Disciplines And Ideas In The Social Science

Chapter 3 Kelvin Paul B. Panuncio Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences

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DOMINANT APPROACH AND IDEAS PART 1

Structural-Functional Marxism Symbolic Interactionism Psychoanalysis

Function • The theory of function was developed by Herbert Spenser lived in 19th and early 20th century and Emile Durkheim in 19th century. • The whole point of this theory is to liken society to a living organism – complex body parts and all – whose objectives are self-preservation and self-perpetuation. • Social cohesion and integration are a matter of high importance in order to keep all the parts functioning together as a single unit toward a common goal or purposes.

The notion of Function • The ensuing paradigm became functionalism a movement or school of thought pioneered by British intellectual Bronislaw Malinowski • he develop in the British School of Social Anthropology. He also served as the first chair in Anthropology at London School of Economics. • British social anthropologist also develop ideas around the notion of function which is also known as Structural Functionalism.

Functionalism • States that what keeps society together is the function or role that all parts of a system perform, assert and play in order to preserve, maintain, and sustain society for prosperity. • No society would want to destroy itself so that each and every part, institution and sector, must perform expected roles and functions. • The indirect benefit for people would be the promotion of a feeling of solidarity ad unity among them, which lessen stress and thereby make them happy and secure deeply inside.

As we say in Filipino, • Ang sakit ng kalingkinan, sakit ng buong katawan. • Truly, in an organic analogy of society as a human body, the whole unit will only function well if all of their parts perform their expected tasks. If there are maladaptive parts, eventually they will contribute to the collapse of society unless checked by other units or sectors in charge of correcting or penalizing the erring units.

• Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Structuralism as a mode of social inquiry, is an entirely different way of looking at social and cultural phenomena. Originally developed in Western Europe – France and Germany in the 1950s, blossomed after 2nd WW with the ideas of Ronald Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and Louis Althusser

Dean Worcester an Ayta Examine the notion of difference between the two subjects of the photograph – an American and an Ayta How two subject different?

Structuralism Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand de Saussure - SwissLinguist who were contemporary thinkers of early 20 th century • They were ones who investigated and elaborated on the so-called hidden “structures” of human life. • Durkheim basic classificatory structures – the binary categories – life that human mind has created make sense of the world: day/night, male/female, white/black, life/death and sacred/profane. • Saussure, on the other, saw the basic distinction between langue and the parole.

• The Langue is the internal structure and logic of a particular language. The langue is the overall system of thought linguistic capacities of humans: words, rules, grammar, syntax, logic and much moré. • One must able to understand langue in a given point of time. The parole or individual speech is simply dependent on the ways of the language.

Langue consist of a basic element, which called the sign. • It has two components the signifier(symbol) and the signified(idea or concept) • Signifier - be it a sound or visual symbols representational tool. • Signified – is a pure concept shaped and determined by the existing langue. • A word or sound or symbol could not fully stand for an idea because this idea is independent of the symbols.

The signifier has no intrinsic or natural relationship with the signified. • Homme • Hombre • Orang • Man • Tao Those words are symbols of a concept that is being referred to human being, which purely a function of the particular langue.

Words may change but the idea remains the same. • Can you mention some more examples where you can show that the signifier has no natural relationship with the signified but intimately connected to each other, EDSA.

Historical Materialism and Karl Marx • 19th century German social thinker approached the nature of Western society form the perspective of economics. • He saw a modern society as not an end in itself but a transitional phase of what he beloved is a historically shaped social order – socialism • He drew from Hegelian concept of Dialectics.

Georg Wilhelm Hegel • A German philosopher of the late 18 th to early 19th century. • According to this notion of dialectics, across history, there had been opposing forces in human society the so called “thesis” and “antithesis” that clash with one another, shape one another, as a consequence, create a new form that are the “synthesis” of two diametrically opposed forces.

• How Marx viewed “modern” society from the perspective of the economy – the material condition of the people - lies in the core of his social theory. Imagine a simple production line in a factory. Thus, the ensuing relations are largely shaped by economic situation characterized by capitalism. Marx called the owner of the factory as the capitalist and the workers are proletariat.

Anyone going into capitalist systems enters a definite social relation determined by “relation of production”. Anyone control the capital means become the ruling class. Moreover, society consist of two parts: the base which the economy the superstructure which consist Social “Ideological” is subtly ofsuperstructure social structures such asthat religion, representing the interest of family, law cultures the etc. ruling class Economic base

Consist of means of production(materials) and the social relation of products(owner)

Historical Materialism • Going back to Hegelian dialectics, using a theory of how society evolves by Marx • Story of conflict between classes – the haves and have-nots, the ruling class and dominated class and the elites and the worker

Modes of production

Means of production

Characteristics

History period

Primitive communism

Foraging in nature Tribal society, no ruling class, egalitarian

Prehistory

Ancient mode of production

Slave labor

Ancient society. Ruling class exist

Ancient times

Feudalism

Land

Reciprocal relations between landlords and peasants

Medieval Period

Capitalism

Machines, factory

Ruling class exploiting the worker class

Industrial, capitalist society

Socialism

Publicly and collectively owned machines etc.

Production intended to directly satisfy human needs

Postcapitalism

Communism

Publicly and collectively owned machines, factories, and other productive

“perfect and ideal” system of human affairs

Hypothetical future

Tatsulok • Discuss among your classmates the message behind the song. Reflect particularly on the following lines: ..habang may tatsulok, at silang nasa tuktok, di mamatapos itong gulo… Can you sense a tinge of Maxist framework in those lines and in the content of the songs?

Symbolic Interaction • So every culture has its own interpretation of an act • For example ang yes sa atin ay nodding ng head • May ibang culture ang yes ay swaying ng head

• The symbolic interaction perspective, also called symbolic interactionism, is a major framework of sociological theory. This perspective relies on the symbolic meaning that people develop and rely upon in the process of social interaction. Although symbolic interactionism traces its origins to  Max Weber'sassertion that individuals act according to their interpretation of the meaning of their world, the American philosopher George Herbert Mead  introduced this perspective to American sociology in the 1920s.

• Symbolic interaction theory analyzes society by addressing the subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviors. Subjective meanings are given primacy because it is believed that people behave based on what they believe and not just on what is objectively true. Thus, society is thought to be socially constructed through human interpretation. People interpret one another’s behavior and it is these interpretations that form the social bond. • These interpretations are called the  “definition of the situation.”

• For example, why would young people smoke cigarettes even when all objective medical evidence points to the dangers of doing so? The answer is in the definition of the situation that people create. Studies find that teenagers are well informed about the risks of tobacco, but they also think that smoking is cool, that they themselves will be safe from harm, and that smoking projects a positive image to their peers. So, the symbolic meaning of smoking overrides that actual facts regarding smoking and risk.

Classical Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud • Sigmund Freud, the influential German psychologist of the early 20th century, provided not only a revolutionary way of understanding human personality but also how society affects our psychology. • The famous neurologist (1856-1939) is also known as the Father of Psychoanalysis.

Based on Freud’s formulation • The individual mind is the source of your subjectivity, created by social and cultural forces that operate beneath the level of the unconscious self. • Saying that even within our minds, there are facet of ourselves, our inner selves that we cannot control but others want to control.

• In Freudian perspective, Socialization, the lifelong process of learning the way and behavior appropriate to a particular society, is not only an external or structural process but also an internal, mental process. • is the product of interaction between inner mind and the outside world. Socialization reflects the ongoing conflict.

ID

The unconscious self

EGO

The conscious and rational self

SUPEREGO

The conscience

To further understand this ongoing conflict, Freud explained that the self consist of three parts; ID in its natural state, the human being has uncontrollable instinctual desires, say, things that pertain to violence and sexual drives. Ego, the conscious and rational part of the self, just like the government. It is the executive branch, the one executing and performing action and decision. It mediates between the biological and social needs of the person.

Superego, it is the internalization of social values and belief. It plays a moralizing role for the individual because it serves as the person’s conscience. This leads to Freud’s prescription for modern society. That for social order to be achieved and for chaos to be avoided, the superego must tame the ID.

Classical Psychoanalysis • One of the methods by Freud is psychoanalysis which makes use of a dialogue between the patient and psychoanalysis • Bt the way of FREE ASSOCIATION, the patient talk about his or her experiences as freely as possible without interruption from attending doctor. • Slip of tongue(Freudian Slip) expression of the repressed desires of the ID.

Do some ethnography – virtual ethnography • Make a group and investigate and explore the world of social media (youtube,facebook,instragram,etc.) and how they document, relay, report, and communicate the stories and experiences of the people in times of disaster as part of the psychosocial dimension of the situation. Pay particular attention to how stories told by the victims themselves have created the dilemma.

DOMINANT APPROACHES AND IDEAS PART 2

• Rational Choice • Institutionalism • Feminist Theory • Hermeneutical Phenomenology • Human-Environment