the Manheim: sociology of knowledge: The way thinking happens is an ongoing conversation by
which the historical social context plays into peoples reasoning on issues/problems. This is the
main reason for how people act in society. The historical social context shapes you by applying
what you have learned to your problem. Our ideas and thoughts are conditioned on the past and
social world that we live in. *We are in an ongoing dialogue not only with ourselves, but in an
ongoing dialogue with everyone. Peoples opinions on sociology are based on their personal
biographies which are specific to each historical context and a larger social structure which you
inhabit.
Durkheim: was a conceptual sociologist who felt that humans operate within the social
environment in which they live in. There is a relationship between intellectual activity and social
structure from which you came. Since space, time, and cause are inherently social and that
history is within time and space, all history based on experiences with other humans can be
studied from a social perspective. A Social Fact is a norm for a specific given social
environment, that if violated can have negative consequences to that specific environment. The
evaluated norm exists and controls the social context that we live in. It modifies your behavior to
fit into society.( If you remove the social, then we are lost in existence, so we ultimately need
this to survive.) *Social fact is generated over the whole given society so the best way to
understand the social fact is to understand the history or the most primitive state of the social
fact. There is no real single point of origin of a social fact, but starts as a social current and when
the current becomes regular, it becomes a fact. A Social Current is a collective emotional
phenomenon that emerges out of interaction where people get over-whelmed by the groups
collective emotions. It is based on interactions and collective shared emotions in a specific time
in society. There is a feeling of getting carried away in it, by getting caught up in the collective
norm emotions of society. A Social Change is possible, but not capable by any one person but
instead society just has to become.
Religion is a social occurrence.
Religion was NOT divinely or supernaturally inspired, but rather a product of society.
-Social origin of religion, a source of individuality for the individual within a society.
-Religion provided a meaning of life; it provided authority figures.
-Reinforced the moral and social norms within a society.
-Certain elements of religious belief are common across different cultures.
- Common= separation of the sacred (spiritual realm) and the profane, each of these depend on
one another.
-Views society as a machine
-Goal=wanted to prove that you could research and write about religion in a respectful way.
Wanted to reveal a fundamental and permanent aspect of humanity and all social institutions
through the study of a religion.
- Why he chose religion= Religion is an eminently social thing. Religious representations are
collective representations that express collective realities; rites are ways of acting that are born
only in the midst of assembled groups and whose purpose is to evoke, maintain, or recreate
certain mental states of those groups
Marxs Communist Manifesto= The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles. Which is the Grand Theory and how the world works. Revolution causes class
change. Capitalism was the system set in place when Marx was writing, and Feudalism was the
system before. The Bourgeoisie emerged as Feudalism was overthrown they set up Capitalism to
benefit themselves and emerge as the ruling class, while the Proletariat is the lower class
working for wages to survive. The Means of Production was owned by the Bourgeoisie (ex.
Materials, tools, land, labor, industrial infrastructure. The Bourgeoisie was the owners and the
Proletariat was the workers. The Bourgeoisie receives capital, which is used to make more
strides and more money, while the Proletariat gets paid in wages, only used to survive. The
Bourgeoisie makes profit, while the Proletariat is alienated and exploited. The Bs goal is to keep
the Means of Production (exploiting the P to generate profit and wealth). The Ps goal is to rise
up and overthrow the B through revolution. Marx defines politics as one class exerting itself
over another (ex. Fed=arist to serfs; cap= B to P), but Communism is a way to make everyone
part of one single group. The eventual violent rise of the P to overthrow the B and seize the
means of production and to distribute the means of production equally, creating one unified class
with eliminating politics.
Weber= The Spirit of Capitalism was a rationalization of human motivation to work. Weber came
out of a religion Religion) (Protestant where God is calling us to work and make money and we
only need to accumulate enough money in order to survive.* Religion was then replaced by the
Spirit of Capitalism, which there was now a calling and devotion to labor. This got rid of the
religion aspect, but kept the moral make-up that laziness is the worst, and everyone has a
calling from within you to work. There was now a more justification for success and peace
through working hard and gaining as much capital as possible. In Capitalism, the overall goal is
to accumulate capital by working hard and doing whatever it takes (within the law) to succeed in
life and gain that peace. On an individual level, working is the highest form of moral activities
and laziness/waiting time/not working is the lowest. Calling to work is now a divine ordinance.
Individuals work hard for the spiritual satisfaction, not for material goods. Individuals work hard
to gain capital and then material goods are brought on as a tribute to your hard work.
Dubois= The Philadelphia Negro. He wrote the first scientific book in sociology. He unpacks
how segregation works in Philadelphia by taking a methodical approach (field study, interviews,
surveys, and statistics). He studied sociology without racism. Our identity is historically laid out
with ideas that rest in out narrative. Dubois made blacks viewed as humans, and proposed that
there is no inherent flaw in blacks rather than that problem comes from society. It is a social
issue caused by residential segregation and racism. Other causes are the historical legacy of
slavery, color prejudice in open forums, immigration of impoverished, uneducated, untrained
blacks who mix in with the blacks that are native to the city (which heightens the stereotype),
and the lack of morals in the black homes. To solve these issues you have to address all the
problems at the same time to make a change. **To fix the social issue problem, whites, blacks,
and political powers all need to come together to make the change coherently. White people need
to stop discrimination and there are needs to a radical change of public racial ideas. Whites need
to let blacks uplift themselves and help the problem also. The duties of the blacks is that the
higher class Negroes should have a duty to uplift the masses. Dubois outside the book: he
published this book as a model for the viewers to approach the social issue. He presented all the
facts. The point was for the viewers to read the book and see what the problem is and then try to
make a change. But this didnt happen and blacks felt helpless. The positions of power didnt
step in and help make change on the situation, b/c it wasnt in their interest. So Dubois turned to
propaganda b/c he felt he had to transform peoples heat and mind.
Socially Hesitant- we are not limited by the world we create; positive social human change is
possible; we can change the social current, but if they dont, then they will just adapt to society.
Octavia Butlers Parable of Sorrow= Lauren has hyperempathy, which is the ability to feel the
perceived pain and other sensations of others. This shows how a person is truly empathetic and
how people will got to emotion before thoughts. This novel takes place in the future, and if
things keep going the way they are, you will get a continual tale of economic situations getting
worse and worse. This enables you to have empathy towards others./ They live in a gated
community= trapped like prisoners and that there is no form of improvement. The only
alternative is to move to Olivar, which is a company town. This is a Marxist Life, in which
people choose security over freedom. The company town will control every aspect of their live
(like the Bourgeoisie and the Prol). Karl Marx is shown here by his feelings toward civil rights,
and how it is not about transforming the class struggles, but making the equal. Traveling north
searching for her own life to start a community where her religion, Earthseed, could grow. This is
very much like Dubois by how the group freed themselves from society (the external
oppression). Earthseed is a form of religion in which present-day humans are the seeds for a new
community life to spring up going beyond emotions and becoming more empathetic. Like
Dubois, people must make initiative and shape their own destiny by how people are committed
to one another and share common values make a change in society. When there is denial of bad
situations in the world, inequality exists b/c the person on top with power creates someone to be
on bottom.
Ideas of race are universal facts that come from a change in time and geopolitical place. It is a
change in context of the place f what it means to be that race, b/c it is cult specific. A
communitys belief has a huge impact of what individuals beliefs are.