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Part 1
Every society experiences a lot of social phenomena like marriages, racism, divorce, religion, competition, conflicts, etc. People often find it hard to understand these issues that happen in society. CNN’S presenters Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in a segment in their show decided to help their listeners understand classical sociological theories. The presenters invited me as an expert to speak and make people get a better understanding of these phenomena. In a bid to significantly focus on the connection between the individual and society, there is a comparison between the works of George Herbert Mead, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. The debate began with Mead’s theory of “self’ development.
Before starting the conversation, Kanye West gave a directory of the ways the talk was to take. The first part was to provide a vivid discussion about the development of our “self.” A sociologist George Herbert Mead who operated from around 1800, is famous for his development of “self” theory on sociology. Development of the “self” incorporates the concepts of “self,” “me,” and “I.” The terms “me” and “I” have a more detailed understanding. Mead’s view on the development of “self” is that it does not start from birth but activities and experiences from society.
Three activities aided in the development of the “self.” These activities include language, play, and games. Starting with language, it helped in the development of self through conversations. Through people’s conversations, they responded to one another through a lot of ways. These ways include symbols, gestures, words, and various sounds. These forms of language would help different people to express their attitudes and views concerning a given subject or person in society. Various emotions such as happiness, somber, and confusion come up due to the use of language hence developing of “self.’ (Pamela Abbott. Melissa Tyler)
The second activity is play. In plays, people take different roles. As people take different roles, they pretend and express different expectations about some other people. Role-playing that involves pretending to be some character develops one’s “self.” People acting in the play can understand various kinds of people and their behaviors. Games also improve one’s “self.” A lot of games often have rules that people should follow. While following these rules of various games, one gets used to the routine of following rules (Pamela Abbott. Melissa Tyler). Therefore, ‘self’ develops when one gets to understand different rules to follow in society.
Mead’s theory brings out “self” as having two phases. The two sides are “me,” and “I.” “Me” is the individual’s aspect get socialized. These are behaviors, attitudes, and other’s expectations that people learn from society. Mead’s theory considers “me” as a phase that exists in the past. It is as a result of the knowledge that people gain from society and their regular social interaction. If “me” is of the past, therefore, “I” is of the present and future according to Mead’s theory: this was in a bid to answer Kim’s question about the “I” phase of development of side. The “I” responds to the “me.” For instance, the “I” thinks of how society expects a given behavior, and then it does the same way of expectation. The two phases in “self” development work together, and Mead terms them as being in a relationship.
Kanye West, who shocked a lot of his fans from his album “Jesus is King,” asked how Durkheim and Marks respond to Mead’s theory. According to his Functionalism theory on Sociology, Durkheim agreed to Mead’s philosophy on the development of “self” and added more understanding to it. The two phases of “self” contribute to an individual: individual needs the society to have more experience in different activities. According to functionalism, personal behavior is different from collective action.
According to Durkheim, society has many organs whose functions connect to ensure every “self” in the community works together. Functionalism theory states religion as one organ in the nation that connects every “self.” Kanye West asked for more clarity on how religion in functionalism theory brought about the connectivity in the community. Regarding functionalism theory, Durkheim stated that there must exist elements of the crime for a nation to be complete (Barnes). Crime is one aspect of the community that would clarify people’s morality since criminals get born in a nation.
Religion has the significant responsibility of improving the morality of people in society. Rules learned during ‘self’ development gives people the ability to understand the difference between sacred and profane. During sacred moments in churches, the rules help people on how they conduct themselves; hence rules aid them in the connection between individuals and society. Since the church is a unified community that shares some common beliefs, it would help criminals to fit into society (Barnes). Religions bring collective effervescence hence having externalized morality to the community.
Kim Kardashian asked a question on Karl Marx’s conflict theory requiring more detailed information on what it really entailed and how it influences social phenomena. According to Karl Marx, his conflict theory was significantly between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Conflict theory emphasizes that what somebody does, defines them. Even though there still exists a social class in a community that dominates over the other, there are plenty of elements of humanity that exist. Labor and work are the daily activities of individuals that enable them to produce their life.
Even though Marx considers work and labor in his theory as a way individual produce their lives, he also associates modern society with alienation. There are specific types of alienations. Considering the alienation of others and self, they seem to respond to Mead’s theory. After the development of “self,” Marx seems to react to it by the alienation of “self.” During industrialization, the outcome should always be connectivity between the worker and the job done. According to Marx, there is a loss in one’s self in modern society industrialization hence false consciousness. Workers also compete rather than cooperate: they keep on competing in about one’s “self.” Instead of being united, every person wants to be on the higher social class before the other.
Part 2
Donald Trump, in his office, is worried about shenanigans that take place. As much as he tries, he gets confused about what actual measures to take in a bid to protect his country from a massive financial crisis. For a better tackling of the issue at hand, Trump should incorporate the views of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Emile Durkheim on the division of labor and specialization. He should also give an ear to DuBois and Charlotte’s opinion, who give reference to gender.
Emile Durkheim views the division of labor as advantageous to society. The first benefit of the division of labor is social solidarity. Apart from the labor division increasing the reproductivity process and workers’ skill, it improves their relations. To Durkheim, the division of labor does not only focus on the interest of the economy but also society’s social and moral order. An example of social solidarity is marriage, as it brings a permanent relationship between people (Barnes). With the increase in labor division among men and women, people at different locations find more time to bond, hence improving their ties.
Social solidarity incorporates mechanical and organic solidarity: Mechanical solidarity aids in connecting people in society without any intermediary, while Organic solidarity depicts society as being complicated with various relationships. From Durkheim’s perspective, the more primitive a community is, the more it gets associated with mechanical solidarity (Barnes). Durkheim also talks of two laws that play significant roles in ensuring society’s solidarity through labor division and specialization. These laws are representative laws and restitute laws.
Karl Marx gives four premises of historical materialism in his theory: individuals producing means of survival, reproduction, the satisfaction of human needs, and entering social interaction through these activities. Due to the interaction when people want to satisfy personal needs and to reproduce, there comes a division of labor and specialization. According to Karl Marx, society is constructed upon two ideologies: base and superstructure. The base is the economy of a society, and it is the core foundation of any society. In this section, productions take place, and people get to specialize in a given task that they expertise in. (Barnes).
According to Karl Marx, the division of labor has led to specific modes of production, which include emerging social classes and struggles between different classes in society. In his theory, Marx is interested in the degree of specialization and what gets produced through a given labor division in society. Karl sees progress in the abolition of the labor division since, to him, there is no importance.
The division of labor, fro Marx’s perspective, was on the property versus labor. Marx views the division of labor as a hindrance to unity in society. In his theory, Karl had a vision of a perfect human society. In Marx’s view, individuals working experienced no kind of alienation because they got rid of alienated products. People fell into groups of alienations and hence arising from private properties: capitalism. Capitalism led to the enslavement of laborers since there was no association of products produced with them. The division of labor, therefore, destroys connectivity in society (Barnes).
Marx views the division of labor as class consciousness. The desire for capitalism where some group of individuals wanted to own companies for their interests brought up the division of labor. The ideas that come into societies are significantly advantageous to the ruling class, minority, rather than laborers. The higher class represents their interests and divorce class nature of their ideas. According to Marx, a class that controls methods of production has control to also intellectual production in society. Marx suggests that the division of labor should get destroyed. Capitalism would also lead to a more significant shift of labor to cities, shifting focus to protecting private properties, and exploitations, and creating a split between big bourgeoise and petit bourgeoise (Barnes).
Emile Durkheim talks of the division of labor as being essential to society as it brings social solidarity. People’s ties become strong, production increases, and workers get more improvement in their skills. On the other hand, Karl Marx sees it as causing capitalism. Capitalism only focuses on the interests of a few minorities, hence bringing conflicts in social and widening gaps between different social classes. Karl Marx suggests communism as it is the only thing that brings the whole society together, and they equally benefit.
Karl Marx supports communism, where everyone in society profits while Durkheim supports the division of labor due to social solidarity. Both the sociologists see a world where people in a community work together despite gender or race. Charlotte Gilman critiques both Marx and Durkheim’s views by talking of one side of society, helping in progress. She says that the status of the economy of any nation gets controlled by the male (Pamela Abbott. Melissa Tyler 5). To her, men are the core pillar in working sectors since they can do the women’s jobs like cooking, cleaning, and sewing, but only men can do them, not the females, when it comes to complicated tasks. This means that to Gilman, social solidarity will only occur among men.
Charlotte goes ahead to explain that the responsibility of women is to work under the men. Men produce wealth and distribute them, but women only receive them. Females in the human race get support from male and cannot seek their living. From these reasons, it is clear that Charlotte critiques labor division and communism. In her view, labor division and communism get in action: women should be in household activities to help men in serving in the final processes of distribution of wealth. Even though supporting men in the production of wealth is essential, the working power of women does not affect economic status (Pamela Abbott. Melissa Tyler 7).
Trump needs to restore his country’s financial position and needs a better plan on tackling the problem at hand. Durkheim’s perspective would give Trump a step towards solving the country’s problems. In Durkheim’s view, labor division brings social solidarity. Apart from social solidarity, he talks of how more society would experience more production, and the available labor will gain more experience. In tackling the shenanigans, Durkheim’s view would strengthen ties between workers, and hence they would do open and honest work. Making America great again requires more production of quality products, which would result from the division of labor, according to Durkheim. Trump should, therefore, take into consideration Durkheim’s perspectives.
Works Cited
Barnes. powerpoints of Class lectures. 2020.
Pamela Abbott. Melissa Tyler, and Claire Wallace. An introduction to sociology: Feminist perspectives. Routledge, 2006.