Emile Durkheim's notion of 'social facts'.

Emile Durkheim’s notion of ‘social facts’

Emile Durkheim believed that, like science, sociology could be studied objectively, uncovering the truth of human social behaviour – or social facts - as science uncovered natural facts. Objectivity meant whoever you asked about a certain social characteristic , would deliver the same social answer or fact. Durkheim also said to find something out about society was difficult, because it is hard to view society as a physical object.

Thus Durkheim said we can study society in the same way we study science. This method is called positivism ( a name given to the method we use to study science) he believed this was the way to get at social facts about society.

Durkheim studied suicide as an example of a social fact, his conclusion being that everyone committed suicide for the same reasons, no matter what countries they were living in. One of these was anomie. He believed that the breakdown of society was a loss of common laws, values, practises and morals, causing chaos - he called this anomie, for example Iraq is anomic because of the war.

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C Wright Mills’ notion of the sociological imagination’

C. Wright mills believed that if everyone can believe that as an individual they form a big part in society, if you as a person could believe that everything you do or anything that happens to you is a result of society, you are experiencing the ‘sociological imagination’. For example if you lose your job it is not just what he termed a ‘private concern’, your own problem, but a ‘public issue’ , the result of societal economic and social forces.

In his book ...

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C Wright Mills’ notion of the sociological imagination’

In his book of the same name, C. Wright Mills explained that the private concerns you had where not merely private, but where public issues; for example if you was living in America and you were worrying about your sick mother and how you was going to pay for her hospital bill, that was a societal issue because the government had decided not to have free health care. Overall he said if you can understand all of the above and that any macro event affects every micro event , that we as individuals are tied up with society at large, then you have “the sociological imagination”.

C. Wright believed if you examine the structure of society then you could understand society. For example he believed that America was run by a ‘power elite’, who impacted upon micro events. He believed the power elite to be built up of three main bodies:

1)Large and powerful companies/ trans national corporations i.e.: Shell, Microsoft, and Mc Donald’s. 2) Government, 3) Military. He believed that these three controlled and caused conflict in the population, ordering the lives of the individual.

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Karl Marx’s concept of ‘class struggles’

Karl Mark believed that capitalism was the source of all conflict in society. He said that society was broken up into two economic classes, which where the Bourgeoisie - the bosses of all the big firms/companies/industrial factories, and the proletariat who where the workers for the bourgeoisie in the factories. The proletariat were earning minimum wages, and working long hours, while the bourgeoisie pocketed the surplus value (profit). This makes the bourgeoisie richer, which gave them more power, and ensured the exploitation of the proletariat.

Marx’s views were centred on the industrial revolution when people left the

countryside to go and get jobs in cites where factories were blossoming i.e.; Battersea power station in London is a remnant of the time. The cities grew bigger, which meant more people where looking for work, which meant the bourgeoisie (bosses) would be able to make more money from exporting the proletariat (workers). This created a class struggle between the working class and the wealthy industrialists, because the bourgeoisie wanted to keep the power and money afforded by industrial capitalism and the proletariat wanted to alleviate the poverty they found themselves in. This highlighted for Marx that society was materialist in nature, each class desperately needing, but resenting the other, reflecting a materialist history that causes class struggle. Capitalism was thus the glue which, Marx said, kept society together.

Karl Marx believed that class struggle would change social history because he said he thought that all workers would get together and cause a workers revolution, which would result in an egalitarian communist society.

REFERENCES?

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Max Weber’s description of ‘the Protestant ethic’ and his description of ‘the spirit of capitalism’

Protestantism was a type of Christianity which emerged in the 16th century. Max Weber thought that capitalism developed from Protestantism because Protestants believed that you should work hard, save money and not buy luxury things in life. Protestant churches and religion are ascetic (bare) in nature, believers would deny themselves luxury things because they felt that if you had done all the above, you would gain entrance into heaven and be rewarded in your next life. The opposite was true of the Catholic, who believed in having nice things, decorating their churches with luxury items and rich colours (rich gold, green, royalty colours), pictures, idols etc.

With the renaissance, science emerged and people stopped being so superstitious; believing in witches, gods, devil and spirits as the causes of natural and social events. People started to think more logically because of science and the industrial revolution, the making of machines, equipment etc was a result. Rational thought contributed to the Protestant Ethic, together allowing the spirit of capitalism to emerge.