Society

      In our social life, we are being affected by others. Socially imposes some rules on us. Universally we can say that every human groups people are expected to behave like others so that creates a very important pressure on us, in that sense, there are several types of methods to control human individuals, they may be internal or external. This learning process (learning culture) is called "socialization". During the socialization, we learn certain values, norms, behaviors...etc. we rarely question those values. In that sense, culture becomes something that belongs to us. (the institution of family puts some rules on us and if we refuse a rule, we feel guilt). There are some external mechanisms which come from the outside. If we refuse something, other people gossip about us. In that sense, we regulate our behavior according to such external control mechanisms.

     In order for us to talk about a group, there has to be something important objective people sharing. Every collection of people cannot be called a group. Aggregate is not a group because it is a collection of people who happen to be at the same place at the same time but group is a collection of people who have the same purposes as well as same values. (People who are waiting a bus is not a group, they are aggregate but when they start travel together and the bus was kidnapped they start sharing something and having the same objective.) An aggregate in some situations may or may not become a group. Shortly in sociology a group is called a collection of people who identify with one another and distinctive pattern of interaction. (the more we stay in our class, the more we got to know each other and creative a sense of identity)

     Group provides us an identity. For example, we are belonging to a student group and our identity is "student. This identity comes from the group to which we belong. But if we are belonging to a group of people such as workers, our identity would be different. In sociology, there are two groups which are called "primary" and "secondary" groups. The primary groups are usually small, informal, long-lasting and they provide us a sense of belonging and a purpose so they have an enormous impact in our identity but in the secondary groups, every individual has a different task, there is a division of labor among people. In the secondary groups the rules are defined by the bureaucratic rules but in primary groups, the rules are not written. We are being given different values and identities. Learning what to do in general our purpose in primary groups. Face to face relationships usually dominant in primary groups but it also exist in secondary groups. (when we look at some groups such as companies, people experience their face to face relationships. Every relationship in those groups are not formally defined. Groups are very important in our lives and every group in which we are member affect our beliefs, behavior in a certain degree. They also affect the probability of suicide for somebody. The less we are being socialized, the more we feel depressed, that is why Durkheim,m says people may want somebody.

     Social life has two faces. One of them is change and the other is stability. There are something in life force change or resist change. They are forcing stability. (In every society, there are some structural forces which affect change negatively, for example, social institutions provides some behavior patterns from the tradition itself.) Institutions teach us what is acceptable for all people so in every society, if we do not accept rules, we are being punished by those institutions. Also, bureaucracy is a very major power which resist change , at the beginning, bureaucracy is an efficient system which puts some rational rules in organizations, such an efficient system may become very irrational from time to time because in bureaucracies, efficiency becomes inefficiency and those rules may become very dysfunctional. So in those formal organizations,people experience many difficulties. It is not easy to change those formal structures.

Types of Societies:

                              

 

A TYPOLOGY OF TRADITIONAL AND MODERN SOCIETIES

                         Characteristics                              Traditional                              Modern

                          social change                                   very slow                                   rapid

                          size of group                                    small                                         large

                          formal education                                  no                                            yes

                          place of residence                            rural                                           urban

                           family size                                         larger                                       smaller

                           infant mortality                                    high                                           low

                           life expectancy                                     low                                       high                   

                           health care                                         home                                      hospital

                           *** material relations***

                            industrialized                                    no                                                 yes

                             technology                                       simple                                        complex

                           division of labor                                   simple                                        complex

                             income                                             low                                              high

                             *** social relationships ***

                              families                                            extended                                   nuclear

                             respect for elders                                 more                                           less

                          social stratification                                   rigid                                           more open

                             statuses                                             ascribed                                     more achieved

                               *** norms ***

                                 view of reality                                  absolute                           relativistic relativity

                             social control                                         informal                                 formal

                            tolerance of differences                             less                                       more

The first human beings, when they form a group, they started to hunt animals when they started to cultivate the land they formed agrarian societies. Before that, they started to domesticate animals. In the first human groups, people who were older and men had more status. In hunting and gathering societies, there were few inequality but in large agrarian societies, inequality increases because of the division of labor. In large agrarian societies, people started to cultivate fields and grow crops These civilizations gad a distinctive cultures. We are seeing the most famous people in those civilizations. There were very very important social class and the first societies also had government. Premodern societies had less division of labor compare to modern societies. Industrial revolution brought about variety of machines so production technology was much more completed. In feudalism, we are not seeing a complex division of labor. Machine production in industrialized societies was very important. The first time in history, so many people started to move big cities and they become workers. Social life was much more impersonal. When we look at history, we are also observing large scale organizations. Transportation and communication was much more better, military power of state become more important.

Traditional society changes slowly but modern societies changes rapidly. In traditional societies people were educated in home and religious places, when we look at traditional societies, people live in rural areas but in modern societies, they live in urban areas. Infant mortality is very high in traditional societies because of the quality of health care. Life expectancy in modern societies become higher because of the improvement in health care. Traditional societies have simple technology but in modern societies technology become more complex everyday. Social relations were also different. The more people when they got retired, the less value they had. In traditional societies, older people are being respected so sociological stratification in traditional societies is much more rigid. Moving from one class to other is much more difficult so statuses are also different in traditional societies. People see the world as never changes in traditional societies but in modern societies, they see the reality differently. Social control in modern societies is much more formal, tolerance for differences is much less in traditional societies but in modern societies, it is much higher. In modern societies, when people see something differently, they do not judge those things at once but for traditional people, the role of democracy is less acceptable.

Rational Organization of Society:

Anomie: A social condition characterized by breakdown of norms governing social interaction.

Alienation: Feelings of indifference or hostility to work, the estrangement of individuals from themselves and others.

Post industrialized economies have many features. They are based on the service industry. In post industrial economies, consumption is more important than production. People are saving less money, they are consuming more and more. The most important thing is flexible manufacturing systems. It refers to automation (using robots and machines instead of human) (Japan) The culture of post-industrialized societies is called as postmodernism, reason is being refused and rationality is being criticized. According to Ritzer, the societies are being McDonaldized. The most important objective of bureaucracy is to manage an organization more efficiently. There are some rules which govern these bureaucracies. Ritzer ask" are they as efficient as we think" and he says no because , all these organizations may turn up to be irrational. By using McDonaldization, he is saying in post industrial societies, all institutions work like McDonald.