Sociology Midterm

Front 1

Peasants are pushed off the land and into cities to work in factories as
wage laborers

Back 1

Industrial Revolution

Front 2

Feudal ties of Noblesse Oblige are replaced by market relations, in which
all social obligations are contractual

Back 2

Industrial Revolution

Front 3

Decline of monarchy and birth of democracy and modern nation-states

Back 3

French Revolution

Front 4

Cultural contact between European society and New
World societies force Europeans to recognize non-western beliefs and ways of
life

Back 4

Age of Exploration

Front 5

The Age of Reason (17th and 18th centuries)

Back 5

Enlightenment

Front 6

Europe emerges from the Dark Ages and experiences a renaissance in art, law, and science. With science, Enlightenment thinkers believe that humanity can finally control it destiny and overcome bigotry and superstition

Back 6

Optimisim

Front 7

Intellectual movement which questions the Enlightenment principle that
humans can design or control society

Back 7

Counter Enlightenment

Front 8

society is conceived as a separate and constraining "thing." Humans are
products of society, not vice versa.

Back 8

Counter Enlightenment

Front 9

Rejection of Enlightenment individualism

Back 9

Counter Enlightenment

Front 10

Individuals need society to survive and to be happy; society provides its
members with meaning and purpose

Back 10

Counter Enlightenment

Front 11

Tempers Enlightenment faith in science and technology: Science can not
solve all human problems or make life meaningful

Back 11

Counter Enlightenment

Front 12

rural to urban

Back 12

feature that represents the transition from traditional to modern society

Front 13

personal to impersonal (small town familiarity v. big city isolation)

Back 13

feature that represents the transition from traditional to modern society

Front 14

religious to secular/scientific attitudes

Back 14

feature that represents the transition from traditional to modern society

Front 15

agrarian to industrial economic labor (peasants become wage laborers)

Back 15

feature that represents the transition from traditional to modern society

Front 16

sense of community to sense of individuality - commitment to social groups
gives way to self interest

Back 16

feature that represents the transition from traditional to modern society

Front 17

Society is moving from a homogenous entity, in which its members think and act in similar ways, to a heterogenous entity, in which its members think and act differently; from a society based on similarity, where
individuals are replicas of their parents, and are expected to conform to a
single standard of morality, to a society based on difference, where a great
degree of nonconformity, diversity, and dissent are tolerated. Modern society
is much more diverse and complex in terms of the way classes, status groups,
and power are stratified - all of these multiply in modern society (e.g., the
creation of middle classes). The irony here is that despite the increase in individual freedom, individuals become more inter-dependent on each other, especially in their work lives. As people become more different and
specialized in terms of occupation, they come to depend more on other
specialists to perform tasks they can not. For example, the more people lose the ability to cook for themselves, the more they will have to depend on restaurant workers to prepare their meals for them

Back 17

feature that represents the transition from traditional to modern society

Front 18

A theory of knowledge which holds that there is one social
reality "out there" that we humans can access through the scientific method. Society is conceived of as a thing or as social "matter" ("social facts") that can be studied/analyzed/counted just like physical matter. Like the
theologians and philosophers before him, Comte believed in an external and immutable reality, and an ultimate truth; the difference for him was that this "positive" reality and truth was based on scientific knowledge - facts
are gathered and systematized through careful observation and experimentation. "Positive" truth is not gained through faith (theology) or
through pure reason (metaphysics)

Back 18

Positivism

Front 19

Science is not value-free, and knowledge is not lawful, cumulative, or external ("out there" waiting to be discovered); knowledge is a human social construction that changes; the social order is not constituted by immutable laws of society, but by changing social patterns.
These patterns (family, gender, race, class, religion, etc.) impose limits, but these limits vary by time and place, and are subject to change by human intervention (intended and unintended)

Back 19

Critique of Positivism

Front 20

Comte's evolutionary perspective of social change

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social dynamics

Front 21

i) theological ii) metaphysical iii) positivist

Back 21

Comte's Law of three stages

Front 22

i) militarism ii)
nationalism iii) industrialism

Back 22

type of social organization accompanying each of Comte's stage

Front 23

Private industrialists are the chief agents of the positivist mentality; they would apply science for the benefit of humanity; the new enlightened
aristocracy

Back 23

Social Dynamics

Front 24

Organicism

Back 24

The parts of society
all worker together in harmony to sustain the whole.

Front 25

subordination of the individual to collective control

Back 25

Altruism (Social Statics)

Front 26

Family - as the primary unit of society, responsible for integrating children into society and instilling empathy for others

Back 26

Altruism (Social Statics)

Front 27

For most of history, the main source of social solidarity has been theologically-based religion, but Comte believed that such supernatural beliefs would be replaced by scientific belief, or a religion of humanity
(i.e., scientific humanism). Government would assume most of the social functions traditionally served by religion.

Back 27

Altruism (Social Statics)

Front 28

Condemns the Enlightenment principles of individualism and democracy as misguided metaphysical dogma that promote the individual at the expense of society.

Back 28

Social Statics

Front 29

Sociology as the study of evolution of societies, and of the relation of
the parts to the whole

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Herbery Spencer

Front 30

innovations in food production allow for population growth and more complex social organization, characterized by increasing a) integration b)
differentiation (i.e., division of labor) c) coherence d) definiteness

Back 30

Social Evolution

Front 31

metaphor equating society with biological organisms, used by Spencer

Back 31

Organicism

Front 32

evolving from "simple" to "compound"; from "militant" to "industrial"

Back 32

Spencer's type of societies

Front 33

Individual as fundamental unit of society (market orientation, unlike
Comte); focus on the individual is a departure from the biological metaphor,
since individuals (as society's component parts) are capable of running their
own affairs without a centralized nerve center (central authority/government)

Back 33

Spencer belief

Front 34

survival of the fittest process and laissez faire doctrine

Back 34

Spencer belief

Front 35

government regulation of business and government
social welfare programs interfere with the operation of the free market and
obstruct natural bourgeoisie evolution by helping the weak to survive (i.e.,
social darwinism) - Spencer belief

Back 35

anti-government attitude

Front 36

a social system whose members are "socially equal"; a
society of equals is a society without "hereditary" advantage: no inherited
wealth, status, rank, or title; economic inequality is condoned as long as
individuals earn their own wealth

Back 36

Democracy

Front 37

1. size and location
2. laws - checks and balances imposed by the federal constitution;
3. autonomous voluntary associations
4. religious spirit - Puritan discipline to control passions and moral authority of the "rule of law"

Back 37

conditions of democracy in America

Front 38

a threat to democracy in America where equality threatens liberty. Social equals demand conformity and repress individual or minority differences

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tyranny of the majority

Front 39

liberty threatens equality, Individual citizens
withdrawal from civil society to private life; citizens abdicate self-
government and civic duties to the central state - This is a threat to democracy in America

Back 39

administrative despotism

Front 40

i) break-up of decentralized small rural communities by urbanization and industrialization; ii) increasing wealth breeds complacency

Back 40

underlying social causes of threats to American Democracy

Front 41

working class or proletariat produces value through
its labor, but it does receive wages commensurate with that value. The owning class or bourgeoisie legally (through a labor contract) usurps these unpaid wages as profit

Back 41

Labor theory of value

Front 42

division of labor, or the organization of the production process. Under capitalism, the specialization of tasks is advanced through factory methods. The aim is to replace skilled craftsmen working alone in their shops with the
semi or low-skilled assembly-line laborers working together in a factory. The
result is that more products can be made more cheaply, and in less time. Production becomes infinitely more efficient, and wealth/profit grows exponentially.

Back 42

Forces of production

Front 43

capitalist must create a class of workers, or of "free" or dependent laborers, who have no means of subsisting except for selling their labor for wages --> surplus army of unemployed

Back 43

Proletarianization - Relations of Production

Front 44

Legalization of private property - workers consent to their own exploitation through legal job contracts, enforceable by law. Employers have the legal right to use the workers' labor, and the product of that labor, as
they see fit.

Back 44

Relations of Production

Front 45

Growing contradictions between the forces and the relations of production
a. cycle of overproduction /underconsumption
i. Capitalist forces of production create a highly efficient productive system
that constantly produces more products in less time for less cost. But at the same time, the capitalist relations of production (private ownership of property) concentrates the increasing wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer
capitalists. Workers are impoverished and can not afford to purchase the
products they make. That is, as wealth grows more abundant, it also becomes more unequally distributed. More wealth in fewer hands results in class
polarization and class conflict

Back 45

Crisis of Capitalism