SOC357H1 Chapter Notes -Dialectic, Karl Mannheim, Class Consciousness
Document Summary
Although the members of a generation are undoubtedly bound together in certain ways, the ties between them have not resulted in a concrete group. Class position is an objective fact, whether the individual in question knows his class position or not, and whether he acknowledges it or not. Class consciousness doesn"t necessarily accompany a class position, although in certain social conditions the latter can give rise to the former leading it certain features and resulting in the formation of a conscious class. Besides the concrete social group, there is also the phenomenon of similar location of a number of individuals in a social structure under which heading both classes and generations fall. The unity of generations is constituted essentially by a similarity of location of a number of individuals: the biological and sociological formulation of the problem of generations. Class position was based upon the existence of a changing economic and power structure in society.