Hurley
SYG 2000

Social Change: Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern Societies

Video Lecture Outline: Chapter 24

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I. Social Change
.....A. What Is Social Change?
...........1. It happens everywhere at different rates
...........2. It is often unplanned
...........3. It is usually controversial
...........4. It is of varied importance
.....B. Causes of Social Change
...........1. Culture and Change
..................a. Invention
..................b. Discovery
..................c. Diffusion
...........2. Cultural Lag
.....C. Conflict and Change
...........1. Ideas and Change
...........2. The Natural Environment and Change
...........3. Demographic Change
.....D. Seeing Ourselves: Migration Across the U.S.

II. Modernity
.....A. Key Dimensions of Modernization -- Peter Berger's Characterizations:
...........1. Decline of Traditional Communities
...........2. Expansion of Personal Choice
...........3. Increasing diversity of Beliefs
...........4. Future oriented towards Time
.....B. Change initiated by Industrialization
.....C. Ferdinand Toennies: The Loss of Community
...........1. Gemeinschaft
...........2. Gesellschaft
...........3. Is there Virtue in Modern Society?
.....D. Emile Durkheim: The Division of Labor
...........1. Specialization
...........2. Mechanical Solidarity
...........3. Organic Solidarity
.....E. Max Weber: The Rationalization of Role 'Types'
...........1. Detacted World View
...........2. Efficiency
.....F. Karl Marx: Capitalism
...........1. Alienation and Exploitation
...........2. The Capitalist Revolution would leade to a Communist Revolution

III. Theoretical Analysis of Modernity
....A. Structural-Functional Theory: Modernity as Mass Society
...........1. Mass scale of Modern Life
...........2. Ever expanding State
.....B. Social-Conflict Theory: Modernity as Class Society
...........1. Capitalism
...........2. Persistent Inequality
.....C. Modernity and the Individual
...........1. Mass Society: Probles of Identity
...........2. David Riesman's 'Social Character:'
..................a. Tradition-Directed
..................b. Other-Directed
..................c. Inner-Directed
...........3. Class Society: Problems of Powerlessness
...........4. Herbert Marcuse's 'One-Dimensional Man'
.....D. Modernity and Progress
.....E. What Happened to Honor?

IV. Postmodernity
.....A. Why Modernity Failed
...........1. Promise of 'Progress' Faded
...........2. Science doesn't hold the Answers
...........3. Cultural Debates Intensifying
...........4. Social Institutions are Changing
.....B. Can Communitarianism Revive the U.S?
.....C. The United States: A Nation In Decline?

V. Looking Ahead: Modernization and Our Global Future
.....A. Modernization Theory
.....B. Dependency Theory
.....C. Personal Freedom and Social Responsibility: Can We Have It Both Ways?

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