Q336. What does Ludwick Fleck mean by a "thought collective"?


Q344. Cohen and Vandello offer a number of supporting findings in their work on culture of honor violence in the American south. Explain what's going on in each of these four summary tables and how this fits in with their analysis.

cohen-vandello-03-table.png cohen-vandello-04-table.png
cohen-vandello-05-table.png cohen-vandello-06-table.png

Q353. In "Dissecting the Social," Hedstrom suggests that "a statistical analysis is a test of an explanation, not the explanation itself" (13.9). Explain this distinction.


Q359. Demonstrate your understanding of the Karl Marx excerpt and its connection to ideas about how the nature of the social individual is a "source" of social order by explaining this diagram. Use examples to illustrate your ideas.

sharedmeaningToOrderMarx.png

Q162. Explain this passage by Durkheim:

In “The Origin of Beliefs,” Emile Durkheim writes

" Thus it is not the intrinsic nature of the thing who name the clan bore that set it apart as the object of worship. Furthermore, if the emotion elicited by the thing itself really was the determining cause of totemic rites and beliefs, then this thing would also be the sacred being par excellence, and the animals and plants used as totems would play the leading role in religious life. But we know that the focus of the cult is elsewhere. It is symbolic representations of this or that plant or animal. It is totemic emblems and symbols of all kinds that possess the greatest sanctity. And so it is in totemic emblems and symbols that the religious source is to be found, while the real objects, represented by those emblems receive only a reflection” (49).

The totem is above all a symbol, a tangible expression of something else. But of what? (49)


Q357. Demonstrate your understanding of the Durkheim excerpt and its connection to ideas about how the nature of the social individual is a "source" of social order by explaining this diagram. Use examples to illustrate your ideas.

sharedmeaningToOrderDurkheim.png

Q372. Explain the difference between cooperation and coordination as we are using them in this course. Give examples to support your explanation.


Q364. Thinking back to the Kanazawa article on evolutionary biology, use this diagram to talk about at least six different ideas from this course.

action-time-self-01.gif

Q333. Consider each of the actions listed in the left column of this table. Thinking like Max Weber, in the other columns of each row, give a short explanation of how the action could be oriented in each of four ways (instrumentally rational, value rational, affectual, traditional). In some cases, you might conclude that it is simply too far fetched for an action to be subject to a particular orientation; these can be noted with an "X."

Action Instrumentally Rational
zweckrational
Value Rational
wertrational
Affectual Traditional
Greetings
Investing
Picking a major
Helping an elderly person
Clipping coupons
Setting the table
Exercising
Praying
Observing holy days
Doing a class assignment
Going to college
Respecting one's elders

Q362. The theorists whose work was included in the section on individuals and social order each suggest mechanisms for how shared meaning happens through actual social interaction. Describe how each thinker is saying that the picture below is NOT how it happens - that is, we don't just magically have a bunch of social/cultural content in our heads; it gets there through a process, there's a mechanism that we can describe.

If it's later in the course, relate this to life in groups - how is this social content connected to ideas on internalization and socialization of group members?

shared-meaning-painted-by-culture.png

Q339. Ludwik Fleck wrote: "what actually thinks within a person is not the individual himself but his social community" (Hechter & Horne 59.5). Explain what Fleck's theory of thought collectives is all about by explaining what this means.


Q345. Explicate and explain this selection from Cohen and Vandello's "Meanings of Violence":

As Reed has suggested, Southerners "actually don't see much of the violence around them, don't register it as 'lawlessness,' because it isn't 'lawless.' It is lawful violence in the sociological if not the legal sense: more-or-less predictable, more-or-less expected, (in consequence) more or less taken for granted. It's effectively invisible-something like wallpaper." (Reed 1981)


Q338. "As an entity [a thought collective] is even more stable and consistent than the so-called individual, who always consists of contradictory drives" (57.8). Explain what Fleck means.


Q335. Consider Marx on the production of consciousness. How important does the kind of work seem to be as over against the kinds interaction among people who do the same kind of work for Marx? Compare, perhaps, Uber drivers and fast food workers. Would Marx expect less or a different kind of shared consciousness among the one or the other?


Q365. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Marx's theory of consciousness as a theory of how the human individual is a vehicle for the generation of social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q453.

Q337. In "Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact" Ludwik Fleck starts out with the bold statement that "cognition is the most socially-conditioned activity…." Why is this a bold statement? What conventional assumption is he contradicting at the outset?

Q338. "As an entity [a thought collective] is even more stable and consistent than the so-called individual, who always consists of contradictory drives" (57.8). Explain what Fleck means.

Q339. Ludwik Fleck wrote: "what actually thinks within a person is not the individual himself but his social community" (Hechter & Horne 59.5). Explain wha


Q232. Durkheim lived in an age when the role and existence of “god” as ultimate source of right and rule and order was under question. Rather than choose between “the human” and “the divine” Durkheim stared religion in the face, so to speak, and showed how what we think of as divine/sacred is in fact human (social). How do the following passages convey Durkheim’s theory of the special power of social norms and his idea about society as god and the notion that the individual, with norms and values of society internalized, can be a source of social order?

Durkheim, “Collective Representations” from Elementary Forms

“An individual or collective subject is said to inspire respect when the representation that expresses it in consciousness has such power that it calls forth or inhibits conduct automatically, irrespective of any utilitarian calculation of helpful or harmful results” (50.8).

“The ways of acting to which society is strongly enough attached to impose them on its members are for that reason marked with a distinguishing sign that calls forth respect” (51.1).

“Because social pressure makes itself felt through mental channels, it was bound to give men the idea that outside him there are one or several powers, moral yet mighty, to which he was subject” (52.1).

“In the midst of an assembly that becomes worked up, we become capable of feelings and conduct of which we are incapable when left to our individual resources” (52.5).


Q355. Explain what Marx means by "It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness" (47.7).


Q354. In "Dissecting the Social," what does Hedstrom mean by "realism" (14.9)? How is does this compare to Durkheim's dictum to "treat social facts as things"?


Q349. Language is the paramount example of a SOCIAL phenomenon - the "code system" of language exists in our collective, shared consciousness and anyone who wishes to communicate has to participate in this. Use language and the acquisition and use of language to explain Mead's idea of taking the role of the other, the generalized other, etc.


Q70. If social order equals coordination and cooperation, provide some illustrations that support the authors' contention that "the problem of social order underlies questions of central concern to sociologists in substantive areas as diverse as crime and deviance, social movements, organizations, politics, religion, international relations, and the family" (xiii.1). Use this an opportunity to show you can distinguish cooperation and coordination and in general "get" the course. Perhaps add a category or two of your own.


Q371. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Kanazawa's description of evolutionary biology and its connection to our thinking about the basis for social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q369. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Fleck's theory of thought communities as a theory of how the human individual is a vehicle for the generation of social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q347. George Herbert Mead writes of "taking the attitude of the other" as a necessary part of social life.

"…the complex co-operative processes … organized human society are also possible only in so far as every individual involved in them … can take the general attitudes of all other such individuals … and can direct his own behavior accordingly" (61.5).

Give an example of a social situation that bears this out, describing the various participants and how they can "take the attitude of the others" and what would happen if they got it wrong, or in situations where people do this less well or less completely.


Q343. Dov Cohen and Joe Vandello report on several lab experiments in the article on cultures of violence. One experiment involved "annoying" subjects who thought they were doing an experiment on "art therapy." Describe the design of this experiment, its findings, and their relevance to the theoretical ideas explored in Cohen and Vandello's article.


Q352. Explain what Hedstrom ("Dissecting the Social") meant when he said "differences in some social states or events are considered explained if the decomposition eliminates them" (13.8)?


Q334. Describe, with examples, the policy implications of a theory that has individuals and their shared meanings as the main source of social order.


Q368. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Durkheim's theory of collective representations (shared meaning) as a theory of how the human individual is a vehicle for the generation of social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q350. Some people summarize Durkheim's "theory of religion" by saying that he discovered that "god is society." Explain the logic of this.


Q358. Demonstrate your understanding of the Ludwik Fleck excerpt and its connection to ideas about how the nature of the social individual is a "source" of social order by explaining this diagram. Use examples to illustrate your ideas.

sharedmeaningToOrderFleck.png

Q366. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Mead's theory of the social self as a theory of how the human individual is a vehicle for the generation of social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q348. At 63.2 (in Hechter and Horne reader) Mead says there are two stages in the development of the social self. First the organization of particular attitudes of particular others toward oneself. Second is characterized by "an organization of the social attitudes of the generalized other or the social group…." Although we usually interpret this in terms of the development of a social self in children, we can use it to describe our joining of any new group or social environment. Explain what this means using an example of an individual's socialization into some concrete scene of your own conjuring.


Q363. Demonstrate your understanding of Weber's typology of social action in the context of this course by explaining this diagram.

weber-types-of-action-01.png

Q342. With which theorists do we associate this diagram? Explain what it means in the context of their work.

cohen-vandello-02-politeness-violence.png

Q346. Cohen and Vandello describe a world that may not be politically or morally attractive to you. And yet we read it in a section of the course where we are saying that collective beliefs can be a source of coordination and social order. How does this article illustrate the theoretical points being made by Marx, Durkheim, Mead, and Fleck, indeed of the entire section of the course, that shared meanings can produce order?


Q340. Explain sociological wholism (vs. methodological reductionism) and sociological realism (vs. nominalism)


Q150. Consider this passage and draft explication1. Work through it and suggest how you might improve it.

Text Explication
In "The Production of Consciousness," Marx (1845-1846) writes,“Men can be distinguished from the animals by consciousness, by religion, or by whatever one wants. They begin to distinguish themselves from the animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of life, a step which is determined by their physical organisation. In producing their means of life they indirectly produce their material life itself” (46). In other words, Marx is saying that the difference between a human being and an animal is that human beings have consciousness and work and contribute to production that allow them to produce their means of life; therefore, work is essential to humans’ interactions.

Q233. Hobbes sees social order as impossible without hierarchy. Address both the question of coordination and cooperation (to see the cooperation here, we might think about Adam Smith’s notion of bartering as a means by which two actors can both get what they want) as you explain how Hobbes gets from his assumptions about human nature to the need for a “Leviathan” if human-kind is to achieve social order.

Hobbes, from "Leviathan"

“So that in the first place I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power; but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present, without the acquisition of more” (89).

“Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man” (93).

“In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (93-4).

“If a covenant be made wherein neither of the parties perform presently but trust one another, in the condition of mere nature, which is a condition of war of every man against every man, upon any reasonable suspicion, it is void; but, if there be a common power set over them both with right and force sufficient to compel performance, it is not void” (97).


Q360. What is the relevance of the diagram below to the Cohen and Vandello excerpt?

cohen-vandello-01.png

Q160. Comment on and improve upon the following text explication

Text Explication
In ‘Genesis and the Development of a Scientific Fact’, Fleck refers to language as a key form of interaction. He writes, “Thoughts pass from one individual to another, each time a little transformed, for each individual can attach to them somewhat different associations” (55). That is, thoughts that are submitted through language can inspire new and different meanings once shared through spoken word.

Q238.

fehr-gintis-results-01.gif

Fehr and Gintis describe experiments using a "public goods game." In the regular game, players tended to free-ride more and more as the game progresses. These results suggest that the sociological idea that people do the right thing because they are socialized to care about others is naive. Most people do not act in a “pro-social” manner. They free-ride.

When punishment is permitted, players punish free-riders even at a cost. Public goods increase as free-riding drops. Results like this defy the economic idea of people as selfish maximizers. They also suggest that hierarchy (surveillance/punishment) need not be centralized.

In the light of these results and the rest of the course, how do you think individual internalization of social values/norms, hierarchy, decentralized market interaction, and groups combine to create social order?


Q161. Comment on and improve upon the following text explication

Text Explication
“Whether an individual construes (language) as truth or error, understands it correctly or not, a set of findings meander throughout the community, becoming polished, transformed, reinforced or attenuated, while influencing other findings, concept formation, opinions, and habits of thought” (56). Thus, Fleck argues, language creates thought collectives. A thought collective is defined as a community of persons mutually exchanging ideas or maintaining intellectual interaction. Fleck believes that through the use of language, human’s form thought collectives with others whom they wish to share ideas with. With a sense of shared meaning evolves a sense of coordination.

Q370. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Cohen and Vandello's work on violence and cultures of honor as an illustration of theories of how the human individual is a vehicle for the generation of social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q69. Define "coordination" and give five examples of coordination problems that you dealt with today.


Q361. In the public goods game described by Fehr and Gintis, explain why we impose a cost on the punishER for each punishment issued. What does willingness to impose a punishment despite a cost suggest about the actor who does so?


Q351. Define cooperation and give five examples where you have seen it (or its absence) recently.


Q337. In "Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact" Ludwik Fleck starts out with the bold statement that "cognition is the most socially-conditioned activity…." Why is this a bold statement? What conventional assumption is he contradicting at the outset?


Q163. Work through this passage by Durkheim:

…it is with the people of his clan that he has most in common, and it is the influence of this group that he feels most immediately, and so it is also this influence, more than any other, that was bound to find expression in religious symbols” (55).

Can you make any connections to Mead's generalized other? Or the generic idea of having some of our mental content being social?


Q356. Demonstrate your understanding of the George Herbert Mead excerpt and its connection to ideas about how the nature of the social individual is a "source" of social order by explaining this diagram. Use examples to illustrate your ideas.

sharedmeaningToOrderMead.png

Q367. A storyboard is a technique for graphically organizing the telling of a story. Think about how you would explain Weber's typology of social action as it relates to our concerns with the generation of social order. Imagine how you would represent the theory visually and how you would explain it textually.

storyboard.png

Q341. Explain what George Herbert Mead means when he describes "self consciousness" as becoming aware of oneself as an object for others. How is it that this is what gives rise to the "social self"?