4.1 -4.3

In sociological terms, society refers to a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same cultural components. Sociologist Gerhard Lenski Jr. defined societies by their technological sophistication, classifying them along a spectrum from preindustrial to industrial to postindustrial. Societies are classified according to their development and use of technology. For most of human history, people lived in preindustrial societies characterized by limited technology and low production of goods. After the Industrial Revolution, many societies based their economies around mechanized labor, leading to greater profits and a trend toward greater social mobility. At the turn of the new millennium, a new type of society emerged. This postindustrial, or information, society is built on digital technology and nonmaterial goods.

Preindustrial Societies

Before the Industrial Revolution, societies were small, rural, and dependent on local resources. Economic production was limited, and specialized occupations were few.

  • Hunter-gatherer societies: societies that depend on hunting wild animals and gathering uncultivated plants for survival.

  • Horticultural societies: societies based around the cultivation of plants.

  • Pastoral societies: societies based around the domestication of animals.

  • Agricultural societies: societies that rely on farming as a way of life.

  • Feudal societies: societies that operate on a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection.

  • Information societies, sometimes known as postindustrial or digital societies, are based on the production of nonmaterial goods and services, with digital technology being core to their economy. Power in information societies lies with those storing and distributing information.

  • Industrial societies: societies characterized by a reliance on mechanized labor to create material goods.

Theoretical Perspectives on Society

Émile Durkheim believed that as societies advance, they make the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity. For Karl Marx, society exists in terms of class conflict. With the rise of capitalism, workers become alienated from themselves and others in society. Sociologist Max Weber noted that the rationalization of society can be taken to unhealthy extremes.

Émile Durkheim and Functionalism

Émile Durkheim’s perspective stressed the interconnectivity of society's elements, viewing society as greater than the sum of its parts. He observed collective behavior, not just individual actions.

  • Collective conscience: The communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society.

  • Social integration: How strongly a person is connected to his or her social group, key for social life. Durkheim described two types of social order:

    • Mechanical solidarity: a type of social order maintained by the collective consciousness of a culture, characteristic of preindustrial societies with low division of labor.

    • Organic solidarity: a type of social order based around an acceptance of economic and social differences, characteristic of industrial societies with a specialized division of labor and laws based on restitution. During the transition, societies can experience anomie (literally, “without law”), a situation in which society no longer has the support of a firm collective consciousness, leading people to feel alienated despite interdependence.

Karl Marx and Conflict Theory

Karl Marx viewed society's constructions through base and superstructure, where the economic character (base) determines the culture and social institutions (superstructure). He focused on capitalism, a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government. Marx described alienation as an individual’s isolation from his society, his work, and his sense of self, identifying four types:

  • Alienation from the product of one’s labor

  • Alienation from the process of one’s labor

  • Alienation from others

  • Alienation from one’s self He also developed the concept of false consciousness, a condition in which the beliefs, ideals, or ideology of a person are not in the person’s own best interest. Marx proposed that class consciousness, the awareness of one’s rank in society, would lead the proletariat to become a “class for itself” in order to produce social change (Marx and Engels 1848).

  • Bourgeoisie: the owners of the means of production in a society.

  • Proletariat: the laborers in a society.

Max Weber and Symbolic Interactionism

Max Weber focused on the elements of class, status, and power, and feared that industrialization would have negative effects on individuals. He was more interested in how individuals experienced societal divisions.

  • Rationalization: A society built around logic and efficiency rather than morality or tradition, exemplified by capitalism's efficiency.

  • Iron cage: a situation in which an individual is trapped by social institutions, leading to a sense of “disenchantment of the world.”

The Protestant Work Ethic

In a series of essays in 1904, Max Weber presented the idea of the Protestant work ethic, a new attitude toward work based on the Calvinist principle of predestination, encouraging hard work for personal gain as a sign of salvation.

Social Constructions of Reality

Society is based on the social construction of reality. How we define society influences how society actually is. Likewise, how we see other people influences their actions as well as our actions toward them. We all take on various roles throughout our lives, and our social interactions depend on what types of roles we assume, who we assume them with, and the scene where interaction takes place.
The social construction of reality describes how society is created by humans and human interaction.

  • Habitualization: the idea that society is constructed by us and those before us, and it is followed like a habit.

  • Institutionalization: The act of implanting a convention or norm into society.

  • Thomas theorem: how a subjective reality can drive events to develop in accordance with that reality, despite being originally unsupported by objective reality. It states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” meaning people’s behavior is determined by their subjective construction of reality.

  • Self-fulfilling prophecy: an idea that becomes true when acted upon. Symbolic interactionists are interested in how people interpret symbols (language, gestures, and artifacts) in daily interactions.

Roles and Status

  • Roles: patterns of behavior that are representative of a person’s social status.

  • Status: the responsibilities and benefits that a person experiences according to his or her rank and role in society.

  • Ascribed statuses: the status outside of an individual’s control, such as sex or race.

  • Achieved statuses: the status a person chooses, such as a level of education or income.

  • Role-set: an array of roles attached to a particular status (Merton 1957).

  • Role strain: stress that occurs when too much is required of a single role.

  • Role conflict: a situation when one or more of an individual’s roles clash.

Presentation of Self

Sociologist Erving Goffman presented the idea that a person is like an actor on a stage, calling his theory dramaturgy.

  • Role performance: the expression of a role.

  • Impression management: The process of presenting ourselves to others as we hope to be perceived.

  • Looking-glass self: our reflection of how we think we appear to others.