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Chapter 4
Society
Chapter Outline.

I. Society. Society refers to people who interact in a defined territory and share culture. This
chapter explores four important theoretical views on the nature of human societies. Key scholars
include Gerhard and Jean Lenski, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim.

II. Gerhard and Jean Lenski: Society and Technology.

A. Gerhard Lenski (2004) focuses on sociocultural evolution, the changes that occur as a
society acquires new technology. According to Lenski, the more technological information a
society has the faster it changes. New technology sends ripples of change through a society.
Lenski identifies five types of societies based on their level of technology:
1. Hunting and gathering societies use simple tools to hunt animals and gather
vegetation. Until about twelve thousand years ago, all humans were hunter-gatherers.
At this level of sociocultural evolution, food production is relatively inefficient; groups
are small, scattered, and usually nomadic. Society is built on kinship, and specialization
is minimal, centered primarily on age and gender. These societies are quite egalitarian
and rarely engage in war.
2. Horticultural and pastoral societies employ a technology based on using hand tools
to raise crops. In very fertile and also in arid regions, pastoralism, technology that
supports the domestication of animals, develops instead of horticulture. In either case,

Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc. Chapter 4 - 1

 these strategies encourage much larger societies to emerge. Material surpluses develop,
allowing some people to become full-time specialists in crafts, trade, or religion.
Expanding productive technology creates social inequality.
3. Agrarian societies are based on agriculture, the technology of large-scale cultivation
using plows harnessed to animals or more powerful sources of energy. These societies
initiated civilization as they invented irrigation, the wheel, writing, numbers, and
metallurgy. Agrarian societies can build up enormous food surpluses and grow to an
unprecedented size. Occupational specialization increases, money emerges, and social
life becomes more individualistic and impersonal. Inequality becomes much more
pronounced. Religion underlies the expanding power of the state.
4. Industrial societies are based on industrialism, the production of goods using
advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery. At this stage, societies begin to
change quickly. The growth of factories erodes many traditional values, beliefs, and
customs. Prosperity and health improve dramatically. Occupational specialization and
cultural diversity increase. The family loses much of its importance and appears in
many different forms. In the early stages of industrialization, social inequality
increases. Later on, while poverty continues to be a serious problem, most people’s
standard of living rises. Demands for political participation also escalate.
5. Postindustrial societies are based on technology that supports an information-based
economy. In this phase, industrial production declines while occupations that process
information using computers expand. The emergence of postindustrialism dramatically
changes a society’s occupational structure.

B. The limits of technology. While expanding technology can help to solve many existing
social problems, it creates new problems even as it remedies old ones.

III. Karl Marx: Society and Conflict.

Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) analysis stresses social conflict, the struggle between segments of society
over valued resources.
A. Society and production.
1. Marx envisioned society as comprised of two groups. Capitalists are profit-
oriented people who own factories and other productive enterprises.
Proletarians are people who provide labor necessary to operate factories and
other productive enterprises. Marx believed that conflict between these two
classes was inevitable in a system of capitalist production. This conflict could
end only when people changed capitalism itself.
2. Social institutions are the major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems,
organized to meet human needs.
3. Marx considered the economy the infrastructure on which all other social
institutions, i.e., the superstructure, were based. The institutions of modern
societies reinforce capitalist domination.
4. Marx’s approach is based on materialism, which asserts that the production of
material goods shapes all aspects of society.
5. According to Marx, most people in modern societies do not pay much attention
to social conflict, because they are trapped in false consciousness, explanations

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 of social problems that blame the shortcomings of individuals rather than the
flaws of society.

B. Conflict and history. Marx argued that early hunting and gathering societies were based
on highly egalitarian primitive communism, and that society became less equal as it
moved toward modern industrial capitalism dominated by the bourgeoisie class
(capitalists). Communism is a system by which people equally own and share resources
that they produce.

C. Capitalism and class conflict. Industrial capitalism contains two major social classes—
the ruling class and the oppressed—reflecting the two basic positions in the productive
system. Class conflict as conflict between entire classes over the distribution of a
society’s wealth and power. Marx argued that class conflict is inevitable.
1. In order for conflict to occur, the proletariat must achieve class consciousness,
workers’ recognition of their unity as a class in opposition to capitalists and,
ultimately, to capitalism itself. Then workers must organize themselves and
rise in revolution. Internally divided by their competitive search for profits, the
capitalists would be unable to unify to effectively resist their revolution.

D. Capitalism and alienation. Marx condemned capitalism for promoting alienation, the
experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness.
1. Marx argued that industrial capitalism alienated workers in four ways:
a. Alienation from the act of working.
b. Alienation from the products of work.
c. Alienation from other workers.
d. Alienation from human potential.

E. Revolution. Marx was certain that eventually a socialist revolution would overthrow
the capitalist system.

IV. Max Weber: The Rationalization of Society.

Weber’s work reflects the idealist perspective that human ideas shape society and that society is
guided by rationality.
A. Ideal type is a term that Weber used to refer to an abstract statement about the essential
characteristics of any social phenomena.

B. Tradition refers to values and beliefs passed from generation to generation. Weber
argued that traditional societies are guided by the past.

C. Rationality refers to a way of thinking that emphasizes calculation and efficiency in

determining the one best way to accomplish a task.
1. Weber argued that the Industrial Revolution and rise of capitalism reflect the
rationalization of society, the historical change from tradition to rationality
as the dominant mode of human thought.

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 D. Is capitalism rational? Weber saw industrial capitalism as the essence of rationality
because capitalists pursue profit in whatever ways they can. In contrast, Marx viewed
capitalism as irrational because it failed to meet the basic needs of the people.

E. Weber’s great thesis: Protestantism and capitalism. Weber traced the roots of modern
rationality to Calvinist Protestantism, which preached predestination and the notion that
success in one’s calling testified to one’s place among the saved. Weber’s analysis
demonstrates the ability of ideas to shape society.

F. Rational social organization. Weber argued that rationality is the basis of modern
society. He identified seven characteristics of rational social organizations:
1. Distinctive social institutions.
2. Large-scale organizations.
3. Specialized tasks.
4. Personal discipline.
5. Awareness of time.
6. Technical competence.
7. Impersonality.
G. The growth of rational bureaucracy was a key element in the origin of modern society.
H. Weber feared that the rationalization of society carried with it a tendency toward
dehumanization or alienation. He was pessimistic about society’s ability to escape this
trend.

V. Emile Durkheim: Society and Function.

Emile Durkheim argued that society is larger than individual people. Society is a collective
organism far larger than the mere sum of its parts. Durkheim used the term social facts to refer to
the idea that patterns of behaviour, customs and norms have an objective reality beyond the lives
of individual people.

A. Function. Society as a system. Social facts are functional and comprise a complex
system that extend beyond their effects on individual people.

B. Personality. Society in ourselves. People build personalities by internalizing social

facts.

C. Modernity and anomie. Durkheim defined anomie, as a societal condition in which

norms and values are so weak and inconsistent that society provides little moral
guidance to individuals. Modern societies impose fewer rules on people than traditional
societies and are thus more prone to anomie, or normlessness.

D. Evolving Societies. The division of labour

1. Traditional, or pre-industrial, societies are characterized by a strong collective
conscience or mechanical solidarity, which refers to strongsocial bonds
based on shared moral sentiments that unite its members. Challenges to social
norms are punished quickly by the community.

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 2. In modern societies, mechanical solidarity declines and is partially replaced by
organic solidarity, which refers to social bonds, based on specialization and
interdependence, that unite members of industrial societies. This shift is
accompanied by a decline in the level of trust between members of the society.
3. Division of labour refers to specialized economic activity. Durkheim argued
that the expansion of the division of labour is key to societal social change.

VI. Critical Review: Four Visions of Society.

A. What holds societies together?
B. How have societies changed?
C. Why do societies change?

VII. Chapter Boxes.

A. SOCIOLOGY IN FOCUS: – What Makes Quebec a “Distinct Society” Within Canada?

(p.94-95) – a cohesive Canadian identity is problematic because there are “distinct”
societies within the country.

B. WINDOW ON THE WORLD—Global Map 4–1 (p. 107) High Technology in Global
Perspective. While countries with traditional cultures either cannot afford, ignore, or
sometimes resist technological innovation, nations with highly rationalized ways of life
quickly embrace such change.

C. SOCIOLOGY AND THE MEDIA BOX—The Information Revolution: What Would

Durkheim, Weber, and Marx Have Thought? (p.112) - Durkheim, Weber, and Marx
greatly improved our understanding of industrial societies.

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Chapter Objectives
1) Describe of technological development has
shaped the history of societies.
2) Evaluate the importance of class conflict in
social change.
3) Demonstrate the importance of ideas to the
development of societies.
4) Contrast the social bonds of traditional and
modern societies.
5) Explain how Lenski uses technological
development as a criterion for classifying
societies at different levels of evolutionary
development and identify five types of
societies according to their technology.
6) Summarize how technology shapes
societies at different stages of sociological
evolution.
7) Be familiar with the principal
characteristics of hunting and gathering,
horticultural, pastoral, agrarian industrial, and
post-industrial societies.
8) Explain the central role of social conflict in
Marx’s theory. Define and understand the
concept of alienation.
9) Explain Weber’s notion of ideal types.
10) Examine how Weber used the concept of
the rationalization of society as a means of
understanding and interpreting historical
change.
11) Identify seven characteristics of a rational
social organization.
12) Define Durkheim’s concepts of structure
by function and personality.
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
13) Explain Durkheim’s argument regarding
the relationship between division of labour and
social change.
14) Distinguish between organic and
mechanical solidarity.
15) Identify major similarities and differences
among the analyses of society developed by
Lenski, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.
Essay Topics
1) Provide an example of each type of society
outlined by Lenski. Which would you most like
to live in? Why?
2) To what extent does contemporary
Canadian society still reflect the industrial
model and in what ways in which
contemporary society is post-industrial?
3) Identify several modern examples of false
consciousness. What are some of the
consequences of widespread false
consciousness in a society?
4) Differentiate between class and false
consciousness. Can you identify examples of
false consciousness that you have experienced
in your life?
5) Have you or your friends or family worked
in jobs which were alienating? How accurately
does Marx describe the characteristics of these
jobs?
6) According to Marx, how does capitalism
alienate workers? How did Marx feel that
workers could overcome their alienation?
7) What ideas from Marx remain relevant to
contemporary society and what ideas must be
discarded in the wake of the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the Marxist societies of
Eastern Europe?
Chapter 4 - 6

8) What vision of society do you hold? Do you
think societies are getting better or worse?
Defend your position.
9) What are the characteristics of a rational
social organization? Do you think that the
changes that have resulted from the widespread
rationalization of society have improved
people’s lives or made them worse?
10) How can modern societies reduce the level
of anomie? Can this be done without limiting
people’s individual freedom?
11) What have we gained and what have we
lost as our society has moved from mechanical
to organic solidarity?
12) How did the Protestant Reformation lead to
the rise of capitalism?
13) Why is a cohesive Canadian identity so
problematic?
14) What policies or programs might you
develop to encourage a more “Canadian”
identity?
Using the ASA Journal Teaching Sociology
in Your Classroom
Sociological theory is often one of the most
challenging areas for students to grasp. Elroi
Windsor and Alana Carroll offer an interesting
activity that uses experiential, or applied,
techniques help students learn social theory.
Their article ‘The Bourgeoisie Dream Factory:
Teaching Marx’s Theory of Alienation through
an Experiential Activity’ is published in the
journal Teaching Sociology. Instructors might
find this a useful resource to engage students
with Marx’s concept of alienation.
The activity involves creating a mock factory
wherein students enact the role of proletariat,
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
while the instructor plays the role of
bourgeoisie boss. The task of the proletariat is
to record their dreams on a piece of paper then
fold the paper into an origami animal. Tables
and chairs are arranged ahead of time to
discourage collaboration and to promote a
solitary, isolating work environment.
Instructors can also use handouts that detail the
wages, schedule of work et cetera. The activity
helps students to understand how capitalism
creates a situation in which proletariat workers
sacrifice their dreams in order to work for low
wages. Instructors can then engage students in
a discussion about contemporary working
conditions that could be describes as alienating.
Windsor and Carroll conducted collected
institutional research ethics approval to
conduct research on the efficacy of experiential
learning such as the mock dream factory
exercise. Their research shows that the activity
is a useful way to teach Marxist theory, that
students enjoy the exercise and it was a
successful way to add realism to sociological
text.
Source:
Windsor, Elroi J., and Alana M. Carroll. "The
Bourgeoisie Dream Factory Teaching Marx’s
Theory of Alienation Through an Experiential
Activity." Teaching Sociology 43.1 (2015): 61-
67.
Student Exercises
1. Visit your institution’s library website and
search some of the recent issues of the
Journal of Educational Technology and
Society. Read one of the articles and write
a two-page summary of the findings and
Chapter 4 - 7
 conclusions you find.
2. Select two of the characteristics of
bureaucracy as identified by Max Weber.
Provide and example from either your
workplace or your college for these two
characteristics, illustrating rationality,
irrationality, and limitations.
3. In the book Cultural Anthropology:
Adaptations, Structures, and Meanings,
David Haines presents a great deal of
information about hunting and gathering,
horticultural, pastoral, and agrarian
societies (see chapters 2-5 in the section of
the book called Adaptations). Select one of
these chapters and write a two-page paper
on the important characteristics of societies
that practice the type of subsistence
strategy (adaptation) you select. Discuss in
your paper the extent to which Gerhard
Lenski’s model of societal development
relates to what is presented in the Haines
book.
4. For an example of a people living on the
margins of society, Google smokey
mountain dump and learn about the history
of this landfill in the Philippines in which
hundreds of people lived before it was
closed a few years ago. This can be used to
apply Durkheim’s division of labor model.
Supplemental Lecture Material
The Postindustrial Workplace
The challenges that workers must negotiate in
a postindustrial society are well documented.
On the other hand this new work world raises
new challenges for supervisors. It is harder
today to insist that all employers be at their
posts at a specified time and stay there for a
specified length of time. Requests for
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
exceptions, conditions, and special schedules
are growing.
Diane Crispell, Executive Editor of
American Demographics, offers five rules for
managers to keep in mind when addressing
workplace issues. The shift from time-based to
task-based performance is occurring fastest in
industries that rely most on online
communication. Crispell points out that this is
because workers who use computers can easily
shift from working to personal leisure activities
such as playing games or checking the weather.
In an environment conducive to even mild
levels of theft of company time, supervisors are
well advised to measure performance in terms
of quality and productivity, not in the number
of hours worked or when work is performed.
In some areas of the labor force, performance
will always depend on showing up on time and
putting in a solid shift (e.g., manufacturers,
retailers, and construction workers). But in
financial services, government, and a variety of
other industries many workers are already
measuring up to quality and productivity
standards instead of punching a clock, and the
number is certain to grow.
Crispell also contends that worker’s
appearances don’t always count –the quality of
work matters much more than the cut of the
clothes, how people wear their hair, or whether
workers have wrinkles or gray hair. Even for
frontline workers whose appearance does
count, employers need to be flexible about the
dress code that they impose in order to avoid
resistance from workers.
Today, the line between individual and
organizational responsibility has become
blurred. Employees now expect employers to
accommodate their personal lives. To a large
extent, baby boomers and younger workers
bring their personal lives to work out of
necessity. When both father and mother are
employed, or when a single adult is raising
children, work schedules can be upset at any
moment. (According to the Census Bureau,
four in ten preschool children live with two
Chapter 4 - 8
parents who work, and 18 percent live with a
single parent who works.) Offering child-care
assistance is an effective way to keep valued
workers on the job more often and keep them
focused on their work. Ignoring the issue is
certain to bring about increased work absence,
increased turnover, and stressed-out workers
worrying about children who are home alone.
Another emerging workplace issue is an
increasing number of middle-aged baby
boomers who find themselves responsible for
an aging parent. While not as great a problem
as the child-care dilemma, it’s one that is
destined to grow. (According to American
Demographic’s projections, the number of
households headed by someone aged 75 will
increase by 32 percent between 1995 and
2010.) Coordinating business travel with
family concerns is one way, according to
Crispell, that employers may ease the angst
associated with work-related travel. An
employee who can combine a business trip
with a visit to an elderly parent or sibling will
be eager to make repeated trips to the area, and
will probably be content to stay there for a
longer period of time.
A major challenge in today’s workplace is
employers helping employees balance their
work and personal lives, but they also have to
balance the needs of workers and customers
with those of the organization.
Source:
Diane Crispell. “How to Manage A Chaotic
Workplace.” American Demographics (June
1996): 50-52.
Discussion Questions
1) Is it reasonable to expect employers to
accommodate employees’ personal life needs?
Do you think it matters of employees text or
check social media during work hours if the
quality of their work is satisfactory? Why or
why not?
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
2) How do race/ethnicity, social class, and
gender impact on issues that employees must
address in conjunction with workplace
responsibilities?
3) Do you think new technology poses issues
for the conflation of work and home life? What
are some issues that persons who have their
office in their home must negotiate? What are
the pros and the cons of such an arrangement?
Supplemental Lecture Material
Marx's Concept of Alienation versus
Durkheim's Concept of Anomie
Both Marx and Durkheim, as was suggested in
Chapter 1, were fundamentally guided in their
choice of topics to study by their desire to
understand and try to solve the problems that
arose as the societies in which they lived
moved from a preindustrial to an industrial
state. For Marx, one of the most serious of these
problems was what he termed alienation; for
Durkheim, the more critical problem was
anomie. While both of these important
concepts call forth images of profound human
discontent, and while both are often seen as
increasingly prevalent in modern society, they
are fundamentally distinct and in certain ways
antagonistic. An examination of these two
notions may help us to better understand the
underlying differences between the visions of
society developed by these two seminal
sociological thinkers.
Marx’s notion of alienation reflects a
perception that people in modern society are
becoming increasingly unable to control the
social forces that shape their lives. For Marx, it
is an essential part of human existence that we
collectively create the social world in which we
live. Governments, economic systems,
educational institutions, and even religions are
the products of human activity and
consciousness. We created them and, in
principle, we can change them. But over time,
Chapter 4 - 9
and especially as societies become more
complex (and more capitalistic), people begin
to lose track of the fact that they have created
the society in which they live. Social
institutions begin to be perceived as
oppressive. Instead of something we shape and
create, they come to be seen as, in effect,
coercive external realities to which we must
conform. Ultimately, we come to feel
powerless to influence the circumstances of our
own lives. Marx felt that this progressive
process of alienation results from the capitalist
mode of economic production, but it could
equally well be argued that it is inherent in any
sufficiently large-scale, economically
advanced modern society.
Marx saw modern man as alienated in
many dimensions of life. For instance, in the
world of work, the assembly line serves as an
excellent example of objectified alienation.
Humans created it, yet the individual worker
standing on the line feels totally powerless,
unable to alter the character of the task he or
she is compelled to perform or even the pace at
which the work must be done. Furthermore,
workers lose a sense of how their contribution
to the overall effort promotes the final end of
the manufacturing process — they feel not only
powerless but also that their work is
meaningless. Beyond that, Marx notes that
highly alienated workers also lose a sense of
commonality with their fellow workers. They
feel not only controlled, but also isolated.
Ultimately, highly alienated workers come to
lose the sense that they can control any aspect
of their lives, whether at work or at home, and
become highly self-estranged. Such people are
profoundly discontent, prone to alcohol and
drug abuse, mental illness, violence, and the
support of extreme social and political
movements, in addition to experiencing other
pathologies.
What occurs in the workplace is echoed in
other dimensions of life. For example, people
who are politically alienated feel powerless to
affect important decisions made by elected
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
leaders. The government they elect comes to be
seen as they and not we. People no longer
perceive any value in participating in politics,
and they no longer derive a sense of shared
identity with others through joint political
activity.
Note that, for Marx, alienation ultimately
results from a societal situation in which there
are too many rules, rules the individual feels are
being imposed upon him or her, despite the fact
that ultimately all of these rules are the
products of human social activity.
Durkheim also sees a strongly negative
quality creeping into life in modern industrial
societies, but he diagnoses the situation quite
differently. For him, the problem stems from
the destruction of the close ties that bonded the
individual to family, church, and community in
the traditional, preindustrial village. In such a
society, high in mechanical solidarity,
individuals knew exactly what was expected of
them. There was little or no normative
ambiguity. But with the advent of the urban and
industrial revolutions — the same changes
Marx saw as leading to alienation — Durkheim
saw the new urban industrial worker as subject
to a breakdown of the moral consensus that was
characteristic of the village community. Thrust
into industrial cities in jarring juxtaposition to
dozens of different subcultures, members of the
developing modern societies of Western
Europe and America began to lose their moral
compasses. With the decline of the absolute
and inflexible norms found in traditional
society, modern man was cast adrift on a
relativistic ocean where right and wrong were
no longer easily defined. Durkheim called this
condition of society anomie, from the Latin a
(without) nomos (order). In a state of anomie,
often defined as normlessness, people in
modern society drift from one definition of
proper behaviour to the next, never sure they
are acting as they ought to. The result of this
endemic moral rootlessness, according to
Durkheim, is social pathology much like that
envisioned by Marx as the consequence of
Chapter 4 - 10
alienation: drug abuse, family dissolution, high
rates of crime and mental illness, high suicide
rates, and so forth.
But while alienation and anomie may both
be endemic to industrial societies and may lead
to similar behavioural problems, they are
fundamentally different concepts. An alienated
individual is one who is exposed to too many
rules, to too strict a set of constraints. Far from
being in a state of drift, the alienated individual
is oversteered, overguided, dominated, and
ultimately crushed by the very society that he
and others like him established. In contrast, the
anomic individual is in a state of moral free-
fall, desperately anxious for structure or
constraint but unable to find enough moral
guidance to be able to know how to live his or
her life. The problem is that society is too
weak, not too strong. People who are alienated
know exactly what is expected of them, but find
the yoke of these expectations crushing. People
with anomie yearn for the guiding hand of
society but find only a chaotic freedom that
fails entirely to liberate. For Marx, the problem
is the powerlessness of the individual to shape
or even resist the coercion of society; for
Durkheim, modern people desperately wish for
society to be more, not less, coercive.
Ultimately, Marx’s vision is of people striving
to free themselves from the fetters of excessive
regulation, while Durkheim suggests that
people cannot live happy or productive lives
unless properly guided by the invisible hand of
society.
Discussion Questions
1) Which vision — Marx’s or Durkheim’s —
strikes you as a more accurate explanation for
the numerous social pathologies that
characterize modern industrial and post-
industrial societies?
2) How can we attempt to remedy the problem
of alienation? How can we try to reduce
anomie? Is it possible to achieve a balance
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
between too much and too little normative
constraint, so that people can be neither
alienated nor anomic?
Supplemental Lecture Material
The People that Time Forgot
Deep in the rain forest of Irian Jaya, a province
of Indonesia in the western half of New Guinea,
live a people whose contact with the modern
world has been virtually nonexistent. That is
about to end, however. Vast forests are
becoming a natural resource targeted for
cutting. Once they disappear, so will the
Korowai, whose existence depends on those
trees.
As a matter of fact, the forest itself is where
they live, in huts constructed of branches and
bark, high up in the trees, and accessible only
by notched climbing poles. For clothing, they
use leaves, palm fronds and rattan. The forest
also provides game for hunting.
The Korowai live as perhaps our ancestors
might have lived. Each clan is ruled by a war
chief. Alliances are formed through trade or
arranged marriages involving a bride price.
Calling themselves Lords of the Garden, the
Korowai combine hunting and gathering
techniques with horticulture and some
pastoralism. They raise pigs, cultivate gardens
of many types of banana and sweet potatoes,
and tend sago fields where the women work
during the day. The sago is food and, as are
beetle larvae, a delicacy. The Korowai chop
down palms with stone axes, then bore holes in
the trunks. Scarab beetles lay eggs in those
holes. When the grubs hatch, they are pulled
out of the holes and baked, wrapped in banana
leaves.
One aspect of Korowai life is the never-
ending clan warfare generally fought over
women or pigs, and often part of a chain of old
offenses to be revenged. Battles always take
Chapter 4 - 11
place during the day since spirits at night are
hostile. Special arrows designed for killing
humans are used. Unless the dead are carried
away by their own clan, they are then eaten. So
are men or women who transgress against clan
members by stealing pigs or committing
adultery.
Cannibalism, however, is not the major
killer of the Korowai. Accidents, disease, and
war take the greatest toll, and life expectancy is
only 35. So poor are the chances for infants,
that children do not even receive names until
they are about 18 months old.
Yet though their way of life may be
precarious, the Korowai value it deeply, as is
revealed by the ceremonial overtones of the
grub feast – a feast which unites and
strengthens the community, in turn reaffirming
their shared way of life. Yet soon, as has
been prophesied, the lale — the white-skinned
ghost demons — will come and take away the
Korowais' trees, their land. It will be the end of
the Korowai world.
Source:
Raffaele, Paul. (August, 1996). "The People
That Time Forgot." Reader's Digest, Vol. 149
No. 892: 101-107.
Discussion Questions
1) Using Gerhard and Jean Lenski's
categories, characterize Korowai society,
discussing various social institutions typical for
such a society. Should efforts be undertaken to
save their way of life, or is their disappearance
acceptable as a function of sociocultural
evolution?
2) In your opinion, if the Korowai are
ultimately deprived of the rain forest, what
should be done for them? Is there a way to save
them? Can they survive in the modern world?
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
3) Activity: Either read an ethnography or
check out a video to watch on a society with
rudimentary technology, then write a sketch of
that society using Lenski’s insights.
Supplemental Lecture Material
Social Facts
Chapter 4 defines Emile Durkheim’s concept
of social fact as an objective part of society
separate from the individual yet capable of
influencing behaviour.
Among the interesting types of social facts
we all come into contact with in modern society
are the rates of impaired driving collected by
the Road Safety Directorate of Transport
Canada. A consideration of the character of
impaired driving rates may help to further
illuminate Durkheim’s conception of social
facts.
Impaired driving rates are social facts in
two general senses. First, they reflect social
processes of definition and data collection.
Second, and more closely in line with
Durkheim’s point, once published, these rates
take on a sort of objective life of their own and
can themselves significantly influence ongoing
social reality. Let’s consider each of these
points.
First, impaired driving (ID) rates are the
products of human social activity. Rather
obviously, they represent a quantitative
summation of the (illegal) behaviours of large
numbers of human beings acting in social
context. Drunk driving is just as much a process
of social interaction as a cocktail party or a
classroom lecture. However, ID figures are
social in other, less superficial ways. The acts
tallied are crimes because they have been
defined as such by legislatures. The definitions
that are used to characterize certain acts as one
type of crime or another are also social
products. In some cases the distinctions
Chapter 4 - 12
between impaired and non-impaired driving
may seem arbitrary. The allowable level of
alcohol has varied over time and varies from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A request that a
driver take a breathalyser test is made on the
basis of a more or less subjective assessment of
observed driving skills, presence of a sufficient
number of police on the relevant duty, the type
of car and driver. ID rates are social because
they are counted and entered by human beings
– police officers – operating in specific social
contexts.
There is every reason to believe that the
process of data collection is strongly influenced
by these social contexts; for example, police
officers may feel compelled to informally
maximize the figures that they pass on if there
is a strong feeling in the community that the
local police department is not doing a good job.
None of this necessarily reflects deliberate
deceit, but rather suggests that the data
collection process, much like the process of
defining certain acts as crimes and fitting
particular acts to these definitions, is an
inherently social activity.
But when Durkheim speaks of rates of
behaviour as social facts, he means more than
that they are generated by social activity. Once
published and disseminated, they take on a life
of their own and have the ability in many ways
to influence future social behaviours (for
example, ID figures may influence the way in
Copyright © 2018 Pearson Canada Inc.
which the citizenry views the police’s crime-
fighting behaviour and affect the level of
support for additional financial and technical
assistance). Police are not the only people who
are aware of the social importance of crime
rates as social facts. Politicians, especially
conservatives, have long relied on public
concern over rising crime rates as a means of
gaining votes.
The point, in summary, is that ID crime
rates are fundamentally social, not only in the
way in which they are constructed, but, even
more significantly, in the way they influence
the social behaviour of many individuals and
groups in society. They both reflect social
realities and affect the society in which they
arise.
Source:
Holly Johnson. ‘‘Impaired Driving Offenses.”
Canadian Social Trends. Toronto: Thompson
Educational Pub. Inc., pp. 267-70.
Discussion Questions
1) Can you think of other driving issues that
are social facts? What about other
behaviours that are considered deviant,
such as child abuse or illegal drug use?
2) Why do you think the rates of ID vary from
province to province?
Chapter 4 - 13