Social Theory Exam 2

Three instances of hegemony continued (my notes):

(2) Using this restrictive definition, the only 3 instances of hegemony would be the United Provinces in the mid-17th cent., the UK in the mid-19th, & the US in the mid-20th. The first analogy has to do with the sequencing of achievement & loss of relative efficiencies in each of the 3 economic domains. Hegemony thus refers to that short interval in which there's simultaneous advantage in all 3 economic domains. The second analogy has to do with the ideology & policy of the hegemonic power. Hegemonic powers during the period of their hegemony tended to be advocates of global "liberalism". The high working-class standard was steeply graded by internal ethnicity. The third analogy is in the pattern of global military power. Hegemonic powers were primarily sea (now sea/air) powers. In each case, the hegemony was secured by a 30-yr.-long war. By a world war, I shall mean (again somewhat restrictively) a land-based war that involves (not necessarily continuously) almost all the major military powers of the epoch in warfare that's very destructive of land/population. The outcome of each world war included a major restructuring of the interstate system in a form of consonant with the need for relative stability of the now hegemonic power. In the long period following the era of hegemony, 2 powers seemed eventually to emerge as the "contenders for the successions". (3) I believe this pattern of the rise, temporary ascendancy, & fall of hegemonic powers in the interstate system is merely one aspect of the central role of the political machinery in the functioning of capitalism as a mode of production. There are 2 myths about capitalism put forward by its central ideologies (&, strangely, largely accepted by its 19th-cent. critics). One is that it's defined by the free flow of the factors of production. The second is that it's defined by the non-interference of the political machinery in the "market". In fact, capitalism is defined by the partially free flow of the factors of production & by the selective interference of the political machinery in the "market". Hegemony is an instance of the latter. What defines capitalism most fundamentally is the drive for the endless accumulation of capital. The interferences that're "selected" are those which advance this process of accumulation. There are however 2 problems about "interference". It has a cost, & therefore the benefit of any interference is only a benefit to the extent it exceeds this cost. Where the benefits are available w/o any "interference", this is obviously desirable, as it minimizes the "deduction". And secondly, interference is always in favor of one set of accumulators as against another set, & the latter will always seek to counter the former. These 2 considerations circumscribe the politics of hegemony in the interstate system. The costs to a given entrepreneur of state "interference" are felt in 2 main ways. 1st, in financial terms, the state may levy direct taxes which affect the rate of profit by requiring the firm to make payments to the state, or indirect taxes, which may alter the rate of profit by affecting the competitiveness of a product. Secondly, the state may enact rules which govern flows of capital, labor, or goods, or may set minimum &/or maximum prices. It follows that absolute cost is of greatest concern to those entrepreneurs who would do best in open market competition in the absence of state interference. A given state thus assumes its world "responsibilities" which're reflected in its diplomatic, military, political, ideological, & cultural stances. All conspire to reinforce the cooperative relationship of the entrepreneurial, the bureaucratic, & will some log the working-class strata, of the hegemonic power.

The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the Capitalist World-Economy (Wallerstein 2013):

(Global) --Hegemonic nations arise from economic acquisition but are subject to fall through the "restructuring of international relations" --Hegemonic countries imposing its rules and wishes in different sectors of society (economic, political, military, diplomatic, and cultural areas) --Building on a Marxist interpretation --1. United Provinces Mid 17th century (agro-industrial) --2. UK in mid 19th century (commercial) --3. US in mid 20th century (finance)—global military power --Capitalism is a political and economic system --Example of a nation seizing global hegemony follows a 30 year war --Two myths of capitalism: 1. defined by the free flow of factors of production 2. defined by non-interference of the political machinery in the market --What defines capitalism at its most fundamental? The endless accumulation of capital --The winners economic edge is expanded by war itself

Materials for an Exploratory Theory of the Network Society (Castells 2013):

(Networks) --We are in an information age where relationships are based on reciprocity of information --Fluidity- movement of information (how info is shared, moves, the diff. scapes) --We are nodes --Economy is political, global, & informational (globalization- everybody is linked, everyone knows someone who knows someone) --Timeless time (no longer chronological time; thru network time is completely disorganized/reorganized the way we want it- to fit) --Information networks is shaping production/consumption, power, experience, culture— media --Traditional paths, norms are no longer there. Everything is connected to everything --Politics - horse race- actors have become the politicians (scripts) --Space of flows- timeline not attached to historical context --time/space compressed, time & life is de-sequenced --Power structure more flat—less hierarchical-more likely to outsource or sideways manage --2 types labor that've developed- information labor & manual (useless) labor - in a world of networks, self-programmable individuals/labor --Self-programmable labor (survives- adapts) vs. generic labor (just concerned w getting food in bellies- unable to adapt) --Most useful personal skill= management of anxiety (being able to deal w stress)— "grit"— has become most useful personal skill we can acquire --Interpersonal relationships- have changed from nuclei to networks (from self-supporting little group, transformed to consumption, images, sexuality— the network) --(culture becomes culture of real virtuality) pg. 629- interactive audiences, can all experience same thing but interpret individually (everyone's together but no one's together at the same time), only things not impacted are external --Culture/society bounded now by one common language— the hypertext (managed, interacted w, structured via technology) --This society is a winner takes all society (zero-sum game) --Network has no center— continuous nodes & flows

On Living In a Liquid Modern World (Bauman 2013):

(Postmodernism) --A fast changing society filled with constant uncertainty. --Liquid life a fast paced, wasteful, dog-eat-dog consumption driven society. --He doesn't a see a break between modernity and postmodernity --Rapid change prevents the establishment of patterns of thought and action (norms)—forces actors to adapt and adjust to new circumstances and situations without solid frames of reference --Society can no longer keep its shape --Assets turn into liabilities, abilities turn into disabilities --A succession of new beginnings and swift and painless endings --Of forgetting, deleting, dropping, and replacing --Waste disposal industry --Creative destruction --Liquid life—acceptance of disorientation, immunity to vertigo and adaptation to a state of dizziness, tolerance for an absence of itinerary and direction --in society of consumers we are objects of consumption

Advertising (Baudrillard 2013):

(Postmodernism) --Advertising allows consumers to consume meaning through objects to fulfill their own needs. --Modern consumerism has been shaped significantly by advertising. --Culture has been saturated by media and entertainment industries—the real and the images, signs, simulations have dissolved --Hyperreality— --Advertising is pure connotation but the ad becomes an object to be consumed --Ads -discourse and an object --Advertising gives us ideal objects --Ads are self-referential— --Ads supply information to a consumer, to persuasion --Hidden persuasion—the goal is managed consumption --Totalitarian condition of man and his needs --Saturation point---excessiveness --Ads are just as likely to dissuade as to persuade us --We believe in the ad—we don't believe in the myth but we go along with it --We don't believe in the product, but we believe in the advertising --The persuasion is trying to convince us to follow social consensus—we internalize are norms and processes of consumption --The void—by identifying the absence of something-we create desire --We have a profussion of freedom, but this freedom is imaginary, -- a mental orgy, stage managed controlled regression in favor of order

Panopticism (Foucault 2013):

(Postmodernism) --The panopticon involves the feeling of always being seen but never being able to see for yourself. --Examining the transition from torture to a more rationalized form of punishment. --The body in relation to power/knowledge --Punishment of the soul --Growing power of authorities— --Panopticon -marriage between knowledge and power in a new system of surveillance and control --Even if not watched still assume the possibility of being watched --Visibility is a trap—power becomes invisible—invisibility guarantees social order --Permanent visibility- allows the automatic functioning of power --The separation and observation—permeates lots of aspects of modern society --Political technology—Cambridge Analytica --We are always under inspection- --Creates the capacity for the perfect exercise of power—reduces the number of those who exercise power --Disciplinary society

Production continued- defs. (my notes):

-Bourdieu attempts to establish the linkages btwn the creation of cultural objects & the production of taste. -taste is what brings together things & ppl that go together. Taste is a match-maker; it marries colors & also ppl, who make "well-matched couples", initially in regard to taste. Hence the astonishing harmony of ordinary couples who, often matched initially, progressively match each other by a sort of mutual acculturation. -the extreme imp-robability of the particular encounter btwn particular ppl, which masks the probability of interchangeable chance events, induces couples to experience their mutual election as a happy accident, a coincidence which mimics transcendent design ("made for each other") & intensifies the sense of the miraculous. -those whom we find to our taste put into their practices a taste which doesn't differ from the taste we put into operation in perceiving their practices. "Justified in existing", "Made for each other". -taste is a form par excellence of amor fati. The habitus generates representations/practices which are always more adjusted than they seem to be to the objective conditions of which they're the product. To say with Marx that "the petit bourgeois cannot transcend the limits of his mind" (others would've said the limits of his understanding) is to say that his thought has the same limits as his condition. -we are now be better placed to understand the specific effect of the "raising of consciousness": making explicit what is given presupposes/produces a suspension of immediate attachment to the given so that the knowledge of probable relationships may become disassociated from recognition of them; & amor fati can thus collapse into odium fati, hatred of one's destiny.

Advertising continued- defs. (my notes):

-festival, immanence, positivity—to use terms amounts to saying that in first instance advertising is itself less a determinant of consumption than an object of consumption. -society assumes a material role the better to preserve the rule of constraint. -the reading of signs is intransitive—organized in terms of a specific system of satisfaction which is, however, perpetually determined by the absence of reality, that is to say, by frustration. -we must not forget that the image serves in this way to avoid reality & create frustration, for only thus can we grasp how it is that the reality principle omitted from the image nevertheless effectively re-emerges therein as the continual repression of desire (as the spectacularization, blocking & dashing of that desire &, ultimately, its regressive & visible transference onto an object). -gratification, frustration—2 indivisible aspects of social integration. Every advertising image is a key, a legend, & as such reduces the anxiety-provoking polysemy of the world. -under the banner of advertising it institutes the reign of a freedom of desire, but desire is never truly liberated thereby (which would in fact entail the end of the social order): desire is liberated by the image only to the point where its emergence triggers the associated reflexes of anxiety & guilt. -there is a profusion of freedom, but this freedom is imaginary; a continual mental orgy, but one which is stage-managed, a controlled regression in which all perversity is resolved in favor of order. If gratification is massive in consumer society, repression is equally massive-- & both reach us together via the images & discourse of advertising, which activate the repressive reality principle at the very heart of the pleasure principle.

Liquid modern world continued- defs. (my notes):

-in short: liquid life is a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant uncertainty. -the steadfastness, stickiness, viscosity of things inanimate/animate alike are the most sinister & terminal of dangers, sources of the most frightening of fears & the targets of the most violent of assaults. -"creative destruction" is the fashion in which liquid life proceeds, but what the term glosses over & passes by in silence is that what this creation destroys are other forms of life & so obliquely the humans who practice them. Life in the liquid modern society is a sinister version of the musical chairs game, played for real. -in the liquid modern world, loyalty is a cause of shame, not pride. -liquid modern society & liquid life are locked in a veritable perpetuum mobile. -the hopes of using education as a jack potent enough to unsettle & ultimately to dislodge the pressures of "social facts" seem to be as immortal as they are vulnerable.... -there is a tension btwn public rhetoric & the sense of intellectual mission-- & that tension "leaves the academy in general, & the humanistic intellectuals in particular, vulnerable to heresy hunters." -the fates of freedom, of democracy that makes it possible while being made possible by it, & of education that breeds dissatisfaction with the level of both freedom & democracy achieved thus far, are inextricably connected & not to be detached from one another. One may view that intimate connection as another specimen of a vicious cycle —but it is within that circle that human hopes & the chances of humanity are inscribed, & can be nowhere else.

Three instances of hegemony continued- defs. (my notes):

-is intent on viewing capitalism as a worldwide system from a perspective that emphasizes the long duree & the operation of long-term cycles of development. With capitalism, Wallerstein seeks to trace its rise to dominance in what he sees as the gradual demise of the system. Contends that there have been only 2 world systems in human history: the world empires of the ancient world & the modern capitalist world-economy that's undergirded by political/military domination. Indeed, he thinks it's a serious mistake to contend that capitalism can be understood solely in economic terms; it is at once an economic & a political system. Wallerstein discusses the conceptual salience of "hegemony" in making sense of the way the modern world-system links its core exploiting nations to the nations on the periphery & semi-periphery. Identifies 3 pts. at which hegemonic states rose to prominence & notes the significance that war played in a process that resulted in a restructuring of international relations. -to the extent that the ongoing process of competition & state interference leads to oligopolistic conditions w/in state boundaries, more & more attention is naturally paid to securing the same kind of oligopolistic conditions in the most important market, the world market. The combination of the competitive thrust & constant state interference results in a continuing pressure towards the concentration of capital. -the problem is that global liberalism, which is rational & cost effective, breeds its own demise. Secondly, the internal political price of liberalism, needed to maintain uninterrupted production at a time of maximal global accumulation, is the creeping rise of real income of both the working strata & the cadres located in the hegemonic power. Over time, this must reduce the competitive advantage of the enterprises located in this state. Once the clear productivity edge is lost, the structure cracks.

Network society continued- defs. (my notes):

-outlining of a reframing of sociological theory in an effort to capture the most significant technological/social changes of the past 4 decades. -the network society is a specific form of social structure tentatively identified by empirical research as being characteristic of the Info Age. -a network is a set of interconnected nodes. A node is a point where the curve intersects itself. Networks are very old forms of social org. But they have taken on a new life in the Info Age by becoming info networks, powered by new info technologies. On the one hand, they're the most flexible/adaptable forms of org., able to evolve with their environment & with the evolution of the nodes that compose the network. On the other hand, they have considerable difficulty in the coordinating functions, in focusing resources on specific goals, in managing the complexity of a given task beyond a certain size of the network. Thus, while they were the natural forms of social expression, they were generally outperformed as tools of instrumentality. -networks de-center performance & share decision-making. By def., a network has no center. It works on a binary logic: inclusion/exclusion. Networks, as social forms, are value-free/neutral. They can equally kill or kiss: nothing personal. -actors will have to play their strategies w/in the rules of the network. Networks may communicate, if they're compatible in their goals. But for this they need actors who possess compatible access codes to operate the switches. They're the switchers/power-holders in our society. -social structures are sets of org. regularities historically produced by social actors, & constantly challenged, & ultimately transformed by deliberate social action. The network society is no exception to this sociological law. -social change proceeds thru one way or another will make the diff. btwn fragmented communalism & new history making.

Panopticism continued- defs. (my notes):

-the Panopticon's solution to this problem is that the productive increase of power can be assured only if, on the one hand, it can be exercised continuously in the very foundations of society, in the subtlest possible way, & if, on the other hand, it functions outside these sudden, violent, discontinuous forms that're bound up with the exercise of sovereignty. -Panopticism is the general principle of a new 'political anatomy' whose object & end are not the relations of sovereignty but the relations of discipline. -It programs, at the level of an elementary & easily transferable mechanism, the basic functioning of a society penetrated thru & thru with disciplinary mechanisms. -there are 2 images, then, of discipline. At one extreme, the discipline-blockade, the enclosed institution, established on the edges of society, turned inwards towards negative functions: arresting evil, breaking communications, suspending time. At the other extreme, with panopticism, is the discipline-mechanism: a functional mechanism that must improve the exercise of power by making it lighter, more rapid, more effective, a design of subtle coercion for a society to come.

The Basics of Conflict Theory summary (Collins 2013):

Conflict theory- In contrast to Coser, Collin seeks to unlink conflict sociology from functionalism; here he offers an outline of a conflict theoretical understanding of occupational stratification.

War/State Making as Organized Crime summary (Tilly 2013):

Conflict theory- Tilly draws a parallel between the way that nation states & organized crime syndicates function, both creating protection rackets to enhance their own positions.

Culture and Politics summary (Mills 2013):

Conflict theory- Written during the Cold War, this passage from Mills reveals his sense of the destructive dangers of the modern age.

Exploratory Theory of the Network Society summary (Castells 2013):

Contemporary social theory- Castells sketches an outline of a theory of network society, arguing that it constitutes the fundamental social structure of the information age, shaping/transforming production/consumption, power relations, individual experience & interpersonal relationships, & culture.

The Functions of Social Conflict summary (Coser 2013):

Coser offers a functionalist account of conflict wherein he emphasizes its ability to reinforce group solidarity & to serve as a safety valve for the release of tensions.

Personal Identity and Disrespect summary (Honneth 2013):

Critical theory- Honneth contends that recognition is connected to both power & respect, & as such the intersubjective character of recognition/misrecognition underpins the way that people understand the justness or unjustness of particular social arrangements.

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction summary (Benjamin 2013):

Critical theory- In a passage from one of Benjamin's most widely read essays, the author seeks to explain the impact on art of the shift from traditional to modern societies, stressing that in the latter art loses its "aura" & its link to ritual.

One-Dimensional Man summary (Marcuse 2013):

Critical theory- In a work that influenced the New Left during the 1960s, Marcuse argues that freedom is eroding in the advanced industrial nations as a consequence of the fact that technology & bureaucracy have produced an overly administered society.

Formulation of Exchange Theory summary (Blau 2013):

Exchange theory- Blau presents an exchange theoretical account that, in contrast to the earlier version of Homans, attempts to focus on social structure & appreciates the diffs. between the micro-level & the macro-level.

Human and Social Capital (Coleman 2013):

Exchange theory- Coleman was a major spokesperson for rational choice theory, an approach wherein actors & resources constitute two central elementary concepts. Here he discusses two important types of resources: human capital & social capital.

Power-Dependence Relations summary (Emerson 2013):

Exchange theory- In this classic essay in the exchange theory tradition, Emerson seeks to provide a link among the concepts of "power", "authority", "legitimacy", & "structure" by articulating a view of power that emphasizes its relational character. Power is thus conceived in terms of "ties of mutual dependence".

Social Behavior as Exchange summary (Homans 2013):

Exchange theory- One of the key figures associated with the development of exchange theory, Homans outlines an exchange paradigm that in its most elementary form seeks to explain social behavior in terms of costs & rewards.

Network society continued (my notes):

Far-reaching network society in economy, consumption, power, individual experience, relationships, & culture -in last 2 decades of 20th cent. a related set of social transformations has taken place around the world: we have entered a new technological paradigm, centered around microelectronics-based, info/communication technologies, & genetic engineering. In this sense what's characteristic of the network society isn't the critical role of knowledge/info, because knowledge/info were central in all societies. Thus, should abandon the notion of "Information Society", what's new in our age is a new set of info technologies. Because info processing is at the source of life, & of social action, every domain of our eco-social system is thereby transformed. We live in a new economy, characterized by 3 fundamental features: 1st- it's informational (the capacity of generating knowledge & processing/managing info determine the productivity & competitiveness of all kinds of economic units, be they firms, regions, or countries). 2nd- this new economy is global in the precise sense that its core, strategic activities have the capacity to work as a unit on a planetary scale in the real/chosen time. 3rd- new economy is networked. At the heart of connectivity of the global economy & of the flexibility of info production, there's a new form of economic org., the network enterprise. It's a network made from either firms/segments of firms, &/or from internal segmentation of firms. Large corps. are internally de-centralized as networks. Small/medium businesses are connected in networks. These networks connect among themselves on specific business projects, & switch to another network as soon as the project's finished. The unit of this production process isn't the firm, but the business project. The firm continues to be the legal unit of capital accumulation. This new economy (info, global, networked) is certainly capitalist. -work & employment are substantially transformed in/by the new economy. But, against a persistent myth, there's no mass unemployment as a consequence of new info technologies. Feminization of paid labor leads to the rise of the "flexible woman", gradually replacing the "organization man", as the harbinger of the new type of worker. The key transformation is the individualization of labor, reversing the process of socialization of production characteristic of the industrial era, still at the roots of our current system of industrial relations. Shifting to the cultural realm, we see the emergence of a similar pattern of networking, flexibility, & ephemeral symbolic communication, in a culture organized primarily around an integrated system of electronic media, obviously including the Internet. Cultural expressions of all kinds are increasingly enclosed in/shaped by this electronic hypertext. But the new media isn't characterized by one-way, undifferentiated messages thru a limited # of channels that constituted the world of mass media. & it's not a global village. Media are extraordinarily diverse, & send targeted messages to specific segments of audiences responding to specific moods of audiences. They're increasingly inclusive, bridging from one another. This growing enclosure of communication in the space of a flexible, interactive, electronic hypertext doesn't only concern culture; has fundamental effect on politics. In almost all countries, media have become the space of politics. Political corruption becomes a systematic feature of info age politics. -as with historical transformations, the emergence of a new social structure is linked to a redefinition of the material foundations of our life, of time & space. One the one hand, time's compressed (as in split second global financial transactions, or in the attempt to fight "instant wars"), & on the other hand, time's de-sequenced, including past, present, & future occurring in a random sequence (as in the electronic hypertext or in the blurring of life-cycle patterns, both in work & parenting). The central power-holding institution of human history, the state, is also undergoing a process of dramatic transformation. On the one hand, its sovereignty is called into question by global flows of wealth, communication, & info. On the other hand, its legitimacy is undermined by the politics of scandal/its dependence on media politics. However, the state doesn't disappear. It adapts/transforms itself. On the one hand, it builds partnerships btwn nation-states & shares sovereignty to retain influence. On the other, to regain legitimacy, most states engaged in a process of devolution of power, decentralizing responsibilities/resources to nationalities, regions, & local gov'ts, often extending this de-centralization to non-gov'tal orgs. There are 2 common trends in these processes of transformation that, togeth, signal a new historical landscape. 1st- none of them could've taken place without new info/communication technologies. 2nd- all processes are enacted by org. forms that're built upon networks, or to be more specific, upon info networks.

Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology (Collins 2013):

Feminist- Collins endeavors to link an Afrocentric perspective to feminist theory, contending that a black feminist epistemology begins with an appreciation of the concrete experiences of daily life.

Doing Gender summary (West and Zimmerman 2013):

Feminist- Distinguishing between sex & gender, West & Zimm. borrow insights from both Goffman & Garfinkel to make the claim that gender is the product of social interaction.

Femininity and Masculinity summary (Connell 2013):

Feminist- In developing the concept of "hegemonic masculinity", Connell stresses the structured character of gendered power relations, noting that the situation is always further complicated by the fact that there are multiple types of both masculinity & femininity.

Difference and Dominance summary (MacKinnon 2013):

Feminist- MacKinnon takes issue with what she calls the sameness/difference theory of sex inequality & then sketches out her alternative dominance approach.

Unanticipated Consequences summary (Merton 2013):

From a structural-functional perspective, Merton points to the sociological significance of the unanticipated consequences of social action & offers an analysis of some factors contributing to such actions.

Three Instances of Hegemony summary (Wallerstein 2013):

Globalization theory- Wallerstein's world-systems theory approaches capitalism as a global system from a perspective that emphasizes the longue duree & the operation of long-term cycles of development. In this essay, he discusses the concept of "hegemony" in terms of the link between the system's core exploiting nations & the nations on the periphery & semi-periphery.

Network society continued (my notes):

Info networks contribute, to a large extent, to the transformation of social structure in the info age. A social structure is transformed when there's simultaneous/systematic transformation of relationships of production/consumption, power, & experience, ultimately leading to a transformation of culture. Info networks play a substantial role in the set of transformations. Networks change the 2 terms of the relationship (capital, labor) & their relationship. Relationships btwn capital & labor (all kinds of each) are organized around the network enterprise form of production. This network enterprise is also globalized at its core, thru tele-communications & transportation networks. Thus, the work process is globally integrated, but labor tends to be locally fragmented. While for generic labor, its strategy is survival: the key issue becomes not be degraded to the realm of discarded/devalued labor, either by automation or globalization, or both. Relationships of consumption (that is, the culturally meaningful, differential appropriation of the product) are determined by the interplay btwn relationships of production & culture. Thus, in the interplay btwn relationships of production & cultural framing, relationships of production define levels of consumption, & culture induces consumption patterns/lifestyles. The most direct impact of info networks on social structure concerns power relationships. The state reacts to its bypassing by info networks, by transforming itself into a network state. Thus, while there're still power relationships in society, the bypassing of centers by flows of info circulating in networks creates a new, fundamental hierarchy: the power of flows takes precedence over the flows of power. There's one direct connection btwn the networking of work & the individualization of labor, & the mass incorporation of women to paid labor, under conditions of structural discrimination. Thus, new social relationships of production, translate into a good fit btwn the "flexible woman" (forced to flexibility to cope with her multiple roles) & the network enterprise. 2 conflicting modes of interpersonal interaction emerge: on the one hand, self-reliant communes, anchored in their non-negotiable sets of beliefs; & on the other hand, networks of ever shifting indivs. However, see a much stronger connection btwn networks & relationships of experience thru the cultural transformations induced by communication networks, as experience becomes practice by its rooting in cultural codes. Culture was historically produced by symbolic interaction in a given space/time. Culture is constructed by the actor, self-produced & self-consumed. Thus, because there're few common codes, there's systemic misunderstanding. However, there's one common lang., the lang. of the hypertext. Cultural expressions left out of the hypertext are purely indiv. experiences. The hypertext is the vehicle of communication, thus the provider of shared cultural codes. The fragmentation of culture & the recurrent circularity of the hypertext, leads to the individualization of cultural meaning in the communication networks. The networking of production, the differentiation of consumption, the decentering of power, & the individualization of experience are reflected, amplified, & codified by the fragmentation of meaning in the broken mirror of the electronic hypertext—where the only shared meaning is the meaning of sharing the network.

Production continued (my notes):

It is the logic of the homologies, not cynical calculation, which causes works to be adjusted to the expectations of their audience. The so-called "intellectual lackeys" are right to think/profess that they, strictly speaking, serve no one. Btwn pure disinterestedness & cynical servility, there's room for the relationships established, objectively, w/o any conscious intention, btwn a producer & an audience, by virtue of which the practices & artifacts produced in a specialized & relatively autonomous field of production are necessarily, over-determined; the functions they fulfill in the internal struggles are inevitably coupled with external functions, those which they receive in the symbolic struggles btwn the fractions of the dominant class &, in the long run, btwn the classes. "Sincerity" (which is one of the pre-conditions of symbolic efficacy) is only possible-- & real—in the case of the perfect, immediate harmony btwn the expectations inscribed in the position occupied (in a less consecrated area, one would say "job description") & the dispositions of the occupant; it is the privilege of those who, guided by their "sense of their place", have found their natural site in the field of production. The limiting case forces one to question the appearances of the direct effect of demand on supply or of supply on demand, & to consider in a new light all the encounters btwn the logic of goods production & the logic of taste production thru which the universe of appropriate, appropriated things—objects, ppl, knowledge, memories, etc.—is constituted. The case of fashion (the "trickle-down effect") is an almost perfect example of the meeting of 2 spaces & 2 relatively autonomous histories. The logic of the functioning of the fields of cultural-goods production, together with the distinction strategies which determine their dynamics, cause the products of their functioning, be they fashion designs or novels, to be predisposed to function differentially, as means of distinction, first btwn the class fractions & then btwn the classes. This is esp. clear in the case of the theatre, where the correspondence btwn several relativity autonomous spaces—the space of the producers (play-wrights & actors), the space of the critics (& thru them the space of the daily & weekly press), & the space of the audiences & relationships (i.e., the space of the dominant class), is so perfect, so necessary & yet so unforeseeable that every actor can experience his encounter with the object of his preference as a miracle of predestination. As in a set of facing mirrors, each of the critics located at either extreme can say exactly what the critic on the other side would say, but he does so in conditions such that his words take on an ironic value & stigmatize by antiphrasis the very things that're praised by his opposing counterpart.

Liquid modern world continued (my notes):

Liquid life is consuming life. It casts the world & all its animate/inanimate fragments as objects of consumption: that is, objects that lose their usefulness (& so their luster, attraction, seductive power, & worth) in the course of being used. It shapes the judging/evaluating of all the animate/inanimate fragments of the world after the pattern of objects of consumption. Objects of consumption have a limited expectation of useful life & once the limit has been passed they're unfit for consumption; since "being good for consumption" is the sole feature that defines their function, they're then unfit altogether—useless. "Consumers" & "objects of consumption" are the conceptual poles of a continuum along which all members of the society of consumers are plotted & along which they move, to & fro, daily. In liquid life, the distinction btwn consumers & objects of consumption is all too often momentary & ephemeral, & always conditional. We may say that role reversal is the rule here, tho even that statement distorts the realities of liquid life, in which the 2 roles intertwine, blend & merge. However intensely concentrated on the object of desire, the eye of the consumer cannot but glance sideways at the commodity value of the desiring subject. Liquid life means constant self-scrutiny, self-critique, & self-censure. Liquid life feeds on the self's dissatisfaction with itself. Critique is self-referential & inward directed; & so is the reform which such self-critique demands/prompts. It is for that reason that the advent of liquid modern society spelled the demise of utopias centered on society & more generally of the idea of the "good society". Inattention to the conditions of life in common precludes the possibility of renegotiating the setting that makes indiv. life liquid. Btwn the start & the (unlikely ever to happen) arrival is a desert, a void, a wilderness, a yawning abyss into which only a few would muster the courage to leap of their own free will, unpushed. At both extremes of the hierarchy (& in the main body of the pyramid locked btwn them in a double-bind) ppl are haunted by the problem of identity. At the top, the problem is to choose the best pattern from the many currently on offer, to assemble the separately sold parts of the kit, & to fasten them together neither too lightly (less the unsightly, outdated, & aged bits that're meant to be hidden underneath show thru at the seams) nor too tightly (less the patchwork resists being dismantled at short notice when the time for dismantling comes—as it surely will). At the bottom, the problem is to cling fast to the sole identity available & to hold its bits/parts together while fighting back the erosive forces & disruptive pressures, repairing the constantly crumbling walls & digging the trenches deeper. For all the others suspended btwn the extremes, the problem is a mixture of the two. Thanks to the hoped-for infinity of mundane experiences yet to come, eternity may not be missed; its loss may not even be noticed. Speed, not duration, matters. With the right speed, one can consume the whole of eternity inside the continuous present of earthly life. "Identity", after all, is (just as the reincarnation/resurrection of olden times used to be) about the possibility of "being born again"—of stopping being what one is & turning into someone one is not yet.

Liquid modern world continued (my notes):

Liquid modernity forces actors to continually adapt/adjust given no solid frames of reference. -"liquid life" & "liquid modernity" are intimately connected. "Liquid life" is a kind of life that tends to be lived in a liquid modern society. "Liquid modern" is a society in which the conditions under which its members act change faster than it takes the ways of acting to consolidate into habits & routines. Liquidity of life & that of society feed/reinvigorate each other. Liquid life, just like liquid modern society, cannot keep its shape or stay on course for long. In a liquid modern society, indiv. achievements cannot be solidified into lasting possessions because, in no time, assets turn into liabilities & abilities into disabilities. Among the arts of liquid modern living & the skills needed to practice them, getting rid of things takes precedence over their acquisition. The briefing which the practitioners of liquid modern life need most (& are most often offered by the expert counselors in the life arts) is not how to start/open, but how to finish/close. Throughout, the emphasis falls on forgetting, deleting, dropping, & replacing. -life in liquid modern society cannot stand still. It must modernize (read: go on stripping itself daily of attributes that're past their sell-by dates & go on dismantling/shedding the identities currently assembled/put on)—or perish. The greatest chances of winning belong to the ppl who circulate close to the top of the global power pyramid, to whom space matters little & distance is not a bother, ppl at home in many places but in no place in particular. Looseness of attachment & revocability of engagement are the precepts guiding everything in which they engage & to which they're attached. Faced with such players, the rest of the participants of the game-- & particularly the involuntary ones among them, those who don't "love" or cannot afford "to be on the move"—stand little chance. Joining in the game is not a realistic choice for them—but neither have they the choice of not trying. -they belong: those to whom or with whom they belong view their belonging as their non-negotiable & incontrovertible duty (even if disguised as their inalienable right)—whereas those whom they would wish to join see their belonging rather as their similarity non-negotiable, irreversible & unredeemable fate. The first wouldn't let them go, whereas the second wouldn't let them in. Waste is the staple & arguably the most profuse product of the liquid modern society of consumers; among consumer society's industries waste production is the most massive/immune to crisis. The other major challenge is the threat of being consigned to waste. Life may be at all times a living-towards-death, but in a liquid modern society living-towards-the-refuse dump may be a more immediate/energy-and-labor-consuming prospect & concern of the living.

Shame and Repugnance summary (Elias 2013):

Modernity- According to Elias, the civilizing process has profoundly transformed people psychologically & behaviorally; in this selection he suggests how the ideas of shame & repugnance have been an integral part of this process.

Spectacular Time summary (Debord 2013):

Modernity- In developing his idea that the contemporary stage of capitalist development can be defined as a "society of the spectacle", in this selection Debord defines spectacular time in terms of being both consumable & pseudo-cyclical.

Politicization of Life summary (Agamben 2013):

Modernity- Modern politics, Agamben contends, is increasingly defined in terms of bare life, directed to bodies subject to various technologies of power in contrast to political beings defined as citizens.

Panopticism continued (my notes):

Panopticon to illustrate a new (knowledge & power) system of heightened surveillance & control -the panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly/recognize immediately. In short, it reverses the principle of the dungeon; or rather of its 3 functions—to enclose, to deprive of light & to hide—it preserves only the first & eliminates the other 2. Full lighting & the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap. Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious & permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. To achieve this, it is at once too much/too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible & unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he's spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he's being looked at at any one moment, but he must be sure that he may always be so. -in each of its applications, it makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power. It does this in several ways: because it can reduce the number of those who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it's exercised. The panoptic schema makes any apparatus of power more intense: it assures its economy (in material, in personnel, in time); it assures its efficacity by its preventative character, its continuous functioning & its automatic mechanisms. -in short, it arranges things in such a way that the exercise of power is not added on from the outside, like a rigid, heavy constraint, to the functions it invests, but is so subtly present in them as to increase their efficiency by itself increasing its own points of contact. The panoptic mechanism isn't simply a hinge, a point of exchange btwn a mechanism of power & a function; it's a way of making power relations function in a function, & of making a function function thru these power relations. Bentham's preface to Panopticon opens with a list of the benefits to be obtained from his 'inspection-house': 'Morals reformed—health preserved—industry invigorated—instruction diffused—public burthens lightened—Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock—the Gordian knot of the Poor-Laws not cut, but united—all by a simple idea in architecture!' This Panopticon, subtly arranged so that an observer may observe, at a glance, so many diff. indivs., also enables everyone to come & observe any of the observers. The seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which indivs. spied; it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole.

Advertising summary (Baudrillard 2013):

Postmodernism- As a radical proponent of postmodernism, Baudrillard offers a vision of a world saturated by the media & entertainment industries. The result, he contends, is a dissolving of the diffs. between the real & images, signs, & simulations.

Correspondence Btw Goods and Taste Production summary (Bourdieu 2013):

Postmodernism- Bourdieu contends that taste is a decidedly social rather than indiv. faculty, one that is in particular shaped by specific class locations. He goes further by revealing that as taste shapes distinctive group lifestyles, it does so in opposition to the tastes of others.

Panopticism summary (Foucault 2013):

Postmodernism- In this passage from Discipline and Punish, Foucault discusses the Panopticon as a prime example of the uniting of knowledge & power into a new system of surveillance & control.

Liquid Modern World summary (Bauman 2013):

Postmodernism- Using the term "liquid" to describe contemporary social life, Bauman views the present as characterized by rapid change that prevents the establishment of patterns of thought & action, thus preventing ppl from relying on solid frames of reference.

Theoretical Status of Concept of Race summary (Omi and Winant 2013):

Race, Ethnicity, Nationalism- In critiquing positions that either treat race as mere ideology or that essentialize race, Omi & Winant lay out the contours of a critical theory of race that views it as an unstable, historically contingent, & highly variable construct that comes to constitute "racial projects".

The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism? summary (Kymlicka 2013):

Race, Ethnicity, Nationalism- Responding to critics who have concluded that multiculturalism has failed & is on the wane, Kymlicka offers a concise account of what multiculturalism actually is before indicating how the critics are off the mark.

Studies of Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities summary (Garfinkel 2013):

Symbolic Interactionism- Garfinkel, who coined the term "ethnomethodology", provides an outline of a theoretical approach intended to bring into focus the ways that social order is constructed in the most common routines of everyday life.

Performances summary (Goffman 2013):

Symbolic Interactionism- Goffman uses the metaphor of social life as theater to outline a dramaturgical social theory. In this excerpt, he is concerned with the ways in which actors both relate to their roles & convey a sense of authenticity to others, focusing on the significance of "fronts" in achieving convincing performances.

Panopticism continued (my notes):

The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, w/o ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything w/o ever being seen. It is an important mechanism, for it automatizes & disindividualizes power. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes, in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which indivs. are caught up. There is machinery that assures dissymmetry, disequilibrium, difference. Consequently, it doesn't matter who exercises power. The Panopticon is a marvelous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogenous effects of power. A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation. The efficiency of power, its constraining force have, in a sense, passed over to the other side—to the side of its surface of application. He who is subjected to the field of visibility, & who knows it—is a perpetual victory that avoids any physical confrontation & which is always decided in advance. The Panopticon is a royal menagerie; the animal is replaced by man, indiv. distribution by specific grouping & the king by the machinery of a furtive power. But the Panopticon was also a laboratory; it could be used as a laboratory; it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, to alter behavior, to train/correct indivs. The Panopticon is a privileged place for experiments on men, & for analyzing with complete certainty the transformations that may be obtained from them. The Panopticon may even provide an apparatus for supervising its own mechanisms. In this central tower, the director mat spy on all the employees that he has under his orders. The Panopticon functions as a kind of laboratory of power. Thanks to its mechanisms of observation, it gains in efficiency & in the ability to penetrate into men's behavior; knowledge follows the advances of power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised. The Panopticon, on the other hand, must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men. But the Panopticon mustn't be understood as a dream building: it's the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form; its functioning, abstracted from any obstacle, resistance or friction, must be represented as a pure architectural/optical system: it is in fact a figure of political technology that may & must be detached from any specific use.

Advertising continued (my notes):

The gratificatory, infantilizing function of advertising, which is the basis of our belief in it & hence of our collusion with the social entity, is equally well illustrated by its playful aspect. Advertising serves as a permanent display of the buying power, be it real/virtual, of society overall. Whether we partake of it personally or not, we all live/breathe this buying power. By virtue of advertising, too, the product exposes itself to our view & invites us to handle it. The mechanics of buying (which is already libidinally charged) gives way to a complete eroticization of choosing/spending. Our modern environment assails us relentlessly, esp. in the cities, which its lights & images, its incessant inducements to status-consciousness & narcissism, emotional involvement & obligatory relationships. Like a dream: advertising defines/redirects an imaginary potentiality, its practical character is strictly subjective/individual, advertising is devoid of all negativity/relativity- with never a sign too many/too few, it's essentially superlative & totally immanent in nature. One of the first demands of man in his progression towards well-being is that his desires be attended to, that they be formulated/expressed in the form of images for his own contemplation (something which is a problem, or becomes one, in socialist countries). Advertising fills this function, which is futile, regressive & inessential—yet for that very reason even more profoundly necessary. We need to discern the true imperative of advertising behind the gentle litany of the object: 'Look how the whole of society simply adapts itself to you & your desire. It's therefore only reasonable that you should become integrated into that society.' It always aims to foster the same tendency to regress to a point anterior to real social processes. Advertising adds the finishing touch to this development by creating a radical split, at the moment of purchase, btwn products & consumer goods; by interpolating a vast material image btwn labor & the product of labor, it causes that product no longer to be viewed as such (complete with its history, & so on), but purely/simply as a good, as an object. In reality advertising's careful omission of objective processes & the social history of objects is simply a way of making it easier, by means of the imagination as a social agency, to impose the real order of production/exploitation. This effectiveness is reinforced by the status accorded the signs advertising manipulates & the process whereby there are 'read'. Signs in advertising speak to us of objects, but they never (or scarcely ever) explain those objects from the standpoint of a praxis: they refer to objects as to a world that is absent. These signs are literally no more than a 'legend': they're there primarily for the purpose of being read. The image creates a void, indicates an absence, & it is in this respect that it's 'evocative'. It is deceptive, however. It provokes a cathexis which it then immediately short-circuits at the level of reading. It focuses free-floating wishes upon an object which it masks as much as reveals. The image disappoints: its function is at once to display & simultaneously to disabuse.

Three instances of hegemony continued (my notes):

The rise of hegemonic states & significance of wars in restructuring international relations -a concrete singular historical system, shall call the "capitalist world-economy", whose temporal boundaries go from the long 16th cent. to the present. I assume that this totality is a system, that it's been relatively autonomous of external forces; or to put it another way, that its patterns are explicable largely in terms of its internal dynamics. I assume that it is a historical system, that is, it was born, has developed, & will one day cease to exist (thru disintegration/fundamental transformation). I assume lastly that it's the dynamics of the system itself that explain its historically changing characteristics. System undergoes "bifurcating turbulence", or "transformation of quantity into quality". Capitalist world-economy: its mode of producti9on is capitalist; it is predicated on the endless accumulation of capital. Its structure is that of an axial social division of labor exhibiting a core/periphery tension based on unequal exchange. The political superstructure of this system is that of a set of so-called sovereign states defined & constrained by their membership in an interstate network/system. The operational guidelines of this interstate system include the so-called balance of power, a mechanism designed to ensure that no single state ever has the capacity to transform this interstate system into a single world-empire whose boundaries would match that of the axial division of labor. -(1) hegemony in the interstate system refers to that situati0on in which the ongoing rivalry btwn the so-called "great powers" is so unbalanced that one power can largely impose its rules/wishes (at the very least by effective veto power) in the economic, political, military, diplomatic, & even cultural arenas. I mean hegemony only to refer to situations in which the edge is so significant that allied major powers are de facto client states & opposed major powers feel relatively frustrated & highly defensive vis-à-vis the hegemonic power. Hegemony therefore isn't a state of being but rather one end of a fluid continuum which describes the rivalry relations of great powers to each other. I suspect hegemony is not the results of a random reshuffling of the cards but is a phenomenon that emerges in specifiable circumstances & plays a significant role in the historical development of the capitalist world-economy. -(4) we are today in the immediate post-hegemonic phase of this 3rd logistic of the capitalist world-economy. The U.S. has lost its productive edge but not yet its commercial & financial superiorities; its military & political power edge is no longer so overwhelming. The great diff. of this 3rd logistic from the first 2 is that the capitalist world-economy has now entered into a structural crisis as an historical system. The concept of hegemony is a way of organizing our perception of process, not an "essence" whose traits are to be described/whose eternal recurrences are to be demonstrated & then anticipated. A processual concept alerts us to the forces at play in the system & the likely nodes of conflict. It doesn't do more. But it also doesn't do less. The capitalist world-economy isn't comprehensible unless we analyze clearly what're the political forms which it's engendered & how these forms relate to other realities. The interstate system is not some exogenous, God-given, variable which mysteriously restrains/interacts with the capitalist drive for the endless accumulation of capital. It is its expression at the level of the political arena.

Advertising continued (my notes):

The significance of advertising in shaping modern consumerism; emergence of "hyperreality". -any analysis of the system of objects must ultimately imply an analysis of discourse about objects—that is to say, an analysis of promotional 'messages' (comprising image & discourse). Advertising is now an irremovable aspect of the system of objects precisely by virtue of its disproportionateness. This lack of proportion is the 'functional' apotheosis of the system. Advertising in its entirety constitutes a useless/unnecessary universe. It is pure connotation. A clear distinction must be drawn in connection with advertising's dual status as a discourse on the object & as an object in its own right. It is as a useless, unnecessary discourse that it comes to be consumable as a cultural object. What achieves autonomy & fulfillment thru adverting is thus the whole system being described at the level of objects: the entire apparatus of personalization & imposed differentiation; of proliferation of the inessential/subordination of technical requirements to the requirements of production/consumption; of dysfunctionality & secondary functionality. Since its function is almost entirely secondary, & since both image/discourse play largely allegorical roles in it, advertising supplies us with the ideal object & casts a particularly revealing light upon the system of objects. And since, like all heavily connoted systems, it is self-referential, we may safely rely on advertising to tell us what it is that we consume thru objects. -advertising sets itself the task of supplying info about particular products & promoting their sale. The supplying of info has nevertheless given way to persuasion—even to 'hidden persuasion', the aim of which is completely managed consumption. The supposed threat this poses of a totalitarian conditioning of man & his needs has provoked great alarm. While advertising may well fail to sell the consumer on a particular brand—it does sell him on something else, something much more fundamental to the global social order—something, indeed for which such brand names are merely a cover. Just as the object's function may ultimately amount merely to the provision of a justification for the latent meanings that the object imposes, so in advertising (& all the more so inasmuch as it is the more purely connotative system) the product is designated—that is, its denotation or description—tends to be merely an effective mask concealing a confusion process of integration. So although we may be getting better at resisting advertising in the imperative, we are at the same time becoming ever more susceptible to advertising in the indicative—that is, to its actual existence as a product to be consumed at a secondary level, & as the clear expression of a culture. -w/o 'believing' in the product, therefore, we believe in the advertising that tries to get us to believe in it. We're for all the world like children in their attitude towards Father Christmas- belief in F.C. is a rationalizing confabulation designed to extend earliest infancy's miraculously gratifying relationship with the parents into a larger stage of childhood. That miraculous relationship, though now in actuality past, is internalized in the form of a belief which is in effect an ideal extension of it. Advertising functions in much the same way. Neither its rhetoric nor even the informational aspect of its discourse has a decisive effect on the buyer. The very real effectiveness of advertising, founded on the its obedience to a logic which, though not that of the conditioned reflex, is nonetheless very rigorous: a logic of belief & regression.

Politicization of life continued (my notes):

"Bare life" (a person set apart from the law) has become normative in modern politics -the concept of "bare life"/"sacred life" is the focal lens thru which to make Foucault's & Ardent's points of view converge. In the notion of bare life the interlacing of politics & life has become so tight that it can't easily be analyzed. Until we become aware of the political nature of bare life & its modern avatars (biological life, sexuality, etc.), we won't succeed in clarifying the opacity at their center. Conversely, once modern politics enters into an intimate symbiosis with bare life, it loses the intelligibility that still seems to us to characterize the juridico-political foundation of classical politics. -the "'right' to life", writes Foucault, explaining the importance assumed by sex as a political issue, "to one's body, to health, to happiness, to the satisfaction of needs &, beyond all the oppressions or 'alienation', the right to rediscover what one is & all that one can be, this 'right'-- which the classical juridicial system was utterly incapable of comprehending-- was the political response to all these new procedures of power". Once their fundamental referent becomes bare life, traditional political distinctions (such as those btwn Right & Left, liberalism & totalitarianism, private & public) lose their clarity & intelligibility & enter into a zone of indistinction. -along with the emergence of biopolitics, we can observe a displacement & gradual expansion beyond the limits of the decision on bare life, in the state of exception, in which sovereignty consisted. From this perspective, the camp-- as the pure, absolute, & impassable biopolitical space (insofar as it's founded solely on the state of exception)-- will appear as the hidden paradigm of the political space of modernity, whose metamorphoses & disguises we'll have to learn to recognize

The Basics of Conflict Theory (Collins 2013):

(Conflict Theory) --First formalization of conflict theory (mills without politics) --Conflict theory based on stratification --Conflict will always exist because is always a potential resource --We are pursuing self interests --Occupations- are power classes in the world of work --3 classes of power in the occupational world: 1. those who take orders from no one or a few, but give orders to many 2. those who must defer to some but command others 3. those who must take orders

Toward an Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology (Collins 2013):

(Feminism) --Eurocentric masculine thought (Positivism) Structural Functionism --Seeks to divorce the researcher from the object of investigation—objectivity, it prevents emotions from being part of research --Concrete experiences of daily life-the basis for meaning construction --Knowledge is not an individual accomplishment—collective --Because elite white men control structures of knowledge validation-white male interests pervade traditional scholarship --Black women's experiences are excluded from academic discourse ---significance-how subordinate groups create knowledge that fosters resistance --Knowledge comes from experience (This dominant, white male controlled knowledge validation process, which Collins closely associates with positivist** epistemology, suppresses Black feminist thought on the grounds that it is not credible research - for new knowledge claims must be consistent with existing bodies of knowledge that the dominant group accepts true. Thoughts that challenge the inferiority of Black women are unlikely to be generated. Such thoughts reveal the white male controlled academic community's inadequacies and its lack of familiarity with Black women's reality. Expressing an independent Black feminist consciousness, therefore, becomes problematic, as it is a threat to the established interpretation of reality. Collins identifies three key groups that women scholars who want to develop Black feminist thought need to assure in order to be credible. They must be personal advocates for and be willing to engage about their findings with ordinary Black women, they must also be accepted by Black women scholars, and they must be prepared to confront Eurocentric masculinist political and epistemological requirements. There arises a dilemma as the criteria of one groups' credibility may not necessarily transfer to another. A dilemma, I imagine many Black women in academia experience.) Given that 'reality is experienced differently by different groups' is at the heart of Collins's argument, it is no surprise that she rejects positivism as an appropriate epistemological framework to study Black women's experience. Positivist approaches, in their strive to produce objective generalizations, fail to acknowledge that researchers have values, experiences, and emotions. Instead of making the scientist invisible and attempt to eliminate human characteristics from the research process, science might be better-off acknowledging that science is a human endeavour. As such, passions, values, and situatedness in certain historical and cultural discourse, among many other factors, are likely to play a role in our findings. That doesn't mean that our findings are simply invalid or flawed rather, we need to be mindful of these factors and underlying assumptions. Since the traditional epistemological stance is not helpful in articulating Black women's consciousness, Collins proposes an alternative way of producing and validating knowledge claims consistent with Black women's criteria - based on the lived experiences of Black women.

Doing Gender (West and Zimmerman 2013):

(Feminism) --Gender & sex are distinguishable with the former being socially constructed --Gender is a product of social interaction because it is a routine accomplished thru everyday interactions, aka doing gender --Goffman's work on performances - role-theory: how gender roles & sex roles are learned & enacted --Doing gender- an accomplishment— accountability (society comes after you to make sure you're doing what you should be) --Gender roles are situated identities, many roles are marked by gender --Masculinity & femininity— essential expressions— seen as opposites

Conflict theory

(Macro) (The way inequalities contribute to social differences and perpetuate differences in power) -looks at society as a competition for limited resources.

structural functionalism

(macro or mid) (The way each part of society functions together to contribute to the whole) -sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society

What is social theory?

-ideas about a subject- can be via one person, group of theorists -not proven, not a fact -why? explains something -identify relationships btwn concepts -a lens to explain what's happening in the world -social theory actually shapes the hypothesis -tool for analysis -nature of society (goal of social theory- to determine this- the nature of society)

Theory can be one of 2 things:

-interpretive or explanative -structure or agency -focus on the individual or society -can look at structure or on cultural explanations -base off social philosophy vs. mathematical models -ultimate goal- explain/understand some piece of reality

Fem. and masculinity continued- defs. (my notes):

-hegemony refers to domination brought about not simply by the application of force/coercion, but by its linkage to ideology. The result is a mode of domination that involves both coercion & the consent of dominated groups. -the character of gendered power relations, nothing that the situation is always further complicated by the fact that there are multiple types of both masculinity/femininity. Thus, hegemonic masculinity is situated both in terms of varied patterns of relations to women/in its relationships with subordinated masculinities. -with the structure of power, workplace studies show that face-to-face relations are strongly conditioned by the general power situation btwn employers/employees & its materialization in particular labor processes. -the power hierarchy among men in the industrial enterprise is clear enough from managers/professionals at the tip to unqualified manual workers at the bottom. In sharp contrast to the situation of personal secretaries, the men in manual industrial work are often in situations that allow a countervailing solidarity (one of the bases of unionism) & with it a rejection of the masculinity of the dominant group -it is the global subordination of women to men that provides an essential basis for differentiation. One form is defined around compliance with this subordination & is oriented to accommodating the interests/desires of men, call this "emphasized femininity". Others defined by complex strategic combos of compliance, resistance/co-operation. The interplay among them is a major part of the dynamic of change in the gender order as a whole. -in concept of hegemonic masculinity means- a social ascendancy achieved in a play of social forces that extends beyond contests of brute power into the org. of private life/cultural processes -physical/economic violence backs up a dominant cultural pattern. The connection btwn hegemonic masculinity & patriarchal violence is close, though not simple. -hegemony means ascendancy achieved within a balance of forces, that is, a state of play. Other patterns/groups are subordinated rather than eliminated -the cultural ideal (or ideals) of masculinity need not correspond at all closely to the actual personalities of the majority of men -hegemonic masculinity is very public. In a society of mass communications it's tempting to think that it exists only as publicity. -most important feature of contemporary hegemonic masculinity is that it's heterosexual, being closely connected to the institution of marriage; & a key form of subordinated masculinity is homosexual. This subordination involves both direct interactions & a kind of ideological warfare. -all forms of femininity in this society are constructed in the context of the overall subordination of women to men. For this reason there's no femininity that holds among women the position held by hegemonic masculinity among men. -like hegemonic masculinity, emphasized femininity as a cultural construction is very public, though its content is specifically linked with the private realm of the home/bedroom. To call this pattern "emphasized femininity" is also to make a point about how the cultural package is used in interpersonal relationships. This kind of femininity is performed, & performed especially to men. Central to the maintenance of emphasized femininity is practice that prevents other models of femininity gaining cultural articulation

Culture & politics continued (my notes):

A dangerous age in the economic/political realm with future large-scale violence -rationally organized social arrangements are not necessarily a means of increased freedom—for the individual or society. In fact, often they are means of tyranny/manipulation, a means of expropriating the very chance to reason, the very capacity to act as a free man. Actions are not necessarily sadistic; they are merely businesslike; they're not emotional at all; they're efficient, rational, technically clean-cut. They are inhumane acts because they are impersonal -some higher capitalists of the USA fear, with good justification, that they're going to become an isolated/second-rate power. U.S. foreign policy & lack of foreign policy is firmly a part of the absurdity of this world scene, & it is foremost among the many defaults of the Western societies. -society in brief has become a great sales-room-- & a network of rackets: the gimmick of success becomes the yearly change of model, as in the mass-society fashion becomes universal. The marketing apparatus transforms the human being into the ultimately-saturated man—the cheerful robot-- & makes "anxious obsolescence" the American way of life

Fem. and masculinity continued (my notes):

The gender structuring of production- elements of sexual character are embedded in the distinctive sets of practices sometimes called "occupational cultures". Professionalism is a case in point. The combination of theoretical knowledge with technical expertise is central to a profession's claim to competence & to a monopoly of practice. This has been constructed historically as a form of masculinity: emotionally flat, centered on a specialized skill, insistent on professional esteem & technically based dominance over other workers, & requiring for its highest (specialist) development the complete freedom from childcare/domestic work provided by having wives & maids to do it. The masculine character of professionalism has been supported by the simplest possible mechanism, the exclusion of women. Women have had a long struggle even to get the basic training, & are still effectively excluded from professions like accountancy/engineering. The pattern of differentiation/relation appears in other institutions besides schools. The fashion industry is an important case, given the significance of clothes/cosmetics as markers of gender. Here there's a constant interplay btwn the economic need of a turnover of styles—the basis of "fashion" itself-- & the need to sustain the structures of motive that constitute their markets. The fashion industry works thru competition of images, but also on the assumption that the competition is always being resolved. A leading designer emerges; a "look" is settled on; a particular presentation of femininity made normative. The currently exalted styles doesn't eliminate all other styles, rather it subordinates them. What unites the femininities of a given social milieu is the double context in which they're formed: on the one hand in relation to the image/experience of a female body, on the other to the social defs. of a woman's place/cultural oppositions of masculinity/femininity. Femininity/masculinity are not essences: they're ways of living certain relationships

Exchange Theory

The theory of social exchange views human interactions and exchanges as a kind of results-driven social behavior. The fundamental concept of the theory of social exchange is cost and rewards. This means that cost and reward comparisons drive human decisions and behavior. Costs are the negative consequences of a decision, such as time, money and energy. Rewards are the positive results of social exchanges. Therefore, the generally accepted idea is that people will subtract the costs from the rewards in order to calculate the value. The theory of social exchange proposes that individuals will make decisions based on certain outcomes

Race continued (my notes):

contemporary political relationships- the meaning & salience of race is forever being reconstituted in the present. Along the lines of what we've called the "trajectory of racial politics" the meanings of race, & the political articulations of race, have proliferated. The global context of race- today the distinction "developed/underdeveloped" has been definitively overcome. Rather we mean that the movement of capital/labor has internationalized all nations, all regions. Today we have reached the point where "the empire strikes back," as former (neo) colonial subjects, now redefined as "migrants" & "undocumented" persons challenge the majoritarian status or cultural domination of the formerly metropolitan group (the whites, the Europeans, the "Americans", the "French", etc.). The emergence of racial time- historical time could well be interpreted in terms of something like a racial longue duree; explain "Western" or colonial time as a huge project demarcating human "difference", or more globally as of framing partial collective identities in terms of externalized "others". There was a long period—centuries—in which race was seen as a natural condition, an essence. This was gradually supplanted, although not entirely superseded, during the 20th century by a new way of thinking about race: it was not seen as subordinate to the supposedly more concrete, "material" relationships of culture, economic interest, & national identity. Centuries of essentialist & "naturalizing" views of race were replaced (tho not entirely) with more critical perspectives that envisioned dispensing with the "illusion" of race. Perhaps now we are approaching the end of that racial epoch too. For it may be possible to glimpse yet another view of race, in which the concept operates neither as a signifier of comprehensive identity, nor of fundamental difference, both of which are patently absurd, but rather as a marker of the infinity of variations we humans hold as common heritage & hope for the future.

Multiculturalism continued (my notes):

Can broadly distinguish 3 patterns of multiculturalism that've emerged in the western democracies. 1st, we see new forms of empowerment of indigenous ppls. 2nd, we see new forms of autonomy/power-sharing for sub-state nat'l groups. 3rd, we see new forms of multicultural citizenship for immigrant groups - (policies for each on pg. 405). All 3 familiar patterns of multiculturalism -- for indigenous ppls, nat'l minorities, & immigrant groups - combine cultural recognition, economic redistribution, & political participation. In this, the post-multiculturalist critique that multiculturalism ignores economic/political inequality is simply off the mark. Yet, the fact that multiculturalism policies were designed with an awareness of these inequalities & sought to address them doesn't show that they've been effective in redressing inequalities. Multiculturalism policies, like all public policies, can have perverse/unintended effects & it's possible that multiculturalism has unintentionally obscured/exacerbated inequalities/weakened the welfare state. Argue that the 3S account is a caricature of the reality of multiculturalism as it's developed over the past 40 yrs in western democracies, at least as multiculturalism is affirmed/embodied in public policy. Multiculturalism as a set of public policies has never been exclusively/even primarily about inculcating such an ethos of cultural consumption; focus on multiculturalism as a political project that attempts to redefine the relationship btwn ethno-cultural minorities & the state thru the adoption of new laws, policies, or institutions (references to multiculturalism should be understood as references to multiculturalism policies); multiculturalism is as old as humanity; the sort of multiculturalism that's said to have had a rise & fall is a much more specific historical phenomenon, emerging 1st in the western democracies in the late 1960s. This timing is important, for it helps us situate multiculturalism in relation to the larger social formation of the post-war era. Multiculturalism can be seen as part of a larger human rights revolution in relati9on to ethnic/racial diversity

Culture & Politics (Mills 2013):

(Conflict Theory) --Mills suggests that lingering political and economic questions will be a source of conflict in the postmodern era. --Private and political conflict arise when cherished values are threatened. --Dangerous age of large scale violence—continual war preparedness --2 major orientations: liberalism (free market liberalism) and socialism --Increased rationality leads to increased freedom ---NO it doesn't! --Rationally organized social arrangements—tyranny and manipulation --The planning for WWIII is not sadistic - impersonal, rationalistic, unemotional --The world is now defined in military terms --Overdeveloped nation: -wasteful and inefficient economy (conspicuous production) --Transforms man into a cheerful robot

War Making and State Making as Organized Crime (Tilly 2013):

(Conflict Theory) --Nation states function like criminal syndicates --The role of violence in government; who has the legitimacy of violence --Nation state: relatively centralized, differentiated organization; the officials are more or less successfully claim control over the means violence --Creating violence and creating protection: racketeer vs. legitimate protector --Create the danger and the protection- governments monopolize and organize violence --War making—extraction and capital accumulation --Business or capitalists develop an interest in war and in funding wars (His main idea is that 'War Making' and 'State Making' are co-constitutive, i.e., States make War and War makes States. War making: "Eliminating or neutralizing their own rivals outside the territories in which they have clear and continuous priority as wielders of force" State making: "Eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside those territories" Protection: "Eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients" Extraction: "Acquiring the means of carrying out the first three activities - war making, state making, and protection" In conclusion, domestic and international processes of the violent conflict were essential to the emergence of the modern states and capitalist economies which reinforced each other. In Tilly's words: "The interdependence of war-making and state-making and the analogy between both of those processes and what, when less successful and smaller in scale, we call organized crime. War makes states, I shall claim. Banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policy, and war making all belong on the same continuum - that I shall claim as well. For the historically limited period in which national states were becoming the dominate organizations in Wester countries, I shall also claim that mercantile capitalism and state making reinforced each other.") (How does fighting wars affect the ways states take shape and evolve? Tilly argues that "war makes states." Historically, competition among "wielders of coercion" for control over territory and resources led to the characteristic European-style state familiar to us today, complete with a military, police force, tax bureaucracy, and courts of law. a) Successful war making (defeating external enemies) also helped rulers use force to disarm domestic rivals (like lords with private armies, or—in a more contemporary sense—warlords, leaders of local militias). It allowed the concentration of coercive power in the hands of the ruler. (state making) b) War making spurred the development of state apparatuses, such as tax bureaucracies to extract taxes from society to finance the war effort. (extraction) c) To facilitate further success in war making, states promoted capital accumulation to ensure adequate resources would be available to the state. Courts of law provided one way to protect the property claims of powerful subjects/citizens without allowing those subjects/citizens to use force directly to defend their property. (protection))

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Benjamin 2013):

(Critical Theory) --Art has lost its aura, therefore its uniqueness as a consequence of mechanical reproduction. --As art is mechanically reproduced, it loses its link to ritual. --The base changes quickly-superstructure is delayed and has to catch up --For the first time images can keep up with speech --Art becomes disconnected-from time and space --1. authenticity depreciates, 2. historical testimony is jeopardized, 3. authority of the object is affected --If at can no longer be based on authenticity art is based on politics --Use value, exchange value

One-Dimensional Man (Marcuse 2013):

(Critical Theory) --Freedom in society is disappearing and is being replaced with a common thought and belief system shared by everyone in society. --Technology is the greatest contributor to our way of life, false consciousness, and alienation. --The potential for human freedom—critiques social conditions and focuses on the potential for social transformation --Argues that freedom is eroding in advanced industrial societies that are affluent and democratic-based on technology and bureaucracy they have created overly administered society --We built a comfortable, reasonable, smooth democratic unfreedom --Non-conformity becomes socially useless, and may be economically and politically disadvantageous --Technology causes society to be totalitarian --Economic freedom, political freedom, intellectual freedom --True needs/false needs --Liberty becomes a powerful instrument of domination --Class distinction and its ideological function of control

Personal Identity and Disrespect (Honneth 2013):

(Critical Theory) --Recognition is connected to power and respect and thus frames any consideration of redistribution. --Moral categories like the various degrees of disrespect present fail to recognize individualized identities. --Recognition/misrecognition—the way people understand justness and unjustness of social arrangements --Disrespect and its impact on identity --Insult and humiliation-are a denial of recognition that represents injustice --These injuries—impact a person's positive understanding of themselves --Disrespect caries the danger of an injury that can bring collapse of identity --Every attempt gain control of a person's body against his/her will—humiliation --Impact of physical/sexual abuse on a persons basic self confidence—ability to trust the world --Dependence of humans on the experience of recognition --Emotional responses associated with shame, the experience of being disrespected and how this in some cases can be the motivation for a struggle of recognition

Social Behavior As Exchange (Homans 2013):

(Exchange Theory) --Social behavior can be explained by costs vs. reward analysis (exchange theory). --The exchange paradigm sets out to explain social behavior in terms of cost and reward. --Social interaction-the exchange of material and non-material goods --Our behavior has costs and rewards—consequences to our actions --Cohesiveness: --Communication/interaction: --The more cohesive the group the more valuable we identify the communication/interaction --Conformers/deviates--- level of value associated with behavior --A group establishes equilibrium—when members emit the same kinds of behavior at the same frequencies --That people try to do the best they can for themselves --Groups and opinions: two possible outcomes (reinforcement) 1. acceptance from agreement 2. integrity from disagreement --Hierarchy of help and knowledge as the exchange of goods and specifically the exchange of prestige

Power-Dependence Relations (Emerson 2013):

(Exchange Theory) --The power to control or influence the other resides in the control over the things he values. --There are many ways to rebalance when is in favor of one over another. --A theory of power/dependency—link power, authority, legitimacy, and structure --Explains power as determined by ties of mutual dependence; ties bind actors together in social systems --B's power in proportion to A's dependency on B for rewards/resources/punishment --Exchanges become balancing equations of power and dependency --How can A respond when B has more power? --By identifying who holds power- you can rank order people within a power system --Power does not belong to an individual—its relational—it belongs to a position --Society is based on these ties of mutual dependence or on these power-dependency relations --Cost: the amount of resistance provided by the dependent party --Costs reduction: we adapt to meet the demands of those in power --Authority emerges as power is exchanged through legitimation

Human Capital and Social Capital (Coleman 2013):

(Exchange Theory): --Coleman bolsters rational choice theory by introducing the concepts of human and social capital. --Social Capital is the value of the aspects of social structure to actors as resources that can be used by the actors to realize their interests. --Human capital is created when people are given new skills and capability that make them more useful to society. --Actors and resources --New human capital allows new ways of acting --Social capital as IOU, credit slip, calling in a favor --We use favors to cancel each other --Giving of gifts—purpose is to create obligation --Social security-insurance --Social capital as potential information --Within a community-overarching norm: that one should forgo self interests in the interests of the collective --An organization can appropriate social capital for other purposes (Social capital, in Coleman's definition "inheres in the structure of relations between actors and among actors ... not lodged in the actors themselves or in physical implements of production". As such it is defined by its function, similar to a chair being defined by its function, and is specific to certain activities, rather than being transferrable. It is neither good nor bad, helps in achieving certain aims and is the most intangible form of capital, compared to physical and human capital. Coleman also emphasizes the fact that social capital has a public good aspect that sets it apart from physical and human capital, which are private goods.) defined social capital functionally as "a variety of entities with two elements in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of actors...within the structure"—that is, social capital is anything that facilitates individual or collective action, generated by networks of relationships, reciprocity, trust, and social norms. In Coleman's conception, social capital is a neutral resource that facilitates any manner of action, but whether society is better off as a result depends entirely on the individual uses to which it is put • While social capital is a resource for individuals in a network, unlike other forms of capital it is not "owned" by a person but rather exists within social relationships. • Social capital can exist in a range of different networks (including families, communities, and schools), not just within homogenous, class-based networks as proposed by Bourdieu. • Social relations constitute useful forms of capital for individuals through processes such as establishing obligations, expectations and trustworthiness, creating channels for information, and setting norms backed up by efficient sanctions. • As such, social capital is not only a private good, but has features of a public good, with the actions of individuals having positive (as well as potentially negative) externalities for the wider group. human capital (individual"s level of educational attainment) and social capital (network of social relationships).

Femininity and Masculinity (Connell 2013):

(Feminism) --Hegemonic masculinity is an important concept for both femininity and masculinity. --Through oppression and stigma, society have created the ability to dominate gender relations through ideologies. --Antonio Gramsci—hegemonic ideology—domination is brought about not simply through force or coercion but through ideology: result is that coercion is achieved through consent of the coerced --Hegemonic masculinity --Ideal types for masculinity and femininity: of system subordinate masculinities --These ideal types only exist in relationship to each other: produced --Identify the structure of masculinity and femininity in society—social structure --Occupational structure---the gender hierarchy hegemonic masculinity --A global structure

Difference and Dominance; on Sex Discrimination (MacKinnon 2013):

(Feminism) --Sex equality has been a constant power struggle between men and women within various sectors. --Our perspective of sex equality is shaped and limited by sex differences. --Sameness/difference theory of gender equality --Sex equality—oxymoron --Men are the standard --Women's lack of access, education, training-results in training them to be passive and weak --Affirmative Action: American society is affirmative action for men --Most jobs require: that the person is not the primary care taker (not the one taking care of the kids in the family- why men are biased in getting employed) --Women value care because men have valued women according to the care they give them --The question of whether or not women should be treated unequally or equally. Whether women should be treated as less --We live in a society where equality is a special privilege and protection is a dirty word

The Functions of Social Conflict (Coser 2013):

(Functionalism) --Conflict can be a method of solidarity & utilized as a safety net to remove hostility --The functions of conflict: reinforcing group solidarity, in serving as a safety-valve, in channeling tensions in constructive ways (so that it doesn't become destructive) --Internal conflict can result in a readjustment or balancing of power relations --Social structure has institutionalized conflict as a means to achieve equilibrium --External conflict- also impacts the structure of groups. When groups are engaged in continued struggle— allows social groups/society to lay claim to the total personality of their members --Conflict important in maintaining boundaries

Unanticipated Consequences of Social Action (Merton 2013)

(Functionalism) --The five factors that affect unanticipated consequences are ignorance, error, self-defeating predictions, basic values, and immediacy of interests. --Consequences of purposive actions are determined by the 5 factors ^ --Our actions often turn out other than we thought we would. (better/worse) --Just because something is unintended does not mean its negative --2 problems with sociological investigation of purposeful action—causal imputations are difficult to identify; the difference between justification (rationalization) and truth

Symbolic interactionism

(Micro) (One-to-one interactions and communications) -micro-level theory that focuses on the relationships among individuals within a society. Communication—the exchange of meaning through language and symbols—is believed to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds. -Social scientists who apply symbolic-interactionist thinking look for patterns of interaction between individuals. Their studies often involve observation of one-on-one interactions. For example, while a conflict theorist studying a political protest might focus on class difference, a symbolic interactionist would be more interested in how individuals in the protesting group interact, as well as the signs and symbols protesters use to communicate their message. The focus on the importance of symbols in building a society

The Politicization of Life (Agamben 2013):

(Modernity) --Homo sacer—a person set apart from law "bare life" you have been reduced to a body-technologies of power --Foucault biopolitics—how our natural life is included in mechanisms and inclusions of power --In the modern age the thing at stake in politics is life --The individual in order to objectify themselves as a subject has to bind themselves to external control --Arendt—the supreme goal of totalitarian states-to achieve global rule and total domination --Concentration camps-these are actually the laboratories for the experiment of total domination --Lowith—politicization of life—character of totalitarian states --A new foundation for power that in trying to liberate themselves individuals actually lsot liberty --Biological life permits the possibility of democracies turning into totalitarian states and vice vesa --Biopolitics—biological-scientific principles into politics—Nazis eliminate "life that is not worth living" --The only equality we have is our ability to be killed

Shame and Repugnance (Elias 2013):

(Modernity) --Shame is a self constraint that is embedded in our social structure. --Civilization has transformed people both psychologically and behaviorally stemming from self restraint. --Western civilization has developed and how people have been affected by it. --Self restraint-this is how we define who is civilized --Self restraint develops through shame and repugnance --In terms of modernity: rationalization---shame, repugnance, embarrassment --Based off of fear of social degradation—of others superiority --Shame—the person feeling it has done or is about to something which is in contradiction to those with whom he is bound and the consciousness by which he controls himself --Fear of loss of love and respect of others to whom the individual attaches value --As rationalization advances so to does shame and repugnance

Spectacular Time (Debord 2013):

(Modernity) --Time in a contemporary and capitalist society is seen as a commodity. --The time of production and commodity time is the abstraction of irreversible time.—its exchangeable character --Time is money. --Consumable time—time of economic production --Raw materials—time is actually one of the required resources --Socially organized time --The reality of time has been replaced by the advertisement of time --Divisions between specific times for specific things has broken down. We work everywhere all the time --Appearances of life—we are forbidden from growing old—attractive (youth)

The Correspondence Between Goods Production and Taste Production (Bourdieu 2013):

(Postmodernism) --The people's tastes are the reason to produce consumable goods. --Production reflects culturally relevant resources that affect one's patterns of choices, decisions, and preferences. --Taste—is social not individual-taste is shaped by our class location --Taste shapes group lifestyles --Connection between the creation of cultural objects and the production of taste --Products are developed and tastes are determined from that. --It allows the selection of a lifestyle through products --We achieve identity through products—we achieve sense of self through consumption---this limits the universe and the forms of experience --Taste depends on the goods offered --When choosing goods we are identifying which goods go with which positions (classes) --Taste brings together the things and the people that go together --Taste is a match-maker—it marries people and colors who make well matched couples --Love is a way of loving one's own destiny in someone else

The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism? (Kymlicka 2013):

(Race, Ethnicity, Nationalism) --A master narrative (hegemonic idea or story) of multiculturalism presupposes 70-90s rise of multicultural policies in the West since 90s has been in decline due to fears of white groups responding with populist political movements and among progressives that multiculturalism has failed to live up to its expectations-post multiculturalism thinking—mostly been abandoned --Multiculturalism is a way to authenticate difference; 3S principles of multiculturalism picking the things you like; essentialism; restrictive; limiting; post multiculturalism-unifying everybody—equality all are equal because there is no difference --Patterns of multiculturalism: 1. new forms of empowerment of indigenous peoples; 2. new forms of autonomy and power sharing for sub-state national groups; 3. new forms of multicultural citizen for immigrant groups --3 ways the 3S multiculturalism is misleading: 1. solely about symbolic cultural politics—combination of economic political social and cultural dimensions; 2. the 3 patterns of multiculturalism ignore economic and political inequality; 3. multiculturalism offers no support or protection for cultural practices, discredits human rights—all that can be offered is assimilation to dominant group --No retreat from multiculturalism—enhances rights for sub state groups and remains in place; historically national minorities receive more recognition and accommodation; --Why multiculturalism works in some places and not other? --Multiculturalism as a model for thinking about future. --With regard to immigrants multiculturalism has failed

The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race (Omi and Winant 2013):

(Race, Ethnicity, Nationalism) --Racial formation provide a framework for the social significance of race after civil rights and Jim Crow --Gramsci- hegemonic ideology- applied to race --Race is a social construct; & is a fundamental organizing principle of society- bc we decide what the social boundaries are --Race projects ("racial projects" - the spatial & temporal parameters of race today) --Race is unstable historically & is contingent & highly variable --Racial formation is a process, and we are all basically engaged --What is race? (on one side) An illusion: ideological construct utilized to manipulate, divide, & deceive/or is something it something real, material, & objective. — its not the first one, its not the second one— it is both at the same time. The ideological construction becomes a real object --Colorblindness- conservative ideological racial theory --We needed something to reconcile freedom & slavery — result was we created race to rationalize this --In US society (so radicalized) that to be w/o a racial identity is to have no identity --Scientific aspect— eugenicist, fascist (racism) --Race is treated as real in practice --'One is, one's race' --Racial identity is unstable (bc constantly changing/recalibrating itself) (ex., 'what does it mean to be white/black/latino, etc.') --Critical race theory (3 things)- must apply to: contemporary politics; apply in an increasingly global context; apply across historical time. --Civilizing mission in the Arab world- worldwide racial profiling --Globalization of race- race is moving & changing bc of this

Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities (Garfinkel 2013):

(Symbolic Interactionism) --Ethnomethodolgy- methods that ppl use to make sense of & find ways to act in routine situations of their everyday lives --If we can make visible those things that are invisible we will be able to identify social structure, norms, values, beliefs --Is the common & taken for granted --When we interact we interact based off of assumed or shared knowledge --We have this assumption that others understand --The small things are the embodiment of the larger things

Consequences continued- defs. (my notes):

-with purposive action, we are concerned with "conduct" as distinct from "behavior", that is, with action that involves motives & consequently a choice between alternatives. -rationality & irrationality are not to be identified with success & failure of action, respectively. -an end may be attained by action that, on the basis of the knowledge available to the actor, is irrational (as in the case of "hunches"). -most obvious limitation to a correct anticipation of consequences of action is provided by the existing state of knowledge, where the lack of adequate knowledge is the sole barrier to correct anticipation—factors most important: ignorance, error, imperious immediacy of interest, basic values, & self-defeating predictions.

Performances (Goffman 2013):

(Symbolic Interactionism) --Much of social life is predicted on routines (script) that actors select. --Social interaction is reflected through our actions and shows us that our sense of self is an act that we display for others. --Dramaturgy: metaphor of life as a theater: actors, audience, costumes, convey meaning, scripted dialogues; gestures, props --Actors convey a sense of personal identity --Front stage: expressive equipment— convince authenticity & validity of performance (stuff we use to convince the audience of the authenticity & validity of our performance) --Social life is improvisational (we decide what is/is not appropriate when acting in certain situations) --We perform for the benefit of others; in this process we begin to believe our performance --We see thru our own act --Mask is actually the closest we can get to our true selves (tho its a performance, tho its not the real us, its the closest we can get) --"We come into the world as individuals, achieve (construct) character, & become persons" --Personal front is divided into appearance & manner — coherence expected btwn the 2 but not always a given (kind of when its considered a failed performance)

Everyday activities continued- defs. (my notes):

-"ethnomethodology"- refers to the methods people use to make sense of/find ways to act in the routine situations of their everyday lives -the role of time as it's constitutive of "the matter talked about" as a developing/developed event over the course of action that produced it, as both the process/product were known from within this development, each for himself as well as on behalf of the other -persons require these properties of common discourse as conditions under which they're themselves entitled/entitle others to claim that they know what they're talking about, & that what they're saying is understandable & ought to be understood. In short, their seen but unnoticed presence is used to entitle persons to conduct their common conversational affairs without interference. Departures from such usages call forth immediate attempts to restore a right state of affairs

Debord- The Society of the Spectacle:

--Time is everything, man is nothing. --The Society of the Spectacle --Building on Marx—commodity fetishism & contemporary mass media; alienation --Modern society-a significant and unique development since mass industrialization --People moved away from the existence of necessity—they moved towards the existence of surplus --Mass production has enabled mass accumulation of capital—has changed the fundamental nature of the experience of living --The shift occurred because of the capitalist mechanism and because of Christianity --The 'condition of being' is replaced by 'the appearance of having' --In the later stages of the spectacle-capital becomes so immense that it is valueless within the system

5 sources of unanticipated consequences:

1. Ignorance (We don't know all the facts about a situation-- we tend to act based off opinion/our common sense) 2. Error (Inaccuracy, a mistake) 3. Imperious immediacy of interest (Acting too fast-- short term over long term interests) 4. Basic values (Acting on our values may change our values) 5. Self-defeating predictions (Self fulfilling prophecy, a prediction, i.e., when broadcasted- like voting- can actually influence outcomes)

Social conflict continued- defs. (my notes):

-Coser realizes that conflict can be destructive to groups & to intergroups relations, & thus agrees that attempts at conflict resolution are generally appropriate, he focuses on the functions of conflict not only reinforcing group solidarity but in serving as a safety-valve, channeling tensions in constructive ways rather than letting them build up to such a point that when conflict is unleashed, it is unleashed with destructive force. -in groups comprising individuals who participate only segmentally, conflict is less likely to be disruptive. Such groups are likely to experience a multiplicity of conflicts. Multiplicity of conflicts stand in inverse relation to their intensity -external conflict- for the structure of the group is itself affected by conflicts with other groups in which it engages/prepares for -groups which are engaged in continued struggle are unlikely to tolerate more than limited departures from the group unity -groups not involved in continued struggle with the outside/are less prone to make claims on total personality involvement of the membership & are more likely to exhibit flexibility of structure. The multiple internal conflicts which they tolerate may in turn have an equilibrating/stabilizing impact on the structure -internal conflict can serve as a means for ascertaining the relative strength of antagonistic interests within the structure, & in this way constitutes a mechanism for the maintenance/continual readjustment of the balance of power -safety-valve institutions may serve to maintain both the social structure & the individual's security system, but they are incompletely functional for both of them. They lead to a displacement of goal in the actor. -in realistic conflict, there exist functional alternatives with regard to the means of carrying out the conflict, as well as with regard to accomplishing desired results short of conflict; in nonrealistic, there exist only functional alternatives in the choice of antagonists

Performances continued- defs. (my notes):

-Goffman uses the metaphor of social life as theater in outlining his dramaturgical perspective. In a play, actors attempt to convey to an audience a particular impression of both the actor & the social scene. Actors create a new reality for the audience to consider -Goffman also concerned here with the ways in which actors convey a sense of personal identity. Whether the individual is taken in by their role performance, embracing it with sincerity or viewing it cynically -the "front" which he describes as the "expressive equipment" used to convince the other about the authenticity of the individual's performance. Fronts—along with other theatrical props—tend to be embedded in our social worlds. Rather than social life being improvisational, much of its predicted on routines that actors select when deemed appropriate -a cynical individual may delude his audience for what he considers to be their own good, or for the good of the community, etc. -the cycle of disbelief-to-belief can be followed in the other direction, starting with conviction/insecure aspiration & ending in cynicism -a setting tends to stay put, so that those who use a particular setting as part of their performance cannot begin their act until they've brought themselves to the appropriate place & must terminate their performance when they live it. It's only in exceptional circumstances that the setting follows along with the performers -there are grounds for believing that the tendency for a large number of different acts to be presented from behind a small number of fronts is a natural development in social organization

Feminist epistemology continued- defs. (my notes):

-as mems. of a subordinate group, Black women cannot afford to be fools of any type, for our objectification as the other denies us the protections that white skin, maleness, & wealth confer. This distinction btwn knowledge & wisdom, & the use of experience as the cutting edge dividing them, has been key to Black women's survival. In the context of race, gender, & class oppression, the distinction is essential. Knowledge about wisdom is adequate for the powerful, but wisdom is essential to the survival of the subordinate -concrete experience as a criterion for credibility frequently is invoked by Black women when making knowledge claims -experience as a criterion of meaning with practical images as its symbolic vehicles is a fundamental epistemological tenet in African-American thought systems

Multiculturalism continued- defs. (my notes):

-both the rise/fall of multiculturalism have been very uneven processes, depending on the nature of the issue/the country involved, & need to understand these variations if we're to identify a more sustainable model for accommodating diversity -the master narrative: a) mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments of multiculturalism that've been undertaken over the past 40 yrs, b) exaggerates the extent to which they've been abandoned, & c) misidentifies the genuine difficulties/limitations they've encountered -looking at the 3 policy lists, it's immediately apparent that they combine economic, political, social, & cultural dimensions -the retreat from immigrant multiculturalism reflects a rejection of the whole idea of multiculturalism as citizenisation -most western democracies are in fact increasingly comfortable with claims to differentiated citizenship & the public recognition of diff., when these claims are advanced by historic minorities. So it's not the very idea of multicultural citizenship per se that's come under attack -idea of multiculturalism as citizenisation is alive/well, & remains a salient option in the toolkit of democracies, in part because we now have 40 yrs of experience to show that it can indeed contribute to citizenisation. Not all attempts to adopt new models of multicultural citizenship have taken root/succeeded in achieving their intended effects of promoting citizenisation -since post-multiculturalists ignore the extent to which multiculturalism ever aspired to citizenisation & also over-generalize the retreat from multiculturalism, they don't shed light on the central question of why multicultural citizenisation has flourished in some times/places & failed elsewhere

Conflict theory continued- defs. (my notes):

-coercive power, as especially represented in the state, can be used to bring one economic goods & emotional gratification-- & to deny them to others -the simultaneous existence of emotional bases for solidarity—which may well be the basis of cooperation—only adds group divisions & tactical resources to be used in these conflicts -every individual maximizes his subjective status according to the resources available to him & to his rivals -the general principles of conflict analysis may be applied to any empirical area -occupations are the way people keep themselves alive. This is the reason for their fundamental importance. Occupations are the major basis of class cultures; these cultures, in turn, along with material resources for inter-communication, are the mechanisms that organize classes as communities, i.e., as kind of status group -since men encountering men is the whole observable referent of "social causation", a social power that will directly affect someone's behavior is that of a man giving orders to another. One animal cows another to its heels: that is the archetypal situation of organizational life & the shaper of classes/cultures -the situations in which authority is acted out are the key experiences of occupational life -cosmopolitanism is generally correlated with power because power is essentially the capacity to keep up relations with a fairly large number of persons in such a way as to draw others to back one up against whoever he happens to be with at the moment. Communications as a separate variable accounts for horizontal variants within classes, & for their complex internal hierarchies (e.g., within professions or in the intellectual world) that stratify whole sectors over & above their actual order-giving power -money is important as one intervening link between occupational position & many aspects of lifestyle that set classes apart; as such it can have some independent effects. Income is not always commensurate with power -power of position & power of money can be separate ways of controlling others, & hence have alternative/additive effects on one's outlook -on the physical side, some work calls for more exertion than others; some is more dirty or more dangerous. These aspects tend to be correlated with power, since it can be used to force others to do the harder/more unpleasant labor

Race continued- defs. (my notes):

-concept of hegemony & applies it to race—a social construct- that as such it cannot be reduced to other categories such as class or ethnicity. -Omi & Winant disagree with the argument that race should be viewed as ideology, if that means a form of false consciousness, & with the competing claim that it should be viewed as objective condition if that essentializes race. The authors lay out the contours of a critical theory of race that views it as an unstable, historically contingent, & highly variable construct that arises & is sustained/changed by what they refer to as "racial projects" - the spatial & temporal parameters of race today -comparing hegemonic racial formations in the contemporary global context suggests that diasporic solidarity & race-consciousness is taking new forms as it emerges (or re-emerges) in the 21st century. -African ideas & "the idea of Africa" now challenge formerly hegemonic Northern & Western worldviews much more comprehensively than could ever have been imagined in the past -the world is learning once again—as it has over & over throughout the modern age—about the centrality of race on the global stage: racial identity continues to shape "life-chances" worldwide; transnational organizing along racial lines is evident among indigenous, black, & many dispersed/diasporic ppls; & racial sigma is continually being reallocated (& resisted) everywhere. -islamophobia- we mean anti-Islamic (& by extension, anti-Muslim) prejudice. -21st-centure orientalism is also a discursive set of variations on the theme of racial rule; it is redolent of the old colonial/imperial arrogance. The uplifting mission of the West is proclaimed—in the values of "freedom", "democracy", "pluralism", "secularism", etc.- while underneath the surface the old agendas advance: most notably political-military power & the capture of natural resources. -the dissolution of the transparent racial identity of the formerly dominant group, that is to say, the increasing racialization of whites in Europe, the US, & elsewhere, must also be recognized as proceeding from the increasingly globalized dimensions of race -In sociology, color blindness is a concept describing the idea of a society where racial classifications limit a person's opportunities. Racial or color blindness reflects an ideal in the society in which skin color is insignificant.

Politicization of life continued- defs. (my notes):

-defined as biopolitics, that is, the growing inclusion of man's natural life in the mechanisms/calculations of power. -corpus is a 2-faced being, the bearer both of subjection to sovereign power & of indiv. liberties. -"man is not only a natural body, but also a body of the city, that is, of the so-called political part" in the De five it is precisely the body's capacity to be killed that founds both the natural equality of men & the necessity of the "Commonwealth" -the absolute capacity of the subjects' bodies to be killed forms the new political body of the West.

Diff. and dominance continued- defs. (my notes):

-equality is an equivalence, not a distinction, & sex is a distinction -division may be rational/irrational. Dominance either seems or is justified. Difference is. -gender neutrality is simply the male standard, & the special protection rule is simply the female standard, but don't be deceived: masculinity/maleness, is the referent for both -the equality principle in a certain guise mobilizes the idea that they way to get things for women is to get them for men -men's physiology, each of their diffs. from women, what amounts to an affirmative action plan is in effect, otherwise known as the structure/values of American society -for women to affirm difference, when diff. means dominance, as it does with gender, means to affirm the qualities/characteristics of powerlessness -dominance approach centers on the most sex-differential abuses of women as a gender, abuses that sex equality law in its difference garb couldn't confront. The whole point of women's social relegation to inferiority as a gender is that for the most part these things aren't done to men -diff. approach- the standards for standards- men are diff. from women as women are from men, but social the sexes are not equally powerful -sex, in nature, is not bipolarity; it is a continuum. In society it's made into bipolarity -deepest problems of sex inequality- all that's required is that the status quo be maintained

Identity and disrespect continued- defs. (my notes):

-from Honneth's perspective, recognition precedes & thus frames any consideration of redistribution, a view that puts him at odds with theorists who grant priority to social structure over intersubjective consciousness. -the experience of being socially denigrated/humiliated endangers the identity of human beings, just as infection with a disease endangers their physical life. -it is only because human subjects are incapable of reacting in emotionally neutral ways to social injuries—as exemplified by physical abuse, the denial of rights, & denigration—that the normative patterns of mutual recognition found in the social lifeworld have any chance of being realized. -the injustice of disrespect doesn't inevitably have to reveal itself but merely can. The development of logic of such collective movements can, however, only be discovered via an analysis that attempts to explain social struggles on the basis of the dynamics of moral experiences.

Organized crime continued- defs. (my notes):

-popular resistance to coercive exploitation forced would-be power holders to concede protection & constraints on their own action -period when national states were becoming the dominant organizations in Western countries, mercantile capitalism & state making reinforced each state -in contemporary American parlance, the word protection surrounds 2 contrasting tones. One is comforting, the other ominous. -Which image the word "protection" brings to mind depends mainly on our assessment of the reality and eternality of the threat. Someone who produces both the danger and, at a price, the shield against it is a racketeer. Someone who provides a needed shield but has little control over the danger's appearance qualifies as a legitimate protector, especially if his price is no higher than his competitors'. Someone who supplies reliable, low-priced shielding both from local racketeers & from outside marauders makes the best offer of all -state makers developed a durable interest in promoting the accumulation of capital, sometimes in the guise of direct return to their own enterprises -Legitimacy is the probability that other authorities will act to confirm the decisions of a given authority. -the monopoly profit, or tribute, coming to owners of the means of producing violence as a result of the difference between production costs & the price exacted from "customers", & the protection rent accruing to those customers -Lane pointed out the different behavior we might expect of the managers of a protection-providing gov't owned by: 1. Citizens in general 2. A single self-interested monarch 3. The managers themselves -a given gov't was "relatively autonomous" or strictly subordinate to the interests of a dominant class -Lane- the logic of the situation produced 4 successive stages in the general history of capitalism: 1. A period of anarchy & plunder; 2. A stage in which tribute takers attracted customers & established their monopolies by struggling to create exclusive, substantial states; 3. A stage in which merchants & landlords began to gain more from protection rents than governors did from tribute; & 4. A period (fairly recent) in which technological changes surpassed protection rents as sources of profits for entrepreneurs

Social conflict continued (my notes):

A social structure in which there can exist a multiplicity of conflicts contains a mechanism for bringing together otherwise isolated, apathetic or mutually hostile parties & for taking them into the field of public social activities. Once groups/associations have been formed through conflict with other groups, such conflict may further serve to maintain boundary lines between them & the surrounding social environment Our hypothesis, that the need for safety-valve institutions increases with the rigidity of the social system, may be extended to suggest that unrealistic conflict may be expected to occur as a consequence of rigidity present in the social structure. The intensity of a conflict which threatens to "tear apart", which attacks the consensual basis of a social system, is related to the rigidity of the structure

Mechanical reproduction continued- defs. (my notes):

-seeks to explain the impact on art of the introduction of new technologies that allow for the easy reproduction of the work. This is most evident in photography & film. In traditional cultures, art contained an aura, which he sees as linked to ritual. In the modern world, that aura is lost as a consequence of various modes of mechanical reproduction. Seeks to articulate its implications for the society at large. -the uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This tradition itself is thoroughly alive & extremely changeable. The unique value of the "authentic" work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. -works of art are received/valued on diff. planes. 2 polar types stand out: with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work... -with the diff. methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to such an extent that the quantitative shift btwn its 2 poles turned into a qualitative transformation of its nature. This much is certain: today photography & the film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function.

Spectacular time continued- defs. (my notes):

-the epoch which displays its time to itself as essentially the sudden return of multiple festivities is also an epoch without festivals. -the reality of time has been replaced by the advertisement of time. -the world already possesses the dream of a time whose consciousness it must now possess in order to actually live it.

Shame and repugnance continued- defs. (my notes):

-the feeling of shame is a specific excitation, a kind of anxiety which is automatically reproduced in the indiv. on certain occasions by force of habit. Considered superficially, it is fear of social degradation or, more generally, of other ppl's gestures of superiority. -embarrassment is displeasure or anxiety which arises when another person threatens to breach, or breaches, society's prohibitions represented by one's own super-ego. And these feelings too become more diverse & comprehensive the more extensive & subtly differentiated the danger zone by which the conduct of the indiv. is regulated/molded, the further the civilization of conduct advances. -nowhere in human society is there a zero-point of fear of external powers, & nowhere a zero-point of automatic inner anxieties. Although they may be experienced as very diff., they are finally inseparable. What takes place in the course of a civilizing process is not the disappearance of one & the emergence of the other. What changes is merely the proportion btwn the external & the self-activating fears, & their whole structure.

Relations continued- defs. (my notes):

-the flaw is the implicit treatment of power as though it were an attribute of a person/group -any operational def. must make reference to change in the conduct of B attributable to demands made by A. Second, we define power as the "resistance" which can be overcome, without restricting it to any one domain of action -reciprocal power provides the basis for studying 3 more features of power-relations: 1. A power advantage can be defined as Pab minus Pba, which can either be positive/negative (a power disadvantage); 2. The cohesion of a relationship can be defined as the average of Dab & Dba, though this def. can be refined; & finally, it opens the door to the study balancing operations as structural changes in power-dependence relations which tend to reduce power advantage -in the unbalanced relation represented symbolically, A is the more powerful party because B is the more dependent. Thus, when a power advantage is used, the weaker member will achieve one value at the expense of other values -the "cost" referred to here amounts to the "resistance" to be overcome in our def. of power—the cost involved for one part in meeting the demands made by the other -in general, cost reduction is a process involving change in values (personal, social, economic) which reduces the pains incurred in meeting the demands of a powerful other -suggest that cost reducing tendencies generally will function to deepen/stabilize social relations over/above the condition of balance -power network- defined as 2 or more connected power-dependence relations, the network will be extended by the formation of new relationships -a coalition, as one type of group, characterized by the fact that (a) the common environment is an actor to be controlled, & (b) its unity is historically based upon efforts to achieve that control. Now, all we need do to blend this type of group with groups in general is to dehumanize the environmental problem which the group collectively encounters -the demands made by (AB) of C in the power process within ([AB]-C) are exactly what we normally call group norms (specifications of behavior which all group members expect of all group members) & role-prescriptions (specifications of behavior which all group members expect/demand of one or more but not all members) -one important feature of group structure- status & status hierarchies, forces us to consider intra-group relations, & how this can be done in a theory which treats the group in the singular as an actor. -the values ppl use in ordering roles/persons express the dependence of the system upon those roles, & that the availability factor in dependency plays the decisive part in historically shaping those values -first, the interaction process should be studied to locate carefully the factors leading to perceived power & dependency in self & others, & the conditions under which power, as a potential, will be employed in action. Second, &, in the long run, more important, will be study of power networks more complex than those referred to here, leading to more adequate understanding of complex power structures

Capital continued- defs. (my notes):

-the function identified by the concept "social capital" is the value of those aspects of social structure to actors, as resources that can be used by the actors to realize their interests. By identifying this function of certain aspects of social structure, the concept of social capital aids in both accounting for diff. outcomes at the level of individual actors & making the micro-to-macro transition without elaborating the social-structural details through which this occurs -2 elements are critical to this form of social capital: the level of trustworthiness of the social environment, which means that obligations will be repaid, & the actual extent of obligations held. Example of showing symmetry in the sets of obligations/expectations is the one... about the crisis in medical care in the U.S. due to liability suits -thus creating obligations by doing favors can constitute a kind of insurance policy for which the premiums are paid in inexpensive currency & the benefit arrives as valuable currency. There may easily be a positive expected profit -thus in principle there can be a struggle btwn a person wanting to do a favor for another & the other not wanting to have the favor done for him or a struggle btwn a person attempting to repay a favor & his creditor attempting to prevent repayment -an important form of social capital is the potential for information that inheres in social relations. Info is important in providing a basis for action. But acquisition for info is costly. The minimum it requires is attention, which is always in short supply -when an effective norm does exist, it constitutes a powerful, but sometimes fragile, form of social capital. This social capital not only facilitates certain actions but also constrains others. -even prescriptive norms that reward certain actions are in effect directing energy away from other activities. Effective norms in an area can reduce innovativeness in that area, can constrain not only deviant actions that harm others but also deviant actions that can benefit everyone -the very concentration of rights in a single actor increases the total social capital by overcoming (in principle, if not always entirely in fact) the free-rider problem experienced by individuals with similar interests but without a common authority

Consequences continued (my notes):

-undesired effects are not always undesirable effects ('unforeseen consequences should not be identified with consequences which are necessarily undesirable.'). The consequences result from the interplay of the action & the objective situation, the conditions of the action. These relatively concrete consequences may be differentiated into (a) consequences to the actor/s, (b) consequences to other persons mediated through the social structure, the culture, & the civilization -it is not assumed that social action always involves clear-cut, explicit purpose. Such awareness of purpose may be unusual, the aim of action more often than not being nebulous & hazy. This is certainly the case with habitual action which, though it may originally have been induced by conscious purpose, is characteristically performed without such awareness -with action, we differentiate this into 2 kinds: unorganized and formally organized. Unanticipated consequences follow both types of action, although the second type seems to afford a better opportunity for sociological analysis since the processes of formal organization more often make for explicit statements of purpose/procedure

Culture & politics continued- defs. (my notes):

-the most decisive features of reality are held to be the state of violence & the balance of fright. -the Underdeveloped Country is one in which the focus of life is necessarily upon economic subsistence; its industrial equipment isn't sufficient to meet Western standards of minimum comfort. Its style of life/system of power are dominated by the struggle to accumulate the primary means of industrial production -Properly Developing Society- deliberately cultivated styles of life would be central; decisions about standards of living would be made in terms of debated choices among such styles; the industrial equipment of such a society would be maintained as an instrument to increase the range of choice among styles of life -The Overdeveloped Nation- standard of living dominates the style of life; its inhabitants are possessed by its industrial/commercial apparatus; collectively, by the maintenance of conspicuous production; individually, by the frenzied pursuit/maintenance of commodities. Around these fetishes, life, labor, & leisure are increasingly organized. Focused upon these, the struggle for status supplements the struggle for survival; a panic for status replaces the proddings of poverty -men at leisure & at work are subjected to impersonal bureaucracies -events are beyond human decisions: history is made, behind men's backs -the post-modern climax of all 3 developments—in economics, politics, & violence—is now occurring most dramatically in the USA. Elites of power in charge of these means do now make history -the paradox of our immediate situation: the facts about the newer means of history-making are a signal that men aren't necessarily in the grip of fate, the men can now make history -we may not, without great ambiguity, use technological abundance as the index of human quality & cultural progress

One-dimensional man continued- defs. (my notes):

-the technological processes of mechanization/standardization might release indiv. energy into a yet uncharted realm of freedom beyond necessity. -the more rational, productive, technical, & total the repressive administration of society becomes, the more unimaginable the means/ways by which the administered indivs. might break their servitude & seize their own liberation. -under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination. -the prevailing forms of social control are technological in a new sense. To be sure, the technical structure/efficacy of the productive/destructive apparatus has been a major instrumentality for subjecting the pop. to the established social division of labor thruout the modern period. But in the contemporary period, the technological controls appear to be the very embodiment of Reason for the benefit of all social groups/interests—to such an extent that all contradiction seems irrational & all counteraction impossible. -the intellectual/emotional refusal "to go along" appears neurotic/impotent -introjection implies the existence of an inner dimension distinguished from & even antagonistic to the external exigencies—an indiv. consciousness & an indiv. unconscious apart from public opinion/behavior. The idea of "inner freedom" here has its reality: it designates the private space in which man may become/remain "himself". Today this private space has been invaded/whittled down by technological reality. Mass production/distribution claim the entire indiv., & industrial psychology has long ceased to be confined to the factory. The manifold process of introjection seem to be ossified in almost mechanical reactions. The result is, not adjustment but mimesis: an immediate identification of the indiv. with his society, &, thru it, with the society as a whole. -if the indivs. find themselves, in the things which shape their life, they do so, not by giving, but by accepting the law of things—not the law of physics but the law of their society. The achievements of progress defy ideological indictment as well as justification; before their tribunal, the "false consciousness" of their reality becomes true consciousness. In a specific sense advanced industrial culture is more ideological than its predecessor, inasmuch as today the ideology is in the process of production itself. -the productive apparatus & the goods/services which it produces "sell" or impose the social system as a whole. The products indoctrinate/manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood.

Exchange continued- defs. (my notes):

-the view that interaction between persons is an exchange of goods, material & non-material -a situation where the exchange is real, that is, where the determination is mutual - shall call the reinforcers (values); as he emits behavior, each man has more than one course of behavior open to him -cohesiveness- defined as anything that attracts ppl to take part in a group. Cohesiveness is a value variable; it refers to the degree of reinforcement ppl find in the activities of the group. Consider 2 kinds of reinforcing activity: the symbolic behavior we call "social approval" (sentiment) & activity valuable in other ways, such as doing something interesting. Other variable worked with is called communication (interaction)- this is a frequency variable: it's a measure of the frequency of emission of valuable & costly verbal behavior. Must bear in mind that, in general, the one kind of variable is a function of the other -2 possible kinds of reinforcement- agreement with the group gets the subject favorable sentiment (acceptance) from it. The second kind of possible reinforcement is what I shall call the "maintenance of one's personal integrity", which a subject gets by sticking to his own opinion in the face of disagreement with the group -a familiar assumption from economics—that the cost of a particular course of action is the equivalent of the foregone value of an alternative-- & then add the definition: profit = reward - cost -I do not say that a member would stabilize his behavior at the point of greatest conceivable profit to himself, because his profit is partly at the mercy of the behavior of others -there's a pressure, which shows itself in complaints, to bring the status factors, as I've called them, into line with one another. If they're in line, a condition of status congruence is said to exist -if the rewards are higher, the costs should be higher too. This last is the theory of noblesse oblige, which we all subscribe to, though we all laugh at it, perhaps because the noblesse often fails to oblige -a consultation can be considered an exchange of values: both participants gain something, & both have to pay a price -social behavior is an exchange of goods, material goods & non-material ones, such as the symbols of approval/prestige -persons that give much to others try to get much from them, & persons that get much from others are under pressure to give them to them. This process of influence tends to work out at equilibrium to a balance in the exchanges -the cost & the value of what he gives & gets vary with the quantity of what he gives & gets -of all many "approaches" to social behavior, the one that sees it as an economy is the most neglected, & yet it is the one we use every moment of our lives

Doing gender continued- defs. (my notes):

-things are the way they are by virtue of the fact that men are men & women are women—a division perceived to be natural/rooted in biology, producing in turn profound psychological, biological, & social consequences. The structural arrangements of a society are presumed to be responsive to these differences -gender display: if gender be defined as the culturally established correlates of sex (whether in consequence of biology or learning), then gender display refers to conventionalized portrayals of these correlates -our human nature gives us the ability to learn to produce/recognize masculine/feminine gender displays—"a capacity (we) have by virtue of being persons, not males & females" -genitalia are conventionally hidden from public inspection in everyday life; yet we continue thru our social rounds to "observe" a world of 2 naturally, normally sexed persons. It's the presumption that essential criteria exist & would/should be there if looked for that provides the basis for sex categorization. -argue that "female" & "male" are cultural events—products of what they term the "gender attribution process"—rather than some collection of traits, behaviors, or even physical attributes -the application of membership categories relies on an "if-can" test in everyday interaction (stipulates that if ppl can be seen as members of relevant categories, then categorize them that way. That is, use the category that seems appropriate, except in the presence of discrepant info or obvious features that'd rule out its use. Test which has us take appearances at face value unless we have special reason to doubt) -key word- circumstances- one circumstance that attends virtually all actions is the sex category of the actor. -points to the omnirelevance of sexual status to affairs of daily life as an invariant but unnoticed background in the texture of relevances that compose the changing actual scenes of everyday life. If sex category is omnirelevant, then a person engaged in virtually any activity may be held accountable for performance of that activity as woman or man, & their incumbency in one or the other sex category can be used to legitimate or discredit their other activities -to "do" gender is not always to live up to normative conceptions of femininity or masculinity; it's to engage in behavior at the risk of gender assessment -insofar as society is partitioned by "essential" diffs. btwn women & men & placement in a sex category is both relevant/enforced, doing gender is unavoidable

Feminist epistemology continued (my notes):

Appreciating daily experiences for meaning construction as the result of collective efforts -like other subordinate groups, African-American women haven't only developed a distinctive Black women's standpoint, but have done so by using alternative ways of producing/validating knowledge. Black women intellectuals often encounter 2 distinct epistemologies: one representing elite white male interests & the other expressing Afrocentric feminist concerns. Epistemological choices about who to trust, what to believe, & why something's true are not benign academic issues. Instead these concerns tap the fundamental question of which versions of truth will prevail/shape thought & action -the experience of Black women scholars illustrate how individuals who wish to rearticulate a Black women's standpoint thru Black feminist thought can be suppressed by a white-male-controlled knowledge validation process. When an outsider group—Black women—recognizes the insider group—white men—requires special privileges from the larger society, a special problem arises of keeping the outsiders out & at the same time having them acknowledge the legitimacy of this procedure -just as the material realities of the powerful/the dominated produce separate standpoints, each group may also have distinctive epistemologies on theories of knowledge. Rather than emphasizing how a Black women's standpoint/its accompanying epistemology are diff. from those in Afrocentric/feminist analyses, use Black women's experiences to examine points of contact between the 2. Lack a Black women's standpoint, an Afrocentric feminist epistemology is rooted in the everyday experiences of African-American women

Capital continued (my notes):

Concepts of actors & resources (human capital & social capital) in "methodological individualism" -human capital is created by changing persons so as to give them skills/capabilities that make them able to act in new ways. Social capital, in turn, is created when the relations among persons change in ways that facilitate action. Physical capital is wholly tangible, being embodied in observable material form; human capital is less tangible, being embodied in the skills/knowledge acquired by an individual; social capital is even less tangible, for it's embodied in the relations among persons. Physical capital & human capital facilitate productive activity, & social capital does so as well -social capital's current value lies primarily in its usefulness for qualitative analyses of social systems & for those quantitative analyses that employ qualitative indicators. -major use of the concept of social capital depends on its being a by-product of activities engaged in for other purposes.. there's often little/no direct investment in social capital. There are, however, forms of social capital which are the direct result of investment by actors who have the aim of receiving a return on their investment. The most prominent example is a business org. created by the owners of financial capital for the purpose of earning income for them. Another form of intentional org. is a voluntary association which produces a public good. As it functions, the org. creates 2 kinds of by-products as social capital. One is the by-product of the appropriability of the org. for other purposes. A second is the by-product described here: because the org. produces a public good, its creation by one subset of persons makes its benefits available to others as well, whether or not they participate.

Social conflict continued (my notes):

Conflict in reinforcing solidarity/serving as a safety-valve to channel tensions -not every type of conflict is likely to benefit group structure, nor that conflict can subserve such functions for all groups. Types of conflict & types of social structure are not independent variables. Social structures differ in that some show more tolerance of conflict than others. -internal social conflicts which concern goals, values, or interests that don't contradict the basic assumptions upon which the relationship is founded tend to be positively functional for the social structure. Internal conflicts in which the contending parties no longer share the basic values upon which the legitimacy of the social system rests threaten to disrupt the structure. One safeguard against conflict disrupting the consensual basis of the relationship is contained in the social structure itself: it's provided by the institutionalization & tolerance of conflict -the closer the group, the more intense the conflict. Where members participate with their total personality & conflicts are suppressed, the conflict, if it breaks out nevertheless, is likely to threaten the very root of the relationship. In flexible social structures, multiple conflicts criss-cross each other & thereby prevent basic cleavages along one axis- thus segmental participation in a multiplicity of conflicts constitutes a balancing mechanism within the structure. In loosely structured groups/open societies, conflict, which aims at a resolution of tension between functions for the relationship

Conflict theory continued (my notes):

Conflict theory of stratification in a Durkheimian concern with occupations -for conflict theory, the basic insight is that human beings are sociable but conflict-prone animals. Above all else, there is conflict because violent coercion is always a potential resource, & it is a zero-sum sort. The basic argument has 3 strands: that men live in self-constructed subjective worlds; that others pull many of the strings that control one's subjective experience; & that there are frequent conflicts over control. Life is basically a struggle for status in which no one can afford to be oblivious to the power of others around him -especially in modern societies, we must separate out multiple spheres of social interaction & multiple causes in each one. With occupational situations- the most pervasively influential of all stratification variables. The complexity of a system of class cultures depends on how many dimensions of difference we can locate among occupations. In order of importance, these are dominance relationships, position in a network of communication, & some additional variables, including the physical nature of the work & amount of wealth it produces -besides the main variables of power & communications networks, occupations vary in additional ways that add to the explanation of class cultures & hence to their potential variety. One is the wealth produced & another is the kind of physical demands made.

Feminist epistemology continued (my notes):

Despite varying histories, Black societies reflect elements of a core African value system that existed prior to/independently of racial oppression. Moreover, as a result of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, apartheid, & other systems of racial domination, Black ppl share a common experience of oppression. These 2 factors fostered share Afrocentric values that permeate the family structure, religious institutions, culture, & community life of Blacks. The material conditions of race, class, & gender oppression can vary dramatically & yet generate some uniformity in the epistemologies of subordinate groups. In valuing the concrete, African-American women invoke not only an Afrocentric tradition but a women's tradition as well. Although valuing the concrete may be more representative of women than men, social class diffs. among women may generate differential expression of this women's value. In traditional African-American communities Black women find considerable institutional support for valuing concrete experience. Black women's centrality in families, churches, & other community orgs. allows us to share our concrete knowledge of what it takes to be a self-defined Black women with younger, less experienced sisters. Sisterhood is not new to black women- while they've fostered/encouraged sisterhood, we've not used it as the anvil to forge our political identities. Though not expressed in explicitly political terms, this relationship of sisterhood among Black women can be seen as a model for a whole series of relationships Black women have with one another

Identity and disrespect continued (my notes):

Dewey views feelings as the affective reactions generated upon succeeding/failing to realize our intentions. We can differentiate emotions still further once we distinguish more precisely the types of "disruptions" on which habitual human action can founder. Since these disruptions/failures are to be assessed against the background of the orienting expectations that precede the act in each case, we can make initial, rough division on the basis of 2 diff. types of expectations. In the 1st case, the subject experiences the hindrance to the action in feelings of guilt &< in the 2nd case, in emotions of moral indignation. What is true of both cases is something that Dewey considered to be typical of situations of emotionally experiencing one's action thrown back upon itself, namely, that with the shift of attention to one's own expectations, one also becomes aware of the cognitive components—in this case, moral knowledge—that had informed the planned & (now) hindered action. In the 1st case, one experiences oneself as inferior because one has violated a moral norm, adherence to which had constituted a principle of one's ego ideals. In the 2nd, however, one's oppressed by a feeling of low self-esteem because one's interaction partners violate moral norms that, when they were adhered to, allowed one to count as the person that, in terms of one's ego-ideals, one wants to be. In this sense, the 2nd type of moral shame represents the emotion that overwhelms subjects who, as a result of having their ego-claims disregarded, are incapable of simply going ahead with an action. In these emotional experiences, what one comes to realize about oneself is that one's own person is constitutively dependent on the recognition of others. 2 implicit suggestions that're relevant for our purposes: 1st, the comparison with physical illness prompts the idea of identifying, for the case of suffering social disrespect as well, a stratum of symptoms that, to a certain extent, make the subjects aware of the state they are in. 2nd, however, the comparison also provides the opportunity to draw conclusions, on the basis of an overview of the various forms of disrespect, as to what fosters the "psychological health" or integrity of human beings. For the negative emotional reactions accompanying the experience of disrespect could represent precisely the affective motivational basis in which the struggled-for recognition is anchored. In order to acquire a successful relation-to-self, one's dependent on the intersubjective recognition of one's abilities/accomplishments. Hence, the experience of disrespect is always accompanied by affective sensations that're, in principle, capable of revealing to indivs. the fact that certain forms of recognition are being withheld from them.

Capital continued (my notes):

Differences in social structures with respect to the extent of outstanding obligations arise for a variety of reasons. These include, besides the general level of trustworthiness that leads obligations to be repaid, the actual needs that persons have for help, the existence of other sources of aid, the degree of affluence, cultural diffs. in the tendency to lend aid & ask for aid, the degree of closure of social networks, the logistics of social contacts, & other factors. Individuals in social structures with high levels of obligations outstanding at any time, whatever the source of those obligations, have greater social capital on which they can draw. The density of outstanding obligations means, in effect, that the overall usefulness of the tangible resources possessed by actors in that social structure is amplified by their availability to other actors when needed. Although the motives for freeing oneself from obligations may be readily understood (esp. if the existence of obligations consumes one's attention), the motives for creating obligations toward oneself, are less transparent. If there is a nonzero chance that the obligation won't be repaid, it would appear that rational persons would extend such credit only if they expect to receive something greater in return—just as a bank makes a loan only at sufficient interest to realize a profit after allowing for risk. The question then becomes whether there is anything about social obligations to make a rational person interested in establishing/maintaining such obligations on the part of others toward himself. A possible answer is: when I do a favor for you, this ordinarily occurs at a time when you have a need/involves no great cost to me

One-dimensional man continued (my notes):

Freedom is eroding in industrial societies; consequence of an overly administered society -the rights/liberties which were such vital factors in the origins & earlier stages of industrial society yield to a higher stage of industrial society yield to a higher stage of this society: they're losing their traditional rationale & content. Freedom of thought, speech, & conscience were—just as free enterprise, which they served to promote/protect—essentially critical ideas, designed to replace an obsolescent material/intellectual culture by a more productive/rational one. Once institutionalized, these rights/liberties shared the fate of the society of which they'd become an integral part. The achievement cancels the premises. -to the extent to which the work world is conceived of as a machine & mechanized accordingly, it becomes the potential basis of a new freedom for man. Contemporary industrial civilization demonstrates that it has reached the stage at which "the free society" can no longer be adequately defined in the traditional terms of economic, political, & intellectual liberties, not because these liberties have become insignificant but because they are too significant to be confined within traditional forms. New modes of realization are needed, corresponding to the new capabilities of society. Thus economic freedom would mean freedom from the economy—from being controlled by economic forces/relationships; freedom from the daily struggle for existence, from earning a living. Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control. Similarly, intellectual freedom would mean the restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass communication/indoctrination, abolition of "public opinion" together with its makers. -free choice among a wide variety of goods/services doesn't signify freedom if these goods/services sustain social controls over a life of toil/fear—that is, if they sustain alienation. And the spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual doesn't establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the controls. Here, the so-called equalization of class distinction reveals its ideological function. Finally thus emerges a pattern of one dimensional thought/behavior in which ideas, aspirations, & objectives that, by their content, transcend the established universe of discourse/action are either repelled/reduced to terms of this universe. They are redefined by the rationality of a given system & of its quantitative extension.

Diff. and dominance continued (my notes):

From dominance approach, it becomes clear that the diff. approach adopts the point of view of male supremacy on the status of the sexes. Simply by treating the status quo as "the standard", it invisibly/uncritically accepts the arrangements under male supremacy. In this, the diff. approach is masculinist; although it can be expressed in a female voice. The dominance approach, in that it sees the inequalities of the social world from standpoint of subordination of women to men; is feminist. If look thru lens of diff. approach at the world as the dominance approach imagines it—you see demands for change in the distribution of power as demands for special protection. To summarize- seeing sex equality questions as matters of reasonable/unreasonable classification is part of the way male dominance is expressed in law. Shift in perspective from gender as difference to gender as dominance, gender changes from a distinction that's presumptively valid to a detriment that's presumptively suspect. The diff. approach tries to map reality; the dominance tries to challenge/change it The sameness standard fails to notice that men's diffs. from women are equal to women's diffs. from men. There is an equality there. Yet the sexes are not socially equal. The diff. approach misses the fact that hierarchy of power produces real as well as fantasied diffs., (also inequalities). Diff. approach is missing that equality means treating likes alike & unlikes unlike. The women that gender neutrality benefits- the more unequal society gets, the fewer such women are permitted to exist. The more unequal society gets, the less likely the diff. doctrine is able to do anything about it, because unequal power creates both the appearance/reality of sex diffs. along the same lines it creates sex inequalities. The special benefits rule is the only place in mainstream equality doctrine where you get to identify as a women & not have that mean giving up all claim to equal treatment—but it comes close

Fem. and masculinity continued (my notes):

Hegemonic masculinity situated in relations to women & with subordinated masculinities -the structure of cathexis is involved. This is the most obvious of structural determinations of sexual character because of the prominence of heterosexual couple relationships in everyday life. It is folklore that "opposites attract". So much emotion is adrift around these marks of diff. that they can get cathected in their own right. These stereotypes are so familiar that it's necessary to stress that they're not the whole story. Desire may be organized around identification/similarity rather than diff. Homosexual love is the obvious case. The attempt to reduce this to attraction-of-opposites by assuming it's based on a butch/femme pattern is now generally discredited. -there's a related possibility among hetero ppl, for powerful desire can exist btwn those whose character structure is similar. An interplay btwn identification & reciprocity, & a literal playing with similarity/diff., becomes possible as a basis of eroticism. To sum up: it's possible to see how each of the major structures impinges on the way femininity/masculinity are formed in particular milieu. Conversely, these structures must be seen as the vehicles for the constitution of femininity/masculinity as collective patterns on a scale far beyond that of an individual setting. We've moved away from particular gender regimes to the society-wide gender order. The question now to be faced is how, at the level of a whole society, the elements are composed, interrelated/ordered. -the main basis for relations among men that define a hegemonic form of masculinity in the society as a whole. "Hegemonic masculinity" is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women. The interplay btwn diff. forms of masculinity is an important part of how a patriarchal social order works. There's no femininity that's hegemonic in the sense that the dominant form of masculinity is hegemonic among men. It seems likely that the major reason is that most men benefit from the subordination of women, & hegemonic masculinity is the cultural expression of this ascendancy. First, the social power in the hands of men leaves limited scope for women to construct institutionalized power relationships over other women. Second, the org. of a hegemonic form around dominance over the other sex is absent from the social construction of femininity.

Everyday activities continued (my notes):

Important to make visible those routine aspects of life taken for granted -a society's members encounter/know the moral order as perceivedly normal courses of action—familiar scenes of everyday affairs, the world of daily life known in common with others & with others taken for granted. "natural facts of life" for which members, are through and through moral facts of life. Familiar scenes of everyday activities, treated by members as the "natural facts of life", are massive facts of the members' daily existence both as a real world & as the product of activities in a real world. They furnish the "fix", the "this is it" to which the waking state returns one, & are the points of departure & return for every modification of the world of daily life that's achieved in play, dreaming, trance, theater, scientific theorizing, or high ceremony -common understandings would consist of a measured amount of shared agreement in the common understandings consisted of events coordinated with the successive positions of the hands of the clock, i.e., of events in standard time -for the purposes of conducting their everyday affairs persons refuse to permit each other to understand "what they're really talking about". The anticipation that persons will understand, the occasionality of expressions, the specific vagueness of references, the retrospective-prospective sense of a present occurrence, waiting for something later in order to see what was meant before, are sanctioned properties of common discourse

Conflict theory continued (my notes):

In the division of labor in society; Durkheim shows that the content of social beliefs, & especially the pressure for group conformity & respect for symbols, varies with the intensity & diversity of social contacts. In the elementary forms of the religious life, D. examines the mechanisms at the high-intensity end of the continuum & shows that the highly reified conception of collective symbols, & the intense loyalties to the immediate group, are produced by ceremonial interactions within a group of unchanging characters, in a situation of close physical proximity & highly concentrated attention. Undoubtedly, the most crucial difference among work situations is the power relations involved (the ways that men give/take orders). Occupational classes are essentially power classes within the realm of work. In capitalist societies, the salaried managerial employee has remained socially distinct from the manual worker. The most powerful effects on a man's behavior are the sheer volume of occupational deference he gives/gets. Some different types of situations at about the same class level can add variations on the pattern.

Production continued (my notes):

Taste shapes group lifestyles, occurring in opposition to the tastes of others. -in the cultural market-- & no doubt elsewhere—the matching of supply/demand is the result of the objective orchestration of 2 relatively indep. logics, that of the fields of production & that of the field of consumption. The objective orchestration of supply/demand is the reason why the most varied tastes find the conditions for their constitution & functioning in the diff. tastes which provide a (short- or long-term) market for their diff. products. The distinction recognized in all dominant classes & in all their properties takes diff. forms depending on the state of the distinctive signs of class that're effectively available. In the case of the production of cultural goods at least, the relation btwn supply/demand takes a particular form: the supply always exerts an effect of symbolic imposition. -taste, for its part, a classification system constituted by the conditionings associated with a condition situated in a determinate position in the structure of diff. conditions, governs the relationship with objectified capital, with this world of ranked & ranking objects which help to define it by enabling it to specify & so realize itself. Thus the tastes actually realized depend on the state of the system of goods offered; every change in the system of goods induces a change in tastes. "There is something for everyone", "Everyone sells". The functional & structural homology which guarantees objective orchestration btwn the logic of the field of production & the logic of the field of consumption arises from the fact that all the specialized fields tend to be governed by the same logic, & from the fact that the oppositions which tend to be established in each case btwn the richer & the less rich in the specific capital—the established & the outsiders—are mutually homologous & also homologous to the oppositions which structure the field of the social classes (btwn dominant & dominated) & the field of the dominant class (btwn the dominant fraction & the dominated fraction). -for the dominant class, the relationship btwn supply/demand takes the form of a pre-established harmony. On the supply side, the field of production need only follow its own logic, that of distinction, which always leads it to be organized in accordance with a structure analogous to that of the symbolic systems which it produces by its functioning & in which each element performs a distinctive function.

Performances continued (my notes):

It's to be noted that a given social front tends to become institutionalized in terms of the abstract stereotyped expectations to which it gives rise, & tends to take on a meaning/stability apart from the specific tasks which happen at the time to be performed in its name. The front becomes a "collective representation" & a fact in its own right. When an actor takes on an established social role, usually he finds that a particular front has already been established for it. Further, if the individual takes on a task that's not only new to him but also unestablished in the society, or if attempts to change the light in which the task is viewed, he's likely to find that there are already several well-established fronts among which he must choose. Thus, when a task is given in a new front we seldom find that the front it is given is itself new We find that the individual may attempt to induce the audience to judge him & the situation in a particular way, & he may seek this judgement as an ultimate end in itself, & yet he may not completely believe that he deserves the valuation of self which he asks for or that the impression of reality which he fosters is valid

Exchange continued (my notes):

Learned behavior—operant conditioning—is interested in what determines changes in the rate of emission of learned behavior, whether acted towards a target or something else. If the behavior is often reinforced, the rate of emission will fall off as people get satiated. On the other hand, if the behavior is not reinforced at all, then, too, its rate of emission will tend to fall off, though a long time may pass before it stops altogether, before it is extinguished. In the emission of many kinds of behavior a person incurs aversive mulation, called "cost", this too will lead in time to a decrease in the emission rate. Fatigue is an example of "cost". Extinction, satiation, & cost, by decreasing the rate of emission of a particular kind of behavior, render more probable the emission of some other kind of behavior, including doing nothing The behavior of members of a group toward 2 kinds of other members, "conformers" & "deviates". I assume that conformers are people whose activity the other members find valuable. For conformity is behavior that coincides to a degree with some group standard/norm, & the only meaning I can assign to norm is "a verbal description of behavior that many members find it valuable for the actual behavior of themselves & others to conform to. By the same token, a deviate is a member whose behavior Is not particularly valuable

Mechanical reproduction continued (my notes):

Modern world's art has lost its aura as consequence of various modes of mechanical reproduction -In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents something new. One might subsume the eliminated element in the term "aura" & go on to say: that which withers In the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. -to pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of perception whose "sense of the universal equality of things" has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. The adjustment of reality to the masses & of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception. -an analysis of the art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To a greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility... from a photographic negative, for ex., one can make any number of prints; to ask for the "authentic" print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice—politics.

Performances continued (my notes):

Much of social life is predicted on routines that actors select (when deemed appropriate) -when an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. There is popular view that the individual offers his performance & puts on his show "for the benefit of other people". Looking at the individual's own belief in the impression of reality that he attempts to engender in those among whom he finds himself. At one extreme, one finds that the performer can be fully taken in by his own act; at the other, we find that the performer may not be taken in at all by his own routine -mask represents the conception we've formed of ourselves—the role we're striving to live up to—this mask is our truer self, the self we'd like to be. In the end, our conception of our role becomes second nature & an integral part of our personality. We come into the world as individuals, achieve character, & become persons -we often expect a confirming consistency between appearance & manner; we expect that the differences in social statuses among the interactants will be expressed in some way by congruent differences in the indications that're made of an expected interaction role. But appearance & manner may tend to contradict each other. We also expect some coherence among setting, appearance, & manner

Multiculturalism continued (my notes):

Multiculturalism challenges traditional ethnic/racial hierarchies discredited by the post-war human rights revolution -we can distinguish 3 waves of movements: a) the struggle for decolonization, concentrated in the period 1948-1965, b) the struggle against racial segregation/discrimination, initiated/exemplified by the African-American civil rights movement from 1955-1965, & c) the struggle for multiculturalism/minority rights that emerged from the late 1960s. Each of these movements draws upon the human rights revolution & its foundational ideology of the equality of races/ppls, to challenge the legacies of earlier ethnic/racial hierarchies. -framework of human rights, & of liberal-democratic constitutionalism more generally, provides the overarching framework w/in which these struggles are debated/addressed. Each of these movements can be seen as contributing to a process of democratic "citizenisation". The precise character of the resulting multicultural reforms varies from group to group, as befits the distinctive history that each has faced. They all start from the anti-discrimination principle that underpinned the 2nd wave but go beyond it to challenge other forms of exclusion/stigmatization -while there are important diffs. btwn the 3 modes of multiculturalism, each of them has been defended as a means to overcome the legacies of earlier hierarchies & to help build fairer/more inclusive democratic societies. Multiculturalism is first/foremost about developing new models of democratic citizenship, grounded in human rights ideals, to replace earlier uncivil/undemocratic relations of hierarchy/exclusion. Multiculturalism is itself a human rights-based movement, inspired/constrained by principles of universal human rights/liberal-democratic constitutionalism. Understood this way, multiculturalism as citizenisation offers no support for protecting/accommodating the sorts of illiberal cultural practices in minority groups that've also been discredited by the human rights revolution

Organized crime continued (my notes):

Nation-states function in a parallel way to criminal syndicates- with the significance of violence -if protection rackets represent organized crime at its smoothest, then war-making & state-making—quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy—qualify as our largest examples of organized crime. National states: relatively centralized, differentiated organizations the officials of which more/less successfully claim control over the chief concentrated means of violence within a population inhabiting a large, contiguous territory -legitimacy is the probability that other authorities will act to confirm the decisions of a given authority. A tendency to monopolize the means of violence makes a gov't's claim to provide protection. In either the comforting or the ominous sense of the word, more credible & more difficult to resist. Recognition of the centrality of force opens the way to an understanding of the growth & change of governmental forms. -war making, extraction, & capital accumulation interacted to shape European state making. Power holders did not undertake those 3 momentous activities with the intention of creating national states—centralized, differentiated, autonomous, extensive political organizations. Nor did they ordinarily foresee that national states would emerge from war making, extraction, & capital accumulation. The economic analysis of gov't back to the chief activities that real gov'ts have carried on historically: war, repression, protection, adjudication

Shame and repugnance continued (my notes):

Notion of shame and repugnance as integral parts of Western civilization development -no less characteristic of a civilizing process than "rationalization" is the peculiar molding of the drive economy that we call "shame" & "repugnance" or "embarrassment". In courtly society shame on exposing certain parts is, in keeping with the structure of this society, still largely restricted within estate/hierarchical limits. Given his minimal functional dependence, on those of lower rank, exposure as yet arouses no feeling of inferiority or shame; it can be taken, as a sign of benevolence towards the inferior. Only then is such behavior so profoundly associated with fear in the individual from an early age, that the social character of the prohibition vanishes entirely from his consciousness, shame appearing as a command coming from within himself. And the same is true of embarrassment. This is an inseparable counterpart of shame. -like mutual dependence, mutual observation of ppl increases; sensibilities, & correspondingly prohibitions, become more differentiated; & equally more subtle, equally more manifold become the reasons for shame & for embarrassment aroused by the conduct of others. "Primitive" ppl experience human & natural events within the relatively narrow circle which is vitally important to them—narrow, because their chains of dependence are relatively short—in a manner which is in some respects far more differentiated than that of "civilized" ppl. But among more primitive ppl the natural sphere is still far more a danger zone; it is full of fears which more civilized men no longer know. -just as nature now becomes, far more than earlier, a source of pleasure mediated by the eye, ppl too become a source of visual pleasure or, conversely, of visually aroused displeasure, of diff. degrees of repugnance. The direct fear inspired in men by men has diminished, & the inner fear mediated thru the eye & thru the super-ego is rising proportionately. Thus aggressive associations, infused no doubt with others from the layer of elementary urges, combine with status tensions in arousing anxiety. The fact that day, as formerly, all forms of adult inner anxieties are bound up with the child's fears of others, of external powers.

Doing gender continued (my notes):

One's gender is socially constructed, while one's sex is not, though they are intertwined -role theory has attended to the social construction of gender categories, called "sex roles", more recently, "gender roles" & has analyzed how these are learned & enacted. Goffman contends that when human beings interact with others in their environment, they assume that each possesses an "essential nature"—a nature that can be discerned thru the "natural signs given off/expressed by them" femininity & masculinity are regarded as "prototypes of essential expression—something that can be conveyed fleetingly in any social situation & yet something that strikes at the most basic characterization of the individual" -gender is a socially scripted dramatization of the culture's idealization of feminine/masculine natures, played for an audience that's well-schooled in the presentational idiom. -women can be seen as unfeminine, but that doesn't make them "unfemale". (Agnes) faced on ongoing task of being a woman—something beyond style of dress (an identificatory display) or allowing men to light her cigarette (a gender display). The use of any such source as a manual of procedure requires the assumption that doing gender merely involves making use of discrete, well-defined bundles of behavior that can simply be plugged into interactional situations to produce recognizable enactments of masculinity/femininity

Relations continued (my notes):

Power as predicted on "ties of mutual dependence" realized in social exchange -recognizing the reciprocity of social relations, we can represent a power-dependence relation as a pair of equations: Pab = Dba ; Pba = Dab. Our conception of dependence contains 2 variables remarkably like supply & demand ("availability" & "motivational investment", respectively). The notion of reciprocity in power-dependency relations raises the question of equality/inequality of power in the relation. A balanced relation & an unbalanced relation are represented respectively as: Pab = Dba which equals Pba = Dab. & Pab = Dba > Pba = Dab. Consider 2 social relations, both of which are balanced, but at different levels of dependency -in the unbalanced relation balance can be restored either by an increase in Dab or by a decrease in Dba. : 1. If B reduces motivational investment in goals mediated by A; 2. If B cultivates alternative sources for gratification of those goals; 3. If A increases motivational investment in goals mediated by B; 4. If A is denied alternative sources for achieving those goals. -conclusion: 1. Conformity (Pgm) varies directly with motivational investment in the group; 2. Conformity varies inversely with acceptance in alternative groups; 3. Conformity is high at both status extremes in groups with membership turnover; 4. Highly valued members of a group are strong conformers only if they're valued by other groups as well (supports notion that special status rewards are used to hold the highly valued member who doesn't depend heavily upon the group, & that in granting him such rewards power is obtained over him); 5. Coalitions form among the weak to control the strong (balancing operation number 3); 6. The greatest rewards within a coalition are given to the less dependent member of the coalition (balancing operation number 3, analogous to "status giving")

Spectacular time continued (my notes):

Pseudo-cyclical time is actually no more than the consumable disguise of the commodity-time of production. But being the byproduct of this time which aims to retard concrete daily life & to keep it retarded, it must be charged with pseudo-valuations & appear in a sequence of falsely individualized moments. Pseudo-cyclical time leans on the natural remains of cyclical time & also uses it to compose no homologous combinations: day & night, work & weekly rest, the recurrence of vacations. Pseudo-cyclical time is a time transformed by industry. In its most advanced sector, concentrated capitalism orients itself towards the sale of "completely equipped" blocks of time, each one constituting a single unified commodity which integrates a number of diverse commodities. This sort of spectacular commodity, which can obviously circulate only because of the increased poverty of the corresponding realities, just as obviously fits among the pilot articles of modernized sales techniques by being payable on credit. Consumable pseudo-cyclical time is a spectacular time, both as the time of consumption of images in the narrow sense, & as the image of consumption of time in the broad sense. Here this commodity is explicitly presented as the moment of real life, & the point is to wait for its cyclical return. But even in those very moments reserved for living, it's still the spectacle that's to be seen/reproduced, becoming ever more intense. What was represented as genuine life reveals itself simple as more genuinely spectacular life. In spectacular time, since dead labor continues to dominate living labor, the past dominates the present. The spectacle, as the present social org. of the paralysis of history & memory, of the abandonment of history built on the foundation of historical time, is the false consciousness of time. The preliminary conditions required for propelling workers to the status of "free" producers/consumers of commodity time was the violent expropriation of their own time. The spectacular return of time became possible only after this first dispossession of the producer. The social absence of death is identical to the social absence of life.

Race continued (my notes):

Race as a social construct that constitutes an organizing principle, sustained by racial projects -the social construction of race, which we've labeled the racial formation process, is widely recognized today, so much so that it is now often conservatives who argue that race is an illusion. The main task facing racial theory today is to focus attention on the continuing significance & changing meaning of race. It's to argue against the recent discovery of the illusory nature of race; against the supposed contemporary transcendence of race; against the widely reported death of the concept of race; & against the replacement of the category of race by other, supposedly more objective categories like ethnicity, nationality, or class. All these initiatives are mistaken at best, & intellectually dishonest at worst. -our core criticisms of this "race as ideology" approach are 2: first, it fails to recognize the salience a social construct can develop over half a millennium or more of diffusion, or should we say enforcement, as a fundamental principle of social organization & identity formation. Second, & related, this approach fails to recognize that at the level of experience, of everyday life, race is a relatively impermeable part of our identities. To summarize the critique of this "race as objective condition" approach, then, it fails on 3 counts: 1st, it cannot grasp the processual/relational character of racial identity/meaning. 2nd, it denies the historicity & social comprehensiveness of the race concept. & 3rd, it cannot account for the way actors, both individual & collective, have to manage incoherent & conflictual racial meanings/identities in everyday life. It has no concept, in short, of what we have labeled racial formation -such a theoretical formulation must be explicitly historicist: it must recognize the importance of historical context & contingency in the framing of racial categories & the social construction of racially defined experiences. Beyond addressing the standard issues to which we have already referred—such as equality, domination/resistance, & micro-macro linkages—we suggest 3 such conditions for such a theory: it must apply to: contemporary politics; apply in an increasingly global context; apply across historical time.

Identity and disrespect continued (my notes):

Recognition treats the implications of disrespect for individual identity -for up to present day, in the self-descriptions of those who see themselves has having been wrongly treated by others, the moral categories that play a dominant role are those—such as "insult" or "humiliation"—that refer to forms of disrespect, that is, to the denial of recognition. Without the implicit reference to the claims to recognition that one makes to one's fellow human beings, there's no way of using these concepts of "disrespect" & "insult" meaningfully. In this sense, our ordinary language contains empirical indications of an indissoluble connection btwn, on the one hand, the unassailability & integrity of human beings &, on the other, the approval of others. Because the normative self-image of each & every indiv. human being—his/her "me" as Mead put it—is dependent on the possibility of being continually backed up by others, the experience of being disrespected carries with it the danger of an injury that can bring the identity of the person as a whole to the point of collapse. But even just the fact that we have been able to identify systematic gradations for the complementary concept of "recognition" points to the existence of internal diffs. btwn indiv. forms of disrespect. -in this sense, the distinctions btwn 3 patterns of recognition gives us a theoretical key with which to separate out just as many kinds of disrespect. Starting with a type of disrespect that affects a person at the level of physical integrity- the kind of recognition this type of disrespect deprives one of is the taken-for-granted respect for the autonomous control of one's own body, which itself could only be acquired at all thru experiencing emotional support as part of the socialization process. The successful integration of physical/emotional qualities of behavior is, as it were, subsequently broken up from the outside, thus lastingly destroying the most fundamental form of practical relation-to-self, namely, one's underlying trust in oneself. By contrast, the other 2 types of disrespect in our tripartite division are embedded in a process of historical change. Here, what it is that is perceived, in each case, to be a moral injury is subject to the same historical transformations as the corresponding patterns of mutual recognition. Whereas the 1st form of disrespect is inherent in those experiences of physical abuse that destroy a person's basic self-confidence, look for the 2nd form in those experiences of denigration that can affect a person's moral self-respect. This refers to those forms of personal disrespect to which an indiv. is subjected by being structurally excluded from the possession of certain rights within a society. -for the indiv., having socially valid rights-claims denied signifies a violation of the intersubjective expectation to be recognized as a subject capable of forming moral judgments. To this extent, the experience of this type of disrespect typically brings with it a loss of self-respect, of the ability to relate oneself as a legally equal interaction partner with all fellow humans. Therefore, the experience of the denial of rights is always to be measured not only in terms of the degree of universalization but also in terms of the substantive scope of the institutionally established rights. Finally, this 2nd type of disrespect, which injures subjects with regard to their self-respect, is to be set off from a 3rd type of degradation, one that entails negative consequences for the social value of indivs./groups. Not until we consider these, as it were, evaluative forms of disrespect—the denigration of indiv. or collective ways of life—do we arrive at the form of behavior ordinarily labelled "insulting" or "degrading" today. If this hierarchy of values is so constituted as to downgrade indiv. forms of life/manners of belief as inferior/deficient, then it robs the subjects in question of every opportunity to attribute social value to their own abilities. For indivs., therefore, the experience of this social devaluation typically brings with it a loss of personal self-esteem, of the opportunity to regard themselves as beings whose traits/abilities are esteemed. Thus, the kind of recognition this type of disrespect deprives a person of is the social approval of a form of self-realization that he/she had to discover, despite all hindrances, with the encouragement of group solidarity. Hence, this experience of disrespect, like that of the denial of rights, is bound up with a process of historical change.

Exchange continued (my notes):

Social exchange as a starting point for examining issues in social structure -an advantage of an exchange theory is it might bring sociology closer to economics—that science of man most advanced, most capable of application, &, intellectually, most isolated. An increase in extinction, satiation, or aversive stimulation of any one kind of behavior will increase the probability of emission of some other kind. The problem is not merely what a man's values are, what he's learned in the past to find reinforcement but how much of any one value his behavior is getting him now. The more he gets, the less valuable any further unit of that value is to him, & the less often he'll emit behavior reinforced by it -if every member of a group emits at the end of, & during, a period of time much the same kinds of behavior & in much the same frequencies as he did at the beginning, the group is for that period in equilibrium. But it is conceivable that, since most activity carries cost, a decline In the value of what he emits will mean a reduction in cost to him that more than offsets his losses in sentiment. Where, then, does he stabilize his behavior? This is the problem of social control -a social structure in equilibrium might be the result of a process of exchanging behavior rewarding & costly in different degrees, in which the increment of reward/cost varied with the frequency of the behavior, that is, with the frequency of interaction. Note that the behavior of the agents seems also to have satisfied my second condition of equilibrium: the more competent agents took more responsibility for the work, either their own or others, than did the less competent ones, but they also got more for it in the way of prestige

Relations continued (my notes):

Social relations commonly entail ties of mutual dependence between the parties. By virtue of mutual dependency, it is more/less imperative to each party that he be able to control/influence the other's conduct. At the same time, these ties of mutual dependence imply that each party is in position, to some degree, to grant/deny, facilitate/hinder the other's gratification. Thus, it'd appear that the power to control/influence the other resides in control over the things he values. In short, power resides implicitly in the other's dependency. 2 variables appear to function jointly in fixing the dependence of one actor upon another: (1) directly proportional to A's motivational investment in goals mediated by B, & (2) inversely proportional to the availability of those goals outside of the A-B relation. If the dependence of one party provides the basis for the power of the other, that power must be defined as a potential influence: Power (Pab)- the power of actor A over actor B is the amount of resistance on the part of B which can be potentially overcome by A Whenever a specific member finds occasion to remind another member of his "proper" job in terms of such prescriptions, he speaks with the authority of the group behind him; he is "authorized" to speak for them. The occupant of such a role has simply been singled out & commissioned more explicitly to speak for the group in the group's dealings with its members. The authority is limited, power follows from logical necessity when role-prescriptions are treated as they are here. The notion of legitimacy is important, for authority is more than balanced power, it is directed power which can be employed (legitimately) only in channels defined by the norms of the group

3 types that ppl try to fit social theories in- contradictory-

Structural functionalism, critical conflict, symbolic interactionism (3 very different understandings of how the world works)

Shame and repugnance continued (my notes):

The anxiety that we call "shame" is heavily veiled to the sight of others; however strong it may be, it is never directly expressed in noisy gestures. The conflict expressed in shame-fear is a conflict within his own personality; he himself recognizes himself as inferior. He fears the loss of the love or respect of others, to which he attaches or has attached value. Like self-constraints, it's to be found in a less stable/uniform/all-embracing for even at simpler levels of social development. Like these constraints, tensions & fears of this kind emerge more clearly with every spurt of the civilizing process, & finally predominate over others—particularly the physical fear of others. Both rationalization & the advance of the shame & repugnance thresholds are expressions of a reduction in the direct physical fear of other beings, & of a consolidation of the automatic inner anxieties, the compulsions which the indiv. now exerts on himself. The further this differentiation of indiv. self-steering advances, the more clearly that sector of the controlling functions which in a broader sense is called the "ego" & in a narrower the "super-ego", takes on a twofold function. On the one hand this sector forms the centre from which a person regulates his relations to other living/non-living beings, & on the other it forms the centre from which a person, partly consciously & partly quite automatically/unconsciously, controls his "inner life", his own affects & impulses. The ego or super-ego functions, has in other words, a twofold task within the personality: they conduct at the same time a domestic policy & a foreign policy—which, moreover, are not always in harmony & often enough in contradiction. It also explains the fact that here, as always—in accordance with the sociogenetic ground rule—a corresponding process is to be observed even today in the life of each indiv. child: the rationalization of conduct is an expression of the foreign policy of the same super-ego formation whose domestic policy is expressed in an advance of the same threshold. As a result of these inner tensions, ppl begin to experience each other in a more differentiated way which was precluded as long as they constantly faced serious & inescapable threats from outside. Now a major part of the tensions which were earlier discharged directly in combat btwn man & man, must be resolved as an inner tension in the struggle of the indiv. with himself.

Politicization of life continued (my notes):

The first recording of bare life as the new political subject is already implicit in the document that's generally placed at the foundation of modern democracy: the 1679 writ of habeas corpus. Whatever the origin of this formula, used as early as the 18th cent. to assure the physical presence of a person before a court of justice, it's significant that at its center is neither the old subject of feudal relations & liberties nor the future citoyen, but rather a pure & simple corpus. It is not the free man & his statutes/prerogatives, nor even simply homo, but rather corpus that's the new subject of politics. & democracy is born precisely as the assertion & presentation of this "body": habeas corpus & subjiciendum, "you will have to have a body to show." The fact that, of all the various jurisdictional regulations concerned with the prediction of indiv. freedom, it was habeas corpus that assumed the form of law & thus become inseparable from the history of Western democracy is surely due to mere circumstance. What comes to light in order to be exposed apud Westminister is, once again, the body of homo sacer, which is to say, bare life. This is modern democracy's strength &, at the same time, its inner contradiction: modern democracy doesn't abolish sacred life but rather shatters it & disseminates it into every indiv. body, making it into what's at stake in political conflict. & the root of modern democracy's secret biopolitical calling lies here: he who will appear later as the bearer of rights &, according to a curious oxymoron, as the new sovereign subject (subiectus superaneus, in other words, what's below &, at the same time, most elevated) can only be constituted as such thru the repetition of the sovereign exception & the isolation of corpus, bare life, in himself. If it's true that law needs a body in order to be in force, & if one can speak, in this sense, of "law's desire to have a body", democracy responds to this desire by compelling law to assume the care of this body.

One-dimensional man continued (my notes):

The intensity, the satisfaction, & even the character of human needs, beyond the biological level, have always been preconditioned. No matter how much such needs may have become the individual's own, reproduced/fortified by the conditions of his existence; no matter how much he identifies himself with them/finds himself in their satisfaction, they continue to be what they were from the beginning—products of a society whose dominant interest demands repression. For any consciousness/conscience, for any experience which doesn't accept the prevailing societal interest as the supreme law of thought/behavior, the established universe of needs/satisfactions is a fact to be questioned—questioned in terms of truth & falsehood. The judgement of needs/their satisfaction, under the given condition, involves standards of priority—standards which refer to the optimal development of the individual, of all individuals, under the optimal utilization of the material/intellectual resources available to man. The process always replaces one system of preconditioning by another; the optimal goal is the replacement of false needs by true ones, the abandonment of repressive satisfaction. The distinguishing feature of advanced industrial society is the effective suffocation of those needs which demand liberation—liberation also from that which is tolerable/rewarding/comfortable—while it sustains/absolves the destructive power & repressive function of the affluent society. This is a goal within the capabilities of advanced industrial civilization, the "end" of technological rationality. In actual fact, however, the contrary trend operates: the apparatus imposes its economic/political requirements for defense/expansion on labor/free time, on the material/intellectual culture. By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. It thus precludes the emergence of an effective opposition against the whole. The gov't of advanced/advancing industrial societies can maintain/secure itself only when it succeeds in mobilizing, organizing, & exploiting the technical, scientific, & mechanical productivity available to industrial civilization. And this productivity mobilizes society as a whole, above & beyond any particular individual/group interests. Indeed, in the most highly developed areas of contemporary society, the transplantation of social into individual needs is so effective that the diff. btwn them seems to be purely theoretical. We are again confronted with one of the most vexing aspects of advanced industrial civilization: the rational character of its irrationality. The very mechanism which ties the indiv. to his society has changed, & social control is anchored in the new needs which it's produced.

Everyday activities continued (my notes):

The operations that one would have to perform in order to multiply the senseless features of perceived environments; to produce & sustain bewilderment, consternation, & confusion; to produce the socially structured affects of anxiety, shame, guilt, & indignation; & to produce disorganized interaction should tell us something about how the structures of everyday activities are ordinarily/routinely produced/maintained The socially standardized/standardizing "seen but unnoticed", expected, background features of everyday scenes. The member of the society uses background expectancies as a scheme of interpretation. For these expectancies to come into view one must either be a stranger to the "life as usual" character of everyday scenes, or become estranged from them. The seen but unnoticed, backgrounds of everyday activities are made visible & are described from a perspective in which persons live out the lives they do all in order to permit the sociologist to solve his theoretical problems

Culture & politics continued (my notes):

The power structure of this society is based upon a privately incorporated economy that's also a permanent war economy. Its most important relations with the state now rest upon the coincidence of military/corporate interests—as defined by generals/businessmen, & accepted by politicians/publics. In the capitalist societies the development of the means of power has occurred gradually, & many cultural traditions have restrained/shaped them. The ascendancy of the USA has relegated the scatter of European nations to subsidiary status. The world of the Fourth Epoch is divided. On either side, a superpower now spends its most massive & co-ordinated effort in the highly scientific preparation of a third world war. Yet, for the first time in history, the very idea of victory in war has become idiotic. As war becomes total, it becomes absurd.

Diff. and dominance continued (my notes):

The sameness/difference theory of sex equality in shaping sex discrimination discourse -a built-in tension exists btwn concept of equality, which presupposes sameness, & concept of sex, which presupposes difference. 2 alternate paths to equality for women emerge within this dominant approach- the leading one is: be the same as men. To women who want equality yet find that you're different, the doctrine provides an alternate route: be different from men. The philosophy underlying the difference approach is that sex is a diff./division/distinction, beneath which lies a stratum of human commonality, sameness. -the moral thrust of the sameness branch of doctrine is to make normative rules conform to this empirical reality by granting women access to what men have access to: to the extent that women are no diff. from men, we deserve what they have. The differences branch, generally seen as patronizing but necessary to avoid absurdity, exists to value/compensate women for what we are/have become distinctively as women under existing conditions. -feminists have this nasty habit of counting bodies & refusing not to notice their gender. As applied, the sameness standard has mostly gotten men the benefit of those few things women have historically had—for all the good they did us. Gender is also a question of power, specifically of male supremacy/female subordination. Gender might not even code as difference, might not mean distinction epistemologically, were it not for its consequences for social power.

Mechanical reproduction continued (my notes):

The situation into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. This holds not only for the art work but also, for instance, for a landscape which passes in review before the spectator in a movie. In the case of the art object, a most sensitive nucleus—namely, its authenticity—is interfered with whereas no natural object is vulnerable on that score. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity's entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well. If changes in the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is possible to show its social causes. Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time & space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time its existence. First, process reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction. Secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a photograph or a phonograph record.

Organized crime continued (my notes):

The uncertain, elastic line between "legitimate" & "illegitimate" violence appeared in the upper reaches of power. The distinctions between "legitimate" & "illegitimate" users of violence came clear only very slowly, in the process during which the state's armed forces became relatively unified & permanent. If a power holder was to gain from the provision of protection, his competitors had to yield. The production of violence enjoyed large economies of scale. Eventually, European gov'ts reduced their reliance on indirect rule by means of 2 expensive but effective strategies: (a) extending their officialdom to the local community & (b) encouraging the creation of police forces that were subordinate to the gov't rather than to individual patrons, distinct from war-making forces, & therefore less useful as the tools of dissident magnates

Doing gender continued (my notes):

Unlike most roles, such as "nurse", or "patient", gender has no specific site/organizational context. Many roles are already gender marked, so that special qualifiers—such as "female doctor" or "male nurse"—must be added to exceptions to the rule. Observes that conceptualizing gender as a role makes it difficult to assess its influence on other roles & reduces its explanatory usefulness in discussions of power/inequality. Calls for reconceptualization of women/women as distinct social groups, constituted in "concrete, historically changing-- & generally unequal—social relationships". Argue that gender's not a set of traits/variable/role, but the product of social doings of some sort; is constituted thru interaction; accounts for "gender display" & how gender might be exhibited/portrayed thru interaction, & thus be seen as "natural", while it's being produced as a socially organized achievement (Agnes) had to consciously contrive what the vast majority of women do without thinking. She was not "faking" what "real" women do naturally. She was obliged to analyze/figure out how to act within socially structured circumstances/conceptions of femininity that women born with appropriate biological credentials come to take for granted early on. As in the case of others who must "pass", such as transvestites, makes visible what culture has made invisible— the accomplishment of gender

Spectacular time continued (my notes):

What spectacular time means for production & how it shapes modern patterns of consumption -the time of production, commodity-time, is an infinite accumulation of equivalent intervals. In this social domination by commodity-time, "time is everything, man is nothing; he is at most the carcass of time". This is time devalued, the complete inversion of time as "the field of human development." The general time of human non-development also exists in the complementary form of consumable time which returns as pseudo-cyclical time to the daily life of the society based on this determined production. -time is the necessary alienation, the environment where the subject realizes himself by losing himself, where he becomes other in order to become truly himself. In this spatial alienation, the society that radically separates the subject from the activity it takes from him, separates him first of all from his own time. It is this surmountable social alienation that has prohibited & petrified the possibilities & risks of the living alienation of tine. -under the visible fashions which disappear/reappear on the trivial surface of contemplated pseudo-cyclical time, the grand style of the age is always located in what is oriented by the obvious & secret necessity of revolution. The natural basis of time, the actual experience of the flow of time, becomes human & social by existing for man. It is the program of a total realization, within the context of time, of communism which suppressed all that exists independently of indivs.

In sociology, a theory

is a way to explain different aspects of social interactions and to create a testable proposition, called a hypothesis, about society. -Sociologists develop theories to explain social events, interactions, and patterns. A theory is a proposed explanation of those social interactions. Theories have different scales. Macro-level theories, such as structural functionalism and conflict theory, attempt to explain how societies operate as a whole. Micro-level theories, such as symbolic interactionism, focus on interactions between individuals.

Consequences continued (my notes):

two methodological pitfalls that're common to all sociological investigations of purposive action: The first involves the problem of casual imputation- ascertaining the extent to which "consequences" can justifiably be attributed to certain actions. The second problem is that of ascertaining the actual purposes of a given action. Ultimately, the final test is: does the juxtaposition of the overt action, our general knowledge of the actor(s) & the specific situation & the inferred/avowed purpose "make sense", is there between these, as Weber puts it, a "verständliche Sinnzusammenhang?" We may maintain that no blanket statement categorically affirming/denying the practical feasibility of all social planning is warranted. Before we may indulge in such generalizations, we must examine & classify the types of social action/organization with reference to elements and then refer our generalizations to such essentially different types.