All of the HIGHLIGHTED PORTIONS are what my
(Darcy’s) exam review session worksheet will
cover or at least touch on. I encourage you to
study the rest on your own.
Fall 2014 FINAL Sociology 134
Unit 2 Exam Review and Learning Guide
Dr. Krier
BIG PICTURE: The material in this second unit highlighted the primary differences between TRADITIONAL
and MODERN: society, culture, socialization, social control in everyday life and social control of deviance
Learning Goals for Lectures on Traditional and Modern Society and Culture:
1. What is the difference between culture and social structure (Dr. Krier used computer networks and
computer software as an analogy)?
2. What is the SACRED? How does the Sacred differ from the PROFANE? Dr. Krier taught that traditional
society was organized by SACREDNESS and that traditional culture was covered by a sacred canopy. What
does this mean?
3. How does SACRIFICE function to create and tend SACRED things, especially TOTEMS or primitive
GODS?
4 What is a RITE or RITUAL? Understand Dr. Krier’s teachings about the EXCESS human energy that is
released when human beings are brought together in groups and how RITES/RITUALS organize this excess
energy for SACRED purposes.
5. Understand how traditional societies are strongly bonded together by a particular form of ritual known as
COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT OF DEVIANCE.
6. Understand two terms associated with traditional culture: SACRILEGE and TABOO.
7. Understand how traditional societies meet their economic needs for food, shelter, clothing, Doritos
DIRECTLY while modern societies meet these needs indirectly through MARKET EXCHANGE. What were the
psychological consequences of these differences?
8. What are PRIMARY and SECONDARY groups? Why is the mother-child relationship the ESSENTIAL form
of the primary group relationship? Why is the contract the ESSENTIAL form of the secondary group
relationship? Dr. Krier taught that primary groups continue in modernity become every-more-important. Why?
9. Dr. Krier taught Emile Durkheim’s distinction between traditional and modern social solidarity. Understand
the following terms and have a rough idea of their interrelationships: mechanical and organic solidarity,
collective versus individual consciousness, the role of the “totem” or god-thing in mechanical solidarity, the
economic foundation of organic and mechanical solidarity, the function of ritual and collective punishment of
deviance.
12. What is characteristic of consciousness in traditional and modern society (individual v. collective,
conservative adherence to sacredness v. progressive exploration and innovation)?
13. What features of traditional and modern social structure were on view in the film, BARAKA, that we
watched in class?
14. What is the view of society and culture from the ORDER and CONFLICT models?
Learning Goals for Lectures on Socialization:
1. Understand the nature-nurture debate and the sophisticated resolution of this debate that is the foundation
of 21st century work on socialization? (see slide series for discussion of this).
2. Understand traditional society’s notion of innate evil in humans (more or less strong depending upon the
culture). Understand modernity’s development of a notion of innate goodness in humans. Understand the
absolutely critical role this assumption plays in socialization practices.
3. We discussed research on physical punishment of children (Murray Strauss’s summary of late 20th century
research). Understand in detail the summary of this research. Are the outcomes of physical punishment that
Murray synthesizes consistent with democratic modernity (or with a “good modernity” in the eyes of Spencer,
Weber, Durkheim)? Are they consistent with non-democratic modernity (or the bad modernity of Spencer,
Weber and Durkheim)?
4. The Big Point: What role should social science play in shaping modern life? What are the barriers to
social science based reform in our time?
5. What is the view of socialization from the ORDER and CONFLICT models (see text)?
Learning Goals for Lectures on Social Control (Lecture on October 7, 2014):
1. Know the sociological definition of Social Control as mechanisms ensuring conformity and the
suppression of deviance.
2. Understand the Order Versus Conflict View of Social Control
3. Understand the significance of internalization of societal norms and standards (Talcott Parsons and a
guilty conscience/superego) that is especially important in the order view.
4. Understand the conflict view’s stress upon ideological control and manipulation as a mechanism to
create false consensus around societal norms.
5. Understand differences between Traditional and Modern Social Control to include: traditional
informal versus modern formal control, traditional society’s small size, permanence and stability that
enables mechanical solidarity and collective consciousness as mechanisms of control, modern
society’s large size, impermanence and instability that make traditional social control impossible; the
spread of unprecedented situations and spaces in modernity, including cabarets, film theatres,
factories, urban regions; the rise of modern privacy and loneliness.
6. William Isaac Thomas as a theorist of Modern Social Control. What is the definition of the situation
and how does it structure/control modern
7. Erving Goffman as a theorist of Modern Social Control. Understand the role of “acting” and
dramaturgy in modern life. Why is all the world a stage, at least in modernity? What question does
the “definition of the situation” answer? How do definitions of situations shape conduct? What is
idealization and dramatic realization? Understand the distinction between Backstage/Frontstage in
everyday life. What are new types of MODERN MORALITY(Team discipline, team loyalty, derogation
of the absent, audience tact)?
8. Emile Durkheim’s Suicide and Modern Social Control: Understand Durkheim’s explanation of suicide
as a result of four social forces: altruism, fatalism, egoism and anomie. How does a person controlled
by each force (altruists, fatalists, egoists, anomic self) experience the world? Why would each
commit suicide?
Learning Goals for Lectures on Deviance and Punishment (Lecture on October 9, 2014):
1.
Define and differentiate informal DEVIANCE and formal CRIME?
a. Understand the relationship between Emile Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity
and collective punishment of deviance (especially
TABOO/SACRILEGE). Understand features of traditional control of
deviance: the centrality of punishment, a assumptions about human nature,
role of punishment in social life, forms of punishment, significance of
sacrilege. Understand contemporary moral crusades and clique-shaming
behavior as punishment of traditional deviance by mechanically bonded
groups.
2. Understand the particularly brutal Christian-on-Christian punishment during Protestant Reformation
and its long-term consequences for European and American politics and society.
a. Elongated torture (like drawing and quartering) reserved for sacrilege
b. Above all else, be able to answer the question: why are deviants punished in
traditional society with a nuanced answer.
3. Understand the relationship between Emile Durkheim’s organic solidarity and contractual control of
deviance. Why does punishment become less important to modern societies? Why does the
collective consciousness shrink? What happens when traditional deviance goes unpunished? What
one thing becomes a “new crime” in modernity? Understand how modernity’s deviance is controlled
with contracts and lawsuits for compensatory damages. Modern control of deviance through reform
in penitentiaries. What is the purpose of reform? How does the Panopticon work to reform
character?
4. SUMMARY POINTS: Emile Durkheim and the importance of sociological education in modern
democracies. The key question: how does the “denial of dependency upon others” undermine
organic solidarity? How does fearful adherence to a weakened SACRED order undermine organic
solidarity?
5. What kind of bad modernity does Emile Durkheim fear most (resurgent mechanical solidarity in the
midst of the modern world)? What would abnormal or destructive mechanical solidarity look like in
modernity? These themes are related to Dr. Krier’s teaching on Carl Schmitt’s concept “political
theology” and the resurgence of sacredness in our post-modern times.