Week 3 Readings

Durkheim
  * Sociology
  * Social facts: examples are social norms and laws
  * Society created humans; it is the basis of authority
  * Modernization: cause greater individuation and greater deviance
    * Solution = reform through educational institutions
  * Solidarity
  * Social norms and laws: rules that guide the behaviour and thinking of the members of society
  * Civil law (seeks restitution on behalf of the victim) vs. Penal law (exacts harsh punishments from the offender)
  * Institutions: education, religion, economy
  * Culture, symbols and rituals: unite members of society
  * Division of labour: furnishes the basis for cementing and solidifying the character of society = integrative function
  * Opposition: deviance from the general norms of society
  * State: police force
Alexis de Tocqueville
  * Democracy in America: citizens’ equality, suffrage, born free, free press + freedom of speech
  * Organizations + associations ensured that democracy would continue
  * Threats to democracy
    * Race
    * Manufacturing
    * Tyranny of the majority: only the greatest number could gain an advantage
  * Civil society

W.E.B Du Bois
  * Was an activist for social and racial justice
  * He was a pioneer in these disciplines/themes:
    * Urban sociology
    * Rural sociology
    * Criminology
    * Religion
    * Race
  * Social problems
  * Sociology must combine broad generalizations and data → put science into sociology
  * Racial inequality: the result of social, economic, historical, and political forces
  * Race = social construct
  * Double-consciousness: when one’s social identities and social roles are at odds with one another

Foucault
  * Our being (as conscious and active creatures) is composed through regimes, relations, and practices of knowledge
  * Genealogy: anti-science
  * Importance of culture and knowledge for power
  * Knowledge is crucial to the formation of the real material world
  * We must take responsibility for our relations to the production of truth and different truth regimes
  * Challenged universalism, determinism, and scientific method
  * Modern episteme: the organizing structure of knowledge of modern Western Europe
  * Biopolitics: concerned with the collective (society, race, nation, population)

Democratic requirements
  * Effective participation
  * Voting equality
  * Enlightened understanding
  * Control of the agenda
  * Inclusion of all adults
Benefits of democracy
  * Avoiding tyranny and cruel + vicious autocrats
  * Essential fundamental rights
  * General freedom
  * Self-determination: protecting of own fundamental interests
  * Moral autonomy and responsibility
  * Human development
  * Protecting essential personal interests
  * Political equality
  * Peace-seeking: no wars between democracies
  * Prosperity