Three revolutionary changes have played an important role in the emergence of sociology
1. Enlightenment/Science Revolution
2. French Revolution
3. Industrial Revolution
- This process also transformed the entire world not only because of European society but also because of its contact with Europe.
- Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, belonging to the classical tradition of sociology, laid the foundation of this subject.
1. Enlightenment/Science Revolution
- Development of Enlightenment: Late 17th and 18th centuries in Western Europe. Beginning of a completely new and original way of thinking about the world. Man was considered the centre of the universe. Reason was considered the main characteristic of man . The single human being now became a 'person'. The individual human was also given the title of 'object of knowledge'.
- Only those people were considered fully human who could think rationally. Those who were not considered capable of this were not given the status of human.
- To define the human world it was made compulsory to reduce the importance of nature, religions and gods and goddesses.
- The ideological trends which we call 'secularism', 'scientific thinking' and 'humanistic thinking' have a hand in transforming enlightenment from a possibility into a reality.
2. French Revolution 1789
- The Declaration of Human Rights stressed the equality of all citizens and questioned the validity of innate privileges.
- Heralded the advent of political sovereignty at the level of the individual and the nation-state.
- It freed the individual from the tyrannical rule of the religious and feudal institutions which had dominated France before the French Revolution.
- The farmers were freed from the clutches of the elite class.
- The taxes that farmers paid to the landlords and the Church were abolished.
- As free citizens of the republic, the sovereign individuals became holders of rights and privileges and they also acquired the right to equality before the law and state institutions.
- The state had to respect the personal liberty of the individual and state laws could not interfere in the private life of any person.
- Much of 'religion' and 'family' were deemed fit for the private sphere while education was now considered fit for the public sphere.
- The nation-state was redefined as a country with a centralized system of government.
- The principles of the French Revolution—liberty, equality and fraternity—became the new slogans of the modern state.
3. Industrial Revolution
Time: Late 18th century to early 19th century
Location: Europe and North America.
Importance: It was a historical period in which economies transformed from agriculture and handicraft-based to industrialized and machine-controlled economies.
Important Changes
- Technology Advancements
- Urbanization
- Economic Changes
- Social impact
- Global Impact
- Environmental Impact
- Cultural and intellectual change
There were two major aspects
1. Use of science and technology
2. Organized development of labor and market
- Goods began to be produced on a large scale for markets all over the world.
- The raw material required for manufacturing these products also started being procured from all over the world.
- Thus large-scale modern industries spread all over the world.
- The demand for workers to run the industries was met by displaced people who left the rural areas and settled in the cities.
- Because of low wages, men and women had to work long hours and in dangerous conditions to make ends meet.
Changes begin to happen
- Now the government had to take responsibility for issues like health, sanitation, control over criminal activities and businesses and all-round development.
- To fulfill these new responsibilities, new types of information and knowledge were needed.
- The emerging demand for new knowledge played an important role in the development of new disciplines like sociology
Karl Marx
👉Social thinker and analyst
👉 Born on May 5, 1818
👉 Location in the German province of Rhineland
👉 Important Writing
- Manifesto of the Communist Party
- A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
- Capital
👉 Important work
- Advocated elimination of oppression and exploitation.
- This goal can be achieved through scientific socialism.
- Critically analysing the capitalist society, he exposed its weaknesses
Marx argued that society has progressed through different stages.
Primitive communism
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slavery
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feudal system
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capitalist system
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latest stage
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It will be replaced by socialism.
creates a state of alienation in capitalist society
1. In society, man finds himself quite isolated from nature.
2. Capitalism has individualized the collective form of social order
3. A large group of working people are deprived of the fruits of their hard work
4. Workers have no control over working methods.
Capitalist
- Capitalism was a necessary and progressive stage in human history because it created the environment needed to advocate for equal rights in the future and to eliminate exploitation and poverty.
- Change in capitalist society will be brought about by the proletariat who are the victims of its exploitation
- Together, we will eradicate it through revolutionary change and establish a socialist society based on freedom and equality.
- To understand capitalism, Marx tried to understand its economic structure
- The economy depends on the factors of production
- The basis of society is the economy and the means of production
1. Forces of production = all factors of production
2. Relations of production = control over resources
class struggle
- The main method of dividing people into social groups was considered to be the production process rather than religion, language, nationality or common identity
- People who occupy similar positions automatically form a class.
- According to their position in the production process and in property relations, they have similar interests and objectives
- As the means of production change, the conflict between classes increases.
Example
Industrial Revolution
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The destruction of the feudal system
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People started migrating to cities in search of jobs
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started working in industries and formed a class which had common interests
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started working in industries and formed a class which had common interests
Émile Durkheim
👉 Born on 15 April 1858
👉 He belonged to an Orthodox Jewish family.
👉 His father and great-grandfather were Jewish priests.
Founder of sociology
👉 Important Writing
The elementary forms of the religious life
- In this, he expressed his views on religion.
- Developed secular views towards religion
- Society was a social fact that existed above the individual as a moral community.
- The bonds that bound human beings together as groups were vital to the survival of society.
- These bonds or social solidarity put pressure on the individual to conform to group norms and expectations.
- These restrict the behaviour patterns of an individual and variations are limited to a small range.
Means of limiting behaviors
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Prediction of behavior is possible
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looking at patterns of behaviour
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Norms, social cohesion, and codes can be identified
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Intangible things like ideas, values, etc. can be verified
Division of Labor
Book- Division Of Labor In Society
Division of society on the basis of social unity
1. Mechanical unity
- Primitive society
- Low population in society
- Personal relationships
- Similarity in logos
- Inequality was punished
2. Organic unity
- modern society
- Overpopulation in society
- impersonal relationship
- Disparity in logos
- people depend on one another
- there is interaction with each other
Max Bever
👉 Born on 21 April 1864 in a Prussian family in Germany. His father was a magistrate and politician who was a follower of monarchist Bismarck.
👉 Most of his writings were published only after his death.
1. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
2. From Max Weber-Essays in Sociology
3. Max Weber on the Methodology of Social Sciences
4. The Religion of India
5. Economy and Society
ideas of max weber
- The whole aim of the social sciences is to develop an 'interpretive thinking of social action'.
- The aim of natural science is to discover the 'laws of nature' that govern this physical universe.
- The methods of social sciences will be different from those of natural sciences
- 'Social action' included all human behaviour that was meaningful, that is, those actions to which the subject associates some meaning.
- The task of the sociologist in the study of social action was to find the meanings as understood by the actors
- The sociologist has to put himself in the place of the subject and imagine what these meanings are and could be.
- Sociology systematically focuses on 'empathy', that is, an understanding which is not based on 'feeling' but is 'with feeling'.
- Value neutrality Keeping your own thoughts to yourself and expressing the feelings of others
- The ideal model is to logically analyse the ideas of others and explain their importance
Bureaucracy
- Bureaucracy refers to a system of administration where decisions are made by state officials rather than elected representatives.
- It involves a hierarchical structure where tasks are divided among specialized departments.
- The goal of bureaucracy is to ensure efficiency, stability, and rule-following in government activities.
Features of bureaucracy
