Sociology and Its People
This is an article that about the people of sociology and how they contributed to sociology. There are several other sociologists that have made huge changes and contributions to the science but this article just covers a few. These sociologists that are discussed in the article are not better than the rest they are just the ones chosen to be talked about in this article.People of Sociology
Sociology Article
Sociology studies how people are affected by their place in the social world and not just by their characteristics. Sociology has to be looked at with a sociological imagination so you can see how society influences the outcome of things. Sociology has many great people who helped shape and move the science along in one way or another.
Emile Durkheim identified four types of suicide which are egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide, fatalistic suicide, and anomic suicide. Egoistic suicide is when a suicide happens because of a lack of solidarity. Solidarity refers to how connected someone is with others in their environment. Egoistic suicide usually happens with people that are mentally ill, lonely, or people that are social outcasts. The main motivation for egoistic suicides is depression. Altruistic suicide usually happens when solidarity is very high and is usually connected to kamikaze pilots, suicide bombers, and cult members. The main motivation for altruistic suicide is an obligation to a group. Fatalistic suicide is a suicide resulting from a lack of social control. Some examples of people who would commit fatalistic suicide would be inmates, the elderly, and the terminally ill. The main motivation for fatalistic suicide is hopelessness. Anomic suicide is when someone takes their own life out of social unrest. The people who commit Anomic suicide usually can not deal with chaos and the motivation behind it is insecurity.
Another sociologist was Auguste Comte that lived from 1798 to 1857 and coined the word sociology. Auguste Comte defined sociology as a study to find social laws or statements of fact that will not change under certain conditions. The social laws could be used as the basic rules for any kind of society.
Herbert Spencer was an intellectual and sociologist that lived from 1820 to 1903 who applied the theory of darwin to sociology. Herbert Spencer applied Darwin’s theory of natural selection to sociology because he thought of society as a living organism. Social Darwinism is when the strong societies survive and the weak societies fail.
Karl Marx was a sociologist and German theorist who thought that the people in the capitalist class were bourgeoisie and the members of the poor working class were proletariat. Karl Marx thought the the bourgeoisie were the ones who controlled most of the wealth in the economy. Karl Marx also thought that the proletariats could not see this because they had a false consciousness. False consciousness was when a person lacked the understanding of their position in society. Karl Marx thought that the proletariats could end their tyranny by getting a class consciousness which means they would be able to understand that their position in the class system was important.
Erving Goffman was a sociologist who thought of a theory called dramaturgy. The theory of dramaturgy was that all life is like acting. Erving Goffman had an insight that everyone was trying to manage what everyone else thought of them. We call the process of controlling what others think of us as impression management.
Theses sociologists contributed to the field of sociology in some way. They all used sociological imagination to look at the world and saw the ways that society was affecting the outcome of certain situations. The sociologists made sociology the science it is today.
