SOCI 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Gerhard Lenski, Anthony Giddens, Lumpenproletariat
Document Summary
Society: a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same culture. Recognition that there can be fundamental differences that distinguish categories of society. Gerhard lenski: described different categories of society based on the technologies they used. Hunter-gatherer, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural, feudal, industrial, post- industrial, cyber (?) Note: now it is more appropriate to say gatherer-hunter rather than the other way around, because they focus more on gathering than they do on hunting. Believed that we could compare different cultures based on how they use technology. Hunting counts for 10-15% of their food intake. Humans have been around for approximately 200k years, but civilization (everything after gatherer-hunter societies) starts 12k years ago. The cluster that sociologists are mostly interested in is everything from now to about 5k years ago. Sociologists are very interested in what causes societies to transform dramatically. Likely the greatest transformation of all time involved the transition from hunter-foragers to agriculturalists.
