CRM 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Anomie, Social Forces, Household Division
25 Dec 2015
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Crime and the american dream (rosenfeld and messner) Like merton, messner and rosenfeld seek to explain the high rate of crime in the united states. Dream and the companion institutional arrangements is widespread anomie, weak social controls, and high levels of crime. Achievement orientation: personal worth tends to be evaluated on the basis of what people have achieved rather than who they are or how they relate to others in social networks. Success is the ultimate measure of social worth and there is a cultural pressure to achieve it at any cost. Individualism: in the pursuit of success, people are encouraged to make it on their own. Universalism: everyone is encouraged to aspire to social ascent, and everyone is susceptible to evaluation on the basis of individual achievements. The pressures to win are pervasive; no one is exempt from the pursuit of success. Monetary reward: this is how success is signified; it is the metric of success.
