Durkheim & DuBois

Orum III

• Durkheim

  • Sociology

  • Social facts: examples are social norms and laws

  • Society created humans; it is the basis of authority

  • Modernization: cause greater individuation and greater deviance

    • Solution = reform through educational institutions

  • Solidarity

  • Social norms and laws: rules that guide the behaviour and thinking of the members of society

  • Civil law (seeks restitution on behalf of the victim) vs. Penal law (exacts harsh punishments from the offender)

  • Institutions: education, religion, economy

  • Culture, symbols and rituals: unite members of society

  • Division of labour: furnishes the basis for cementing and solidifying the character of society = integrative function

  • Opposition: deviance from the general norms of society

  • State: police force

• Alexis de Tocqueville

  • Democracy in America: citizens’ equality, suffrage, born free, free press + freedom of speech

  • Organizations + associations ensured that democracy would continue

  • Threats to democracy

    • Race

    • Manufacturing

    • Tyranny of the majority: only the greatest number could gain an advantage

  • Civil society

Zuckerman

• W.E.B Du Bois

  • Was an activist for social and racial justice

  • He was a pioneer in these disciplines/themes:

    • Urban sociology

    • Rural sociology

    • Criminology

    • Religion

    • Race

  • Social problems

  • Sociology must combine broad generalizations and data → put science into sociology

  • Racial inequality: the result of social, economic, historical, and political forces

  • Race = social construct

  • Double-consciousness: when one’s social identities and social roles are at odds with one another

Foucault & Democracy

Blencowe

• Foucault

  • Our being (as conscious and active creatures) is composed through regimes, relations, and practices of knowledge

  • Genealogy: anti-science

  • Importance of culture and knowledge for power

  • Knowledge is crucial to the formation of the real material world

  • We must take responsibility for our relations to the production of truth and different truth regimes

  • Challenged universalism, determinism, and scientific method

  • Modern episteme: the organizing structure of knowledge of modern Western Europe

  • Biopolitics: concerned with the collective (society, race, nation, population)

Dahl

• Democratic requirements

  • Effective participation

  • Voting equality

  • Enlightened understanding

  • Control of the agenda

  • Inclusion of all adults

• Benefits of democracy

  • Avoiding tyranny and cruel + vicious autocrats

  • Essential fundamental rights

  • General freedom

  • Self-determination: protecting of own fundamental interests

  • Moral autonomy and responsibility

  • Human development

  • Protecting essential personal interests

  • Political equality

  • Peace-seeking: no wars between democracies

  • Prosperity