Review and Prospect

1. Review and Prospect When and how did the three classic figures of sociology become classics?

2. We have argued that: • The classic figures are Marx, Durkheim, and Weber • Who stressed class, norms and organization, respectively • Conflict theories focus on positive feedbacks, and functional theories on negative feedbacks.

3. Prior to the 1960’s many other figures would have been considered more important. • Parsons from 1940-1970 made Durkheim and Weber central figures. • The critics of Parsons from 1960-1990 made Marx important. • In Chicago sociology, figures such as Spencer, Comte, or Glumpowitz were considered more important.

4. Much of Chicago sociology was directed against Spencer • “Mr. Sociology” from the 1840’s to the 1930’s • “Social Darwinism” argued that progress was driven by the “survival of the fittest.” • Spencer wrote the first books in English on sociology, arguing for “laissez faire” and the importance of genetic differences. • The Chicago sociologists argued that human behavior was socially shaped.

5. Liberalism and Social Darwinism • 19th c. Liberals were not “liberal” but “conservative” • They stressed competition and genetic variation, • and so they opposed labor laws, income tax, and social policy generally. • In the US, Spencer was very popular with the robber barons that controlled American education, and William Graham Sumner was an exponent • Charles Murray is a contemporary example

6. Liberalism and Individualism • Popular explanations of crime, income, educational success, addiction, etc. often stress individual traits. • One can always ask why this individual rather than that one develops cancer, fails school or abuses drugs. • But such explanations may be useless in explaining rates and structures relevant to health, education or drug abuse.

7. Positivism • Saint-Simon and Comte developed a project of a “social physics.” • Saint-Simon was also one of the founders of socialism. • Their work does not look very scientific today. • In the US, Ward was a main exponent.

8. NeoKanianism • A variety of different bodies of thought developed Kant’s ideas that our conceptualizations make our knowledge possible. • Simmel was one form of neoKantian theorist, who was most central to the Chicago school. • And figures such as Mead or W.I.Thomas insisted that the ways that people think about reality is real in its consequences. (I.e. belief in witchcraft creates witches.) • This became one source of symbolic interactionism

9. Historicism • Other European theorists developed historical description and conceptualization of social change. • Toennies Community and Society was an elaborate conceptualization of different kinds of social structures. • Ch. 5 of One World noted that there were many analyses of social development that were the basis of modern sociology.

10. The Chicago School • The set of pragmatist and empirical theorists at the University of Chicago established a very rich tradition of empirical description of slums, ethnic and racial groups, gangs, etc. • Most of them studied in Germany. • Robert Park promoted empirical studies: sociologist as (wo)man with clipboard.