For this assignment choose a theoretical statement from one of the three sociological theorists (see below), explain it briefly, illustrate it with a case study of your choice, and evaluate the statement on this basis. The goal here is not necessarily to find a literal example in the present day of what the theorists examined (such as contemporary French farmers or modern schools), but rather to observe the spirit of their statement in an empirically tangential but theoretically supportable example.
As indicated in the syllabus, you are required to write one but only one theory observation paper for this class. Your paper should be roughly 4-5 pages long and follow this format:
Theory. Reprint the theoretical statement that you have chosen and explain what its author meant by it. You may find it useful to refer to the historical context in which the theorist wrote, his broader theoretical concerns, and the larger debates or competing ideas that he addressed.This section should be approximately one page long (not including the reprinted statement). It will be graded on accuracy of your explanation.
Case study. Select a case study -- a recent historical or biographical event, a popular belief, an everyday activity, or some other social phenomenon -- that somehow illustrates the theoretical statement. Briefly state the rationale for your case study selection (i.e., how it applies to the theoretical statement) without evaluating the theory itself. Describe the case study in enough detail so that your analytical points in the following section will be clearly supported.
This section should be approximately 1-2 pages long. It will be graded on the quality and detail of your description and the validity and originality of your case study selection.
Analysis. Argue how your case study illuminates the theory, for example, by expanding, updating, and/or refuting it. Refer to specific descriptions from your case study to support the points in your argument. Evaluate the theory based on your case study by demonstrating its relevance for today, insight into social behavior, applicability to a wide range of phenomena, and so on. Address its theoretical limits by stating what else must be accounted for to explain your case fully; this may take the form of critique, references to other theory (by the same author or another theorist covered in the course), or questions for further theoretical analysis.
This section should be approximately 1-2 pages long. It will be graded on the depth and insights of your analysis and the clarity and originality of your argument.
Select one of the following statements from the sociological theorist of your choice. You may choose alternative theoretical statements only after obtaining my consent.
Marx (due February 20):
"That which is for me through the medium of money -- that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) -- that am I, the possessor of money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money's properties are my properties and essential powers -- the properties and powers of its possessor. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality."
"Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844," pg. 103."Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness… have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life."
"The German Ideology," pp. 154-155."In this way, the great mass of the French nation is formed by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sackful of potatoes. In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that divide their mode of life, their interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile contrast to the latter, they form a class. In so far as there is merely a local interconnection among these small peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no unity, no national union and no political organization, they do not form a class."
"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," pg. 608.
Durkheim (due April 3):
"Thus, since there cannot be a society in which the individuals do not differ more or less from the collective type, it is also inevitable that, among these divergences, there are some with a criminal character. What confers this character upon them is not the intrinsic quality of a given act but that definition which the collective conscience lends them."
"The Normal and the Pathological," pg. 67."As all the other beliefs and practices assume less and less religious a character, the individual becomes the object of a sort of religion. We carry on the worship of the dignity of the human person, which, like all strong acts of worship, has already acquired its superstitions. If you like, therefore it is indeed a common faith."
The Division of Labor in Society, pg. 122."In reality, however, the nature and function of school discipline is something altogether different. It is not a simple device for securing superficial peace in the classroom -- a device allowing the work to roll on tranquilly. It is the morality of the classroom, just as the discipline of the social body is morality properly speaking. Each social group, each type of society, has and could not fail to have its own morality, which expresses its own make-up."
"Moral Education in the Schools," pg. 86.
Weber (due May 1):
"But status honor does not necessarily have to be linked to the class situation. In fact, it normally stands in direct contradiction to the pretensions of sheer ownership as such."
"The Distribution of Power within the Political Community," pg. 107."Charismatic authority, in its genuine form, is of a character specifically foreign to everyday routine. Social relations subject to it are of a strictly personal nature and play an important role in the validity of charismatic personal qualities and their confirmation. If these, however, are not to remain purely ephemeral, but demonstrate a quality of permanence, such as a community of fellow worshippers, warriors, disciples, a party organization, or any type of political or hierocratic group, it is necessary that the character of charismatic authority be fundamentally altered."
"The Routinization of Charisma," pg. 37."Bureaucracy's specific nature, quite welcome to capitalism, is increasingly perfected the more it becomes objectified or 'dehumanized.' Considered its virtue, the perfecting of the specific nature involves the successful exclusion of love, hate, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements, to which calculation is alien, from the process of discharging official business."
"Bureaucratic Authority," pg. 79.