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Evaluate the importance of sociology as a field of study
At the dawn of the twenty first century, it would be difficult to construct a coherent argument in favour of any other subject than sociology being the most important field of academic study - be it in the arts or in the sciences. This is because the study of human societies and how they interact is surely the most important fields of intellectual endeavour one can indulge in.
Sociology takes us from the past to the present and into the future with clear and identifiable lines of social evolution punctuating the journey. Sociology permits us to rationally ask questions not only of ourselves, our families and our intimate relationships but also of the social, cultural, economic and political climate in which we have originated. Viewed through this prism, it is clear that sociology is a highly valuable and deeply significance field of academic inquiry.
It is the purpose of this essay to underline this assertion throughout the course of the text with key works being cited by important sociologists such as Marx and Weber in order to highlight the way in which sociology is able to continually shed new light on the interminably complex human condition. Before we begin, though, we need to set down an effective definition of sociology so as to establish a conceptual framework for the remainder of the discussion.
“Sociology is a scientific study of human social life, groups and societies. It is a dazzling and compelling enterprise, as its subject matter is our own behaviour as human beings … Sociology demonstrates the need to take a much broader view of why we are the way we are and why we act as we do. It teaches us that what we regard as natural, inevitable good or true may not be such and that the ‘givens’ of our life are strongly influenced by historical and socials forces.”
Anthony Giddens (who wrote the much admired Third Way - a contemporary sociological study of Britain that has greatly influenced the social policy of successive New Labour governments) herein makes an important point. Not only does he underscore the way in which sociology is able to transcend a number of academic barriers, he also telegraphs the key skills necessary in the armoury of any social scientists - namely the ability to engage in what C. Wright Mills termed the ‘sociological imagination’, which, in essence, “enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals.”
This is an important point to note because while sociology is considered to be a vital field of academic inquiry because it predominantly involves the study of societies and cultures and the collective response to change, sociology is also considered to be a highly important field of study because it makes allowances for the myriad of ways in which individuals respond to change outside of the bounds of the collective. While it is true that societies do indeed behave in collective ways, it is also true that individuals - by their basic human nature - buck trends.
You can get expert help with your essays right now. Find out more...Thus, sociology should be seen as an important field of study because it reflects the realties of human life: its unpredictability as well as its predictability. Likewise, sociology allows for the fact that human beings are (like the societies and cultures in which they live) not ‘fixed’ entities. As Ken Browne duly notes, “people in society play many different roles in their lifetimes, such as those of a boy or a girl, a child and an adult, a student, a parent, a teacher, a friend … one person plays many roles at the same time.”
Thus, once again, we can see how sociology - as a field study - makes adequate room for the complex realities of everyday life where rationality and science (and, indeed, logic) are often highly misleading variables. In this way sociology helps us to understand history as it has occurred from the perspective of both the individual and the state alike. This is an important point and one that ought to be borne in mind throughout the remainder of the discussion.
None of this, it should be noted, is to claim that the significance of sociology as a field of study is limited to the role of observing patterns of individual and collective behaviour. Rather, we should note the way in which sociology is able to affect important developments in politics and the economy as well as the way in which it is able to affect the entire course of history. Perhaps the most obvious example of sociology and its related sociological theory affecting the course of history concerns the social observations collated by Karl Marx during the mid-nineteenth century, resulting in the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848 - a socio-political meditation on the structure of industrialised society that completely altered the course of twentieth century history on a global scale.
Marx’s unique brand of sociological theory was so influential precisely because it chose not to attempt to understand culture and society in terms of cause and effect; feeling and reaction (as had largely been the case during the Enlightenment with early modern social theorists such as Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire satirising late eighteenth century political society in order to make sense of culture). Instead, Marx looked to divorce sociology from its erstwhile association with philosophy in order to embrace a more practical, politicised interpretation of social theory.
As the author states in the opening to The Communist Manifesto, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” As a result, Marx and the left wing political ideology that would later bear his name understood the evolution of human society through the lens of class giving rise to a truly revolutionary vision of politics based upon historical patterns of socialisation. We should consequently understand The Communist Manifesto as constituting concrete evidence of the primacy of sociology as a field of socio-political study and, moreover, as being “unrivalled as a work of social theory.”
While there are few other comparable works of social theory that are able to claim the ability to change the course of world history as does Marx’s work, we should take note of the variety of ways in which important sociological studies have conspired to leave a positive and lasting legacy to further aid our understanding of the human condition. Max Weber, writing in the first half of the twentieth century, for instance, saw his sociological craft as a “science concerning itself with the interpretative understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences.”
Using the study of society as a science and the behaviour of individuals in terms of anomalies, Weber was able to gauge the influence of a variety of cultural phenomena upon society, most notably in his exposition of the effects of what he termed ‘the Protestant ethic’ upon western European culture where he used his scientific interpretation of of sociology to show how the “spirit of hard work and of progress” was responsible for the rise of capitalist ideology in the West.
Therefore, like Marx before him, Weber was able to use sociology in order to underline the “’embed’ economic actions and interests in the social structure.” In this way, social theory paved the way for a greater understanding of the convergence of economics and politics factors in everyday life leading to what the late twentieth century philosopher and sociologist Frederic Jameson referred to as the triumph of the logic of late capitalism.
Hitherto we have concentrated on the importance of sociology as a means of understanding the evolution of society and culture from a discernibly western perspective. When, for example, one thinks of the most profound social theorists one tends to think of Europeans such as Marx, Durkheim, Comte, Weber, Lock, Rousseau and Voltaire or Americans such as C. Wright Mills and Chomsky and the impact that they have had in terms of better understanding a homogenised western culture.
Yet arguably the greatest importance of sociology as a field of study resides in its ability to harness the knowledge obtained by modern post-industrial societies located in Western Europe and North America and the way in which it is able to use that knowledge to aid the development of agrarian pre-industrial societies located in the Third World and in those states in Central and Eastern Europe currently undergoing a difficult transition from an authoritarian interpretation of Marx’s vision of socialism to a capitalist free market economy.
For instance, by applying Marx’s notion of ‘historical materialism’ to the developing world we can chart the sequence of phases of production that are “the ultimate cause of and the great moving power of all historical events in the economic development of society.” In this way, the mistakes made passing through these phases in the western tradition (which has involved great bloodshed and conflict) can be in some part bypassed in the developing world.
Find out how our expert essay writers can help you with your work...Furthermore, sociology can serve to help the poorest parts of the twenty first century world order by dovetailing the positive economic benefits of foreign aid by supplying a different kind of aid altogether - one that is increasingly conceived of in terms of ‘cultural capital.’ For instance, applying observations obtained by sociology in the West can help to solve complex socio-political problems such as those involving resource-rich developing countries which continue to stagnate economically.
In this way the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge can at least begin to be addressed. Thus, we should understand sociology as being a significant actor not only in terms of understanding our own cultural heritage in the West but also in terms of playing a key economic role of ‘knowledge’ that can go some way towards bridging the divide between the rich and the poor in the era of globalisation.
Conclusion
It has been shown that sociology should be considered to be a highly important field of academic study because of the way in which it helps us to understand societies and cultures and the pattern of interaction between competing societies and cultures throughout history. Thus, sociology has, via key social theorists in the post-Reformation world order, helped to explain the evolution of society and culture. Moreover, sociology has gone so far as to affect the course of history with the link between economics, politics and society paving the way for groundbreaking new ideologies such as socialism.
However, perhaps the greatest benefit bequeathed by sociology has yet to come to fruition as the wholly unprecedented problems posited by globalisation provide sociologists with the unique opportunity to prove that human beings are capable of learning from their own mistakes and of translating one region’s political and economic failures into another, less fortunate region’s enduring economic and political stability. There can, in the final analysis, be no greater testimony to the utmost value that ought to be ascribed to sociology as a field of study.
References
Agrawal, A. (1995) Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge, in, Journal of Development and Change, Volume 26, Number 3
Browne, K. (2005) An Introduction to Sociology: Third Edition Cambridge: Polity Press
Fulcher, J. and Scott, J. (2007) Sociology: Third Edition Oxford: Oxford University Press
Giddens, A. (2006) Sociology: Fifth Edition Cambridge: Polity Press
Jameson, F. (1984) Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism? , in, The New Left Review, Number 146
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (Edited by David McLellan) (1998) The Communist Manifesto Oxford: Oxford World Classics
Morrison, K. (2006) Marx, Durkheim, Weber: The Formation of Modern Social Thought London and New York: SAGE
Swedberg, R. (1998) Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology Princeton: Princeton University Press
Tonkis, F. (2006) Contemporary Economic Sociology: Globalisation, Production and Inequality London and New York: Routledge
Weber, M. (1992) Economy and Society Berkeley: The University of California Press
Weber, M. (2001) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism London and New York: Routledge
Wolff, J. (2003) Why Read Marx Today? Oxford: Oxford University Press
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