Max Planck

developed through his career the scientific study of social systems and phenomena in our world. The use of the scientific method to examine culture and society produced crucial differences with his predecessors or colleagues such as Herbert Spencer or Max Weber. Trying to know if society is something tangible or a social construct, Emile Durkheim wrote his famous book The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) that laid down the guidelines to follow to study what he called a positive social…

Different “Ways of Seeing” In the essay, “Ways of Seeing,” John Berger applies Marxism to art history. Marxism is the social, economic and political theory formed by Karl Marx. It deals with class struggle and the oppression of the lower classes by the upper classes. In the essay, Berger focuses on using Marxist methodology, when he analyzes and explains an artist named Frans Hal. Berger uses Hals paintings to demonstrate the structure of social classes, and their struggles to give an idea of…

What exactly is a social imaginary? A social imaginary can be defined as the interpretive understanding of the world, what a good life looks like, and how we can attain it. A Social imaginary encompasses the creative and meaningful dimensions of the real world, the dimensions through which people in our society create their ways of living and the rules by which they live on earth. Growing up in an African American household, my parents taught me that life is tough and I would have to work two…

Sociology is known to be the study of society itself, the relationship between people and the community; this is used to understand how our actions shape everything around us. They investigates social causes or issues such as the effects of a community on a person, gender identity, as well as race. To do so they may design research projects, collect data through observation or surveys, and collaborate with sociologist all around the world to seek help to test their theories out. To look at the…

Violence, an integral part of modern society, constitutes the lives of individuals that lead to reactions in the sociological perspective. In terms of sociology, violence grasps the control one’s realities. Sociological impact of violence is so intertwined with side factors that individual get derailed in conducts transforming personalities, emotions, thoughts, world views. This study deals with violence in the sociological view and its implications as depicted in Conrad’s The Secret Agent.…

“Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin explores the ideas of racism in earlier and present societies. This topic is of current interest, especially in today’s time; America and other nations are presently partaking in many social and racial justice movements. Baldwin opens his story by describing the first time he went to a small village in Switzerland. Due to the town’s inaccessibility, a person with black skin had never set foot in this remote village before, so Baldwin became a spectacle…

The book “Brave new world” written by Aldous Huxley and the “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” written by the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. Are two ideologies that give philosophical concepts concerning the government in the society. Brave new world antedates improvement in the current use of human technology in reproduction, psychosomatic influence and classical acclimatization to bring a change in society. Althusser's Marxism focuses on false conscious ideas in the…

Edward A. Ross was widely regarded as one of the founders of sociology in the United States. Ross believed that sociology was a tool we could use to solve the problems of humanity. While he was studying sociology, Ross came to the conclusion that humans were social creatures and that through understanding human nature, we could create a peaceful and flourishing society. His work through sociology let him become established as a progressive figure. Furthermore, in his paper titled, American and…

In Between: An examination of three anthropologists’ moments of liminality Liminality is a term used in anthropology to describe a period of transition concerning social structure and understanding. Liminality consists of a pre-liminal state, a liminal period, and a communitas state. The pre-liminal state is characteristically defined as a time when events occur under specific conditions that start to press against an individual’s normal social structure and thought process. The liminal period…

According to introduction to Sociology 2e a bureaucracy is “Formal organizations characterized by a hierarchy authority, a clear division of labor, explicit rules and impersonality. “ Max Weber said that a bureaucracy normally would have four definite characteristics. Hierarchy of Authority, a clear division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonality. Some people say that companies like General Motors, Amazon, and Facebook are bureaucracies. Let’s explore this proposition. I think that they…