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a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe Collapse of the absolute monarchy in France Feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges under attack from liberal political groups and the masses in the streets Replacement of old ideas of hierarchy and tradition by Enlightenment principles of citizenship&inalienable rights Most controversial legacy: the concept of NATION
Start: Britain, late 18th century Quickly spread across Europe and North America Not a single event; a broad spectrum of social and economic transformations New technology & inventions transformation of the agricultural and commercial way of life into modern industrial society Take-off into self-sustained growth
Fundamental changes
Demographic change: remarkable increase in population (This rapid population growth also stimulated the economy immensely and became thus sustainable) 2) Change in communications (railways, road network; the sheer improvement in speed and carrying capacity) 3) Change in the sheer bulk of commerce and migration
1)
YET
The triumph of Not the industry as such, but of capitalist industry Not of liberty and equality in general, but of middle class or bourgeois liberal society Not of the modern world economy or modern state, but of the economies and states in Western Europe
MOST PROFOUND AND LASTING OF ALL THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE AGE OF DUAL REVOLUTION:
Took the form of European expansion established a domination of the globe by a few western regimes (esp. by the British) Created a sharp division between the advanced and the underdeveloped countries
Scientific Progress
The launching of a series of new inventions such as James Watts steam engine or Eli Whitneys cotton gin or Henry Bessemers steel making process stimulated the Industrial Revolution and made a historical rupture with the traditional society possible gave way to new and highly optimistic mode of thinking, which viewed scientific progress as cumulative and promoting progress in society in general
Industrialization
Creation of a mechanized factory system Production in vast quantities and at diminishing costs No longer dependent on existing demand, but capable of creating its own market
Urbanization
The development of cities and towns Peasants and villagers migrating to cities because of lack of opportunities in rural areas and apparent advantages and attractions of cities Cities becoming concentrated areas of financial and industrial power Change of habits and modes of behavior as well as of patterns of thought and feeling
Fount of dynamism, cultural creativity and economic development or smoking inferno riddled with crime, violence and corruption?
Pauperization
A process related to the processes of industrialization and urbanization The increasing impoverishment of urban workers who are devoid of all means of production, had nothing to sell but their labors and forced to live on an existential minimum
3 elements of modernity:
Traditional modernity: a historical consciousness, a sense of breaking with the past, and a post-traditional consciousness of what is going on in the world Institutional modernity: concerned with capitalism, industrialism, urbanism, and the democratic nation-state Cultural modernity: entails new beliefs about science, economics, and education. It involves a criticism of religion and separation of religion from politics and education.
Secularization:
A process of decline in the influence of religion Secularization can refer to a) levels of involvement with religious organizations (such as rates of church attendance) b) the social and material influence wielded by religious organizations c) the degree to which people hold religious beliefs
a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent and instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics Central to Enlightenment thought: the use and the celebration of reason The first modern secularized theories of psychology and ethics Emergence of a relatively neutral notion of man as a creature interested principally in his own survival and maximization of pleasure The demystification of the state The idea of a social contract an evolving critique of the arbitrary, authoritarian state and to sketching the outline of a higher form of social organization, based on natural rights and functioning as a political democracy Major thinkers: John Locke and Jeremy Bentham (England); Rousseau, Montesquieu and Voltaire (France); Thomas Jefferson (U.S. America)
Developed under the influence of the 3 different views on social change (conservative, liberal, radical/socialist) The conservative wing: French sociology (Saint-Simon, Comte, Durkheim) The liberal wing: British sociology (Herbert Spencer) The radical/socialist wing: the revolutionary strand of German sociology (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels) Mainstream sociology: middle ground German sociology (Max Weber & Georg Simmel)
French Sociology
A story of progression from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to the conservative reaction
Coined the term sociology Positivist Despised the anarchy in French society Counterrevolutionary; reformist Social physics/sociology social statics (=existing structures) and social dynamics (=social change) Evolutionary view of the world history (theological, metaphysical, positivistic stages) Idealistic view (intellectual disorder seen as the main cause of social disorder) Sociologys task:accelerating the arrival of positivism and promoting social order
Ambigious relation to the Enlightenment (politically liberal, intellectually conservative) Reformist Subject matter of Durkheimian sociology: social facts (=forces&structures external to and coercive of the individual; can be empirically studied) Social facts: (a) material (bureaucracy, law etc.); (b) non-material (culture, social institutions) Reform suggestions to strengthen collective morality
German Sociology
Fragmented from the beginning Split between the radical revolutionary wing represented by Marx (and, later, the Marxians) and the early representatives of mainstream sociology (Weber and Simmel)
A theory of capitalist society based on his image of the basic nature of human beings
Capitalism
Capitalism = a structure (or better: a series of structures) that erects barriers between an individual and the production process, the products of that process, and other people Alienation!!!
Alienation:
The breakdown of the natural interconnection among people and between people and what they produce Occurs because of the 2-class system 2-class system: capitalists (owners of the means, process, and products of production) and workers (disposable labor force)
Profit through exploitation of the proletariat CLASS CONFLICT 2 main elements of capitalist enterprise: 1) Capital = any asset (incl. money, machines, factories), which can be used or invested to make future assets 2) Wage-labor = the pool of workers devoid of the means of their livelihood and must find employment provided by the owners of capital
British Sociology
Herbert Spencer: Liberal side: proponent of the laissez-faire doctrine (state kept out of individual affairs, functioning only as a protector) Conservative: positivist, social Darwinist (coined the term survival of the fittest), follows the organism-analogy of Comte and Durkheim Evolutionary theory on world history interested neither in revolution nor in reform Individualist (methodologically as well as politically)