Chapter 4 - Society Flashcards
Alienation
The experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness.
Anomie
A condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals.
Capitalists
people who own and operate factories and other businesses in pursuit of profits.
Class conflict
conflict between entire classes over the distribution of a society’s wealth and power.
Class consciousness
workers’ recognition of themselves as a class unified in opposition to capitalists and ultimately to capitalism itself.
Division of labour
Specialized economic activity
False consciousness
explanations of social problems as the short comings of individuals rather than as the flaws of society.
Horticulture
the use of hand tools to raise crops.
Hunting and gathering
the use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation.
Ideal type
an abstract statement of the essential characteristics of any social phenomenon.
Industrialism
The production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery.
Mechanical solidarity
Social bonds, based on common sentiments and shared moral values, that are strong among members of pre-industrial societies.
Organic solidarity
Social bonds, based on specialization and interdependence, that are strong among members of industrial societies.
Pastroalism
the domestication of animals.
Post-industrialism
Technology that supports an information based economy.
Proletarians
People who sell their labour for wages.
Rationality
a way of thinking that emphasizes deliberate, matter-of-fact calculation of the most efficient way to accomplish a particular task.
Rationalization of society
the historical change from a tradition to rationality as the main mode of human thought.
Social conflict
the struggle between segments of society over valued resources.
Social institutions
the major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems, organized to meet human needs.
Society
people who interact in a defined territory and share a culture.
Socio-cultural evolution
Changes that occur as a society gains new technology.
Tradition
Values and beliefs passed from generation to generation.
Agriculture
Large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to animals or more powerful energy sources.
