SLGY 2253 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Instrumental And Value Rationality, Georg Simmel, Rationality

• School: Mount Royal University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SLGY 2253
• Professor: T B A

Document Summary

Cities are places of strangership (a lot of people are strangers. Negative perceptions of the city: city is cold/heartless. Urbanites guilty of anti-social behaviour: cities harbor a sense of ruthlessness, often find the bystander effect: strangers fail to intervene when someone else is in danger believing that someone else will step in to help instead. Types of social order of the city (hunter: private: the realm of intimate relations, dominated by personal/emotional ties, parochial: the local community/neighbourhood, public: organizes relationships to strangers in a place accessible to everyone. The ordinary everyday functioning of urban life requires trust between strangers. Instrumental rationality (weber): ways of thinking that viewe all social activities as a means to an end. Whatever people do is justified in terms of the outcomes. Cities produce and require certain kinds of orientations including some instrumental rationality from those who inhabit the city.