Sociology is the systematic study of society and social interaction. In order to carry out their studies, sociologists identify cultural patterns and social forces and determine how they affect individuals and groups. They also develop ways to apply their findings to the real world.
Critical sociology is also criticized from the point of view of interpretive sociology
for overstating the power of dominant groups to manipulate subordinate groups. For
example, media representations of women are said to promote unobtainable
standards of beauty or to reduce women to objects of male desire. This type of
critique suggests that individuals are controlled by media images rather than
recognizing their independent ability to reject media influences or to interpret media
images for themselves. In a similar way, critical sociology is criticized for implying
that people are purely the products of macro-level historical forces rather than
individuals with a capacity for individual and collective agency. To be fair, Marx did
argue that “Men make their own history;” it is just that they “do not make it just as
they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but
under circumstances encountered, given, and transmitted from the past” (Marx
1851).
Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World
Farming and Locavores: How Sociological Perspectives Might View Food Consumption
The consumption of food is a commonplace, daily occurrence, yet it can also be associated with
important moments in our lives. Eating can be an individual or a group action, and eating habits
and customs are influenced by our cultures. In the context of society, our nation’s food system is
at the core of numerous social movements, political issues, and economic debates. Any of these
factors might become a topic of sociological study.
A structural-functional approach to the topic of food consumption might be interested in the role
of the agriculture industry within the nation’s economy and how this has changed from the early
days of manual-labour farming to modern mechanized production. Food production is a primary
example of how human systems adapt to environmental systems. In many respects the concerns of
environmentalists and others with respect to the destructive relationship between industrial
agriculture and the ecosystem are the results of a dysfunctional system of adaptation. The concept
of sustainable agriculture points to the changes needed to return the interface between humans and
the natural environment to a state of dynamic equilibrium.
A sociologist viewing food consumption through a symbolic interactionist lens would be more
interested in micro-level topics, such as the symbolic use of food in religious rituals, or the role it
plays in the social interaction of a family dinner. This perspective might also study the interactions
among group members who identify themselves based on their sharing a particular diet, such as
vegetarians (people who don’t eat meat) or locavores (people who strive to eat locally produced
food). The increasing concern that people have with their diets speaks to the way that the life of
the biological body is as much a symbolic reality, interpreted within contemporary discourses on
health risks and beauty, as it is a biological reality.
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