SOCY1002 Lecture 3: Social Order and Social Control
[Lecture Three]
Social Order and Social Control
This week’s key questions:
• What is social order?
• How is social order created and maintained?
• How are individuals governed and how have techniques changed over time?
• How does society reproduce itself through the creation of particular types of selves?
Social Order
• Social order – refers to “a particular set or system of linked social structures, institutions,
relations, customs, values and practices, which conserve, maintain and enforce certain patterns
of relating and behaving. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order”
(Oxford English Dictionary)
• How behaviour is prescribed, endorsed and regulated
• A key way in which social order is maintained through the existence and operation of social
structures which both encourage and govern specific desirable/problem behaviours
SOCIAL CONTROL, SOCIAL COHESION AND TECHNIQUES OF GOVERNMENT
Social cohesion and social control
• Emile Durkheim and the ‘problem of social cohesion’
- Durkheim and the Division of Labour – (functionalism)
- Peasant society
• Unity of experience
• Unity of values ‘collective conscience’
- Industrial society
• Fragmentation and interdependence
• Anomie ‘normlessness’
- Absolutism as a response
• Absolutism – where the king is ‘absolutely’ the only one in power
- Durkheim is saying that yes society is determined yet individual’s can essentially invent
ways in which they run the state
MICHEL FOUCAULT: SOCIAL CONTROL AND ‘TECHNIQUES OF GOVERNMENT’
• Absolutist monarchs and ‘sovereign power’
- Irregular spectacles of punishment
- Command, fear and obedience
- Ceremonies demonstrating might
• The problems of urbanism/industrialism
- Urban mobs and control
- Middle classes and demands for constant order
- Liberal visions of ‘freedom’ vs. might
- The problem of ‘governing’ factories
DISCIPLINE: ‘FREE’ YET ‘CONTROLLED’
• Origins in monasteries and standing armies
- Separation of bodies (cells, rank and file)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Social order: social order refers to a particular set or system of linked social structures, institutions, relations, customs, values and practices, which conserve, maintain and enforce certain patterns of relating and behaving. Social control, social cohesion and techniques of government. Social cohesion and social control: emile durkheim and the problem of social cohesion". Durkheim and the division of labour (functionalism) Peasant society: unity of experience, unity of values collective conscience". Industrial society: fragmentation and interdependence, anomie normlessness". Absolutism as a response: absolutism where the king is absolutely" the only one in power. Durkheim is saying that yes society is determined yet individual"s can essentially invent ways in which they run the state. Michel foucault: social control and techniques of government": absolutist monarchs and sovereign power". Ceremonies demonstrating might: the problems of urbanism/industrialism. Middle classes and demands for constant order. Discipline: free" yet controlled": origins in monasteries and standing armies. Separation of bodies (cells, rank and file)