Romantic Conservative Reaction Flashcards
Sociological Imagination
A quality of mind. It is a cultivation of the mind or a way of thinking. An ideology. A way of thinking that encompasses or includes the connection between personal biography and history.
Difference between social problem and sociological problem
Social problem: drug abuse
The social problem becomes sociological or understood with a S.I. when one sees that drug abuse is often connected to things such as an increase in theft or an increase in divorce rates.
Creatures and Creators of history
Marx*
We are creatures of history because we exist only in an environment.
We are creators of the world- we changed the social environment once we entered into it.
The Enlightenment
1700s, predominant way of thinking was theological. Everything was explained in terms of God. The enlightenment SHED SOME LIGHT on the darkness of these ages.
Newton
Newton was one of the first people to call into question this notion that God was all-knowing.
Darwin
Survival of the fittest- evolutionary thinking is the opposite of creationism. We did not descend from Adam and Eve. Described how humans evolved from apes instead of created by God.
Montesquieu and Rousseau critique of God
Human beings are not ordained from God- but may by other human beings. They argued that there was no scientific proof that God existed.
3 Main ideas of Enlightenment
1) criticism of institutional order
2) science
3) warfare
Romantic Conservative Reaction to Enlightenment
1799 call for peace in France. Romantic conservatives called for a return to tradition to maintain the status quo. Moved from a radical government to conservative.
Bonald and Maistre
Catholic counterrevolutionary philosophy which provided a defense of post-revolutionary order (restoration), but called for a return to the order of the old regime.
Louis De Bonald
Theorie du pouvoir- critique of Rousseaus social contract and Montesquieus spirit of the laws. Attempted to undermine every major assumption of the Enlightenment.
Assumptions associated with De Bonald’s work
1) Knowledge stems from society
2) Rights exist only in social relationships
3) Knowledge and language precede society- humans did not invent language- God did and humans have no right to tamper with meanings
4) the goal should be of maintaining tradition
5) God is the ultimate authority
6) A rejection of the social contract proposed by enlightenment theorists
7) Return to the status quo- longed for the good old days
Reformation
destroyed the unity of the church
Joseph De Maistre
Devoted his life to discrediting the principles that led to the enlightenment and to defending those of counterrevolutions.
Major Conceptual Shift
there was a shift from the criticism (which characterized the enlightenment) to an attitude of DEFENSE (defending the status quo)