this lecture is on the development of Sociology as a discipline it will not only look at the quote unquote founding fathers of Sociology uh it would also look at the conditions that gave rise to sociology and other disciplines in the social sciences there are a variety of ways that sociology as a discipline has been defined both its uh development as well as its overall purpose John Huger States the task of sociology is to explain the way the totality of social patterns works together whether well not so well or badly indeed sociologists study how patterned ways of behaving in various Arenas political economic and religious for example interact as people try to provide for themselves and reproduce the next generation of workers the intellectual challenge of developing a theory of human organization is sociology's primary reason for existence there's a variety of ways to uh Express similar sentiments uh as this quote uh often I'll say that what sociology is very interested in uh is the overall uh organization of social relations and uh how individuals interact with that what are the consequences of it what are the uh influences on it and so forth and uh this is very similar uh to the the first sentence of this of this quote where it talks about the totality of social patterns uh and so there we know in modern society that there are variety of Arenas uh that at times have inner conflict but at times have agreements and disagreements with other Arenas of society so we see that in in in areas such as religion uh education um the economy and um politics media and so forth and so there what we're studying is how those various Arenas are organized uh how they interact with other Arenas over time and in the the current moment and how that connects to uh individual social beings within that Society similar to the way that uh social patterns or social relations uh are often used interchangeably to describe uh similar phenomenon we see the same uh with Arenas being described as uh social institutions uh I use this quote by Jonathan Turner uh to describe social institutions and also uh it's a way of describing Arenas uh Turner states that social institutions are a complex of positions roles norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organizing relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems and producing life sustaining resources in reproducing individuals and in sustaining viable societal structures with within a given environment there we can see uh a variety of uh phenomena that have been described as social institutions uh such as family such as politics um such as the economy such as religion uh and so forth uh you can see that within each of those there are different positions roles norms and values uh and we can see how each of those are tasked with um reproducing certain uh individuals um and making different contributions to the the sustainability and to the longevity and endurance of a of a given Society in my discussions on the development of Sociology I I kind of move away from what youve seen a lot of introductory textbooks uh that seem to almost exclusively focus on specific individuals and we will talk about specific individuals that were very influential in the founding of Sociology in this lecture um but I think it's very critical to understand where did all this come from this way of talking about Society this way of talking about the reality that we're all situated within and so forth uh it didn't appear overnight and it isn't just because of a a handful of individuals uh that we've seen this tradition develop and so uh I encourage people to think about the uh very influential effects of the Enlightenment on the development of sociology and um other disciplines in the social sciences and other disciplines in general and uh in doing that I'm encouraging students to think about what are some of the political economic social and cultural Transformations that were taking place at that time that gave rise to a new way of thinking about a we a new way of interpreting a new way of defining uh reality the enlightenment is a term that uh is meant to describe a broad series of changes that were taking place uh in the 18th century and some uh would argue I think rather convincingly that there's more than one Enlightenment that took place in more than one uh area um but broadly speaking what we're looking at with the enlightenments and you could say in plural enlightenments uh is the belief that we could unleash human reason uh to Define our physical environment and then to Define our social environment uh and what was is the task or the the promise that it was um following was that if we were to do this if we're to unleash human reason and move away from things like myth move away from things like Superstition uh not always be beholden to tradition uh if we were to move away from all that then we could uh move away from certain ignorant ways of thinking about our physical environment about each other about ourselves and so forth and that by uh unleashing human reason opening up discussions that were informed uh in many ways scientific based and so forth that uh human societies would uh F would realize their potential and um in this you see all of this optimism that was taking place at the time on where the future of human societies could go uh and we see a really marked shift in the way in which um people were defined places were defined and so forth and so um we'll discuss some of the the the ramifications of this and some of the ways in which uh society's changed and by doing so it makes it easier to understand how something like sociology how something like social science in general developed one area where we see uh massive Transformations taking place uh is within uh the political Arena and in modern society we see a move towards nation states uh in Europe uh and elsewhere and so uh whereas previously different areas could be governed uh by looking back at traditions of the past or perhaps through uh a specific family or Clan uh that maintained power and then uh enforced power over others uh and um there's a variety of other options of governance that we saw uh at that time but what we see in the in the movement towards modernity is now this this idea that well we're going to um create a a nation state and within it there'll be individual citizens and within that there's individual rights uh and there's going to be a very planned out and um orderly way of uh establishing power and governance and then also um transitioning power at different times and um collecting a a variety of smaller political entities uh into this one larger nation state and this uh had um Major Impact on the on the development of of Europe and elsewhere uh how people end up defining themselves uh what what uh is involved in the regulation of trade and the reg in in the development of uh various conflicts or security and uh all of this we can see today that the development of a nation state has uh played an absolutely uh incredibly influential role uh on the direction of of human societies along with changes in the political Arena we also see changes uh in economics uh movements away from things like barter economies more into a Reliance on currency uh the arrangement of uh various Tri types of trade of goods and services um and over longer distances development of the global circulation of of goods uh changes in the uh ways in which goods are produced distributed and consumed uh at this time there's uh just incredible changes that take place and in that we see ways of knowing ways of defining uh all these different uh activities uh under this uh discipline that we we call economics but also we see these these changes in and these material activities take place and um there we see changes in how uh we connect to one another how we uh produce distribute and use goods and um the way in which various activities uh such as production manufacturing and so forth are organized and understood uh this this development within the enlightenment is a is a major similar to the one um the one seen in the political Arena this development in the arena of economics is another major transition in human societies we also see different uh production principles and activities take place uh within the manufacturing of goods uh we see the formation of factories the movement of populations from uh more rural settings to Urban settings uh this has uh a major impact on uh the way in which individuals experience work or how they Define work and labor uh who gets to control that what are the conditions through which uh labor is performed uh who is allowed to work in certain spaces who gets ignored uh we see a movement away from uh an earlier period where more work was done U between men and women in a in a similar setting in a rural setting and now a split between more formal paid labor in places like factories and informal unpaid labor in uh uh a residential setting this has changes in not only the way in which work is organized but how people Define themselves specifically along uh gender boundary lines and so we see these these changes are taking place that uh change the daily routines of people uh and as they're doing that we also see that various ideas of society start evolving uh for example what it means to be male what it means to be female uh in these settings uh we see being being different from earlier set settings in which work wasn't so uh divided the tasks of Labor weren't as divided uh as we see here but this also means that um the way in which uh labor is performed in this uh production process in which certain skills are divided up uh and then how that all is organized uh we see uh major changes in how um production is able to increase output uh while at the same time decreasing uh dependence on certain forms of uh human skills becomes uh much more automated we see the rise of more uh or increased use of Machinery in the manufacturing process uh tasks being divided up and uh therefore major changes in the way in which uh individuals enter into the workforce there are a variety of cultural changes that begin taking place uh alongside changes in the political Arena alongside changes in economics uh and we see that uh at a time when those changes are taking place that there's uh increased status given to uh scientific definitions of reality uh increased status uh given to secular thought in general uh this takes place uh at the expense of the previous position that religion uh once or once occupied whereas religious definitions were uh given quite a lot of status and power uh we see that get decreased as uh secular thought and scientific definitions increase uh and so there you start to see that uh not only in scientific thought with respect to Natural Sciences but you also see uh scientific thought with respect to social sciences and that would include sociology and so we start thinking about the ways in which we Now understand understand Society uh how it works how it doesn't work and so forth uh we can see that many would would study it in a variety of ways that um wouldn't defer to say previous traditional explanations and instead would be open up to in some ways scientific thought others would say secular thought uh and here we see sociology developing alongside other social sciences uh at the same time that various trade at a global level is taking Place encounters with different people uh is taking place we also can see that uh there would be an acknowledgement or an understanding that uh one individual's language isn't the only one out there one individual's culture isn't the only one out there and that then encourages uh this thinking about well how do languages develop and what are their rules uh associated with them and how do languages influence people and so forth uh similarly how do cultures form what are certain uh rules of certain cultures how do that how does that compare and contrast to others and so that culture and language is no longer understood as something that's natural or inherent uh and instead we can see how they can form over time how they're always in a process of change and how there's a variety of different cultures around the planet this you can see would encourage the development of social sciences uh we also see individuals like Max babber studying how the produ work ethic aligned with the development of capitalism as a form of economic organization uh and vber would be one of the the founding fathers of of Sociology uh we also see then that uh what was once given this um you know guarantee of of human development human Improvement and so forth this idea of of modernity this idea of unleashing human reason to solve all of our problems and to guarantee a more fulfilling existence and we see individual thinkers and and uh certain works and certain disciplines uh pointing out certain shortcomings uh with uh Enlightenment thought uh and its and its consequences or its or its outcomes and you can see it in everything from uh Freud and psychology to nich and in philosophy and and and several others and so while many uh stay committed to this uh this project of the Enlightenment uh it's no longer with this uh belief that uh it can do no wrong and uh in fact many point out some of the the issues that go along with this uh new form of organizing Human Society there are a variety of individuals to uh associate with uh early forms of sociology and uh these are individuals that uh exist uh not only in certain parts of Europe but different parts of the world and uh I should in in uh future uh lectures try to make more of a point uh to highlight those other individuals but uh for this lecture here I'll I'll look at someone that is often identified as the the founder of Sociology and most introduction of Sociology textbooks uh but I'll do so by saying that um there was a variety of of activities of Sociology of of social theory taking place um at the time of compt in other parts of the world and actually before him um but for trying to understand how uh you're learning about sociology uh at a university in Southern Ohio there's this uh link that we can establish between uh an individual like compt and um some of the concepts that we'll that we'll talk about throughout the semester uh compt you can see at the time uh was certainly influenced by uh the advances and the the status of of Natural Science and uh you can see that he really wanted to establish a sociology that mirrored many of the principles and activities of the Natural Sciences and that uh maybe another way of saying that is that a uh chemist may study chemical reactions in a certain way and uh sociologists can do a similar thing with with social interactions or society as well so uh this idea of positivism we can see um approaching ing the study of society and social phenomenon by saying that we can kind of put on a lab coat and we can we can give ourselves a distance from what it is that we're studying we could be neutral we can be objective and our goal is to provide an explanation of what it is that we're observing that can be applied in in any society and so positivism is is similar to some of the goals of Natural Sciences in that it it's is seeking to provide Universal explanations uh of certain phenomenon and um that guides uh comp's work and you can also see this not only is he influenced by Natural Sciences but he's also influenced um by the the some of the viewpoints or beliefs of those uh in relation to the Enlightenment and what it can um provide for human development and uh the belief that it's an improvement on the past um uh he looks at previous stages of human development such as a theological stage in which there was more of a reference to uh religious definitions of reality a metaphysical stage which is more of a an abstract or um generic you might say a philosophical definition of society to now an empirical stage uh which compt was saying that we should uh in this empirical stage we should be mirroring the work of Natural Sciences and and studying society as a biologist or a chemist would uh their their their topics of study and so through that he felt that sociology can be established as a discipline uh that would work in M ways very similar to biology chemistry physics and so forth probably uh over 95% of introduction of Sociology textbooks will talk about the quote unquote founding fathers of Sociology that uh often you see AOS compt being the person that's identified as the the first uh sociologist and and really helped started to establish the the discipline of Sociology but then you'll see uh a discussion very quickly uh to KL Marx Max babber and Emil durkheim uh as the three founding theorists of of sociology and so we'll talk a little bit about each of them um but I thought it was very important to first uh describe the conditions in which they're then situated uh none of what they were doing makes any sense in my view unless you understand those various transformations in society that was taking place uh that that provided uh a space for them to develop this way of describing society and so it's very very important to understand what it was that was the background uh development to things such as sociology and then once you understand that uh then what follows is well how did sociology start developing through individuals like Marx Faber durheim and there's others in fact uh if you look at certain histories of Sociology there was other individuals that at times are defined as uh the founding fathers um but uh for this lecture here we'll talk about Marx vber and durkheim Carl Marx is probably the most widely known of the three founding fathers of of Sociology um his work goes beyond uh the area of sociology and is often talked about in economics and philosophy and uh political science and and so forth um for our our task here uh I'll just make a couple of General points about uh marks uh and mainly what I'd like to to focus on is connecting marks uh to a certain uh motivation of of social theory and that's critique and um we all um take part in different types of of critiques and we read uh the work of different types of critics and I try to point that out as to what it is that Marx was doing at the time so for example think about different types of critics uh such as food critics movie critics uh there's certainly quite a lot of uh critics of different sports and um college and and professional sports and um one thing to keep in mind about the role of the critic is they have something in mind which is a a good way of of doing something whether that's uh preparing and serving a meal uh whether that's um you know a fashion critic looking at certain uh Styles uh a film critic looking at things like storylines or character development uh a Critic of sports uh looking at play calling in a certain situation of a game uh and the list goes on and so often what a Critic does is have something in mind of what is the ideal or what's very good and then looking at what they're observing and comparing those two things and so they might say this was a very good job because of this is the way it should be and it's what I'm observing is is very similar the same to that or they might say that something's really bad and it falls short of what they think is good in a variety of ways and we see this uh motivation and social theory uh you know in in a variety of different topics and across different disciplines and one thing we could see with marks was he was very critical of changes that were taking place um at the time that he was alive and and specifically within the realm of uh the arena of of of Economics uh he celebrated this move away from feudalism um but he was very critical of how uh work and labor was was organized at that time uh he was of the uh Viewpoint that Society was getting better uh so you can see that influence of Enlightenment thought he thought you know the movement away from feudalism was was moving uh human societies into a a better place uh he thought that would continue to to move in a place that he thought was also going to be better that the way that work and labor was organized was going to get uh in his view much much better um so there you see this influence of Enlightenment thought you also see uh he was very much influenced by a philosopher that was um uh about a generation before him Hegel uh that um like Hegel he also uh who also believe that human society was getting better um you see that in Marx's work and then also uh there's a connection between with Marx and Hegel uh the way in which society was organized and to put it um almost uh crassly or very bluntly uh Hegel stated that uh to understand the development of of human societies uh what we should look at are the ideas that governed uh each of these different time periods uh and then we would see from those governing ideas how various activities in society were organized so another way of putting it he would say well look if you want to understand Southern Ohio in 2024 let's identify these these key ke ideas um that are governing Society in that time not just strictly in the in the area of of politics um but ideas that where that are commonly accepted and some would even say at times enforced uh that would then explain how these various activities such as education uh such as family activities um such as certain work activities and so forth those governing ideas would explain those activities and that's how you can understand the kind charting of of human history uh Marx was influenced by this uh he you know also as I said believe that Society was going into this better place uh he also thought it was important to examine the the ideas of a time and the activities uh the material activities at the time um but he flipped it upside down as far in relation to Hegel he didn't state that um you you know that uh ideas govern activities and instead uh what Marx stated was that uh we look at the activities of a society uh what are those material activities how is work organized how is education conducted and so on and so forth and after understanding that that'll let you know what uh from there you understand what uh or you examine what uh the governing ideas are at the time so Hagel who was putting the ideas of the time at the central part of his analysis uh would follow what people have defined as idealism so not perfectionism but idealism based on that focus on ideas whereas Marx took a historical approach that that looked at Material activities and so there you see the term historical materialism often used uh when describing Marx's approach and in that approach he was looking at uh developing a critique of the society that he was in he looked at uh how it it had developed over time um and he provided this critique based upon what he thought would be a better idea of running Society uh specifically you could see the organization of of of work and labor um but essential thing that I would say to look at Marx there's people that can uh develop critiques from a variety of standpoints uh and you see that across social sciences uh and in developing that critique of a social phenomenon you have in mind something that you believe would be a uh a better or almost an ideal form of an activity or phenomenon and then you uh assess uh what it is that you're observing based upon uh that belief and again that can be that's a belief that could be or an analysis that could be conducted across the political Spectrum uh and and the same is true with historical materialism you have KL Marx who's a Critic of capitalism um develop a historical materialist view of something and you could have someone who works on Wall Street uh who does believe in capitalism do a similar format of technique of of um of study I should say and uh they might draw and they most certainly would draw very different conclusions um but they you you could see that there'd be approaches that would be similar that would use historical materialism uh and then also would have uh critique as the as the motivation of their work vber differs from uh Marx in in a few ways um markx thought uh in his role as uh a Critic and that motivation of of critique in his theory was that we should conduct sociological work uh not only to understand the world but to change it uh VOR shied away from uh the role of uh academic as as an activist uh and if we were going to identify or associate vber with a a motivation of of theory it would be interpretation and So within that inter interpretation Vapors understanding these um individuals in in societies as social beings and they're very communicative they rely upon a variety of different uh symbolic structures within the society that they're in and uh vber seeks to understand the the motivations of of actions and uh and behavior in general and so um this moves away from stating that we're there to have an you know that is sociologist we start with this notion of what would be a um a better or good or an ideal form of of some type of phenomenon and then critique something uh or identify something through critique in order to improve it Vapor shies away from that instead is there to to provide interpretations of um various um behaviors or it's probably better to say social actions um VOR also um is interested in one major transition in from premodern to modern society through this notion of of rationalization and um vber uh sees this as a u one of the shortcomings of of modern society of modernity in general and that uh for VOR rationalization is where we we put the priority on efficiency more than anything else and um often when we stress efficiency we strip something of its value or its or its meaning and so uh you can see why some things are are done because they're efficient and beneficial in in a variety of different ways um but there are certain things that uh are lost with that some easy examples when you think about um you know uh how uh hospitals are organized uh with maternity Awards where it's a very safe and it's a very efficient way uh of uh a community uh providing a space for child birth we know that um for for the operation of a hospital be very efficient to have this space to do that you have trained officials that do that and so forth or trained um doctors that help with that nurses and so forth uh but we also know that there's a lot of meaning loss with that the majority of us wouldn't return to where we were born we don't um have an annual party in the in the Maternity Ward uh and in fact the vast majority of us would never again return to that space uh when we look at things like going through education we've organized that in a very U efficient way you go through it almost like a product through a factory year after year after year with these other students uh when you get to higher education we've organized that an efficient way so that you graduate in a certain amount of time you know how to do it and so forth you have to get 120 credits and you have to do what your your major tells you to do and it's in many ways it's quite efficient uh others would say well we you might lose out on certain things going through that process uh maybe you like to study with a a professor on a certain project for a while well that doesn't really fit the the system uh when you look at things such as office places they're organized in a quite efficient way to get as much productivity out of different workers we see that sometimes that can be uh that can affect various social interactions and and actually can make work quite a a lonely and some would say so Soul destroying space uh when you look at things like entertainment uh how efficient it is to have 20 20 different movies in the same franchise uh or um you know certain plot lines that are similar across different Generations different genres of TV film and so forth uh and then finally you know when you look at um things such as um you know hospital care and so forth many ways it's quite efficient like end of life care and so forth um but many think that uh meaning and value is stripped of these different Arenas in life uh these different moments in life that on the one hand it's we can see how efficiency has its benefits um vber thought that it's now become uh an end goal in itself and to that he he assigns um quite a large shortcoming to to modernity this uh increase in efficiency uh um while sacrificing things such as value and meaning imil durheim is a third founding father uh talked about in the majority of of introduction of Sociology textbooks uh we see that uh the motivation of criticism in social theory can be assigned or associated with with KL Marx and the motivation of interpretation uh can be assigned to Max Faber uh durheim can be associated with uh explanation uh which is similar to August compt in fact uh this uh practice of positivism this belief in positivism of a way of doing sociology is uh also assigned to or associated with with durkheim uh for durkheim he thought that sociologists should establish establish social facts and uh once established those those facts can be used to explain larger patterns of of social behavior when we think about uh some of the important um goals and tasks of of EXP we can see that in well across all social sciences so for example uh if a society was uh experiencing a a trend of decreased violent crime uh as the United States has since the 1990s um people would want to explain well why is that happening what what is the causes cause or causes of that uh so we know um what has factored into that Trend or you can think of the a second the opposite direction of that Trend if there are things that are increasing uh violent crime the incidents of violent crime well we would want to be able to explain what those are uh so as to address those and so in a lot of uh studies you can see that there is this uh this way of or this motivation to explain a phenomenon uh maybe to reduce it or eliminate it uh or to to increase it and to provide this insight into uh The Human Condition and so we can see explanation um you know being used not only in in sociology um but as a said across the social sciences uh and in that it's trying to make sense of our our social surroundings in a way that we can make better choices develop better legislation or uh you know end certain programs start new ones revise current ones and so on and so forth so explanation certainly is a uh a drive factor in uh motivating uh certain forms of social research and so to understand the founding fathers what I try to encourage students to do is to align them with these different motivations of social theory uh critique with marks interpretation with Vapor uh and explanation with with durkheim after talking about the conditions that give rise to sociology and other social sciences as as discipl uh I move into talking about the founding fathers uh and making sure we can contextualize or situate them within those developments that were taking place within modernity uh and then after describing uh the founding fathers i u then talk about modern social theories that uh you see in the majority of of Introduction to Sociology textbooks uh so I'll go through uh a list of of modern social theories and one way to think about uh some of these theoretical Frameworks or Traditions is to one relate them back to uh the founding fathers of Sociology but then also to understand them within that overall set of motivations of of social research and again that's uh that of criticism uh interpretation and uh explanation functionalism can be understood as a macr level theory of uh sociology and um you see this distinction between macro level and micro level and in different disciplines uh at a macro level you're looking at uh the phenomenon in a much more structural way uh micro level would be more things like face tof face interactions and so forth uh and functionalism is uh an approach to society uh that conceptualizes society as a biologist would an organism that uh this Society is studied to see how different uh Arenas or institutions contribute uh to the overall existence of that Society just like say body organs contribute to uh our own existence our own Survival and so forth each of them are working together uh to perform certain tasks or or functions and so a functionalist could look at uh American society in 2024 and um study family life and see see what families are doing uh to help reproduce Society at that time um you can then study things such as the education system and see what contributions it's making to the reproduction of society and you can do the same thing with the arena of Economics um politics uh religion and so forth and in that you can see how uh or functionalists would see how those are working together to reproduce the society uh that's being studied uh often you see this approach uh maybe looking less cool losing its Edge a bit over the last few decades there's um and there's each of these terms functionalism and these other Frameworks um there's a variet there's there's a historical change within each of them there's not one unified way of of thinking within each uh sometimes you'll see things such as functionalism and neofunctionalism um so these terms and Concepts such as functionalism should be thought of as terms that are describing a a broad array of of different uh types of research and perspectives but have certain similarities and um with functionalism you see this macro level view of society and this way of trying to explain uh certain functions or tasks uh of different Arenas or institutions uh of a society a similarity between conflict theory and functionalism would be be uh that both are macr Level uh social theories uh you see some aspects of of conflict theory uh somewhat developing into more micro level but for the most part you can understand it as a macr level uh sociological Theory and um one of the the ways it would differ from functionalism is to say that it's not looking to show that um there's different arenas in modern society that work together like um organs within an organism uh to try to reproduce it in a certain way and instead conflict theory would say these Arenas there's inner conflicts within each of them and there's at times agreements between certain areas of one Arena and that of another uh but often there's this this kind of a a motivation to expand and influence uh in the society in which uh that arena is situated so um if we think of functionalist as looking at certain Arenas of society as body parts with an organ within an organism one way to think of conflict theory is more of an ecosystem uh you know think about uh someone's backyard where certain plants want to spread or um you know certain species want to add to its numbers and that would mean uh a decrease in another and so forth what um conflict theory is trying to to to explore is is some of those tensions and in that and in those uh interactions at a structural level between things such as uh economic activity uh political activity religious activity and so forth and that in that there are conflicts between these various Arenas uh and that it isn't based uh on this notion of cooperation uh to reproduce Society but at times it's it's actually um quite harsh this conflicts very direct and so forth and so we can see variet ways in which there' be disagreements about say for example the education system there's political disagreements there's religious disagreements there's economic criticism so on and so forth then we could also see from the education system there's criticisms of others Arenas and so there conflict theory is trying to allow those tensions to surface and to examine the consequences of those tensions and to see what the ramifications of certain expansions or contractions and influence certain uh that certain uh Arena's experience and so again it's still a macro level it's looking at these institutions and Arenas at are very uh structural level uh but rather than cooperation it's it's focusing more on on various types of conflict that are taking place we can see uh functionalism being more associated with uh the theoretical motivation of explanation uh we can see conflict theory uh being more associated with with critique and the same can be true uh with feminism and the challenge when we look at say feminist Theory feminist research uh is to emphasize in my view that there's a variety of different perspectives uh and uh research methods associated with feminism and uh this is developed over time uh through various changes and developments in academic research and also through input of different political and social movements uh and so there at times are inner conflicts within it as a as a perspective and at times it can be challenging to say that it's just one perspective um but what we can see is that it's there's a a focus on the way in which uh gender influences the overall organization of social relations and uh how it can be uh in some ways an oppressive force uh even a force of violence and uh feminist research highlights this uh in in in a sense to critique those conditions uh and therefore uh seek to change those conditions to uh show where certain uh types of social phenomenon social interactions uh social institutions and so forth uh are affected by a way of understanding gender uh that produces inequality oppression violence and so forth and so to highlight that in order to to change it and to improve it and again there's been um a variety of of of perspectives just like other uh theoretical schools we see that there's a variety of perspectives and uh it's very important to see how that's developed over time and what's has has influenced uh that development unlike conflict theory and functionalism uh symbolic interactionism wouldn't be considered a Mac level Theory and instead it's a micr level uh sociological Theory uh here what it seeks to do uh is understand the social construction reality from the from the ground up it would focus on interactions between individuals uh it would look at say uh the presentation of a self uh the various activities that the self is involved with interactions and so forth and uh it would look to interpret uh the the the various types of communicative and symbolic practices of individuals so if we were going to look at um again associating a more modern Theory with a founding father or with a uh a motiv motivation of social theory symbolic interactionism can be associated with interpretation uh and certainly can be Associated also with uh Max VOR and so uh when we think about the way it is that we act as an individuals what guides our our social actions and behaviors uh what influences the way that we present ourselves how we dress how we talk how we act and so forth uh symbolic interaction is examining that how that how those interactions are used in many ways as the building blocks of of how we understand or how Society operates but also how we understand uh social reality postmodernism is a perspective that can be considered as a a response to uh the conditions that gave rise to modernity uh also a response to some of the the goals of uh what we might Define as modern social theories and um in that we also see that some have associated postmodernism with uh a response to the current conditions in which we live and so uh just like these previous terms we've discussed such as functionalism feminism and so forth postmodernism also contains different perspectives uh and viewpoints it has also evolved over time to uh add additional perspectives and uh again sometimes there agreement sometimes there's disagreement but what we see in in postmodernism is this um in some ways a suspicion or skepticism of grand narratives of history or um Universal Frameworks of understanding society and um think about the motivation of of explanation we want to define specific um a causes B and so forth and uh others might even say think about Marxism it's this Grand Narrative of how to understand uh past societies human history but also the current one and everything could be understood within that framework um here we see postmodernism being skeptical of uh this kind of a universal claim of of The Human Condition uh it's skeptical of the way in which uh not only something like Marxism may try to attempt to do that uh but also science uh that when looking at how uh various knowledge knowledge claims are made about our surroundings uh often you'll see this they'll highlight this notion of um language not being able to fully capture that which is describing and so in that there's this um trying to uh there's an attempt to try to open up uh various attempts at at explaining our our our current Society uh and stating that we shouldn't be seeking out not only is it not possible uh to establish one universal definition of what's currently taking place but it's not even desirable to seek out um we've seen more recently some I think additional criticisms of certain uh postmodern perspectives um but others still persist and and um you know we can see that uh various pre previous schools of thought helped influence I think the development of of postmodernism um but um and we we see that there's there's constant revisions just like these these other areas of of theories I've discussed um but um today we see I think a growing amount of criticism of of some of the ways in which um postmodernism has has viewed uh both uh Theory uh and and research but it is a good uh term to end with in talking about modern social theories to to end with postmodernism and uh I'll I'll stop the lecture here and we'll we'll begin talking about other areas of uh the construction of social reality and the process of socialization as well