatively answer this social phenomenon of rape. Two main theories I have learned about thus far, functionalism and conflict theory, have offered several explanations about the causes, maintenance rates, and solutions to eliminate this social problem.
Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim are two theorists associated with functionalism. According to the functionalist perspective, society could be viewed as a system of parts that work together for the common good, thus maintaining harmony and social equilibrium for the whole. The focus of this perspective is on the interconnectedness of society and how the different parts of society influence one another. Spencer suggested that gender differences result from individual attempts to survive and that women must develop abilities to please men in order to survive and produce offspring. Furthermore, Spencer advocated that women are better than men at fostering and dealing with infant problems. Consequently, because family provides a context for reproducing and nurturing children, women may feel forced to remain in an abusive relationship. I believe functionalists would also emphasize the importance of strong bonds and a stable environment. A victim may fear that if she leaves the home she would disrupt harmony and make problems worse for her children. Each part or individual influences the other parts, and single-parent environments may reduce the support and parent supervision a child needs to function in society. This social disorganization could also disrupt other norms in society and a victim may feel more secure in the current conditions than in novel and possibly inferior conditions. This theory also offers some solutions to this problem; if norms are weak or conflict with one another, an individual may perceive the society as an anomie, as Durkheim would suggest, thus stimulating violence or rape between partners. Strengthening social norms and finding methods to improve social organization may reduce the risk of violent events. Durkheim may also suggesting applying education and morality to reducing violent acts between spouses.
Whereas the functionalist perspective advocates how different parts of society work and function together, the conflict perspective, supported by Karl Marx, views society as consisting of different individuals fighting for power and authority. Marx suggested that as societies transform from agricultural to industrial, two classes of people develop (bourgeoisie and proletariat). Social problems and economic inequality among classes and gender, caused by a capitalistic system, can contribute to increases in crime, violence, and rape. Thinking about this theoretical perspective in terms of gender, men are an advantage because they typically are more powerful than women due to economic and occupational opportunities. Laws relevant to rape may include a class bias where laws protect upper-class men from their wives’ accusations, thus provoking enough fear of financial loss for women to remain in an abusive relationship. Another element of Marxist theories is the problem of alienation, or the powerlessness and meaninglessness an individual may feel. Women may feel that they have little control and power within the family unit and that their lives would be even more meaningless without a family link. Women may feel that they do not have the power and strength to leave the abusive relationship or may fear that their husband would treat them harsher upon leaving. This theory implies that women who lack financial stability and a socially productive job will continue to feel oppressed by their husbands and be victims of violence. Solutions presented by this theoretical perspective would be eliminating inequity among classes of people and gender. Stronger policies, laws, and practices should be implemented to ensure safety and reduce feelings of fear. Marx would advocate communism and revolution to achieve the emancipation for all women.
MC, First, let me note that you earned the 3 points extra credit. You make an interesting case for both functionalism and conflict theories, which is not easy considering that these two perspectives are regarded pretty much as opposites. There are a couple of critical comments I would make:
First: Not that I expected you to be aware of this, since I have not had a chance to cover Spencer, but I believe Spencer's "naturalistic" view of the subordinate position of women is a bit far-fetched. I'll explain in class. However, you do present his view fairly accurately.
Second: Durkheim's concept of "anomie" is relevant but it is a bit more complex than what you bring out.
Third: On Marx, his notion of alienation is very much related to the position of the working class in capitalism and it has a more specific meaning than just "powerlessness" and "meaninglessness".
Good effort, nonetheless.
My early theorizing dealt with the prevalence of predatory lenders in the United States. My interest came from a discussion in another class and the rise of such lenders in my hometown as the socioeconomic makeup of the town changes. Georg Simmel (1858-1918) provides a very fitting theory to explain the incredibly high interest rates of these predatory lenders. Simmel described the conflict that defines western civilization in modern times. Specifically, Simmel described this about western civilization: "The impersonality of modern life makes competition easier. Individuals can treat others as 'objects' and therefore 'fair game' in the competitive race for material gain" (Theory Text p.206)
The idea that humans are not humans when they apply for the loans at businesses like Advance America is a key feature to the functioning of such businesses. The owners profiting from the unconscionable interests rates they impose on individuals do not have to come to terms with their actions. Instead, the idea of competition and a separate sphere of life makes the moral ramifications for their business actions insignificant.
Responding to Brent's follow-up, I was caught off guard a bit at first by your reference to Simmel, but the passage you selected certainly does apply to the phenomenon of predatory lending. Certainly Weber or Marx could also be appealed to shed some light on this practice. But you earn the 3 points extra credit.
Before I was wondering why people saw homeless people as being in their state because of something they did wrong as opposed to more overarching societal problems. Harriet Martineau suggests in her methodological theory that sociologists do not (and need to) "question the obvious and discover the social conditions surrounding events and behaviors." I think that is the same case here. People, like Martineau said, judge the homeless based on their first inclination and do not question that first observation to see if there are underlying social causes.
Jessie, Ok, but I would have liked to see a bit more. You make a relatively simple point. Also, "methodological theory" I believe qualifies as an oxymoron.
After learning about the many different types of theories and theorists in sociology, I have come to realize that the functionalist approach can be used as a possible way to explain the seperation between the hearing and deaf cultures. The functionalist approach suggests that society works together for the betterment of all. That is, all the different parts of society work toegether for the common good and influence each other in the process. I believe this can apply to the hearing and deaf cultures in that they seem to be seperate worlds. The deaf culture is extremely close and tight with one another. In fact, sometimes they will take offense to hearing people invading their way of doing things and trying to change some aspect of their life. They all seem to work together and look out for each other, or at least that is the feeling i get from my volunteer work at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind. Through my volunteering, I have been able to gain their trust and prove that I can contribute to the betterment of the children at the school. Just as we have our own, "Wofford Bubble", the school seems to have their own bubble as well that functions to serve and help each other. However, through my volunteer work, and the connection we have made betweeen Wofford and SCSDB, I feel as if that is changing and the community is growing to include more than just the deaf culture. This is the impression I am getting anyway and it is fantastic.
Tye, ok, I can see some connection to the functionalist perspective, especially as you stress, functional for the cohesion of that particular culture or group.
I discussed the issue of observing children in the day care setting and how they react with each other and other people. The point of making observations and developing ideas and theories about something helps to make someone a social theorist. I could relate this to Beatrice Potter Webb in that she wrote essays about observation and she noted like Martineau before her, that observation is vitiated if the persons know they are being observed. Webb's commitment was to social research especial finding the nature of things, the animals and man.
I discussed earlier about if a person could really be nice off the tennis court of field, but a jerk on it. Does the competition really change how a person can act. When I was reading the book I came across George Simmel's theory of social conflict. Simmel said that competition was a particular characteristic of conflict in the modern Western societies. People as individuals can treat others as objects and are open to take advantage of and get ahead. By treating other people as indifferent they are able to take advantage of them without feeling bad about what they are doing, even it it means hurting someone that they know and like. This act of indifference can make people who are not at all cruel or at least think that they are mean, into people who would do anything to win. So this theory can relate to how people may act on the tennis court. People may act like a jerk on the court because they want to win so badly that they take everyones feelings out of the equation.
Scott, ok.
Post a Comment