Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mathematical,
biological and social…
Social Theories
…applied to current
problems in
the social world.
Some general concepts and
terminology for social theories:
• Agency - power to make change: e.g, “she felt she had no agency until
she spoke up in the union meeting for the first time.”
• Collaboration - working together e.g class collaboration - leaders of the
working and ruling classes compromising to find a solution.
• Representation - who is speaking on behalf of society. E.g., often a
demand for rights groups is for “representation” meaning in parliament/ he
institutions of power.
• Access - e.g being able to access instruments of power - political party
leadership, high positions in the work place, getting your story told in the
media.
• Individual struggle - extraordinary individuals making a stand (e.g the
early Martin Luther King.
• Collective struggle - uniting with others to fight for a common goal. (E.g.
Martin Luther King began to call on Black people to unite on ethnic and
class lines to fight against the white ruling class of America. He was then
assassinated.)
Conflict theory
• The belief that social inequality leads to
conflict. Oppressed people will stand up
to oppressors to force change.
• Change includes
• -reforms (slow and gradual)
• -more radical types (instant and en
masse) eg REVOLUTION.
Applying conflict theory
• Change doesn’t happen because of
CONFLICT THEORY. Change happens
because of CONFLICT. THEORY
explains the conflict and puts in in a
historical context.
• Theory helps us understand past
present and future societal behaviour.
Examples of application:
• Gender inequality: women organise for their rights. Elite
women protested in the 1800s for the vote. working class and coloured
women protested in the 60s for abortion, divorce and workers rights.
• Marx wrote that the ruling class are a “Band of warring brothers” meaning they
work together to exploit workers over all over the world but they go to war with
each other because competition for wealth-accumulation is central to the way
capitalism works.
• Marxists (eg socialists/communists) argue that war only benefits the rulers
(bourgeoisie) and never the workers (proletariat) who have to fight and be
killed.
The Russian Marxists, the Bolsheviks, called on Russians to boycott the war
and “turn the imperialist war into a class war.” In other words, reject
Nationalism and see the bosses as the enemies rather than see their fellow
proletarians (workers) in Germany as the enemy.
1800s
Cartoon of
Imperialism
Would the
picture be
different today?
Gender
inequality
• What are the
inequalities faced by
women? How have
these changed or
continued over time?
Terminology/concepts
• Time, gender, structural inequality,
patriarchy, socio-economic
status/class,
bourgeois, proletarian,
solidarity, subordination
Conflict Theory (Marxism)
and women
• Marxists see women’s subordination as necessary for the functioning of
capitalism. Women are reduced to baby-makers and domestic servants to serve
the interests of the bourgeoisie. (the rich) the state doesn’t need to pay anyone
to house, clothe, bathe and feed the working class coz women do it for free! Coz
they’re so “lovely”!
• Society is divided along lines of class. Male and female workers must unite
against the exploitation of the ruling class (the bosses.) Marxists (conflict
theorists) believe that men do not necessarily benefit from women's
subordination. The system oppresses both sexes. Bourgeois women benefit
from sexism because rich women can exploit poor women.
• Conflict theorists argue that class conflict is the essential drive to all social
change. The working class or those without economic superiority would have to
push against the capitalist ways and revolt to cause change.
Important text: Marx and Engel's The Family, Private Property and the State
Feminism
• Feminists see inequality as the result of the
patriarchy – innate dominance in men.
There are also anti-Marxist feminists who think all women should
stand together no matter what class they belong to.
Sexuality?
Disability?
On class and gender…
Bourgeoisie feminists/anti-Marxist
Feminists believe the West can
end women's oppression through
force and occupation. So they
tend to support the “war on terror”
and the banning of the burqa
(as in France.)
Evolutionary Theories
Concepts / terminology
- survival of the fittest
• Natural selection
• Adaptation
• Evolution
• Westernisation
• Eurocentic….. Ethnocentric
• Biological determinism
Evolutionary Theory +
Crime
• According to Evolutionary theory,
more civilized and developed
societies have more order and
therefore should experience lower
rates of crime. Compared to
societies that aren’t as developed
they actually have higher rates of
crime and incidence.
And yet today, work place accidents cause more deaths in Australia
than car accidents. So its more dangerous to go to work that drive a
car!
Shouldn’t the natural order of things have ironed that out by now????
Where to now for this society is we are traveling on a “unilinear” path of
civilization and improvement?
(Thanks Rachel!)
“A Darwinian Theory of Beauty”
• Charles Darwin’s biological theory of
evolution (organisms changing in order
to adapt to environmental needs) can
be related to Beauty. Traditional and
mainstream notions of beauty are
Eurocentric.
Why?
Discuss plastic surgery…
• The article discusses the idea of how beauty in art, music or beautiful things are
not just simply ‘in the eye of the beholder’ but rather within our human nature
with ‘deep evolutionary origins’. The affect of cultural conditioning can be seen
as the reassurance of our perception/value of beauty in connections to our
human nature. It is also recognized that the wealthier culture are usually more
desirable in perception
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/nov/22/1
[accessed:01/12/10]
Poverty (Thanks Cassie and others!)
Evolutionary theory suggests the
poor remain in poverty because of
their adaptations to the burdens of
poverty. Poverty, it would seem, is a
natural feature of civilization.
Concepts / terminology
• Ecology
• Sustainability
• Population target
• Surplus
• Food production
• Inequality
• Capitalism
Malthus
Thomas Malthus, who wrote his essay on “The Principle of Population” in 1798,
thought the world was getting overpopulated then, when world population was
less than 1 billion people. Malthus argued that it is “a law of nature that
population growth is faster than growth in food production”. Therefore any
increase in the living standards of the poor would lead to them having more
children, causing an imbalance between food production and population which
would lead to famine and disease, thus removing these surplus mouths and
restoring equilibrium.He argued that inequality was natural and good (along
with smallpox and slavery) while speaking out against soup kitchens and early
marriages.
• Critics of Marxism say that today there is more social mobility. Public
education aims to allow equal access to all children to become successful. We
are all “equal before the law”… etc. So is there no longer a need for “conflict”
or radical change?
• Critics also say that class is too different today than it was in Marx’s day
(industrial rev) Society has “evolved.” so the theory is no longer relevant.
• Today the privileged use evolutionary theory as a
justification of class inequality. They call the
modern class system (Capitalism) a “meritocracy” -
meaning those that get ahead do so because
they’ve earned it. An echo of “survival of the fittest.”