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  • Essay / Sociological Perspective: Discussion and Meaning of Sociological Thinking

    What do we mean by thinking sociologically? One must first understand the term sociology in order to think sociologically. Allan Johnson tells in his text how he discovered sociology and how he practices sociology in his daily life. Later, he adds that he practices sociology in many ways, when he thinks about how social life works, when he writes books, when he works with people trying to see what is happening in the world and their life in this world. We are always participating in something larger than ourselves, and if we want to understand social life and what happens to the people who live in it, we must understand what we are participating in and how we are participating in it. Sociology ends up meaning just about anything you want it to, which is close to meaning nothing. Simply put, sociology is the systematic study of the development, structure and functioning of institutions, culture and relationships at the level of a group. Social life, social change and the social causes and consequences of human behavior are studied to better understand human societies. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay To think sociologically, we must have a sociological perspective. What do we mean by having a sociological perspective? The sociological perspective essentially means avoiding explaining things based on individual or biological explanations or placing the blame directly on society. For example; if you're writing about poverty or crime, don't try to explain crime based on the psychology of the criminal, or explain that hormones make men more prone to crime than women, etc. These are individual and biological ways of explaining, rather talk about how things valued in society are difficult to obtain, for example money, and people engage in illicit acts to obtain it. Allan Johnson and Beteille Andre, in their respective texts, bring out the concept of “suicide” of the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim and have brilliantly demonstrated the superiority of his approach over that of common sense through his study of suicide. If we ask why people commit suicide, we will probably first think about how they feel when they do it: desperate, depressed, guilty, alone or, in the case of soldiers and suicide bombers, obliged by honor , duty, loyalty. , or religious belief to sacrifice for someone else or for what they identify as a greater social good. This could explain individual suicides, but what do we get when we add up all the suicides that occur in a society in a given year? What does this number tell us and, more importantly, about what? This was the question asked by one of the founders of sociology, Emile Durkheim. He relentlessly maintained that a systematic investigation of a subject was only possible if the investigator freed himself from his preconceptions about it. These preconceptions, usually shaped by limited experience, were not only often erroneous but also obstacles to considering the available and relevant facts. His argument was that suicide was a social fact whose forms and patterns could not be explained by the known facts of human psychology. Although examining the psychological process in individuals can explain why a person commits suicide, it cannot explain the patterns of suicide observed in the social system. Sociologically, a rate ofsuicide is a number that describes something about a group or society, not individuals. who are part of it. Individuals may feel depressed or lonely, but groups and societies feel nothing. Durkheim systematically pursued this distinction between the incidence and rate of suicide, and assembled a wealth of data to show that suicide rates varied systematically between societies, and between religious, professional, and other groups within a given society. same company.company. His study seemed to discover that social causes were behind what common sense might suggest was an extremely private or individual act. One of Durkheim's remarkable findings was that suicide rates increase significantly not only after an economic crash, but also after an economic boom. . The fact is that when he had an important idea that seemed to go against common sense, he decided, as a sociologist, to test that idea by systematically gathering a large amount of data and applying to that data concepts and methods that could also be applied to other areas of life in other parts of the world. To develop sociological thinking, we need to understand the concept behind it in two contexts. In Allan Johnson's text, he explains that "the individualist model does not work", that we must develop a sociological perspective and reflection. We must first understand what is meant by individualistic model? An individualist model is that model that encourages us to think that if enough individuals change, then systems will change too, but a sociological perspective shows why change is not that simple. An individualistic model is misleading because it encourages us to explain human behavior and experience from such a narrow perspective that it misses what's going on. An individualistic model also doesn't work because personal solutions arise primarily from a sense of our own personal needs. Later he adds that as an individual he may not feel or act racist, and that deep down he may even hate racism, but all of this is outside the fundamental sociological point that he is involved in one way or another by virtue of his participation in the company itself. He explains how sociology makes him aware that he is involved in something bigger than himself, sociological practice frees him from personal guilt and blame for a world he did not create and this is not his fault. At the same time, it makes him aware of how he chooses to participate in the world and how and why those choices matter. He has no reason to feel guilty just because he is white and because the creation of racism is not his fault, but he also does not have the luxury of thinking that racism and privilege white people have nothing to do with him. When we say that we are always participating in something greater than ourselves, it is important to remember that we are not a homogenous term. There are multiple “wes” in social life, and an important part of sociological practice is seeing how the presence of multiple “wes” affects what happens. Beteille André in his text emphasized the fact that the sociological perspective is different from common sense. Common sense is not only localized, it is also related to time, place, class, community, gender, etc. She is also thoughtless since she does not question her own origins and presuppositions, or at least does not do so deliberately and methodically. It goes without saying..25