social facts, patterns, and marginality - andrew j....

Social Facts, Patterns, and Marginality

Professor Andrew J. Perrin

Sociology 250September 10, 2013

Professor Andrew J. Perrin Social Facts, Patterns, and MarginalitySociology 250September 10, 2013 1 /

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Professor Andrew J. Perrin

Sociology 250September 10, 2013

2013-09-09


Outline

1 du Bois and Durkheim, through Fields

2 Critical Distance and Objectivity

3 Social Facts and Social Problems

4 Bonilla-Silva, “Racism Without Racists”

5 Georg Simmel


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Outline

1 du Bois and Durkheim, through Fields

2 Critical Distance and Objectivity

3 Social Facts and Social Problems

4 Bonilla-Silva, “Racism Without Racists”

5 Georg Simmel

2013-09-09


Outline

duBois as a General Social Theorist

Durkheim finds in “the Negro” of Souls an unwarranted particularism. DuBois finds in the qualite d’homme of “Individualism” an unwarrantable

generality.

—Fields, 437


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Durkheim finds in “the Negro” of Souls an unwarranted particularism. DuBois finds in the qualite d’homme of “Individualism” an unwarrantable

generality.

—Fields, 437

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Critical Distance

...they would have had much to say to one another about the complexitiesand the perplexities of living out one’s own creative intellectual life amid

the constraints of having not one but two pregnant identifications: inDurkheim’s case, French and Jew; in Du Bois’s, American and

Afro-American.

—Fields, 440


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Critical Distance

...they would have had much to say to one another about the complexitiesand the perplexities of living out one’s own creative intellectual life amid

the constraints of having not one but two pregnant identifications: inDurkheim’s case, French and Jew; in Du Bois’s, American and

Afro-American.

—Fields, 440

2013-09-09


Critical Distance

Note the return to Kantian enlightenment and Marxian anti-alienation

here. Fields: “I maintain my position the peoples have to battle their way

into common humanity, tribe by tribe.” Fields, fictionalizing Du Bois, 454

Big Question

How is it that humans come to hold on to beliefs about cosmic naturethat cannot possibly be true — and that, besides, cosmic nature

unceasingly contradicts? He finds the answer in their social being,which is also the course of the most fundamental human capacity:reason itself.... Durkheim studies the collective alchemy by which reason

converts bald-faced inventions into external and constraining facts ofnature, capable of resisting individual doubt.

—Frields, 438


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Big Question

How is it that humans come to hold on to beliefs about cosmic naturethat cannot possibly be true — and that, besides, cosmic nature

unceasingly contradicts? He finds the answer in their social being,which is also the course of the most fundamental human capacity:reason itself.... Durkheim studies the collective alchemy by which reason

converts bald-faced inventions into external and constraining facts ofnature, capable of resisting individual doubt.

—Frields, 438

2013-09-09


Big Question

Marginality and Intellectuals


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Intellectuals, i.e., people who build big ideas and consider the world from

unusual perspectives, are often marginal in some way.

Critical DistanceThe Irony


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Critical DistanceThe Irony

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Critical Distance

The irony of critical distance: objectivity means separation

This is a piece of the “how do we know” part of social theory: critical

distance can help with objectivity.

Social Facts, Social PatternsExposing what’s obvious


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Social Facts, Social PatternsExposing what’s obvious

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Social Facts, Social Patterns

Marriage patterning; educational ideas and aspirations; wearing clothing

E. Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists

Question: Why do we observe racism’s effects in the world, but fewpeople holding racist views?

One possibility: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that goodmen do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

Racism Without Racists: Racism is a social fact patterned but not(mostly) intentional.


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Question: Why do we observe racism’s effects in the world, but fewpeople holding racist views?

One possibility: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that goodmen do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

Racism Without Racists: Racism is a social fact patterned but not(mostly) intentional.

2013-09-09



Georg Simmel

Born 1858, “Heart of Berlin”

Died 1918

Very famous in Germany and the US

Never really central to the university system

Ironically, more important to American than European social theory

The “great link” to American sociology


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Georg Simmel

Born 1858, “Heart of Berlin”

Died 1918

Very famous in Germany and the US

Never really central to the university system

Ironically, more important to American than European social theory

The “great link” to American sociology

2013-09-09


Georg Simmel

Simmel: View of Society

Societal connection immediately occurs in the. . . individuals.. . . Societalunification needs no outside its own component elements, the

individuals.. . . Each member of society. . . is absorbed in innumerable,specific relations and in the feeling and knowledge of determining others

and being determined by them.

“How is Society Possible?” (1908)


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Societal connection immediately occurs in the. . . individuals.. . . Societalunification needs no outside its own component elements, the

individuals.. . . Each member of society. . . is absorbed in innumerable,specific relations and in the feeling and knowledge of determining others

and being determined by them.

“How is Society Possible?” (1908)

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View of Society: “Web of Group Affiliations”

How is Society possible when people are so individual?

What is the relationship between groups (e.g., religions, ethnicities,interests, classes, etc.) and society?

Answer:

individual and society are dialectically relatedindividuals are constituted by group affiliationsmodern life (particularly urban) provides enough group affiliations forthe net of them to be individually unique


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How is Society possible when people are so individual?

What is the relationship between groups (e.g., religions, ethnicities,interests, classes, etc.) and society?

Answer:

individual and society are dialectically relatedindividuals are constituted by group affiliationsmodern life (particularly urban) provides enough group affiliations forthe net of them to be individually unique

2013-09-09



Key Concept: Social Forms

. . . a relation, which is a fluctuating, constantly developing life-process,nevertheless receives a relatively stable external form.

. . .The form thus comes to constitute a more or less rigid handicap for the

relation in its further course, while the form itself is incapable of adaptingto the vibrating life and the more or less profound changes of this

concrete, reciprocal relation.


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. . . a relation, which is a fluctuating, constantly developing life-process,nevertheless receives a relatively stable external form.

. . .The form thus comes to constitute a more or less rigid handicap for the

relation in its further course, while the form itself is incapable of adaptingto the vibrating life and the more or less profound changes of this

concrete, reciprocal relation.

2013-09-09



A basic dualism. . . pervades the fundamental form of all sociation. The dualism consists in the fact that a relation,which is a fluctuating, constantly developing life-process, nevertheless receives a relatively stable external form.

The strongest external measure for fixing internally variable relations is law. Examples are the marital form, which

unyieldingly confronts changes in personal relationship; the contract between two associates, which continues to

divide business profit evenly between them, although one of them does all the work, and the other none;

membership in an urban religious community that has become completely alien or antipathetic to the member. But

even beyond these obvious cases, inter-individual as well as inter-group relations, which have hardly begun, can

constantly be observed to have an immediate tendency toward solidifying their form. The form thus comes to

constitute a more or less rigid handicap for the relation in its further course, while the form itself is incapable of

adapting to the vibrating life and the more or less profound changes of this concrete, reciprocal relation.

Social Forms

“The sociologist is concerned with King John, not with King John.”

—Coser 1977 (180), on Simmel


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Social Forms

“The sociologist is concerned with King John, not with King John.”

—Coser 1977 (180), on Simmel

2013-09-09


Social Forms

Social Forms (Selections)

The Stranger

The Poor

The Miser and the Spendthrift

The Adventurer

The Nobility


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The Stranger

The Poor

The Miser and the Spendthrift

The Adventurer

The Nobility

2013-09-09



Contemporary Question: Emergence

The fundamental unit of human behavior is the group, but...

We observe individuals behaving in ways that can’t be predicted bylooking just at their groups.

How do we explain the relationship between individuals and groups?


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The fundamental unit of human behavior is the group, but...

We observe individuals behaving in ways that can’t be predicted bylooking just at their groups.

How do we explain the relationship between individuals and groups?

2013-09-09



People behave differently because of the groups they’re in, but also carry

behavioral tendencies from group to group.

Emergence in the natural sciences


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Water’s properties, such as wetness or fire retardance, can’t be reduced

to properties of Hydrogen or Oxygen

Questions of Emergence

Brain −→ Mind

Individual −→ Group


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Brain −→ Mind

Individual −→ Group

2013-09-09



social facts, patterns, and marginality - andrew j....

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