Download Social Modernity - Introduction to Sociology - Lecture Notes and more Study notes Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Introductory Sociology 1 Lecture 6 1. Sociology is often distinguished from History and Anthropology as the study of modern society. Again, the founders of Sociology all identified what, in their view, made a society modern. For Durkheim modern societies are complex, that is they are composed of many different institutions each within its own particular function. This produces an extensive social division of labour and we, as members of such a society play a wide range of very different and separated roles. This has two particularly important consequences. First the growth of specialised areas of knowledge, professions to provide expert guidance in specific social settings. This creates extensive networks of mutual interdependence. Second, (and possibly contradictorily) the wide variety of social roles means that we have little in common with those around us leading to both a growth of individualism and loss of normative solidarity re secularisation. The British sociologist Anthony Giddens extended these ideas by presenting modern societies as becoming complex to the point that they are characterised by high levels of risk and uncertainty for both persons and institutions. The worldwide extension of interdependence means that the consequences of risk are felt globally, not just locally. 2. Weber’s Sociology focused very much on the issue of power. Therefore a particularly distinctive feature of modern society is the abandonment of tradition as a source of authority and its replacement with systems of formal legally based rules that are justified on grounds of efficiency and effectiveness. All modern institutions have been rationalised i.e. are planned, orderly and predictable e.g. health, education, work (even space and time), re bureaucracy in lecture 5. This enables the pursuit of progress, another distinctive feature of modern society. However, Weber notes that rationalisation tends to eliminate human creativity whilst placing priority on the selection of efficient and effective means without being able to justify the ends that are sought, instrumental rationality. These ideas have been developed by Stan Cohen & Laurie Taylor who show that much of our everyday activity consists of largely ineffectual attempts to evade bureaucratic routines and Zygmunt Bauman who argues that the technological consciousness identified by Weber made possible the Holocaust. 3. Marx believed that human history is characterised by conflict among opposed economic classes. Modern society is distinctive in that it is capitalist, that is it is dominated by the private owners of economic resources who are required by the rules of the capitalist economy to pursue profit. This creates a conflict of interest with those who survive by selling their labour for wages. As capitalism has developed so class conflict has spread beyond the economy to other social institutions. Writers such as Bowles and Gintnis claim to show how the educational system prepares children to meet the demands of capitalist employers. Other writers such as Gramsci and Habermas have pointed out how popular culture, including the mass media, presents the conditions of capitalist society as normal and its critics as deviant. This however creates a problem; Marx, as is normal in modern society, believed in progress which he equated with the collapse of capitalism. However, if docsity.com capitalism is thoroughly embedded in social institutions and in our consciousness how can it be replaced without catastrophic and unpredctable consequences? docsity.com
