The Enlightenment:  sociology came into being then
          - ideas and social life was turned on its head

  • suddenly more literate citizens

  • not so much a fixed idea as a new attitude; a new method of thought

  • Many before had thought/written about society - Aristotle, Confucius, etc. - but what is different is that they were prescriptive rather than descriptive.  Sociology

  • Scientific theories began - about 15th century - astronomers, etc.

  • Socy shares those goals - yet we all know it is more evaluative, value-laden, critical (you don't criticize an atom or a planet)

  • Plus, change MIGHT be more common among humans than among other spheres

  • Comte:  the name Sociology (social physics taken)

  • agriculture to cities

    • few cities in Europe w a pop'l of 100,000 in 1800

    • in 1900, more than 150 cities that size

    • factories

    • machines:  efficiency

    • mechanization - but at a human cost (hours, child labor, etc.)

    • nature - cyclic.   (western) culture - linear

    • ALSO:  Ships, travel!  Explorers found other lands, other cultures

 

KARL MARX

 

Emile Durkheim

 

MAX Weber

 

 

What would Marx and Durkheim say about the following:

The Democratic Party ... the Lawyers’ Party.

Barack Obama is a lawyer

Michelle Obama is a lawyer.

Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. 

Bill Clinton is a lawyer.

John Edwards is a lawyer.

Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer

Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). 
Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.

Leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: 

Harry Reid is a lawyer.

Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer. 

 

The Republican Party ...the Business Party

President Bush is a businessman. 

Vice President Cheney is a businessman.

The leaders of the “Republican Revolution”: 

Newt Gingrich was a history professor.

Tom Delay was an exterminator. 

Dick Armey was an economist. 

House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer.

The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

 

Marx to Durkheim

Marx was first (died 1880s)                

Durkheim was second (died 1917)

Marx was German                        

Durkheim was French

If Marx was about conflict

Durkheim was about consensuses (“glue”)

If Marx was about action (praxis)        

Durkheim was about science – “social facts”’

If Marx was single driving cause     

Durkheim was about “states” (2, basically)

If Marx was a Taurus (material)           

Durkheim was an Aries (true believer)

If Marx was a rebel (thrown out…)  

 Durkheim was a success

If Marx called for revolution

Durkheim called for reform

If Marx was a radical                         

Durkheim was really a liberal –

If Marx saw a succession of class war  

Durkheim saw 2 “types” of society

If Marx saw alienation

Durkheim saw anomie – lost-ness

If Marx saw meaning as meaningless  

Durkheim saw meaning as meaningful

If Marx saw religion as an opiate

Durkheim saw divof sacred-profane as  lifeblood

 

 

 

Next week

Weber and Simmel