1960s America: Science, Power, War, and Social Change Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key sociological concepts, historical events, and political movements of 1960s America as detailed in the lecture transcript.

Multiversity (Clark Kerr)

A concept where universities become society’s \"problem-solving service stations,\" producing experts to handle national needs.

Liberal Consensus

A broad agreement in the late $1950s$ and early $1960s$ that economic growth combined with expert government management would lead to social progress.

Abstract Empiricism

C. Wright Mills’s critique of scientific sociology, arguing it focused on data collection while ignoring power, inequality, and human meaning.

The Cheerful Robot

A term coined by C. Wright Mills to describe individuals who adapt to bureaucratic systems and follow rules without thinking, thereby losing their autonomy.

Instrumental Rationality

A form of reasoning focused on identifying the most efficient means to achieve a specific end.

Value Rationality

A form of reasoning that asks whether the goals or ends of an action are themselves just and morally right.

Tet Offensive ($1968$)

A series of surprise attacks by the NLF that was a military loss for North Vietnam but a political disaster for the U.S., shattering public trust in the war effort.

Status Attainment Research (Sewell & Shah)

Findings that both IQ and SES predict success; specifically, that for men IQ mattered more, while for women SES was a stronger predictor of college attendance.

The Truman Doctrine ($1947$)

A U.S. pledge to support any free nation resisting takeover by Communist forces, marking the beginning of global containment.

Cuban Missile Crisis ($1962$)

A $13$-day standoff between the U.S. and USSR over nuclear missiles in Cuba, resolved through secret diplomacy and often considered the closest the world came to nuclear war.

Plessy v. Ferguson ($1896$)

The Supreme Court ruling that established the \"separate but equal\" legal framework for racial segregation.

Cognitive Liberation

A component of Doug McAdam’s theory stating that social movements succeed when people believe change is possible and their actions matter.

Black Power

A movement with four meanings: political representation, economic self-sufficiency, cultural pride in Black identity, and militant armed self-defense.

Moynihan Report ($1965$)

A controversial report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan that attributed Black urban poverty to family structure breakdown rather than structural racism.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution ($1964$)

Congressional authorization that gave President Johnson broad powers to escalate military involvement in Vietnam after disputed reports of naval attacks.

Groupthink

The pressure for internal consensus that led U.S. advisors to ignore dissent and escalate the Vietnam War despite negative outcomes.

\"The Problem That Has No Name\"

Betty Friedan’s term for the sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction felt by educated suburban women whose identities were restricted to being wives and mothers.

Patriarchy

A social system defined by Kate Millett as one where men hold primary power across political, economic, family, and social institutions.

Port Huron Statement ($1962$)

The founding manifesto of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), calling for participatory democracy and an end to militarism.

Southern Strategy (Kevin Phillips)

A GOP plan to build a conservative majority by appealing to white Southerners and suburbanites who were resentful of civil rights progress.

Dog Whistle Politics

The use of coded language, such as \"law and order,\" to appeal to racial resentments without using explicitly racist terms.

I-We-I Curve (Robert Putnam)

A sociological observation that American society moved from individualism ($I$) to community ($We$) mid-century, then reversed back toward individualism starting in the mid-$1960s$.

New Journalism

A subjective, literary style of reporting pioneered by writers like Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion that used experimental forms to capture cultural disintegration.

Silent Majority

A term used by Richard Nixon to describe white, middle-class Americans who were resentful of protests, disorder, and rapid social change.