Class Notes for Sociology, Culture, and Modernity 2020/21 including all classes/lectures and additional information from seminars added into the same file later on
• Context of most readings: modernity
• Industrialism
• Capitalism
• Population growth
• Connection between three elements:
• Subjective culture
• Internalised within people
• Bearers of culture (person, individual)
• Culture that we have internalised
• Lives inside of us
• Example: ideas, attitudes, feelings
• Subjective experience
• Socially influenced but fully possessed by individual
• Makes up personality
• Possibility for change/creativity/agency
• Going against the grain of culture in a society
• Studies do not concern only norms and values but also expression thereof
(behaviour, linked to psychology)
• Objective culture
• Content of culture
• Outcome of human action, thinking, appreciation, meaning and sense making
• Before it was objective culture it was subjective culture
• Anything that a person produces
• Can be as small as saying creative idea in head out loud
• It is now separate from the individual
• Somebody else can do something with it
• The environment we live in
• Tangible
• Shoes, architecture, fashion, goods manufacturing
• Intangible
• Language, science, religion, law, art, politics, ideas,
• We live inside objective culture
• We influence it and it influences us in turn
• Simmel: objective and subjective culture are in exchange
• Social structure
• Forms of interaction
• The social positions of people and groups of people in relation to one another
• Example: hierarchical relationships, competition, division of labor, family structure
• Sociology as geometry (Simmel) of social forms, abstracted form
• Content (objective culture)
• Those who embody that content (subjective culture)
• Theoretically separate from content and those who embody the content
• Three elements cannot be separated from one another
• Mutual connections between these three are central in any sociological study
• Always make connections between the three
• Georg Simmel
• Biography
• Born in 1858 in Berlin
• Very important city
• Growing and rich
• Son of jewish businessman
• Trained as a philosopher (sociology did not really exist)
• Jewish background made it difficult to get official position
• Publications received a lot of attention
, • Gave lectures in rented private rooms at university about sociology
• Tried to establish new scientific discipline
• Founded German Society for Sociology in 1909
• With Max Weber and Ferdinand Tönnies
• In late 50s he was officially appointed at university in Strasbourg
• About 20 books and 200 articles
• Influences:
• Founder of sociology as a scientific girls
• Founding father of urban sociology (Chicago school)
• Basis for network analysis (types of relationships)
• The Problem of Sociology
• What makes sociology an autonomous discipline?
• Anything thats “human”? No. (It would be economy or psychology)
• Group psychology? No.
• Social relationships? yes.
• Study of social forms
• Sociation: form of relations in which people and groups of people interact with each
other separate from content
• Entering into relationship with one another and arrangement thereof
• Social structure over objective and subjective culture
• Latter are outcomes of sociation
• Sociation is about the amount of relationship
• From 2 to infinite amount of people
• Requires at least two people
• With every added individual things start to change
• Arrangement: hierarchical or horizontal
• Society is not a fruitful concept
• It does not say anything
• Merely the sum of interactions
• The metropolis and mental life
• Simmel was fascinated with change from premodern to modern society
• Quantitative increase in sociation
• More and more people means more and more relationships
• Universal law of increasing sociation
• The more complex forms of relationships become the more the cultural content and
people change with it (subjective and objective)
• Leads to functional differentiation, rationalisation, individualisation
• Functional differentiation
• Expansion of number of relationships causes expansion of functional differentiation
• Fewer people means many things have to be done by one person at the same time
• Multiple functions in a small society
• Huge growth in population
• Competition but then the realisation that there can be exchange of ideas
• Can become really good at one thing and differentiate ones self
• Specialisation goes quite far today
• Some people only make coffee while others make only sandwiches
• Makes possible increasingly complex objective culture
• Example: aviation
• So many people in a metropolis a bunch of people can specialise in small parts of a
plane
• Some are specialised in wings others in jet engines etc.
• Would not have been possible in a small town
• Example: bars
• Have to distinguish themselves
• Signature drinks, higher ratings etc.
• Rationalisation
Voordelen van het kopen van samenvattingen bij Stuvia op een rij:
Verzekerd van kwaliteit door reviews
Stuvia-klanten hebben meer dan 700.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet je zeker dat je de beste documenten koopt!
Snel en makkelijk kopen
Je betaalt supersnel en eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of Stuvia-tegoed voor de samenvatting. Zonder lidmaatschap.
Focus op de essentie
Samenvattingen worden geschreven voor en door anderen. Daarom zijn de samenvattingen altijd betrouwbaar en actueel. Zo kom je snel tot de kern!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper juliaaaaaaa7898. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €2,99. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.
