Q428. Attribute and explicate.
Fate is regarded as a substitute for the parental agency. If a man is unfortunate it means that he is no longer loved by this highest power; and, threatened by such a loss of love, he once more bows to the parental representative in his super-ego — a representative whom, in his days of good fortune, he was ready to neglect. This becomes especially clear where looked Fate is looked upon in the strictly religious sense of being nothing else than an expression of the Divine Will. The people of Israel had believed themselves to be the favorite child of God, and when the great. Father caused misfortune after misfortune to rain down upon this people of his, they were never shaken in their belief in his relationship to them or questioned his power or righteousness. Instead, they produced the prophets, who held up their sinfulness before them; and out of their sense of guilt they created the over-strict commandments of their priestly religion. It is remarkable how differently a primitive man behaves. If he has met with a misfortune, he does not throw the blame on himself but on his fetish, which has obviously not done its duty, and he gives it a thrashing instead of punishing himself.
Q429. Briefly explain Freud's theory of where guilt comes from.
Q430. At 239.4 Durkheim writes, "As a matter of fact, at every moment of history there is a dim perception, in the moral consciousness of societies, of the respective value of different social services [he means jobs, occupations, etc. not social work], the relative reward due to each, and the consequent degree of comfort appropriate on the average to workers in each occupation." Translate this into everyday English.
Q431. Discuss the relationship between "desires" and "means," ambitions and expectations, contentment and aspiration that characterize the NON-anomic equilibrium that society can provide.
Q432. At 240.5 Durkheim talks about social classification (by which he means the way people are sorted into different roles/occupations/classes in society) and about what the basis of these are (and how we accept them or take them for granted - note that this is what Goffman was talking about too in "The Arrangement Between the Sexes.") Why should (or how can) people be content with their lot in life when they are aware that the lots people have are vastly unequal?
Q433. Discuss how one might be "content" with one's inequality in a society where:
- status is based on heredity
- a program is in place to give everyone an equal start (imagine whatever's needed for this)
- a strictly equal opportunity meritocratic society
- a society with every imaginable balancing of privilege
Q434. On p241 Durkheim talks about the anomy (disruption) caused by economic disaster (a person losing everything, say, or sudden drop in a set of people's economic circumstances as when a local industry closes and everyone loses jobs) OR when sudden wealth comes (again, to an individual or to a community or group). Explain what Durkheim sees happening and how it's the same process in both situations.
Q435. Discuss: Durkheim talks about how society gets us to "accept our lot"; Marx and Engels talk about false consciousness and ideology (we buy into our oppression) and religion as "opiate of the masses"; Weber gave us the notion of legitimate authority. Points of similarity and difference?
Q436. At 242.5 Durkheim writes "Poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself." What does he mean?
Q437. On p 243 we read "this liberation of desires has been made worse by the very development of industry and the almost infinite extension of the market." Consult the text (including the text before this passage) and say something about what Durkheim's take on globalization of markets and products might be.
Q438. Consult the text at 243.9ff : "Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned, but so is possibility abandoned when it in turn becomes reality. A thirst arises for novelties…." Use Durkheim to say something about advertising - for products, for body images, etc.
Q439. Freud in "Civilization and Its Discontents" gives us a theory of how conscience arises and functions. In the selection on anomic suicide Durkheim gives an account of conscience as controlling our otherwise potentially infinite (and unsatisfiable) desires. Compare and contrast.
Q440. Define:
regimen (239.6)
erethism (242)
equanimity (242)
apotheosis (243.6)
sacrilege (243.6)
(purely) utilitarian (regulation) (243.7)
liberal professions (244.8)
Q441. Explain the scientific logic behind Durkheim's suggestion that the three propositions on suicide varying with integration in religious, domestic, and political society lead to the suggestion that social integration is the property behind the variation in suicide rates.
Q442. Explain what Durkheim is talking about when he suggests that egoism is the opposite of social.
Q443. Define:
supra-physical (234.5)
raison d'ĂȘtre (234.7)
(instinct) acquits (itself) (234.8)
(collective) asthenia (236.2)
Q444. Tocqueville writes that "Americans combat individualism with free institutions" (246). Explain what he means.
Q445. What is the mechanism behind Tocqueville's endorsement of involvement in local politics as a way of building "the social" into citizens?
Q446. Walk us through Tocqueville's contrast of aristocratic society where citizens are bound to, say, their local noble, and democratic society where citizens are independent. He wants to say that the latter can't get anything done unless they know how to organize and associate.
Q447. What is Tocqueville's argument that associations help to stabilize democratic regimes?
Q448. Why is the Tocqueville selection in the "groups as a source of social order" section of the text?
Q449. What does Hechter mean by "the extensiveness of corporate obligations"?
Q450. Centola, et al. describe a process whereby people collectively "produce" something that is contrary to their individual beliefs/interests/preferences. Thomas Schelling, similarly, described a process whereby socially irrational results emerged from individually rational action. Identify points of similarity and difference, using it as an opportunity to show what you know about the two thinkers' ideas as well as your ability to compare markets and groups as generators of social order.
Q451. If the phenomenon described by Centola et al. is common, what are the implications for Schelling's critical mass and tipping models?