Classical Social Theorists
When trying to compare three social theorists to each other, you must first try to understand the intricacies that are entangled within each theory itself. Theorists, by nature, create theories that can be debated from all angles but must be a tight fit in order to be considered applicable to society. Theology as a single entity is constructed from deep intellectual thought. When social theorist begin to develop there theoretical perspectives, they seem to have an overwhelming grasp on the concepts they try to convey to us. Since it is extremely difficult to have such a complete strong hold on social issues such as family, politics and economics, it is important to know and understand the basic principles that underline the theories we study. To compare the theories of Georg Simmel, Vilfredo Pareto, and George Herbert Mead, I will first discuss the basic strengths and weaknesses of their theories.
Simmel was a conflict theorist who sought to investigate “pure or formal sociology” by trying to understand the societal forms themselves. Pure sociology refers to the investigation of the forms of interaction that underlie political, economic, religious, and sexual behaviors. Simmel was inspired by social differentiation and he was interested in the change that urbanization, industrialization brought to society (Li, Lecture). Unlike the work of Mead and Pareto, Simmel’s theories were non traditional and his topics varied throughout societies many issues. Simmel thought that by focusing on the basic properties of interaction, per se, that sociology could discover the underlining processes of social reality (Turner, P.265).
Simmel’s web of group affiliations is a sociological analysis of how patterns of group participation are altered with social differentiation and the consequences of such alterations for people’s everyday behavior (Turner P. 268). People become attached to certain groups because of similarities of talents, inclinations and activities and other factors of which they have some control. Simmel first talked about this in his social differentiation which is seen by most as not being very use full in its early stages.
Simmel saw society as Sociation /Association. He was interested in how people get connected. He saw society as a web of intricate multiple relations between individuals. He said society was merely a name for a n...
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...thoughts on economics and positivist thinking, Simmel gathered his thoughts on social differentiation by extensive reading and his own way of not interacting with his intellectual peers, while Mead was heavily influenced with the intellectual perspectives of his time. In contrast, each one of these theorist brings it own intellectual perspective to the study of sociology. Simmel’s thoughts on web affiliation contradict the views of Pareto’s in that Pareto thought that the individual’s relationship to society was not as important as the society’s effect on the individual. Meads view on the individual role taking determining the structure of social forms is in contrast to Simmel’s ideals on web affiliation in that society is structured on individual relationships with others not associations with one’s mind or self.
Understanding the theories of these classic theorists is of huge importance because it was the beginning of intellectual thought and all of their views on society and such were mostly original and unedited. To compare the theories of the three aforementioned theorists is to first comprehend there analysis of society and to appreciate the value of there conflicting views.
This essay will be explaining the definition of sociology, the sociological factors of obesity using Symbolic Interactionism Theory and the Functionalism Theory and a description of the medical condition obesity and how it may affect individuals suffering from it.
Sociology is the study of society and the interactions that occur within society itself. There are numerous methods of analyzing societies and the way the function, nonetheless, most methods fall in micro and macro level theories. Micro level theories allow sociologist to study smaller relationships such as individual or compact groups of people. On the other hand, macro level studies permit for larger scale investigations to take place. With both of these theories there are three theoretical perspectives used in sociology. Micro level theories include symbolic interactionism which focuses in interactions done with language and gestures and the means which allow such interactions to take place. Macro level theories include structural functionalism
Simmel’s alienated perception of sociability within his context has proven to demonstrate the ideals of sociability as a beneficial form of social interaction. His argued point that sociability is able to diminish and transcend inner barriers raised from the tumult of the Metropolis is therefore justified. This justification as supported by evidence of the Tartan Army through their efforts in enforcing and introducing change to individuals allowed them to experience a sense of contentment and satisfaction in the form of classical leisure.
One of the sociological theories is conflict theory. The conflict theory deals with people's level on wealth, or class. The conflict theory says that social change is beneficial, contrary to focuses on social order. In the story of the woman and her children, the conflict theory plays a big role on the situation. Police of higher class are threatening the homeless woman. The conflict theory is a constant struggle of people of higher class over powering people of lower class, or the weaker. The police are trying to over power the woman by telling her to leave. Even though the woman and her children were doing nothing wrong, the police used their power to tell her to leave. Also the people of the area showed their conflict theory by telling the police officers to come. They must have felt embarrassed to have a woman of such lower class to be around them. They used their power of class to have the woman removed from their community. The woman wants to be there because she has no home and it is a good community to be in, but the people look at it as an embarrassment to them because it makes their area look bad for someone of such lower class to be around them. The conflict theory is unique to all other theories because it separates people into categories determined by their wealth and standards. Their status is the element that categorizes them, weather it is class, race, or gender. The conflict theory do not always use class, race, and gender all at once. In this situation race and gender is not a main issue, although gender could be a reason, but it would fall under the feminist theory. This story is mainly dealing with class. Through all this conflict the woman feels over powered and domina...
To some degree everyone is influenced by social identity, the theory composes the idea that the social world is divided into ...
...lay in societal change. However it was only until the works of Durkheim and Simmel that the role of individual interaction and society is brought to the forefront. Durkheim largely viewed the individual as needing society as a mechanism of constraint to the aspirations of an eternal goal. Finally, Simmel was able to expand on Durkheim’s dualism by noting that society could be viewed as more than a mechanism of constraint rather as an accumulation of individual interaction. Either through a combination or as individuals each theorist distinct view of the relationship between the individual and society demonstrates a new understanding towards the nature of social reality.
Theories in sociology sometime provide us with the different perspectives with which to view our social...
Sociologists employ three major theoretical perspectives in sociology today. They are the structural-functionalist perspective, the conflict perspective, and the symbolic interactionism. The structural-functionalist perspective is done at a macro level and its focus is on the relationships between the parts of society. The Conflict perspective is done at a macro level and its main focus is on how the wealthy controls the poor and weak. Symbolic Interactionism is done at a micro and it focuses on the use of symbols and face to face interactions.
In sociology, there are three names you will always hear, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. Each are successful sociologist, they have made many significant contributions to the development of sociology. While all being enlightenment thinkers, each of them have their own distinguish perspective and focuses in their respective theories. Durkheim, a structural functionalist, argued everything in society exist for a purpose, and that society are bounded together by ideas and social unity, social solidarity. Weber focused on rationality and bureaucracy, he believes they are key element to modern society and he is interested to understand how people feel. Marx is primarily study society with economic perspectives, focused heavily on inequality among classes
There are three main theories of sociology; functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism. This paper will focus on two of those theories, functionalism and conflict theory. The objective is to delineate the assumptions of two out of the three theoretical perspectives and apply these assumptions to an analysis of social stratification. How this will be accomplished will be by comparing and contrasting their assumptions and by analyzing the two theories affect on social stratification. Then I will state my opinion on which of the two better fits my personal sociological views. Functionalism is many people's way to view the world sociologically. It states clearly that the objectivity of the researcher is necessary and can be accomplished. There are three main points, which make up a functionalist theory on sociological expression. The first point is that culture is made up of interacting, interdependent parts. Each of these parts has a function in maintaining the society as a system on the whole. The second point states that shared values and expectations(or beliefs) among the members of the society help hold the society together. The third point states that these systems have a need for stability and a need to try to keep all the parts working together congruously in a sort of system. Social change in this system is uncommon, and when it does happen, it is a very gradual change. Conflict theory is centered on the tension, or struggle that goes on in everyday life. There are many different parts, which make up the conflict theorist's view on the sociological perspective. The first main part is that society promotes general differences in wealth, power, and prestige. Wealth...
The first theorist to consider is Karl Marx. Marx has a uniqueness all of his own. His attention was normally directed towards capitalism in society. He studied the basis of inequality under capitalism. (Ritzer, 2004) When you look into Marx’s work on the dialectical method you can see one of the differences between his studies and Durkheim and Weber. It says, “ The dialectical thinker believes that it is not only impossible to keep values out of the study of the social world but also undesirable because to do so would produce a dispassionate, inhumane sociology that has little to offer to people in search of answers to the problems they confront.” (Ritzer, pg 46) I believe this is showing the depth of Marx because he is basically telling us that without your values when you study sociology you lose the passion of it.
Mills(1959), also wrote about public issues of social structure, referring to matters that go beyond the individual and look at society as a whole. How society is organised and how society works. This goes far beyond ‘the troubles of milieu, as it doesn’t look at the person and there individual experiences in society but looks at the wider social structure e.g social institutions… education, religion, family, law and how they have developed and interact with each other examples of the differenc...
...Henslin, James M. "Social Structure and Social Interaction." Essentials of Sociology: A down to Earth Approach. 10th Ed. 10th ed. Pearson, 2013. 112. Print.
The role of theory in social research is that without a sociological theory, nothing can be sociological. Facts disconnected from theory are just facts. Theory makes the facts speak; the facts don’t and cannot speak for themselves. Without a connection to other facts, we cannot assess anything. With theory, you can relate facts to each other. Theory is the body of interrelated logical concepts or universals that connect to empirical facts and phenomena. Empirical research is okay as long as there is theory involved with it. Theory helps us select which facts are important and which are not. Theory also allows us to organize the facts. Theory helps us create a story and tell which the dependent is and which the independent variable is. Theory points us to what we don’t know, which is the point of all the research in sociology. Theory also allows different concepts of sociology to talk to each other, and that allows sociology to progress. Emile Durkheim had stated in “What is a Social Fact?” that reason develops theories and, and observation backs them up. According to Durkheim, social facts are not ideas, they are facts and they are observable. Facts without a certain theory backing them are and will be meaningless. We had talked about this in the very beginning of the semester about how stating certain statistics such as ‘men make .75 cents more than women’ might be true, but just stating that will not be enough. In sociology, what need to be done are the reasons for stating that fact, and what it means for the society as a whole. Therefore, facts cannot stand alone without theory because they complete each other in a way. Talcott Parsons gives a different example in regards to this; “Few if any empiricists are content with discre...