Introduction:
Welcome to the summary of the lecture slides for Society Today. If you have gone over the slides
already you may have noticed; our teachers tendency to include the entire book into his slides. I have
meticulously checked all slides and I can indeed confirm that: Yes they are as boring as they look. I
have attempted to summarize it as best I could however there is allot of stuff in there. Luckily most of
it is completely and utterly useless. Anyway enjoy reading it cause I sure as hell didn’t enjoy writing
it.
Contents
Introduction:............................................................................................................................................ 1
Lecture 1: ............................................................................................................................................... 2
4 Characteristics of Modernization: .................................................................................................... 2
Postmodernity: Social patterns characteristic of post-industrial societies .......................................... 3
5 Characteristics of Postmodernity: ................................................................................................ 3
Consequences of Modernity: .............................................................................................................. 3
Dystopian View .................................................................................................................................. 3
Utopian View ...................................................................................................................................... 3
Cooperation and Diversity: ................................................................................................................. 3
Lecture 2: ............................................................................................................................................... 4
Control theory ..................................................................................................................................... 4
4 Types of bonds ............................................................................................................................. 4
Family ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Cause for Increase in divorce rates through western countries! ......................................................... 4
Corporation is the foundation of human development. We cannot develop as individuals in
isolation. .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Function of Family:............................................................................................................................. 5
Inequality and the family: ................................................................................................................... 5
Patriarchy ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Property and Inheritance ................................................................................................................. 5
Lecture 3 ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Lecture 4: ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Changes in work ................................................................................................................................. 6
New forms of energy ...................................................................................................................... 6
Manufacturing and mass production ............................................................................................... 6
Division of labor and specialization................................................................................................ 6
Wage labor ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Tangible products to ideas .............................................................................................................. 6
Mechanical skills to literacy skills .................................................................................................. 6
Decentralization of work away from factories ................................................................................ 6
Isolation is the obvious enemy of cooperation ................................................................................ 6
3 Sectors of the Economy: .................................................................................................................. 6
Capitalism has 3 features: ................................................................................................................... 7
Socialist Economy 3 Features: ............................................................................................................ 7
Lecture 5: ............................................................................................................................................... 7
Models of life ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Changes in Religion ............................................................................................................................ 8
Shopping replacing religion ................................................................................................................ 8
Lecture 6: ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Primary and Secondary groups: .......................................................................................................... 9
Freud ................................................................................................................................................... 9
Metron ................................................................................................................................................. 9
Short summary of Lecture 6 ............................................................................................................. 10
Lecture 7: ............................................................................................................................................. 10
Local connection but global disconnection. ...................................................................................... 10
New views clash with old views: ...................................................................................................... 10
Future of society: .............................................................................................................................. 10
Informalizaion of Society: ................................................................................................................ 10
Citizen involvement: ......................................................................................................................... 10
Social Capital .................................................................................................................................... 11
Video about 3 different communities: .............................................................................................. 11
Calafou .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Galagheviz .................................................................................................................................... 11
Bristol............................................................................................................................................ 11
Lecture 1:
Social Change: The transformation of Culture and Social institutions over time.
Modernity: Social Patterns linked to industrialization
Modernization: Is the process of social change initiated by industrialization.
4 Characteristics of Modernization:
Decline of Small traditional communities
The Expansion of personal choice
Increasing diversity in beliefs
Future orientation and growing awareness of time
Globalization: The process by which local communities respond differently to globalization.
Hybridization: Forms of social life become diversified as they separate from old practices and get
combined into new ones.
Postmodernity: Social patterns characteristic of post-industrial societies.
5 Characteristics of Postmodernity:
In some important respects, modernity has failed
The bright light of progress is fading
Science no longer has all the answers
Cultural Debates are intensifying
Social institutions are changing
Consequences of Modernity:
The collapse of the small and the traditional
An increase of personal choice in a variety of associations and a decrease of conformism in the
community.
Gesellschaft / Gemeinschaft
Much more diversity instead of homogeneity
Future progress becomes much more important than the past traditions
Thee key thinkers observed the sociological implications of the industrial revolution: Marx,
Durkheim, Weber
Dystopian View
Widening inequalities and social division
Fragmentation, post-Fordism, disorganization, balkanization
Impersonality and loss of community
Narcissism, egoism
Mcdonaldization, standardization, dumbing down
Moral decline and incivility
Entrenched hierarchies of exclusions
Uncertainty chaos a world out of control
Utopian View
Higher standards of living for larger numbers of people
The pluralization ethos, differences recognized
Participation and attachment in new social worlds
Individualism
Choices Reflexivity
Citizenship, new ethics, moral effervescence
The democratization of personhood and relationships
Chance for a new world order human rights.
Cooperation and Diversity:
Tribalism: Solidarity and us vs them
Mutual Support is built into the genes of all social animals
Cooperation is a social skill: dialogic exchange, empathic understanding and subjunctive mood
More social distance due to economic inequality, organization of labor, withdrawl from difference
(Putnam) and cultural homogenization.
In isolation we can not develop as individuals experiment and communication out of the box
Lecture 2:
Individualization
Informalization
Informatization
Internationalization
Intensivation
Control theory: Everyone has the desire to commit criminal and deviant acts; and seeks to answer
why some people refrain from doing so. It states that individuals will commit crime when their bonds
to society are weakened or broken:
4 Types of bonds
Attachment
Commitment
Involvement
Belief
Easy to translate into policy very influential when dealing with youths
Policies:
Intensifying informal social control
Intervening at the level of family and school.
Family: A social institution that unites individuals into cooperative groups that oversee the bearing
and raising of children. Families are built on kinship: a social bond based on blood, marriage or
adoption that joins individuals into families.
Family unit: A social group of two or more people related by blood marriage or adoption who usually
live together.
Cause for Increase in divorce rates through western countries!
Divorce is legal and easier: Before 1857 for example in the UK the only way to get a divorce was
through an act of parliament.
Demographic changes: We exaggerate the stability of marriages in the past; before one of the two
people had a large chance of dying early; today instead of dying we divorce.
Individualization is increasing: Times are changing men and women are equal in the control of their
lives and we are far more focused on personal happiness and success rather than family. Men and
women are less certain about their rules and this puts stress on marriages and forces break-ups.
Romantic love often subsides: Modern marriage emphasizes love and often once the sexual passion
subsides the relationship is dead.
Women are now less dependent on men and have changed expectations: Women have come to expect
more from like than being the home maker as well as being less financially dependent on men.
Many of today’s marriages are stressful: Both people are working which puts extra stress and it’s hard
to find affordable childcare and since women expect men to do allot of the housework there is stress
in there too and all of this causes break ups.
Divorce is more socially acceptable: Divorce doesn’t have a negative stigma anymore and couples
whom are considering divorce are not negatively encouraged.
Corporation is the foundation of human development. We cannot develop as individuals in
isolation.
Inequality at school is imposed by the way children are placed into different tracks or groups, sorting
children based on their ability is quite new; up until the 18th Century the schoolroom was full of
children of very unequal talents. Some children are segregated into advanced classes aimed at
university while others remain fixed.
Function of Family:
Socialization: Ideally parents teach children to be cooperative members of society.
Regulation of sexual activity: In the interest of maintaining kinship organization and property rights:
EG Incest taboo
Social Placement: Social identity based on religion, race, ethnicity is ascribed at birth.
Material and Emotional security: Heaven in a heartless world looking to kin for physical protection
emotional support and financial assistance.
Inequality and the family:
Patriarchy: The only way for men to know who their heirs are is to control the sexuality of women;
which transforms women into men’s property.
Property and Inheritance: Men especially of the highest classes could transmit all of their property
to their sons leaving girl children with nothing.
Cohibition the sharing of a household by an unmarried couple.
Lecture 3
School used to be only for the very rich and prosperous nowadays it’s accessible to all; Of course the
poor argue this point from the perspective that the Government doesn’t put an emphasis on schools
for the most poor; additionally the poor cannot afford books, private schools, prep schools, laptops
and other types of help which gives children of affluent background distinct advantage.
Children of a young age absorb everything around them; and they can perceive inequality. Inequality
kind of hits children when they enter school; because before school everything is shared and equal but
once school beings one can really tell the difference between families. Children are furthermore put
into groups into classes and segregated based on their ability. Most commonly put into different tracks
at school some for high educations other for manual labor.
Streaming: The assignment of students to different tracks of educational programme.
Parentocracy: a system where the child’s education is dependent upon the wealth and wishes of
parents.
Credentialism: Evaluating a person on the basis of education qualification.
Lecture 4:
Changes in work
New forms of energy: Throughout history people were reliant on their own muscle or animals to get
work done. But after the steam engine was invented this was quickly replaced by machinery.
The centralization of work in factories: Steam powered machines soon made cottage industries
obsolete, Factories centralized and impersonal workplaces separate from the home proliferated. Work
moved from private to public sphere.
Manufacturing and mass production: Before the industrial revolution most work was cultivating
and gathering raw materials such as crops, wood and wool. Industrial revolution shifted most jobs into
manufacturing turning raw materials into a sellable product.
Division of labor and specialization: Typically a single skilled worker in a cottage industry would
make a product from start to finish. A factory splits up the product into tasks and each worker
completes one task over and over making only a small contribution to the whole. Factories raised
productivity but lowered the skill level of workers. Despoiling.
Wage labor: Instead of working for themselves or joining together as households industrial workers
entered factories as wage laborers. They sold their labor to strangers who often cared less for them
than for the machines they operated. Supervision was routine and intense and the amount of money
they got was pathetic
Tangible products to ideas: In the post-industrial era more and more work revolves around the
creation and manipulation of symbols. Computer programmers, writers, financial analyst, advertising
executives, architect and all sort of consultants represent the workers of the information age.
Mechanical skills to literacy skills: Just as the industrial revolution offered opportunities to those
that learned a mechanical trade; the information revolution demands that workers have literacy skills:
The ability to speak, write and use a computer.
Decentralization of work away from factories; Industrial revolution brought people away from
home; now wireless technology and laptop computers are bringing work bac home.
Isolation is the obvious enemy of cooperation and analysts of the modern workplace know this
enemy well. Silo effect is that each worker is isolated only taking top down instruction and managers
are not concerned with the bottom up information.
Fordism: Economic system based on mass assembly-line production, mass consumption and
standardized commodities.
Post-Fordism: New economic system based on flexibility rather than standardization, specialization
and tailor-made goods.
3 Sectors of the Economy:
Primary Sector: Generates raw materials directly from the natural environment.
Secondary Sector” Transforms raw materials into manufactured goods and includes the refining of
petroleum and the use of metals to manufacture tools.
Tertiary sector: Generates services rather than goods and includes teachers, shop assistants.
Global economy: Economic activity spanning many nations of the world with little regard for
national borders.
Capitalism: Economic system in which resources used for producing goods and services are privately
owned.
Capitalism has 3 features:
1. Private Ownership: Allowing individuals to won almost anything the more capitalist an
economy is the more private ownership there is.
2. Pursuit of personal profit: A capitalist society encouraged the accumulation of private
property and defined a profit-minded orientation as natural.
3. Free competition: Consumer sovereignty and markets a pure capitalist economy would
operate without government interference called laissez faire approach; the economy regulates
it self by the invisible hand.
Socialism: An economic system in which natural resources and the means of producing goods and
services are collectively owned. Opposite of the capitalist three.
Socialist Economy 3 Features:
Collective ownership of property: It limits the right to private property especially property used in
producing goods and services.
Pursuit of collective goals: The individualistic pursuit of profit also stands at odds with the collective
orientation of socialism.
Government control of the economy: Socialism rejects the idea that a free-market economy regulates
itself. Instead of laissez-faire approach, socialist government uses centrally controlled command
economy.
Communism: Economic and political system in which all members of society are socially equal.
State capitalism: An economic and political system in which companies are privately owned though
they cooperate closely with the government.
Democratic socliasm: An economic and political system that combines significant government
control of the economy with free elections.
The third way: A framework that adapts politics to a changed world, transcending old-style
democracy and neo-liberalism.
Occupational Gender Segregation: Concentrate men and women in different types of jobs.
Second shift: A woman working in a factory returns home to do the domestic work.
Self-Employment: Earning a living without working for a large organization.
Conglomerates: Giant corporations composed of many smaller corporations.
Lecture 5:
Definitions part of Religion
Cosmogony: A tale about how the world/universe was created.
Theodicy: A tale about how evil and suffering is to be found in the world.
The ethical life: How people should behave
Ritual: Formal ceremonial behavior
Models of life
All religions have models of life which people use to organize their day to day activities. Usually
those include a cosmogony, a theodicy and a version of the ethical life. Additionally religions have
many rituals: Meditation, mantra, worship, festivals and regulations on hygiene, diet and sex. This is
to make the distinction between sacred and the profane visible and clear.
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Muslims remove their shoes before entering a mosque to avoid defiling a sacred place of
worship with soles that have touched the profane ground outside.
Hindu’s wash routinely
Jews have bar mitzvah and a bat mitzvah.
Christians have the Holy Communion.
Changes in Religion
The sacred is the focus of the ritual; Holy Communion is the central ritual of Christianity the wafer
and wine consumed during communion symbolize the body and blood of Jesus Christ and are not
treated as food.
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Religion today is limited partial secularization; as in religion is limited and secularization
means that people are abandoning religion. Therefore religion is limited and partially
abandoned.
The growth of fundamentalism alongside the clash of civilizations: Fundamentalism is strictly
keeping with traditions or principles presumably in this context of religion; and the clash of
civilizations is that in global metropolitan cities people live from all corners of the world.
Therefore different religion and rituals “clash”.
The arrival of new religious movements and the ‘new age’.
Development of postmodern forms of religion such as cyber-churches and mega-churches.
Shopping replacing religion
There is an idea that religion is replaced by shopping for example; since shopping is nowadays a very
large social practice. Youth market for example is the number one social activity. Slogans such as
‘Born to shop’, ‘Shop till you drop’ are very popular. The market used to be historically about getting
food and goods; however nowadays with the massive megastores (LOL) that are existing it is no
longer about just buying food or necessities; it is about lifestyle and identity.
The slides end with some long and insane piece about a woman that believes that religion is the best
motivation for social engagement. Then there is an even more insane guy that thinks that after a large
trauma in life such as cancer or wife dying or something; people are then born again into religion and
can experience the excitement and new morale of being born again. Both of these people are clearly
clinically insane, as I shall be soon if I continue reading what’s written on these sheets. But I digress I
shall grind on indefinitely.
Lecture 6:
Citizen still need human, social and cultural capital in order to take up the role of an active citizen
within their community.
Primary and Secondary groups:
Primary groups are basically close friends or other people which you have very personal relationships
with.
Secondary groups: are people which you interact with only to gain something; shopkeepers, neighbors
and the like.
I am far too tired to explain this in greater detail but this is the jist; detail is in my book summary.
Freud was asked for advice on the good life and he said it was leben und arbeiten love and work. In
his advice though he is missing community life as a social limb. We want to see community as a
process of coming into the world, a process in which people work out both the value of face-to-face
relations and the limits on those relations. For poor and marginalized people those limits are political
and economic; the value is social. Though community cannot fill up the whole of a life it promises
pleasures of a serious sort.
For black children born to parents who did not complete high school; there was more than 50%
chance to have a father in prison. So the risk of imprisoned parent is concentrated among low-income
black youth. And having a parent in jail can really mess up your life chances.
Low educational achievements of poor urban youth can be linked to the social dimensions of their
neighborhood context;
 The economy factors underlying economic decline,
 The institutional practices of the school system.
 The reliance on mass imprisonment in the criminal justice system.
This goes on against the Achievement Ideology. That everyone that has a chance to be in school
can succeed regardless of other conditions. (I think this may be on the exam)
Unprecedented concentration of inequality produces profound social isolation for poor black kids in
the inner city causing them to suffer from the following factors.
 Little meaningful employment nearby
 Inadequate schools and training
 Inadequate opportunities for higher-skill jobs
 Spatial barriers to suburban employees
As the unemployment grew formal organization that had depended on the middle-class weakened;
the result of which was lack of important institutions such as churches, schools, businesses and civic
clubs. The black press churches, lodges and fraternal orders, social clubs and political sub machine
together made up a dense arrangement of resources and sociability that supported their 200 000
members. There were 500 congregations on the South side; they were also an important way for
individual can collective mobility within the specific order of the ghetto that cut across class lines and
strengthened ingrown social control. Even though black workers were against the cupidity and
hypocrisy of church functionaries and devotees.
Metron: Tension is created by a combination of economic and social exclusion with cultural
inclusion. To compensate for this difference cultural identification is given an even greater value.
Inner-city kids’ inclusion in mainstream America’s mass market has been important in determining
those kids’ responses to the economic and racial exclusion they face in other parts of their lives. And
exclusion and painful memories have made the participation of inter-city in mass culture very urgent
and enthusiastic. Culture of consumption has given them a seductive means to compensate for their
feelings of failure.
Short summary of Lecture 6
Well you’ve made it reading through lecture 6; so I will assume at this point that you much like me
cannot be bothered with this so in the next few sentences I will explain the entire 15 slides as
simple as possible without all the bs.
Black children of poor families are very disadvantaged in every way imaginable; their parents are in
jail they are broke, they have no opportunities etc. Before it used to be that the church and other
institutions would give those children meaning to their lives and stabilize their live. However since
churches are falling out they have nowhere to turn. Those kids are discriminated against in every
place except in the ghetto and when buying things with money; so naturally they want to be able to
afford things and not feel discriminated.
Lecture 7:
Local connection but global disconnection.
Internationalization: neighborhoods are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of nationality and
ethnicity.
Individualization: Traditional voluntary associations and social communities are disappearing.
New views clash with old views:
People especially young people like to make their own choices which is not always compatible with
being active in voluntary organization rooted in tradition; from an era which put the organization
before the individual.
Future of society:
Though there is individualization it doesn’t necessarily mean there will be an individual society; some
researches sea new contemporary forms of communality and loosely organized communities arise in
Dutch Society in which individuals voluntarily opt for groups and group behavior.
Informalizaion of Society:
Informalization: Many vertical relationships are becoming informal and horizontal. This
informalization is combined with the intensification of experience. Nowadays participation in civil
society is a dynamic process in which citizens are constantly switching identities and roles.
Citizen involvement:
Citizens are involved in a do it yourself kind of way in multiple places:
 Business
 Politics
 Everyday life
 Voluntary associations
Participation is nowadays less planned calculated and corporately embedded and more ad hoc on
issues in the neighborhood or social environment.
Social Capital
Intensification due to growing importance and wide-spread use of information and communication
technologies such as the internet, email and mobile phones (and various mixed forms). On the one
hand it could lead in a decline of social capital since people talk to each other less; but on the other
hand it can give new chances for sociability.
Video about 3 different communities:
Calafou: Hackers in spain which made their own community that everyone can join. They have the
benefit of living in a wonderful society where everyone is free to do as he or she pleases. They have
the minor downsides of being flat-broke and living in an abandoned factory. And to top it all off their
decision making process takes ages since everyone is involved.
Galagheviz: Basically a farmer’s community where they decided that they did not like anything from
the outside; so to that effect their cut all ties with the outside and grow their own stuff and just do
their own thing. Personally I think the fresh food and lack of technology would do us all justice.
Unfortunately the downside is that the leader is pretty much a dictator; eh guess you can’t win in
everything.
Bristol: They decided to make their own new currency which is only useful in Bristol. The Bristol
pond you see can only be used in the city and is created to support local businesses; presumably the
idea is that since you can only spent it in the city and is worth more than the regular money. The
downside that I foresee in this is that how could they possibly make everything; I assume they need to
import things from the outside which will not work with made-up money. Also their mayor is very
irritating hippy that likes to eat glutten free vegan “food” which says enough. PS he also wears red
pants at all times for no reason at all, other than to look like a douche.
In the past the three most common black owned establishments were beauty parlors, grocery stores
and barber shops. But there came a new doctrine of Double-duty dollar according to it when you buy
from black owners it would advance the entire race, solidarity and all that. This new way promised
finally a path of economic freedom away from whites; and the numbers proved that it is feasible.
Suddenly without even implementing anything the policy was successful and there were cult
followings; the leaders were regarded as patrons of charity and pioneers in the establishment of
legitimate business as well as race leaders; the system was of course protected by paying money to
courts and police and all the other officials.