LECTURE 1-CHAPTER 1, 2, 3
→Sociology:
=the systematic, sceptic and critical study of the social
…explores systematically human society…
…explores human patterns of thinking, feeling and social action…
…tries to see the particular in the general…
(everything is always different, but also a lot is the same)
Durkheim: the individual in mass society
“…Man is double. There are two beings in him: an individual being which has its foundation in the organism and the
circle of whose activities is therefore strictly limited, and a social being which represents the highest reality in the
intellectual and moral order that we can know by observation—I mean society…. In so far as he belongs to society,
the individual transcends himself, both when he thinks and when he acts.” From The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life
→Sociology vs Psychology:
-Type of problem
•PSY states problem mostly at individual level
•SOC states problem mostly at societal level
-Type of explanation
•PSY gives individual explanation (psyche)
•SOC gives social explanation
Example:
• Psychologist think that a person who commits murders has a psychological disorders
• A sociologist would take into account also the social ties this person had before committing murder→if you are
socially embedded, there is a lower chance you commit murder
,• People with a psychological disorder can be more or less inclined to commit murder, depending on how socially
embedded they are
Example derived from Durkheim:
• Suicide
• Most individual act imaginable
• Strongly influenced by society (by integration and regulation)
• Regulation=moral rules and values available in society
• Integration=how much a person is embedded in society
• High suicide rates in people who are not well integrated
• Low suicide rates in people who are well integrated
Durkheim has established the view that there are no societies in which suicide does not occur. Rejecting most of the
accepted theories of suicide, Durkheim claims suicide as primarily a social phenomena in terms of the breakdown of
the vital bond of life. Durkheim in his classical study of ‘Le Suicide’ which was published in 1897, demonstrates that
neither psychopathic factor nor heredity nor climate nor poverty, nor unhappy love nor other personal factors
motivate along form sufficient explanation of suicide.
According to Durkheim, suicide is not an individual act nor a personal action. It is caused by some power which is
over and above the individual or super individual. Many doctors and psychologists develop the theory that majority
of people who take their own life are in a pathological state, but Durkheim emphasizes that the force, which
determines the suicide, is not psychological but social. He concludes that suicide is the result of social
disorganization or lack of social integration or social solidarity.
Emile Durkheim classified different types of suicides on the basis of different types of relationship between the actor
and his society.
(1) Egoistic suicide:
According to Durkheim, when a man becomes socially isolated or feels that he has no place in the society he
destroys himself. This is the suicide of self-centred person who lacks altruistic feelings and is usually cut off from
main stream of the society.
(2) Altruistic suicide:
This type of suicide occurs when individuals and the group are too close and intimate. This kind of suicide results
from the over integration of the individual into social proof, for example – Sati customs (hindu women who outlived
their husbands were expected to join them on their funeral pyres).
,(3) Anomic suicide:
This type of suicide is due to certain breakdown of social equilibrium, such as, suicide after bankruptcy or after
winning a lottery. In other words, anomic suicide takes place in a situation which has cropped up suddenly.
(4) Fatalistic suicide:
This type of suicide is due to overregulation in society. Under the overregulation of a society, when a servant or slave
commits suicide, when a barren woman commits suicide, it is the example of fatalistic suicide.
Note: highest suicide rates in Asia (Japan and Sri Lanka) and the highest suicide numbers are in China.
→What is sociology?
• Analyze and study society, in particular investigate, describe, and explain the way people live together.
Everything that happens in society raise questions for sociologists. Examples:
- Why is it impossible for the supporters of competing football clubs to behave decently towards each other,
while they can do this when watching together a match of the national team?
- What is the influence of social media on face-to-face communication, for example in the family or at work?
- Why didn’t we talk much about emotions in the past, and why is this less an issue nowadays? (see Ophra
Winfrey, dr. Phill).
- Why are the employees of department A willing to work with the employees in department B, but not with
the people from department C?
• Interaction between people
• Looking for general elements in social behavior
• Categorize individuals
• Looking for similarities and differences between these categories
• Open door? Trivial knowledge? We already know that?!
• Solving riddles or dilemma’s
• Example: why collective goods, when everybody strives for their own pleasures?
• Improve society and social interaction
• Malleable society
• Most straightforward definition: “Science of society”
✓ Science
✓ Social/societal problems
→Pros of sociology
• Sociology becomes a form of consciousness that challenges familiar understanding of ourselves and the others
• Help us recognize the opportunities and constraints that characterize our lives
• Helps us to become active participants in society
• Help us recognize human differences and sufferings and to confront the challenge of living in a diverse world
→Cons of sociology
• Sociology is part of a changing world
• Sociologists are part of what they study
, • Sociological knowledge becomes part of society (sociologists create ideas that can shape the ways in which
society works)
→ 3 types of problems:
-Social/societal problems
• Delinquency
• Terrorism
• Migration
• Self-enrichment
• Poverty
• Divorce
• Extreme-right voting
• Etc.
• Issue of valuation / it is bad that people…
• Issue of action / something should be done
-Sociological problems
• Logical problems
• Objective
- Social policy problems
→Sociology versus ‘common sense’
Zygmunt Bauman:
1. Responsible speech: rules of responsible arguments.
2. Size of the field: transcending your own social world.
3. Making sense: explaining and interpreting human behavior by looking at the different figurations and
institutions which people are embedded in.
4. Defamiliarize: the ability to discuss/question the familiar and the obvious.
→Sociology: 3 levels
-Micro
• Family
• Friends
-Meso
• Office
• University
-Macro
• Government
• Country
