ISS 210 1st Edition Lecture 2 Outline of Last Lecture I Personhood II Scheper Hughes death without weeping III Personhood and abortion a Social categories IV Time and the life course V Individual Outline of Current Lecture VI Society VII Culture VIII Emile Durkheim IX Max Weber X Talcott Parsons Current Lecture Society Structure of society deeply shapes who we are System interconnections Government o Social Security o Address o License Plate o Drivers license number o Health care Economics o Capitalism o Phone number o Address o Credit cards o Routing number o ATM pin o Credit score Social class o Salary Social groups ex neighborhood clubs etc These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Education o Student ID o Grade year o GPA Random o Health numbers o Age birthday o Time and date All these things identify us unfortunately we can get identity theft Culture closely connected to society Set of ideas and values Emile Durkheim 1858 1916 Trying to understand society In attempt to explain individual action he made a very important contribution he developed the concept of society as a collective organization The elementary forms of religious life 1912 about religion among the aboriginal populations of Australia They were hunters living in a harsh environment they scattered away from their main groups for most of the year to find food He studied them because they were easier to understand than the people of France What brings them back together Why don t they all just go off and never come back This helped him develop his concept of society Collective consciousness they had culture and similarities and ideas about the importance of their membership in the group Their common beliefs were centered on religion After they would re gather after being apart they had religious ceremonies and celebrated being back together This gave him another key concept of social function Key function of religion was to maintain social solidarity What is its effect or role on the group He focused on suicide 1897 looked at as problem with individual temperament or makeup o Very personal why did just this one individual do this Not their families o Different rates throughout different religious groups Catholic vs protestant much smaller o Higher rate of suicide in the protestant religion because there is more individualism emphasized Max Weber 1864 1920 Scholar and university professor Did work on history of economic systems leading academic in Germany At some point he became mental and took leave of absence walked in woods for 3 years to try to figure out what was wrong with him He could not stop working He could not stop working because it was the culture and religion he was raised in Great value was placed on hard work He realized how much these religious values had played a role on him he started analyzing how to get better Once he realized what was wrong and got better he wrote The protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism 1904 1905 The idea is that god is all powerful and makes a decision about each individual whether you will be saved or not saved There is nothing you can do to influence that outcome The only saving feature is to get incite to see if you are one of the chosen ones if you were able to accumulate a lot of wealth If you were wealthy and successful that came to you from god Talcott Parsons Combined Durkheim and Weber put them into a common theme work Next class movie