Sociology

[Tommy-K]

I just started my A-levels at school and one option I took was sociology. I had my first lesson of it today and it's brilliant! Does anyone else study it?

Anyway, the point of my thread is that we were discussing the various different perspectives of society (Functionalism, Marxism, Weberian etc.) and my sociology teacher (great guy) summed up the Marxist theoretical perspective of society in the most amazing way I've ever heard: Society is shaped and controlled by those who own the means of production to serve their needs

It's so simple, yet so brilliantly worded. Couldn't have put it better myself :D

Of course if you disagree please say so. Also feel free to discuss other theoretical perspectives.

[antieverything]

2 words--Sociological Imagination

The interplay between structure and agency is the most interesting concept in the social sciences.

[Tommy-K]

I like exploring the structuralist side of things. I can't really see much relevance to the wider picture in interpretivist theories. 'Macro-sociology' as it's known is really the only way to make a reliable study of society.

[loveme4whoiam]

I loved doing Sociology AS (couldn't do A2, I'm off to uni :D) as my teacher was great, we could have cool debates for the entire lessons because the rest of the class were always silent. I wish I could have taken it further, I'd enjoy it.

Oh yes, and be prepared to hate fuctionalists with every fibre of your being. Their whole viewpoint is determinism wrapped in... hell, they don't even try to disguise it. It IS determinism.

[YKTMX]

I'm doing it at Uni.

There's a great degree of depth and different facets to the subject. It's probably the most "inter-disciplinary" social science discipline. It relates to politics, economic, psychology. So yeah, big up sociology! :D

[CoexisT]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 07:33 PM
Their whole viewpoint is determinism wrapped in... hell, they don't even try to disguise it. It IS determinism.
Well, that all depends on if you're talking about critical or uncritical functional theorists. Then again, critical functional theorists don't exist anymore.... because being a critical functional theorist is pretty much ass backwards.





Either way, OP: Yes, I love sociology. I'm a sociology/anthropology double-major @ the uni and I'm lovin' it.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

It is probably one of the key areas that leftists should know as it fits in really well with history and stuff.

I really enjoyed the unit of sociology i did at university.

However, they arnt specifically materialist leftist, so you will encounter lots of rubbish too. oh well

[Clarksist]

Actually, yes I am taking a class of it at the local (shitty) college.

Very interesting!

The theory of a J-curve revolution is fucking brilliant.

[black magick hustla]

Leftists should study something practical, seriously.

Socialist university kids are all philosophy and sociology students.

[CoexisT]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 12:33 AM
Leftists should study something practical, seriously.

Socialist university kids are all philosophy and sociology students.
ad hominem


explain to me how sociology isn't a practical major?

[loveme4whoiam]

Indeed, I would have said Sociology is one of the most practical subjects to study. Learning how society works and how it is manipulated, how can that not be practical? Unless you are talking about instead taking Revolutionary Studies as a major (now that would be a cool course :P) or something.

[antieverything]

As a person who is about to obtain a somewhat prestigeous degree in sociology I can vouch for its impracticality...now I have the choice of going to grad-school and languishing in academia for the rest of my life *shudder* or getting a bullshit job crunching numbers for who-knows-who or I can work in the private sector and get exploited by a bunch of self-righteous wives of very rich men (at least that's the nonprofit sector in the US).

The only somewhat appealing option is going to law school in a year or two.

[encephalon]

by "practical" I think Marmot means something that can be applied to material objects in the real world. Unlike hard sciences, the soft sciences can't be used to, say, harness nuclear fission. It's more a matter of pure study rather than application.

That said, it still has its function, and in the field of computer science and AI, at least, certain social sciences can be applied to create a better program.

[anomaly]

I'm studying to be a teacher in the social sciences, so that's a bit 'practical' I'd say.

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 08:33 PM
As a person who is about to obtain a somewhat prestigeous degree in sociology I can vouch for its impracticality...now I have the choice of going to grad-school and languishing in academia for the rest of my life *shudder* or getting a bullshit job crunching numbers for who-knows-who or I can work in the private sector and get exploited by a bunch of self-righteous wives of very rich men (at least that's the nonprofit sector in the US).

The only somewhat appealing option is going to law school in a year or two.
Prestigous? What Uni are you at?

I think the distaste of the bourgeoisie for sociology is something we sociologists should celebrate. Sociology has the ability to threaten bourgeois modes of thinking, merely by its emphasis on the "social" basis for behaviour.

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 12:16 AM
Actually, yes I am taking a class of it at the local (shitty) college.

Very interesting!

The theory of a J-curve revolution is fucking brilliant.
I haven't come accross that theory. What exactly does it involve?

[EneME]

i love sociological texts, i guess thats why i ended up with an undergraduate degree in sociology....

i didn't learn the j-curve (http://virgil.azwestern.edu/~dag/lol/FrustrationRevolt.html) revolution in my sociological theory class. maybe american sociological education excludes that more. i took classes on the theory itself and most of my degree was based on its application as well as research methods, analysis, and practice. in the theory course i took, we mostly explored theories by marx, weber, durkheim, foucolt, omi & winant, gramsci, patricia hill collins (a marxist), and appadurai. i think freire would have been a good idea to study as well, anyhow... that is then applied to identity, minority groups, family structures, policy, demography, gender, marriage & sex, parenting, death & dying, prejudice & discrimination, violence & conflict, religion, education, alcohol & drug abuse, etc.

personally, i found it valuable for the type of work i want to go into, social work. yes, it's true, the degree can be less "financially" practical rather than nursing or accounting, but what isn't now a days? BA's are not as prestigious as they once were, making graduate degrees extremely vital. (also makes it even more impossible for working class students to over come)

[Hiero]

Just remember that the main ideology in academic sociology is post modernism. Something which undermines Marxism.

[Janus]

Moved.

[emma_goldman]

I took a half year of it on the high school level. It's pretty neat. :)

Marx is a HIGHLY influential sociologist, though Comte was the first. ;)

[antieverything]

Just remember that the main ideology in academic sociology is post modernism. Something which undermines Marxism.
I don't think so. The vast majority of the scholarly work in the field of sociology goes something like this:

Variable A ---------------(+/- X)-------------> Variable B


Pretty "modern" way of looking at the world.

[Tommy-K]

Thought I'd dig out this old thread again. After studying sociology for a year now I am really into it and would like to pursue it further after I leave school. Our teacher made us do the political compass and so now I've been outcast as the class socialist :P

Although my teacher is admittedly a socialist aswell. He told everyone in the class that me and him were secretly planning the revolution. He's a cool guy :P

In fact, three of my teachers (including him) have admitted to being socialist in discussions I've had with them.

[JazzRemington]

Here's a hint: stay clear of functionalism and symbolic-interationist. The former isn't honest and the latter has little to do with sociology (focusing on individual interactions, which is the focus of possibly social psychology).

Weber is tolerable, but should be takaen with a grain of salt, since he tends to get his ideas backward, in the sense that he believes ideas exist independtly of material reality. For instance, in his "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," Weber maintains that Protestantism happened before any features of capitalism came about, which is backward. The barebones of capitalism appared first, and Protestantism developed as a way to justify and promote it.

I would recommend from him "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," which shows the connection between the Protestant religion and the development of capitalism, and his study on Bureacracies. "Class, Status, and Power" is a good look at social classes that don't operate within (yet are influenced by) the production relations. I forget the title, but his work on Bureacracies was also good.

Aside from that, there really is no other member of the "classical" school of sociology that I can recommend, except for Marx. But in the case of Marx, I would recommend selections from "Karl Marx's Theory of History" by G.A. Cohen, and "The Society of the Spectacle" by Guy DeBord. Also, a venture into Rational-Choice Marxism would be nice. A wikipedia search can find more.

[JimFar]

I think that a distinction needs to be drawn between what sociologists call structural functionalism and the use that is made of functional explanations by people who would not all regard themselves as being structural functionalists. G.A. Cohen in his book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence, made a rather compelling case that historical materialist explanations are functionalist in character, although Marxists would reject the structural functionalisms associated with such people as Emile Durkheim, Bronislaw Malinowski, Talcott Parsons or even, Robert Merton.

One of the things that Jerry Cohen was able to do in his Karl Marx's Theory of History was to draw the distinction between structural functionalism in sociology and anthrolopoogy and the use of functional explanations which does not necessarily entail all the theoretical and ideological commitments that go along with standard functionalism. For Cohen, the underlying telos in his functional explanations was not system maintenance and social cohesion in the manner of Durkheim or Malinowski but rather the continued development of the forces of production. In his scheme, the development of the forces of production may either be fostered by the social relations of production that exist at a given historical moment or they may be hindered. The same set of relations of production may well foster the development of the forces of production at one but later on act as fetters on their further development. In Cohen's view when this contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production occurs, then it is quite likely that changes will eventually occur in the relations of production, so that new relations will arise are better adapted to the forces of production. (This is what is known as Cohen's Thesis of the Primacy of the Forces of Production).

On the other hand when the existing relations of production are relatively well adapted to the current level of development of the forces of production, then the social system will tend to function so as to stabilize the existing relations of production. In Cohen's view, it is thus possible to analyze the supersturcture (i.e. the state, law, religion, and ideology) in terms of its functioning to stabilize the economic base (i.e. the forces of production combined with the relations of production). Therefore, in Cohen's view, functional explanations of the supersturcture ought to be prove to be especially fruitful. In periods in which the existing relations of production have come to act as fetters on the forces of production then we can expect that social conflicts, especially class struggles will appear as the existing relations of production become destabilized, thereby necessitating changes in the superstructure as well as in the relations of production.

While one can certainly question Cohen's version of historical materialism (and a lot of people would question his reduction of historical materialism to a simple productive forces/relations of production dialectic), I do think that his thesis that historical materialist explanations are largely functional in character is still quite defensible.