Lecture notes CC2015 Sociology Culture and Modernity (CC2015 )
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Course
CC2015 Sociology Culture and Modernity (CC2015)
Institution
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (EUR)
These are notes made while following the lectures. They serve as an addition to the lecture slides. All the sociologists discussed occur in the notes, in the same order as they appeared in the course.
Notes SCAM
Week 1: Simmel
This course is studied through the connection between:
1) Subjective culture
a. Ideas
b. aditudes
2) Objective culture
a. Context
b. Made by humans
3) Social structure
a. Formal forms of interaction
objective culture always starts as subjective culture
Social structure is sociology as geometry of social forms abstracted from content (objective)
and those that embody the content (subjective).
Simmel
Seen as founder of sociological field. Also of the Chicago school.
He says that social structure or social forms is what sociology is. This is over subjective and
objective culture.
Sociation (every form of social contact) = the form of relation in which people and groups
interact with each other, separate from content.
Because the increase in people and industrialization there is more sociation this led to his
‘law’ of sociation. He also saw a connection to culture with the increase of sociation.
1) Functional differentiation
a. When there are more people functions get differentiated and specialization.
We can also see this nowadays between different places in the world.
2) Dominance of rationality
a. Corporate and personal spheres become detached. We play different roles
now. You don’t know every aspect of someone. There is more emphasis on
function than content in metropolis. There is a move from quality to quantity
and a move from end to means.
3) Gap between development of subjective and objective culture
a. Objective cultures grows bigger and bigger in the city. While subjective
culture, or the individual, linger behind.
The enormous amount of stimuli (objective) has an impact on how we think and behave
(subjective). People need an urban mentality they need to create a psychological distance.
This is why people in the city can live besides each other. This can be found impersonal. This
is not bad argues Simmel.
, People in modern societies need to play multiple roles. This can lead to conflict within them.
This is a paradox of individuality, which is visible in fashion. Within fashion we see:
1) Differentiation
2) Imitation
Those are two sociological characteristics. Within fashion it is about form and not content,
says Simmel. Fashion is most found in middle class, because they have opportunity of social
mobility up. They conform to the upper class with fashion. This is trickle-down theory.
Women used fashion to distinguish themselves, because of their lack of rights.
More people in the metropolis leads to the need to distinguish more and do this
comfortably. Therefore there’s more fashion in the metropolis.
Week 2: Veblen
Is from the US, from a very small village. This was influential on his work, because he knows
both. Also his study in economics has been influential. He made the trickle-down theory very
popular. His theory of leisure class is the basis for Bourdieu’s distinction theory.
He was a thinker in the grand tradition, so he wasn’t satisfied with minor theories. He
wanted a theory about the essentials of society, but also on the meso level of society. The
characteristics of people and what was going to happen in the future. He is not interested in
the subjective culture.
His central theme = society as a whole possesses a certain amount of social (this should be
used optimally for the benefit of a community as a whole) energy (physical labor + mental
talent).
Paradox of modernity
There are two tendencies of modernity competing for presence:
1) Modernity = machine culture
a. Making life easier
b. Ends of production
c. Mass production
d. No waste of social energy
e. means
2) Modernity = money culture
a. Ends
b. Veblen doesn’t like it
c. Distinction by money
d. Wasteful effect because too much consumption (to show off)
Money culture becomes more present, sees Veblen. Machine culture is a lot more rational.
These two types of culture relate to two types of lifestyles:
1) The common man (during 1900)
a. Machine culture
b. Work in productive labor
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