Passages From and About Durkheim

Below are the two passges I quoted in class this morning (Tues. 3/3):

First from Durkheim, illustrating the organic analogy and the role of restitutive law in modern society:
"This law (restitutive) definitely plays a role in society analogous to that played by the nervous system in the organism. The latter has as its task, in effect, the regulation of the different functions of the body in such a way as to make them harmonize."

Second, from a previous text I used in this course, which brings out the condition of society Durkheim referred to as "anomie," and why a new morality was needed:
" In general, the anomic state of modern society has led to a relatively unrestrained citizenry, wherein people primarily look out for their own interests and have disregard for those of others....The individual's social part, Durkheim insisted, is just as natural to humans as their individual (self-interest) part. The problems of modern society are due not to a basically anti-social human nature but to the structure of contemporary society, which does not adequately nurture, develop, and sustain the individual's socially oriented part."

And, as I noted in class, in Durkheim's view sociology could play a key role in developing a new morality (a "science of ethics") to cultivate the "individual's socially oriented part." Which at first he thought the occupational group could instill in individuals, but eventually Durkheim advocated a "moral education," also the title of his last work. Note also how I tied this in to the passage from Habits of the Heart, where the authors in attacking our radical individualism and reminding us of our social connection would wholeheartedly endorse Durkheim's point.

That's all for now. Don't forget first thing on Thursday (3/5) I want to hear from a spokesperson for each of the families what you concluded about Chapter 3 on Spencer and Sumner. Also, please turn in a copy of your findings to me. And I will hand back your first essay.

FIRST FAMILY ACTIVITY

For this family exercise, I want each of the families to discuss how any THREE of those ten propositions about society I handed out a couple weeks ago relate -- either positively or negatively -- to the authors' analysis of the ideas of Spencer and Sumner in Chapter 3.

Also, I want each family to identify what you believe is the most relevant and least relevant aspect of Spencer and Sumner for understanding modern society.

Each family will prepare a brief one to two-page summary of your findings, which a designated spokesperson will present to the class next week THURSDAY, 3/5.

This exercise is worth 6 points. You must participate to earn the points. I will also award 3 bonus points to the family which does the best job in my estimation. I will post that family's summary on the blog along with some of my own comments, which will be the basis for whatever questions I may ask on the midterm about Chapter 3.

First Essay Assignment

SOCIOLOGY 340
ESSAY I
2/19/09

A. I want each of you to discuss the meaning of the passage quoted below from a study of American society entitled, "Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life," and how it relates to class lectures and text readings (Chaps. 1 & 2) on the origin of modern sociology. There are different ways to do this and several relevant points that could be brought out, so do NOT worry that you did not do it the "right" way or that you may have missed some points. As long as you have some confidence that you interpreted the passage appropriately and made some good connections to class material, you should do fine. And remember that class material would also include comments I posted on the blog about our "missing the forest for the trees" exercise.

"We believe that much of the thinking about the self of educated Americans, thinking that has become almost hegemonic in our universities and much of the middle class, is based on inadequate social science, impoverished philosophy, and vacuous theology. There are truths we do not see when we adopt the language of radical individualism. We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutions but through them. We never get to the bottom of our selves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love, and learning. All of our activity goes on in relationships, groups, associations, and communities ordered by institutional structures and interpreted by cultural patterns of meanings. And the positive side of our individualism, our sense of the dignity, worth, and moral autonomy of the individual, is dependent in a thousand ways on a social, cultural, and institutional context that keeps us afloat even when we cannot very well describe it. There is much in our life that we do not control, that we are not even "responsible" for, that we receive as grace or face as tragedy, things Americans habitually prefer not to think about. Finally, we are not simply ends in ourselves, either as individuals or as a society. We are parts of a larger whole that we can neither forget nor imagine in our own image without paying a high price. If we are not to have a self that hangs in the void, slowly twisting in the wind, these are issues we cannot ignore." (p. 84, Habits of the Heart)

hegemonic - ruling or predominant
vacuous - empty, vacant; having or showing a lack of intelligence

B. Your essay should be roughly 3 pages (single-spaced handwritten or double-spaced typewritten). DO NOT POST IT AS A COMMENT ON THE BLOG (although you may post questions about the assignment which I'll try to respond to). If you quote anything from the text in your paper, please indicate the page # in parentheses.

C. This essay is due THURSDAY, FEB. 26TH.

"Missing the Forest for the Trees"

The winners of the "missing the forest for the trees" contest are as follows:
Most creative: (tie) "Wedding Business" (Claire B.)& "Washing Dishes" (Matt E.)
Most sociological: (tie) "Judging a Person" (Lewis B.) & "Racism" (Jessica H.)

Each of the above-mentioned individuals will earn 2 bonus points for this exercise. I respect the decision of the class, although I have to say that "washing dishes" really misses the point.

The point of this exercise was to make you consider how the whole is more than the mere sum of its parts, which is premised on the interrelated nature of reality, especially social reality. In this regard, I would say that missing the big picture (the forest) by focusing on details (trees) -- that is, looking at facts as separate and distinct -- is tantamount to misunderstanding. This point is driven home in a book I used this past Interim, "In Defense of Food," by Michael Pollan. He is critical of what he calls "nutritionism," which is based on a reductionist science approach that focuses on nutrients in isolation from the foods which contain them. He makes a plea for us to focus more on whole foods and the context in which these whole foods are grown and marketed. Pollan comments:

"'The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient nutrition science,' points out Marion Nestle, a New York University nutritionist, 'is that it takes the nutrient out of the context of the food, the food out of the context of the diet, and the diet out of context of the lifestyle.'" then, a bit later --

"...if you're a nutrition scientist you do the only thing you can do given the tools at your disposal: Break the thing down into its component parts and study those one by one, even if that means ignoring the subtle interactions and contexts and the fact that the whole may well be more than, or maybe different from, the sum of its parts. This is what we mean by reductionist science." (p. 62)

Finally, the fact is: "...people don't eat nutrients; they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently from the nutrients they contain." (p. 63)

This general point about focusing on the whole and the system of relations that constitute the whole also underlies a point Prof. E. Ahrens (who we will be reading later on) stresses about the nature of explanation in the following commment:

"The essence of explanation is to say what things are and to define them in and through their relations to other phenomena or forms of phenomena."

So, in the final analysis, I would contend that any social theory which misses or ignores the forest for the trees is ultimately inadequate.

PLEASE COPY OR PRINT OUT THE ABOVE OBSERVATIONS AND INSERT IT IN YOUR NOTES WHERE I FIRST ADDRESSED THI ISSUE IN THE TEXT.

DEADLINE on First Exercise

It is FRIDAY, the 13TH, 10AM and I just checked the blog and noted that several people still have not posted their comments on the first exercise. I am setting an ABSOLUTE DEADLINE of MONDAY, 2/16 by NOON, after which you will not earn the points for this exercise.

"Get Your Feet Wet" Exercise

Welcome to the Soc. 340 course blog for this semester (Spring '09). Below is a description of what I call a "get your feet wet" exercise to get your minds thinking theoretically and get you used to commenting on this blog, which you will be asked to do throughout this semester.

"Get Your Feet Wet" Exercise: In the Preface of our text, the authors refer to what they call the "forest and trees" problem (p. xxiv), which I believe should really be worded: "missing the forest for the trees." For this exercise I want each of you to post an example of this problem (which can be invented if you can't think of one you may have run across in another course or other reading or even real life) OTHER THAN one discussed by the authors in the Preface. I also want you to address the question of why this is a "problem." I am only looking for one or two paragraphs (NO dissertations). Please post your comments by next THURSDAY, FEB. 12th. This exercise is worth 4 points.

Family Questions: Final Exam & Reminders

Below are the family questions I accepted for the final exam. They will be on the final, so copy them down. Each participating family member listed will receive 7 activity points for one question, and a bonus point for each additional question I accept.

BLACK FAMILY: (Jessie, MC) 7 points +2 bonus points

QUESTION: What did Rosa Luxemburg believe was needed to relieve some of the economic pressures due to overproduction in capitalist society? (1)
ANSWER: militarism. With imperialism and militarism comes war, which acts as a single phenomenon of capitalist expansion and profit making.

QUESTION: Define Weber's concept of "ideal type" and give one example. (2)
ANSWER: Ideal types are abstractions that emphasize the central elements of a phenomenon and have no moral or ethical implications. Eg. bureaucracy

QUESTION: What meaning of "corporate" does Ahrens use throughout his lectures, "Order and Disorder in Society?" (1)
ANSWER: The original Latin meaning: to make into a body; to unite or combine.


BLUE FAMILY: (Patrick, Scott, Shane, Jessica) 7 points (no bonus points)

QUESTION: In the context of Weber's contributions to methodology, what is "verstehen" sociology? (1)
ANSWER: empathetic understanding or trying to understand the subjective motivations behind social action.


YELLOW FAMILY: (Tye, McKenzie, Jennie, Brent, Justin) 7 points (no bonus points)

QUESTION: Name George Herbert Mead's three states of personality development. (3)
ANSWER: Play, Game, and Generalized Other Stages

_______________________________

I have just gotten into your Ahrens' essays, so I don't think I'll be able to turn them back tomorrow. I'll put them on my door on Friday. To start off our last class we need to do that Assessment Survey again (which should just take a few minutes). We'll wrap up Ahrens, then review for the final exam which is scheduled for MONDAY, (5/12) 2-5PM.

I was not very happy with my stumbling lecture yesterday. Let me just stress one point about how Ahrens tends to look at things, and that is that he focuses on the way human beings have physically modified their world (as do the human ecologists) and draws conclusions from that about our thought life (rather than the other way around). Hope that helps a bit.