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Sociological theorists and their theories
Sociological theorists and their theories
Sociological theories
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It’s always helpful to look at the man, as well as his sociological theories in order to understand the stance from which he writes. The reasoning being such that in order to look at the ideas and relevancy in which a sociologist presents their arguments, the historical time period and influences they live in as they mature is also extremely important. That being said, Herbert Spencer was born in 1820 at the height of the British industrial revolution. He was not a robust and healthy young man, and saw the loss of his siblings at a young age. In modern day, he might be considered schizophrenic and an opium addict, as well as an insomniac. He was quite eccentric and wore ear-plugs to tune out what went on around him, although he did work as a civil engineer on the railways, which helped him find optimism in life. His book Social Statics was met with great acclaim when it was published in 1851, but his second book Principles of Psychology published in 1855 was highly criticized. His four main theories are highlighted as growth, differentiation, integration and adaptation. While these concepts are used when describing theories of biological evolution, he believed that they also projected onto a social plane. He looked at evolution as a change from being unstable (homogeneous), to one that was more stable (heterogenous). In fact, it was Spencer who initially coined the term “evolution” and “survival of the fittest” many years before Darwin. Spencer was not taken seriously though due to a lack of what was considered a theoretical system. Although he lived a long life (he died in 1903) his initial optimism about life was replaced in his later years with pessimism about the future of mankind. He is actually buried near Ge... ... middle of paper ... ...ise and begin to exert authority. Following that situation, there is a split between the regulative and sustaining system within that division. The regulative stage is associated with military and the economic needs of the society are linked to the sustaining systems. There is a continuing differentiation within each of those stages such as: social classes, women, church, etc. Functions of groups within that society also change. Our textbook then goes on to say that Spencer adds a third system, which includes distribution. He again likens it to the human body and see a connection between blood vessels and roads. As current examples, Egypt and the Arab Spring is a good example of this theory. One might even look at the current situation in the United States and feel that we are ripe for our next differentiation between our regulative and sustaining systems.
Herbert Spencer was born in England, he is best known for developing and applying the
Sumner was very influenced with the Spencer’s ideas. He was unclear about the Spencer’s ideas about creating a systematic science of society after his graduation. However, Spencer’s proposals aided Sumner’s ini...
There are a lot of misconceptions about Darwin's theory of evolution. One of the biggest is that he called the theory by that name. Albrecht von Haller used the word "evolution" in 1744 to mean "to unroll," so the word was around in Darwin's time, but Darwin never used it in the sense we use it today. It was added later by others, including Herbert Spencer, who is responsible for the theory we call Social Darwinism. This theory is misnamed; it is not based on Darwin's work, but Spencer's.
In 1959, C. Wright Mills released a book entitled ‘The sociological’. Imagination’. It was in this book that he laid out a set of guidelines of how to carry out social analysis of the data. But for a layman, what does the term ‘sociological imagination’ mean? actually mean.
Dick Spencer led a long career as first a salesman, then a troubleshooter, which led into a managerial role. While the role of salesman was one that Spencer succeeded at, he felt his interest was in a different career path within his company, Tri-American Corporation. It was in his role of manager that he encountered incidents that tested his skills and reactions as a leader. This paper will analyze how Dick Spencer was able to succeed in his role as a salesman, as well as deal with conflict and tribulations as a manager. It will look at how each of these factors either contributed to Spencer’s success or failures within each of these roles. In addition to this, different recommendations will be made as to how Spencer could have approached certain situations differently.
considered separately as causes of change in the society. He used the relationship between society and the individual to explain the causes of change in terms of social development.
Amongst them all, James cannot be ignored because he was the key founder of the functionalism school of psychology. On the other hand, Spencer was vocal to further promote this theory to higher levels. He claimed that the structural changes cannot be take place without the impacts of the functional changes. He viewed society as an organism, where the diverse institutions are comparable with those organs in an organism that have like functions. An example would be the government being considered as analogous with a brain and that roads were paralleled with veins. This metaphor has been popular among later social scientists and led to a line of thought called functionalism. James McKeen Cattell and Stanley Hall were also key functionalists with the latter having presented an analysis of how education was fundamental in the lives of young children and many people in the society in general. It is worth mentioning that in as much as the concepts of structuralism and functionalism were sidelined over time, there impact to the field of psychology cannot be ignored. This is because they opened up a platform for further research work on comparable
The Utopian view of Spencer, was the principle of survival of the fittest were allowed to operate freely, only the best survive. What was inevitable was human perfection as long as no action is taken to change the natural order of things. A laissez-faire economic system and individualism were vital, whereas legislative attempts to regulate welfare, business and industry were opposed. Businesses, people, programs, or institutions that couldn't adapt were unfit for survival and should become extinct for the improvement of society as a whole. If poorly functioning enterprises had shown continued support by the government, the companies would endure, weakening social and the fundamental law of nature violated that only the fittest and strongest shall survive. Spencer's idea Ensure that only the best survived. Eventually, society could achieve perfection. Those who could not adapt didn't
Charles Darwin was a 19th century scientist that lived in the down house, a Manor outside of London, with his children and wife Emma. Although Charles Darwin did not completely finish his studies he was still a scientist at the forefront of the theory of evolution because he introduced natural selection, wrote the book On the Origin of Species, and stated that all species come from close relatives.
Herbert Spencer, the coiner of the term, “survival of the fittest”, is probably one of the most well-known proponents of Social Darwinism. Despite this, Herbert Spencer while holding Social Darwinist views never actually pushed them heavily in the biological sphere. Still Herbert Spencer’s ideas heavily influenced Social Darwinism as a whole, so it is still worth mentioning. Herbert Spencer fused evolution and economics so to speak, “that Darwinist principles were intended to buttress the case that biological evolution could be equally applicable to human societies” (Rutledge, 1995, p.243). If a business crushed another business, it was natural vis-a-vi survival of the fittest. At the time this was a highly popular form of business ideology, especially amongst the rich. As such his ideas for economics helped gain momentum for Social Darwinist thought in other
In his 1857 work, Progress: Its Law And Course, Spencer sought to understand Progress by cleaving it from its accomplishments and laying bare its essentials. Central to this task was dispassion as Spencer set aside consideration of the moral and ethical consequences of Progress and sought only to observe and describe its nature and effect. Such observation, he declared, showed that the nature of biological Progress had been revealed. To him biological progress was indisputably an evolution from homogeneity to heterogeneity. This “law of organic progress” he took to be the “law of all progress”.
Having written The Sociological Imagination in 1959, C. Wright Mills was brought up in a society far more different and archaic than the idea of contemporary society today. The ideals that were imparted to him during his lifetime provided a framework to the ideals that are imparted to people today; however, like all incarnations, processes and ideas adapted to situate themselves into the transitioning threads of society. Through his elaboration on the sociological imagination, C. Wright Mills portrays the plight of the average citizen during his time period in a jaded light thereby providing a limited, but nonetheless relevant scope of the sociological plight of the average citizen in contemporary society.
...d how mode of production was replaced by large corporate and government organizations. In short, an institutional pattern as such would not function in society unless somehow society was overpowered by demands or conditions.
...as backfired itself by allowing different political parties to also demand to speak up and deliver contradicting point of views from one another like in Egypt and Tunisia. Although the eviction of dictatorial rulers was fascinating but for that reason governmental systems collapsed and none of them have been able to satisfy at least the majority of the people likewise in Tunisia and Egypt.
Talcott Parson (Parsons 1951) sees society as a collection of systems within systems Parson determined that each individual has expectations of the other's action and reaction to his own behaviour, and that these expectations would be derived from the accepted norms and values of th...