CC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Symbolic Interactionism, Sociological Perspectives, Semiotics
Chapter 8 - Sociological Perspectives
Video: Chicago gangs, no services, people must fend for themselves, easy access to guns,
leads to crime
Review
Four Important Concepts
● The consensus paradigm
● Structuralism
● Conflict perspective
● Symbolic interactionism
Consensus
● Consensus crimes → acts commonly viewed as criminal
● Conflict crimes → acts not universally considered criminal but have laws governing
them
● Social deviations → activities and worldviews that are not illegal but considered
deviant
● Social diversions → social deviations that have become acceptable
● Most people do not agree on what justice is, shapes the way people have interpreted it,
what is/isn’t appropriate?
Structuralism (semiotics)
● Saussure → language as a system of signs based on difference and collective learning
● Levi-Strauss → society as a super-language creates unconscious mental structures that
maintain social order (myth, kinship, ritual, beliefs) e.g. feel we have to go to uni
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● Derrida → language is unstable with applied meanings, and meaning is influenced by
power relationships e.g. the word dog is just a sound
Symbolic Interactionism
● E.g. we all agree a stop sign means stop
● How does the individual interpret things
● Mead → mind, self, and society: mind is internal conversation; self is construction of
identity (an object); society is overlapping interactions
○ Actions are shaped by impulse → perception → manipulation → consummation
● Blumer → actions are a consequence of reflexive and deliberate processes determined
by an individual in response to their environment
○ Emphasized interaction between people, not roles
● Goffman and Hochschild → all the world is a stage, said we could put on different
masks depending on situation, Goffman said we do not have our own personality when
all of the masks are taken off
Conflict Perspective
● Marx
● Nature of “society” is shaped by dominant forces in politics and business
● Emphasizes concepts like achievement, individualism, universalism
● Fetishized consumption as an indicator of social status (conspicuous consumption)
● Alienates the working class from the true value of their labour, encouraging anomic
conditions
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find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Video: chicago gangs, no services, people must fend for themselves, easy access to guns, leads to crime. Consensus crimes acts commonly viewed as criminal. Conflict crimes acts not universally considered (cid:3247)criminal(cid:3248) but have laws governing them. Social deviations activities and worldviews that are not illegal but considered (cid:3247)deviant(cid:3248) Social diversions social deviations that have become (cid:3247)acceptable(cid:3248) Saussure language as a system of signs based on (cid:3247)difference(cid:3248) and collective learning. Levi-strauss society as a super-language creates unconscious mental structures that maintain social order (myth, kinship, ritual, beliefs) e. g. feel we have to go to uni. Derrida language is unstable with applied meanings, and meaning is influenced by power relationships e. g. the word dog is just a sound. E. g. we all agree a stop sign means stop. Mead mind, self, and society: mind is internal conversation; self is construction of identity (an object); society is overlapping interactions. Actions are shaped by impulse perception manipulation consummation.
