Concepts of Sociology

Concepts of Sociology

Sociology is the cultural science, which studies all sides of society (institutions, problems, solutions etc.) and relationship between society and the individual. In the essay I would try to explain some concepts of the sociology and show differences between them. First of all, we need to know that individual and sociologist see the term sociology differently, if most people think that Sociology is just the commonsense, sociologists think about social institutions, relationship between them, they do research and questionnaires and use sociological theories. It is very hard to list all concepts of sociology, because every person is individual, sociologists are also individuals and every sociologist has own thoughts and own concepts of sociology. That’s why I will explain only small part of these concepts.

Anomie. This term was firstly introduced by Emile Durkheim. By Durkheim Anomie is a state of society in which there come decomposition, disintegration and collapse of the system of values ​​and norms that guarantee public order. Anomie from Greek language means lawlessness. After Durkheim sociologist Robert Merton studied the concept of anomie. Merton said that everyone wants to be successful and wealth, but to achieve this goal people have different opportunities, we can say people have different ‘start point’ to their life. For instance, children of moderate means have less chance to get good job because they study at ‘bad’ schools, which give them not enough knowledge and ‘experience’ to work there. But if two boys, one from provided family and another from needy one, have the same goal, boy from poor family have to ‘cut a road’ to be first at the ‘finish’. I mean that some people without opportunities to have good and successful life will break the rules or even commit a crime. There can be robbery, selling illegal drugs, extortion, fraud and even murder. Merton used this theory to understand how crime level in US changed.

Sociological problems by Peter Berger. As it was said before, we know that sociologists think about sociology differently, and sociological problems for them and for people are different things. For everyone in our world problem is something which is not done by rule or something wrong, but for sociologist problem is not about why something is going wrong but its preconditions. As Berger said:” the fundamental sociological problem is not crime, but law, not divorce, but marriage, not revolution, but government”. This citation you can find in Berger’s book ‘Invitation to Sociology’ p.50. Another thing that should be mentioned is that sociological problem for one social system can be normal thing for another social system and vice versa.

Rationalization. Rationalization is the concept of sociology of Max Weber. Rationalization is proportion of some actions that lead to final result in efficient way. Weber used this term to designate the change from tradition to rationality as the main mode of human thoughts. Weber divided rationality to two parts, the first is value rationality, and the second is practical rationality. First one are actions, where the means have no practical relationship to the end, but are simply a way of acting out, of realizing, a value that actor holds. Second one, the working with the most effective means to achieve the results that someone wants to get. Something else that Weber added to concept of rationalization is ‘iron cage’.

Socialization and identity by two sociologists, Talcott Parson and Mead. Social identity is our understanding of who we are and who other people are, and respectively, other people’s understanding who they are and others.

By parson there are two constrains, external and internal. External constrain is about two ways. First is acting way (for example football player will train and show good results and bigger club will buy him and give to him better contract), in another way (if he will not train and show good results, club can terminate the contract). Internal constrain is about morality of society, for example people will not lie not because of punishment, but just because they think that it is not good. Internalization even can be more than just morality, for instance someone can give their lives for their country, religion and even football club (there are many cases of clash of fans, especially in Russia). In two words Parson’s theory is about desirability of socialization.

By Mead there is one concept, which is called ‘double centre of gravity’. There are ‘I’ and the ‘Me’.  ‘I’ is about individual, who thinks spontaneous, creatively has own thoughts. While ‘Me’ is individual, who thinks about society reaction. Alternatively we can say that ‘I’ is the leader, ‘Me’ is follower.

Alienation. It is theory of Karl Marx and it is the experience of isolation resulting from powerlessness. Capitalists did something like alienation with their workers. They give job (usually routine work) which nobody likes. There is one contradiction people make computers and they increase the power of human being, but after, like Marx claimed, people will be replaced by robots. Karl Marx mentioned four ways how capitalists used alienation:

1. Alienation from the act of working

Routine work which is very tedious and boring and Capitalism did people like machines.

2. Alienation from the products of work

Product of work belongs to capitalists, but not to workers.

3. Alienation from other workers.

Capitalism transformed work from cooperative action to competitive one. And there is no possibility to work together.

4. Alienation from human potential.

Routine work, for example in a factory, exhausts workers, but does not give experience to develop themselves and potential.

Generally, I take absolutely different concepts of socialization, so there are no identical ideas and as they all are different it is very hard to write comparisons or contrasts between them.