My notes on the book. In italics are my thoughts.
The degree to which a society can be thought of as civilized is judged by the conditions in which its people live. Theoretical ideals are no measure of how civilized a society is if they do not apply to everybody.
- Social emancipator - Harriet Martineau
True for India as Naipaul says. India is not civilized until all the population lives in respectable conditions. Having a section privileged and rich doesn't make the whole society civilized.
In large-scale societies such as modern cities, the division of labour and mobility of the workforce have eroded traditional bonds. In place of Gemeinschaft there is Gesellschaft, association, or society. Relationships in such societies are more impersonal and superficial, and based on individual self-interest rather than mutual aid.
Gemeinschaft means interaction between traditional community.
Gesellschaft means interaction of modern society.
How the society moves from one to the other.
Parts of my life has passed in gemeinschaft like living in close community where fathers worked in same company and their kids played together. The earlier communities were even closer where people worked and lived together.
This division of labour reached its peak with industrialization when society evolved and became a complex “organism” in which individual elements perform individual’s specialized functions, each of which is essential to the well being of the whole. The idea that society together is structured like a biological purposed organism composed of distinct motley parts with specialized functions became a significant approach to such sociology, known as functionalism.
Dehumanization
Capitalism, which had promised a technological utopia with the individual at its heart, had instead created a society dominated by work and money, overseen by an uncompromising bureaucracy. Individuals are “cogs in the machine"
Max Weber
A rigid, rule-based society not only tends to restrict the individual, but also has a dehumanizing effect, making its people feel as though they are at the mercy of a logical but godless system. Many Bollywood movies have depicted this – loneliness in a city like Mumbai – merciless and relentless. People are depicted unable to find love and justice. Recall the huge swarms of people descending from the metro train stations and filled in roads in front of Church-gate.
The power and authority of a rational bureaucracy also affects the relationships and interactions of individuals – their social actions.
These actions are no longer based on ties of family or community, nor on traditional values and beliefs, but are geared towards efficiency and the achievement of specific goals.
Because the primary goal of rationalization is to get things done efficiently, the desires of the individual are subservient to the goals of the organization, leading to a loss of individual autonomy.
Dehumanized society
For Weber, modern society was replacing traditional customs and values with rational decision-making in a dehumanizing process that affected not only the culture but also the structure of society. He noted that rational social organization is not necessarily based on reason, or for the welfare of all.
The workers in 21st century have become alienated from their work. There is no pride in what we do. We are like cheerful robots, who enjoy material stuff and comfort but are intellectually, politically, and socially apathetic.
The problem, according to Wright Mills, is the fact that ordinary people in "mass society" are unaware of the way in which their lives are affected by this concentration of political and social power. They go about their lives without realizing how the things that happen to them are connected to the wider social context. Everyone’s troubles, such as becoming unemployed, or ending up homeless or in debt, are perceived as personal and not in terms of forces of historical change.
Where there is power, there is resistance.
Power is everywhere and comes from everywhere. Power is not a thing; it is a relation.
Power is not something someone possesses, but something that is done to others, an action that affects the live did others.
Institutions like prisons, schools, asylums, etc. are a variation in terms of moving away from merely punishing to a disciplinary exercise of power. Conduct could be controlled, corrected, and monitored. Not coercion, but compliance; guiding people's behaviour.
Discursive regime
Discourse is constantly reinforced, as it is both an instrument and an effect of power: it controls thoughts and conduct, which in turn shape the belief system. And because it defines what is right and wrong, it is a "regime of truth", creating a body of what is considered undeniable common knowledge.
Michel Foucault: if there is a power relation, there is a possibility of resistance, without which, there is no need to exercise power.
Power is imposed by social norms; not only our gender but our sexuality is shaped by the culture in which we live.
Judith Butler
Simon de Beauvoir: "one is not born a woman, one becomes one." The second sex.
We perform acts of gender which we have acquired.
Gender is not as simple, Judith Butler contends, as masculinity and femininity, nor is sexuality as simple as gay and straight. Gender and sexuality are neither as polarized in this way, nor as fixed and unchanging as we have come to believe, but can be fluid, covering a whole spectrum of gender identities.
Gender is what we do, not what you are. Gender is not what one is, it is what one does. There is a way that a person with a certain biological sexuality must behave, and that becomes that person’s gender. A boy going to school watches other boys behave in a certain manner and learns their ways. Similarly, a girl is asked to follow practices that suit women. If she doesn't, she becomes an outcast. Both boys and girls are taught to repeat this performance of these actions and behaviours which ultimately decide masculine or feminine Identity.
Social and political outlook is also shaped.
Habitus gives individuals a unique “sense of one's place” because their internalized self perfectly matches the structure of their external world. But if they were to stray into the "fields" (institutions or structures) of a different class, they would feel like “a fish out of water", wrong-footed at every turn.
Just like I was when I moved to a new class is in Singapore, in ExxonMobil. My walk was different, the words I spoke, or my hand movements made be stand out. With everything, I felt I am unsettled.
Three forms of capitals, economic, cultural, and social. Economic is money and property. Finally, what I always thought.
Cultural Capital is the capacity to play "the culture game" - to recognize references in books, films, and theater; to know how to act in given situations (such as apt manners and conversation at the dinner table); to know what to wear and how; and even who “to look down your nose at”. Because habitus defines a person within any situation as being of a certain class or class fraction, it is critical in delineating the social order.
Social capital is of course, the contacts we have which gives us a sense of mutual obligation and trust. Also, it may offer power and influence.
Scholastic capital, linguistic capital -ease in command of language, determining who has the authority to speak and be heard.
Political capital.
All these capitals are interchangeable. We see in movies too.
How many times we missed these ideas of social & cultural capital in Singapore?
Not buying a car straight away.
Using a plastic bag to carry homemade lunch to office, instead of a classier leather bag.
Not going out and having drinks with people, despite being offered.
Not joining dragon boating or dinner& dance events.
Not knowing what shows, movies others watch and what jokes people around you share.
Orientalism is how west perceived the East-uncivilised, barbaric, irrational, lazy and backward.
Social inequality
Why people like Kangana Ranaut are always conflicted? They have risen from a lower background. They work with middle- and higher-class people but feel that they are looked down. A lot of that has to do with the sense of betrayal -both to themselves and to those left behind.
Masculinity
As men reap significant benefits from maintaining dominance over women, their general interest and investment in patriarchy is formidable – it is what gives them social, cultural, and economic control. The closer a man's masculinity is to the hegemonic ideal, the more power he has.
Practicing gender
RW Connell claims that the European/American hegemonic form, which is linked closely to the patriarchal ideal of the powerful, aggressive, unemotional male who will often use violence to get his way, is being extended across the world through processes of globalization. Muslim world and India already had a male dominated society. What about- rest of the Asia?
The media glamorizes the hegemonic ideal through its adulation of ruthless billionaire entrepreneurs and fighting fit, contact-sports stars.
Trump and Modi, Christian Ronaldo?
Patriarchy and gender inequality
Sylvia Walby's six structures
Family and household undervalues women's role. Housewives are producing class while husbands are the class that benefits indirectly from women's unpaid labour.
In 20th century, a conflict rose between patriarchy and capitalism. Both have rival interest in exploitation of woman's labour. If woman works for the capitalist, she has less time working for husband.
Is this one of the concerns why men do not allow the women to work? Their direct labour coming to men to is now diverted to industry. But don’t they enjoy the money? Not after a limit, the money also empowers the woman. If a man earns 100,000 dollars a year in an economy where 65-70 K are good enough, why would he want his wife to work? Doubling the income moves him away from the 70,000 group where he can exercise dominance being a 100K earner.
The societies prize heterosexual relationships above all others, in many cases seeing them as the only permissible option. Sexuality is a major area in which men exercise domination of women: they impose their ideas of femininity onto women and have constructed sexual practices that revolve around male notions of desire.
Public patriarchy - and find a job of liking; Private patriarchy - leaving the house or choosing the preferred form of dress.
When patriarchy loosens its grip in one area, it only tightens it in other arenas.
Sylvia Walby
Life in cities is different from the rural living. Relationships are modified, people focus their energies on those who mater to them. We are now concerned with people in the industry – the social contacts in a small town or village, who were always connected to you no matter what time of the year and whatever trade, or they practiced. For example, in Saharanpur, my hometown in UP, a tailor, who would get yearly business from us to deliver 6 sets of pants and shirts, was like a family member, our barber, car mechanic, even our telephone repairman, all were close contacts. Moving to city means these people are simply service providers, with no claims of being a social contact. The tailor mentioned above, even watched a few cricket matches with our family on TV.
A metropolitan reacts with his head instead of his heart; he erects a rational barrier of cultivated indifference.
Stranger is defined by the or social relations with others. Like a person who lives in your floor, a cleaner, a security person, a banker coming to sell a plan or a student from your kids' school, but not a friend. All these people are defined differently.
How should a city look like? What kind of feeling it must give? Say an Orchard or Jurong? The opulence of Orchard malls and busy, everyday life of Bukit Batok.
Public and private
Many modern cities, for example, have become dominated by private spaces, such as shopping malls and office complexes, built in the service of capitalism. The loss of public space has severely restricted the arenas in which people can meet on an equal footing with others, so eroding their personal freedoms and stifling their means to satisfy their social and psychological needs. This can lead to serious social problems, such as crime, depression, homelessness, social exclusion, and poverty. Do places like Piazza Novena bring people together? It was certainly a public space. Another was in Sydney near the Opera house, where we watched a monocyclist and a contortionist perform. In modern day life, they have become more like tourist spots.
How a city should be?
A good city building has buildings that face outwards and a mix of business and residential properties. It needs a steady traffic of people on the sidewalks to increase community and security and create activity for people to work and enjoy.
How we saw the streets in Europe. Barcelona or Paris or London. Rome was ahead. Athens too. Singapore has Orchard with similar vibes or places like little India. Local internal roads are still like that.
India is totally different. Delhi does have Connaught place, but mostly Indian roads are built for vehicles or to do small business. In Bangalore, I found a few places, which had the city vibe.
City must have a good mix of old and new, business, and residential for greater integration of people. Shopkeepers and locals also provide a natural surveillance.
Amitai Etzioni
What is a community?
Communities are webs of social relations "that encompass shared meanings and above all
else shared values". The views of a community cannot be imposed by an outside group or internal minority but must be "generated by the members of community in a dialogue that is open to all and fully responsive to the membership". Etzioni's community is inherently democratic, and each community is nested "within a more encompassing one". This definition of community is applicable to a variety of forms of social organization, from microfirmations such a families and schools, through macro formations like ethnic groups, religions or nation states.
Poorly raised children can become a menace not only for the parents but also for the community; therefore, procreation and bringing up must be a communitarian act.
Schools should do far more than transmitting skills and knowledge to pupils. They should
build upon the task of character formation initiated by parents to help lay the foundations for a stable sense of self, of purposefulness, and the ability to control impulses and defer immediate gratification, in particular, the values of discipline, self-discipline, and internalization – the integration of the values of others into one's own sense of self – play a major role in the child's psychological development and well being.
Mcdonaldization of society
Machinery cooks food, so the pace of work is dictated by the machines.
McDonald's employees work in mindless, production-line style jobs, often in cramped circumstances for little pay. There is virtually no scope for innovation and initiative on behalf of employees, either individually or collectively, resulting in worker dissatisfaction and alienation, and high staff-turnover rates.
The bonds of our communities have
Robert D Putnam: Bowling Alone
Bonds are forged from a source of common Identity, including family friends and community members.
Bridges extend beyond shared identity to include colleagues, associates, and acquaintances. Linkages connect individuals or groups further up or lower down the social hierarchy.
Differences in the type of social capital binding people are important.
Until 1990s, it was important to keep bonds of society and community intact. An uncle or a colleague could be useful in getting a job or a college admission for your son or relative. Even without it, most people lived with contacts linked together; fighting leading to alienation was not an option.
Soon though, people realized that no longer one person is able to help get into a worthy job or college. Reason: companies are multinational with diverse panel-based selection process. Requirements for MNCs are unlike public companies, a varying number every year. It comes when it is necessary.
Disneyization of the society
Everything has become a showcase. Wherever we go, touristy spots are offered in a packaged manner. Unless specified and sold in the Disney manner, we are not willing to accept anything is watchable or worthy of tourist’s money.
Images and logos on merchandise are offered after the show, rides or whatever you have seen. Batman, Black widow, or koalas.
A scripted interaction, dressing up and an impression of endless fun or mysticism or grandeur or thrill.
Theming of everything. A dinosaur park, or an Egyptian mythological ride, simulated space travel or simply chocolate world.
Living in a loft
The psychic state of a loft dweller was that of a search for authenticity an attempt to replace the mass production of modernism and the uniformity of suburban living with the individualization of a space once used for mass production (since many loft spaces had once been workshops or factories). In a loft, the privacy of the detached suburban house was replaced by a non- hierarchical layout that opens "every area... to all comers”. This space and openness create an impression of informality and equality, transforming the loft into a "tourist attraction" or a showcase- a place that demands to be seen.
You often see techie youth occupying such places of "equality", places bereft of hierarchy, of mundane living, places big, isolated and perfect for creative freedom.
Bare walls, exposed beams and zircon ducts provide an attraction to loft dwellers.
How lower Manhattan was turned into lofts?
Tens of thousands of people were employed in producing textiles and clothing the 50s in the buildings having high ceilings and long windows.
During 70s, textile production was offloaded to Asia, and those buildings of lower Manhattan became derelict.
Later these buildings became home to many artists as rents went cheap as demand for properties went down.
Artists moved to this area, the cost of living here and property value rose, affluent people moved in, and artists were again left to look for other places.
Solid and liquid modernity
Solid modernity's defining feature is the organization of human activity and institutions along bureaucratic lines, where practical reasoning can be employed to solve problems and create technical solutions. Bureaucracy persists because it is the most efficient way of organizing and ordering the actions and interactions of large numbers of people. While bureaucracy has its distinctly negative aspects (for example, that human life can become dehumanized and devoid of spontaneity and creativity), it is highly effective at accomplishing goal-oriented tasks.
One of the things India needs is respect for the villages. Especially the youth of India must respect the villages. Why? Before we go into that of course, villages have to be self-sufficient in terms of earnings, education, secure in terms of socially and culturally and a bit of growth as well. Once all this is achieved, migrations to city will reduce and villages will not only retain talent but prosper even more.
Saharanpur produced many brilliant kids but none of them stayed there to serve it. What did Saharanpur get? Broken roads and dilapidated infrastructure which gets no investment from any industry. Emigration of educated people means erosion of culture, so well nursed over decades.
It is akin to a situation when the best seeds of the fruit are taken away and dispersed in another area which means that the area which produced the fruit is never going to be prosperous.
Liquid modernity
At an ideological level, liquid modernity undermines the Enlightenment ideal that scientific knowledge can ameliorate natural and social problems. In liquid modernity, science, experts, university-based academics, and government officials - once the supreme figures of authority in solid modernity- occupy a highly ambiguous status as guardians of the truth. Scientists are increasingly perceived as being as much the cause of environmental and socio-political problems as they are the solution. This inevitably leads to increased scepticism and general apathy on the part of the public.
Liquid modernity has undermined the certainties of individuals regarding employment,
education, and welfare. Today, many workers must either retrain or change occupation altogether, sometimes several times – the notion of a "job for life", which was typical in the age of solid modernity, has been rendered unrealistic and unachievable.
Retreat of the welfare state
Solid modernity - industrial production of consumer goods
Liquid modernity - consumption of them
Modern day individuals seek guidance, stability and direction in lifestyle coaches, psychoanalysts, sex therapists and holistic life experts & health gurus.
Liquid modernity- global society
Expats. People move around and go where economic conditions are most favourable.
Migration and transnational flows of people around the globe.
Cultural mélange
The recent rise of global communications has produced what Roland Robertson describes as a "cultural interconnectedness". As global influences mutate and hybridize locally the result
Is "glocalized" diversity, or a cultural "mélange", according to Dutch sociologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse? A good example of this global-to-local process is film making. Hollywood movies inspired the Indian film industry in the early 20th century. But Indian filmmakers focused on modifying Hollywood's output: they were keen to make the art form their own, to appeal to local culture and reflect its distinct forms of expression. In so doing, they initiated a creative engagement between the global and local. Indian cinema draws on a rich body of themes - ranging from the country's ancient epics and myths to traditional drama - and retells them in colourful, distinctive ways. The Hindi films known as "Bollywood" attract audiences well beyond the Indian diasporas.
A networked world.
The world has shifted from the production of goods and services to information and knowledge.
Fully connected world, people from all corners collaborating, engaged productively in all different types of relationships.
A global society has emerged.
Risk society
Social life is progressing from a first stage of modernity to an emergent second, or “reflexive", stage. This is shaped by an awareness that control of - and mastery over - nature and society may be impossible. This awareness may itself lead to disenchantment with existing social structures as providers of safety and reassurance.
Nuclear, chemical and biotechnology have reached a critical threshold; advances now will spring possibilities of disaster.
Three significant qualities of risk. First, global, irreparable damage: accidents cannot be compensated for, so insurance no longer works.Have we seen this in the case of the COVID-19 in 2020-2022? No amount of insurance would have helped anyone- either on the government level or an individual level.
Second, exclusion of precautionary aftercare: we cannot return conditions to the way they were before the accident.
Third, no limit on space and time: accidents are unpredictable, can be felt across national borders, and impose their effects over long periods of time.
Real and virtual risk
Beck identifies a strange ambiguity in how society understands risks. On the one hand, they are real they exist as objective, latent threats at the heart of scientific and technological progress. They cannot be ignored, even if authorities try to pretend, they do not exist. At the same time, however, risks are also virtual; that is, they represent current anxieties about events that have yet to – or May never - happen. Nonetheless, it is the apparent threat posed by these risks, the anticipation of disaster, which ushers in new challenges to the power of scientists, corporations, and governments.
When the atrocities on a minority increase, the risk initially may be called virtual – people may get anxious about events which might not materialise. However, these anxieties may solidify as well.
High profile public campaigns are needed to amplify or draw attention to risks downplayed by government and corporations. Like climate change risks by Greta Thurnberg. The atrocities on the minorities happening in India from 2014 onwards also must be highlighted by a movement.
In this world, people cannot pay out of the risks, something possible a few decades ago. Did I pay out the risks when I moved from Vadodara to Singapore?
Hedge funds, futures markets, derivatives trading, debt securitization and credit default swaps.
Bhopal and Chernobyl are global risks which spare no one.
Global cities
· Command posts for the direction and policies driving the global economy.
· Key locations for service industries including financial and legal firms
· Site for soft knowledge production and innovation for new industries and sectors
· Markets where these new products and bought and sold.
Migrants to global cities add new food, cultural expression, fashions, and entertainment which enrich the global cities further and increase economic activity. It becomes vice versa, more the migrants; more vibrant is the global city. Singapore is perfect example.
Globalization and modernity
Globalization doesn't mean that the world is going to adopt one culture.
Globalization does not necessarily denote a uniform and all-encompassing process; rather, nations are more positively disposed towards certain facets of globalization than others, depending on a range of factors, such as the state of the economy, political stability, and strength of cultural identity. For example, China has embraced industrial and information technologies and global economic expansion, while retaining a strong sense of political autonomy.
One man's imagined community is other man's political prison.
Globally imagined world
We no longer live-in face to face communities but rather within imagined ones.
Five dimensions
Ethnoscape
Mediascape
Technoscape
Finanscape
Ideoscape
These are fluid unlike a landscape which changes slowly.
Twitter, social media, same race people, money matters, a bit of technology and an ideology.
Globalization
A set of process and changes comprising of media products and movement of ideas across the societies. Politically, it means the rise of MNCs and international organizations. On economic front it means expansion of capitalism and consumerism.
CULTURE AND IDENTITY
An individual can only develop a true sense of Identity in the context of a social group through interaction with others.
An individual tends to lose identity if he or she doesn't conform to the culture or lest risk being labelled as outcast.
Culture also can be a means of social control.
The civilizing process
A civilization process that began in the Middle Ages as a key factor in helping people to socialize with others from tradesmen to noble men and women.
Manners were practiced which helped different classes to come together; a certain body postures and facial expressions evolved, showing courtesy and restraint. Even warriors learned to control aggression.
The steps
Power was centralized
These people were not known for their physical strength but revered for courtly manners.
To identify with them, others too practiced civilised behaviours
People and nations lacking right behaviours were seen as inferior and need civilizing.
Is it really possible for the regime to create the needs for the people? An interesting point is that can they generate that what to love and hate so that everyone follows that?
Like must have gadgets.
Or there are certain things which are called as must have, like a Face book account, so it was very brave of me to not to have the Face book account for so many years. In fact, I still don't have one.
A new dimensionless world
There used to be a gap between culture and reality that pointed out the other possible ways of living and being. But now that gap has disappeared.
Culture traditionally represented the forms of art such as the Opera Theatre, literature, and classical music, aimed to reflect the difficulties encountered by the transcendent human soul forced to live in social reality.
Tragedy used to be about defeated possibilities, about hopes unfulfilled and promises betrayed. Tragedy is no longer even possible, as a cultural motif, its discontent, is seen as a problem to be solved.
In other words, in this modern world, there is nothing tragic anymore. A tragic event is more of a roadblock, it is more of a problem which has or had a solution which could not be implemented because of one reason or the other. Usually, it can be incompetency, lack of resources or any other yet to be surfaced facet.
If a person loves another person but receives no love in return, he or she can always resort to others. It can be described as a mismatch of circumstances, a lack of compatibility, or such similar definition, instead of looking it as a tragedy, as a hope destroyed which will turn into a bitter sweet memory, as an aspiration quelled which will return as an enigmatic question unanswered.
Art has lost the ability to inspire because it is now a part of mass media. Books and stories about individuals who chose not to conform are no longer calls for revolution but must-read modern classics to be consumed on self-improve programme.
I too, now sometimes believe that if some tragic scene or tragic song is shown in the movies, we can always solve the problem rather than enjoying the tragedy of the moment. By thinking this way, we belittle the achievement. If I could not join or succeed in a company, I should not say that I was a mismatch or conditions were misaligned, I must accept and move forward, keeping my respect for that unconquered goal. It remains a tragedy of my life. If possible, enjoy it. A tennis player not winning Wimbledon shouldn’t feel satiated by saying that she won all other major tournaments several times.
Classes are no longer in conflict. Maybe super rich are beyond but mostly we have the same living styles.
People are hypnotized to the extent that no one will rebel. A state that exists in India right now (2018-2022).
We can no longer critique the society because we don't dare to stand outside of it. That is where the weakness starts. If we do stand outside, we will be called lunatic.
Men become robots.
In the 20th century, the state encouraged people to become competitive, exploitative, authoritarian, aggressive, and individualist. The individuals became cooperative consumers with standardize tastes could be manipulated by the anonymous authority of public opinion and the market. How to break free?
The technology ensures that the work became more routine and boring. Unless people come out of this rut, they are going to become robots.
More information, less meaning
The modern life has become condensed into a set of recorded pictures, a family wedding, and a holiday in France and so on.
People are more interested in capturing the image, becoming spectators then and doing things.
Constructed realities can be built to maximize pleasure. So, they are far more appealing than reality.
Since we cannot create a world, why not aim at a utopia?
Modern identities are being decentred.
From 17th to the early 20th centuries, a person was born with a firm inner core that unfolded with age but remain unchanged. However, in the 20th century, the identity started to get formed in relationship with the environment and significant others. In other words, the solid or unchanged core of identity started to be more fluid and it could be modified by the environment, the values, and the people around the person. This fluid identity had no solid core or stable inner core.
These days, due to global culture, we are free to take up any identity; identities are detached from specific times, places histories and tradition.
All communities are imagined.
There was no idea of nationalism before the 16th century. It started with the development of the printing press. The publishers identified that if they, if they printed books in the widespread vernacular languages, then they can reach a wider audience and when it happened, a new community based on language started to emerge. It started to define groups of people according to the language they spoke. In this unification, the common language helped in spreading the set of beliefs and ideas much faster. At the same time, the religious rule was on the decline and the idea of nationalism arose.
Something which people believed in, and they had a cause to die for. Innovator nationalism gives purpose to life, which surprisingly doesn't exist in the religious rule. After all, what do we live for?
Yuval Noah Harari has stressed the power of myths in Sapiens – how the myths can unite a large number of people to achieve monumental tasks – like building a pyramid or Great Wall of China. Will the wall protect China? No one was sure but since the emperor convinced a huge population, they built it. Now religious binding can help people unite, but only against another religion.
And once we achieve the Enlightenment there is no reason left for living or dying. But for a nation there is a purpose or a cost dying, worth dying for. A nation isn't an imagined political community which is limited - even in the smallest of nations, the people are not going to meet everyone have the same national identity.
So how do we know that people are of the same nation and how can we share the kind of bond that everyone so enthusiastically show to possess.
Culture
Culture is the collectively produced ideas, beliefs, and values of a group. It's integral to the understanding of human life.
There are three aspects of culture as per Karl Marx, the economy, technologies, and the division of labour. However, Jeffrey Alexander, US sociologist believes that culture cannot be understood as a mere by-product of the harder rather real material dimensions of social life.
Jeffrey Alexander compares culture to a text something that people read and interpret in ways that are socially structured, but partially unique to them. And for this reason, cannot be understood in terms of simply cause and effect.
Existing social structures are patterned ways of behaving that exist above and beyond also cultural structures. These are symbolic resources of constellations of science and symbols that members of culture draw upon and invest the world with meaning and relevance.
To understand the way social groups are compelled by value laden meanings and symbols, let's take an example of the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. When the Holocaust happened, and immediately after the World War II years, not many social groups across Europe called it the most costly and evil event. There was a general negativity against the European Jews which led to a less than empathetic response to the plight. After some years, the Jews were socially integrated into a wider society and then it became mandatory for the Holocaust to be re-evaluated, re-narrated and symbolically recorded as an act of evil.
Only after that in 1970, the West German Chancellor went to Warsaw Ghetto Memorial and bent in reverence to those who lost their lives.
Will this happen in India after a few years, will the upper caste Hindus will realise that their hatred for Muslims during Modi years was baseless, illogical and a perceived threat percolated by the sold-out media?
After Portuguese defeat in Goa, the relations between India and Portugal thawed. In 1980s only, Vice President R Venkataraman went to Lisbon and India and Portugal relations warmed up.
A similar example also can be given regarding the atrocities carried by the Japanese against Chinese and Nanking. Now after 70 to 80 years of that event, a lot of Japanese writers and Japanese people regard that as a crime. But not immediately after that event, or even after a few decades of the event.
Capitalism in class.
There are two types of classes. The industrious class forms the vast majority of the population and engages in productive labour such as manual craft and machine work. The other class is called the leisure class. They are in smaller numbers but are economically privileged and they are parasitic to the industrious class. There is a term called conspicuous consumption. Majority of human behaviour is determined by struggles for social recognition, status, and power. Conspicuous consumption refers to spending money on and consumption of non-essential luxury goods to display to other members of society one's own economic and material wealth. An example is a business tycoon who purchases a luxury yacht and invites other rich friends on them to show off.
The consequence of conspicuous leisure and consumption is the production of waste. The leisure class to pass time will travel to foreign lands and learn foreign languages which is unproductive and an often useless. One important aspect over here is that to produce the luxury goods by consuming the oil and petrochemical needs to increase carbon emissions and climate change and most of these products are produced for leisure class. Industrious class tries to emulate the leisure class or the leisure class, who always try to force out anyone who is not foolish or a person who has recently acquired wealth. Such people can purchase flashy cars or designer brand clothes, but they are not so easily approved into the wealthy class.
The pursuit of profit. Max Weber says that the buying and selling of goods and services for more than they are worth is not unique to capitalism. It has happened all throughout the history. What is unique to capitalism? Is that the pursuit of profit becomes an end in itself?
How did it happen?
We have to go back to 16th century Europe when Protestantism emerged as a reaction to the perceived corruption and failings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Protestantism has a very different vision of the relation between God and its subjects. Syllabus study.
Protestant calling happened in the 16th century as a protest against the Roman Catholic Church. As protestant movement took shape on one side, the Roman Catholic Church, urged monastic retreat from the world of mundane affairs protest and demanded that the followers fulfill their duties and responsibilities. Now, this was a way to salvation, to continue to do their work, to engage in their business, to fulfill the duties of the household. This became an opposition to the Catholic Church and the reason given was that says God is all the seeing and all-knowing, then our destiny as individuals is predetermined because God has made the world and everyone in it. The problem for Protestantism, however, was that they did not know in advance that whether they will achieve salvation or not. So, this induced a psychological terror in the followers of Protestantism. To overcome this, the followers of Protestantism created a concept of social usefulness. It said that the most obvious way in which they could tell whether they are going to be saved or not, is to succeed economically and to have specific work ethics. Monitoring and self-control in the conduct of Economic Affairs or the Spirit of Capitalism which was:
· Innovate to succeed economically,
· to raise a happy family,
· never to shy away from work,
· never to commit the sense of idleness,
· don't fail to prosper financially.
If you're doing this if you're accumulating wealth this is understood as proof of the religious purity and the promise of salvation.
People had to become more hardworking, austere, and have more self-control. And they realize that the more they do that, the more successful they will become, and more rewards will come this way.
After 500 years, this has declined. There is no power of formal religion to proliferate capitalism, but it started that way.
De-skilling
What is a skilled labourer? The advances in the industrial technology and machine production have led to the alienation and deconstruction of skilled members of the industrial working class and craftsmen. The notion that increasing technology and workplace calls for the most technically proficient and educationally qualified workforce is simply not true. It doesn't take more than a week or a month for a worker to get trained. In fact, sometimes only a matter of hours if a worker can operate machinery and handle in the workshop the chain of processes. It does not mean that he is trained. For example, if you learn to use a photocopier doesn't mean that we are trained and are going to be called skilled.
Attainment of educational qualifications made the experience of factory and office work even more frustrating or lacking in fulfilment because of opportunities for individuals to utilize and apply the knowledge obtained from their school simply did not exist. And I have experienced that- whatever I learned in my engineering, I struggled to put it into use when I joined my job. My job was totally different. It was a fresh way of learning something. For example, when I joined Indian oil, I started to learn about vibration analysis- a subject I had not touched at all in my engineering. So, it was quite unique, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I had the confidence that I'm a capable student, who can learn, a student who has background of physics and the application of maths and an overview of many other engineering subjects.
When automation happens, certain skills and technical knowledge that belong to the workers is no longer needed. And the workers needed some new skills in place. The degradation of work is a decline in the number of jobs that require worker to conceptualize and execute at task. The workplace has been reorganized into a mass of workers whose jobs require little conceptualization and a smaller number of managers.
Three developments have accelerated and accentuated the de-skilling of the labour force. One, knowledge information of the entire labour process is known only to and closely controlled by management and not the workers. Two, workers are kept completely in dark about the impact of the task to perform and about the role they play. Three, empowered by the knowledge of the total labour process, management is able to control highly exacting ways what each individual worker does.
Do we see that something similar happens in the Project and Technology organization of Shell? We engineers hardly realize what is going to be the impact of what we do. Workers become like hands whose every move is controlled, supervised, and corrected by the distant brain of management and so that value also decreases over time, because the range of skills of the workers have declined. Workers can be paid less. They become more dispensable and crucially interchangeable.
The systems are driving the business, not the people.
The deconstruction of craftsmanship among the labour force works to ensure that entire sections of the population are prevented from climbing the social hierarchy sentence.
The book “Labour and monopoly capital”
Alienation occurs when workers are disconnected from work and lack control over their work. Automation can facilitate, power, and liberate workers in the four types of industries - craft printing, car assembly lines, textile Machine tending and chemical processing. Alienation levels are different as per the four criteria, job control, and social isolation sense of self estrangement and meaningfulness of work. The use of machinery empowers the employees because it provides them with greater control and autonomy, but the automated technology used in car production and textile factories leads to relatively high levels of alienation. Automation and technology are not responsible for alienation it's the lack of control which makes the workers alienated. Alienation also depends upon how the work is organized and the nature of the relationships between workers and management.
Surface acting versus deep acting.
People interact and work together to define a particular social situation, and this feeds back into their emotional states.
Delta Airlines hired young attractive men and women, especially women. And to ensure that their passengers and their guests felt the emotional experience they were receiving was authentic, flight attendants were taught to practice deep acting by producing within themselves emotional displays that were sincere and genuine. Delta management recognized that the authentic displays of emotion and emotional performances are far easier to perform on sustained level when the feelings are present. This is something we see in the flight attendants of Singapore Airlines. The girls are especially so much dedicated to serving the customers. You never feel that they are just doing their jobs. It comes automatically you feel that it is it is coming from the heart. And that's what enhances the pleasure of flying with Singapore Airlines.
By evoking in passengers, positive emotional states and feelings of comfort and safety, Delta Airlines believed it could secure the loyalty and future custom of passengers. This kind of deep acting and emotional labour was ultimately damaging to the psychological well being of the flight attendants. The two powerfully negative consequences were emotional and psychological burnout and the sense of self estrangement often occurred trying to manage the very real disparity between the personal feelings and emotional states they strive to evoke in passengers ultimately, the employees began to resent themselves or to resent the job.
Under capitalism, human emotions have been commoditised and processed people and the product is the state of mind. In the new service industries, the workers are required to possess emotional resources, especially women workers are asked to act in ways that create positive emotional states to help ensure future customers.
In modern capitalist societies, there are two types of rules - display rules and emotional rules. Display rules are like surface acting, the outward way verbal and nonverbal cues people communicate to one another. Emotional rules refer to the level of people's emotions and the direction to take and how long they until, for example, if, if a loved one dies, there is a strong social expectation that the grieving process will take time to run its course. Emotional rules exist that influence what constitutes an appropriate response to that above the response should be and the length of time it should last.
Things define you
The materiality of the house must not be necessarily oppressive, alienating, or divisive. On the contrary, it not only positively shapes the relationship of the family to it, but also facilitates the interaction and increasing solidarity between family members.
A house, which is filled up with IKEA furniture had has straight lines, solid colours, and flat surfaces, which might not be palatable to certain homeowners. They might be looking for more curves, slightly rougher textures, and perhaps more natural feeling to it.
Religion
People endow God with human qualities and then worship Him for those qualities. So, they unconsciously worship themselves and this prevents them from fully realizing their own potential. People also believe that religion is necessary for morality.
Karl Marx believed that the secularization that is decline in the social significance of religion will liberate people from mystical forms of social oppression. Karl Marx says that man makes religion, not the other way around. He also says that people have forgotten that they invented God who has come to a life of his own and now controls the people. Whatever people have created, they can easily destroy it.
As per Karl Marx, religion will be ultimately thrown by the revolutionary working class when they realize that ideologies and institutions of capitalist society which enslave them are not natural or inevitable but can be overthrown. Until then, the religion will remain as a symptom of disease caused by material deprivation and human alienation which creates such pain for its sufferers that they need the solace provided by religion.
As per Karl Marx, religion is a belief system that enables the ruling class to maintain power in the present by promising the working class that things will be better in the hereafter life. The poor find solace in the moral teachings because ultimately, they will reap the reward from their suffering; social changes is averted because religion stabilizes society and maintains the status quo.
In a way religion can be understood as a potent form of social control that keeps the poor in their place and obstruct social change.
Religious suffering is both an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.
It is the sigh of oppressed people.
If we go back again to Protestantism and this philosophy, material success was seen as a sign of God's favour.
Whereas the landowners and capitalists became richer in that world, the reward for working class was toiling long hours for little pay was a place in heaven. Suffering was made into a virtue.
In the manufacturing centres of Britain in the 19th century, capitalistic owners forced workers into attending services, Bible study classes, educational talks, and hobbies to educate them into a decent, sober existence. One that will enable them to work more efficiently. Divesting them of the energy in this way also thwarted their revolutionary potential and ensured that they become compliant with courses of industry.
In a way, the present government (2014- ) in India is also doing the same by providing the unemployed youth a sense of direction by telling them that if they work towards the religious goal of the government, they are going to have a decent, sober existence. All their energy and ideas are sapped away, and they become mere tools of the political outfit.
Medical Institution
Whereas the modern improvements in medical science have brought great relief to human life, the medical establishment has become a serious threat to human life because in conjunction with capitalism, it is an institution that serves itself and makes more people sick than it heals.
Iatrogenesis, a Greek word that means brought forth by a healer.
There are three types of iatrogenesis. Clinical iatrogenesis is when a harm arises that would not have occurred without medical intervention, less resistance to bacteria from the over prescription of antibiotics, for example.
Social iatrogenesis is the medicalization of life. More and more problems are seen as amenable to medical intervention with expensive treatments being developed for non-diseases. Minor depression for example, often treated with habit forming drugs.
The third one is cultural iatrogenesis, which is the destruction of traditional ways of coping with illness, pain, and death. The over medicalization of our lives means that we have become increasingly unwilling to face the realities of death and disease: doctors have assumed the role of priests.
Deviance
There are people in the society who can be called as moral entrepreneurs. These are the people who create rules and enforce rules, something like the politicians or the legislators, which are elected by any popular voting system. They can persuade the society to follow their moral beliefs. Every day we see on the social media how a Member of Parliament or legislative assembly is making some speech about a certain issue they are in fact trying to guide or channel the society's beliefs.
Following a deviant career has hazards but rewards too. They do not come from the wider society; instead they come from feeling a sense of belonging to a group that is united by its opposition to the world at large. For example, marijuana smokers or even much more normal kind of professionals like jazz musicians, who are set apart from society the deviant lifestyle, causes them to develop values that reinforce their deviancy.
Labeling theory
Certain acts in society are called as deviant. And the individuals who are found guilty of these acts are labelled as outsiders. All their future actions are tagged with the label, and they internalize the label and behave accordingly. If a group of young middle-class men are found drunk and disorderly in a town centre, the authorities are likely to attribute their behaviour to youthful exuberance. But if in a similar situation, the men found are working class men, they are termed as hooligans or criminals. Because the system is run by judges and politicians, rule makers, who are into a different level of society, and they decide what act is defined as deviant. US sociologist Howard S Becker in his book, Outsiders in 1963 argues that there is no such thing as a deviant act. It is how we respond to an act. It depends on whether a particular form of behaviour has become sanctioned within the society. For example, if a terrorist kills the citizens, he is accused of murder, but if the army kills a terrorist, it is justice. Deviance is related. It depends on who commits it and how it is responded to.
There are people in the society who can be called as moral entrepreneurs. These are the people who create rules and enforce rules, something similar to the politicians or the legislators, which are elected to any popular voting system they can persuade the society to follow their moral beliefs Every day we see on the social media how a Member of Parliament or legislative assembly is making some speech about a certain issue they are in fact trying to guide or channel the society's beliefs Following a deviant career hazards, rewards. Though they do not come from the wider society instead they come from feeling a sense of belonging to a group that is united by its opposition to the world at large.
Schooling in capitalist America
Schools exist to the produced social inequalities. Education’s role is not to teach the skills needed in the world, in the world of work, but to instill into children the hidden curriculum which is to teach the working-class children their place in society and make them learn that qualities such as working hard evidence, punctuality and following orders are prized. These traits are rewarded by creativity and independent thoughts are not valued. Now, if I go back to my schooling days, and my kids is education, my kids are much freer in terms of the curriculum, their style of learning, while I was like a prisoner. Once I was in school, I could not go out. Not even go out from the class. I had to follow a very strict discipline throughout the day. Get up and the teacher comes in. In the class stay quiet, always stay focused. Be able to create such a good but also binding and can stunt your creativity or imagination. The style of schooling helps to maintain the economic status quo which needs industrious, uncritical employees.
Why working-class kids get working class jobs.
Working class counters school culture and rejects middle class values. Practical jobs are believed to be masculine formal academic knowledge is derided as being feminine and these beliefs are useful on the factory floor. This ensures that the workers or factory labourers continue to be in the same class.
The parents of the working class don't have high hopes of the kids. And whatever those little hopes are, they gradually die down as they see the progress or the lack of progress of their kids in the school.
If I recall, the kids of Class D or Class E employees of IPT (Institute of Paper Technology, a place in a town called Saharanpur, Northern India, where I was raised) went to intermediate schools and inferior colleges and ultimately could not become an engineer or doctors. They did vocational trainings and because of lack of exposure and articulation, they were left in the same strata of society as their fathers.
This theory that the factory or the floor jobs are looked upon as masculine while Office and Office jobs are feminine can be countered or is valid only for households with boys. I recall here Mr. PK Sharma, a class D employee, had five girls and each one of them made a good career. But I will say that yes, the culture and the surroundings and the kind of people you intermingle with make a huge difference in the class, skipping or hopping by anyone.
If you live in a city like Singapore, you can easily expect that even if you are in a non-officer grade your son or daughter can become an engineer and go on to get a better life.
Marriages and joint family system oppresses woman
Western family arrangements are diverse, fluid, and unresolved. Judith Stacey points out that the traditional Western families maintained an oppressive system for a woman. In the modern times, more and more families are nuclear, and this seems the only way out for gender equality. But still, the work structure needs to ensure equal pay for men and women and universal health and childcare should be provided. She says that heterosexual/homosexual binary is becoming less stable, and it's being replaced. Maybe the brave new families are endeavouring to fully embrace change and diversity and forge more unconventional and egalitarian relationships. The modern or the contemporary family structure brings more equality to relationships and undermines stereotypes and traditional gender roles.
In foreign countries, men and women share the workload and household tasks equally, without any traditional gender roles dictating who should cook, clean, or perform specific tasks. The division of labor is based on individual preferences, allowing women to engage in activities traditionally associated with men, such as repairing cars or handling hardware tasks at home. When both partners equally contribute to managing the household, there is no sense of dissatisfaction.
I would like to emphasize that TV serials in the 1980s were centered around richer narratives. Their purpose was not to promote or preach family values, but rather to narrate stories. In contrast, TV serials from the 1990s onwards and into the new century often depict more traditional family dynamics. These shows tend to focus on life events such as weddings and festivals. Women are typically portrayed in attire reminiscent of the 19th century rather than the modern era. They are often shown engaging in household tasks like cooking and chopping vegetables, as well as discussing jewelry and relationships, while men are depicted as being more involved in business and external interactions. Driving is exclusively shown as being done by men.
The Marriage Contract is a work contract. Ann Oakley and Christine Delphi.
Christine Delphi points out that woman's oppression through the power structure of patriarchy (the power and authority held by men) in this system. She says heterosexuality (and the resultant male female couple) is not an individual sexual preference but a socially constructed institution which acts to maintain male domination. Women’s labour after marriage becomes a free labour available to the man. She has to be around the house. She has to support the man's job, produce, and look after the children, the legitimate heirs of the man she's married to. Sometimes the female also has to work outside so she's doubly employed. The difference is that outside the home, the work she does she gets paid for while at home she does the unpaid service.
Men became increasingly wealthy and powerful, and they ensure that their property would be inherited by their legitimate male heirs. And the most effective way of doing this was through the institution of the monogamous patriarchal family.
A lot of movies and novels, both outside and inside the Western world depict that. The goal of a woman is to find the perfect man and marry him. The most important example is Pride and Prejudice, the famous novel by Jane Austen. Many Indian movies also have propagated this idea, either comically thorough a mother who is paranoid about daughter's marriage or by social messaging that marriage for a woman is the final state, which will provide her meaning and happiness. Even if some women are shown to be free and uninterested in marriage, question marks are left on their fate.
Especially in India, I'm surprised why male protesters who would be hurt by the slightest violation of the existing beliefs and social norms haven't raised an eyelid when movies which chip away this male dominance are released. Perhaps there is no targeted group who can protest.
This is not to say that women should be looking for polyandry. But certainly, they can be freed of the bonded labour, which they do for the men.
And how do we know that? This isn't instituted by men only.
We know this because men have controlled the societies by being rich, by being able to hold on to the property and by holding on to most of the money. We know this because a man's desires are obvious in terms physical needs while a woman's agreement is mostly irrelevant, she is a reluctant, mostly forced to compromise. After a woman is married or having some problems in her marriage, other women and the parents of the woman tend to make her believe that whatever is happening with her is fate. And everyone must go through it; there's nothing new about it. She should be tolerant and ultimately settle down. To walk out of the marriage is simply not a solution. To drive this belief, there have been movies where an India woman’s character, trapped in an exploitative marriage has been shown to win over the brutal man. While this can certainly happen, it is a path of great uncertainty, destined to give partial results only after decades.
Some people do not agree that men benefit from their wives ‘labour and therefore directly exploit them, but in this model of exploitation driven society which has patriarchy and capitalism, someone must be exploited to create profits. If there is no exploited group, there is no profit. And profits do happen – men get richer and powerful, so do the industry owners.
Sexuality is constructed
Industrialization and urbanization have gendered social space by creating the public male word of work and the private female world of the home. This has produced significant changes in how we understand the masculinity and femininity and regulation of sexuality. Nearly anything which goes against these accepted is always termed as pervert and queer.
Some men look very masculine, but have very high levels of female wants, while some women may be very tall, which are qualities of being masculine.
Most individuals will fit when tested on chromosomes, hormones, genes, or anatomy test somewhere on a continuum. Very few are going to be an absolute male or an absolute female. If we look around minutely, we shall notice many men who have feminine attributes while some women are too hairy, almost have a moustache and their mannerisms, their behaviour is almost manly.
It is possible that since we are socially divided into either man or woman, everybody has been forced to be either a man or a woman. It's not a natural process. It is a system forced by society to have a smooth functioning. Men are essentially sexually active, and women are sexually passive. This has been done for the smooth functioning of the society.
In the 1980s, a Bollywood film titled Khoobsurat (Beautiful) was released. Even today, the movie is highly regarded as a wholesome family film. It remains a beloved classic, particularly enjoyed on lazy Sunday afternoons. The plot revolves around an affluent family with strong social and cultural values, headed by a matriarch. The family has four sons - the eldest is married, while the search for a suitable bride for the second son is ongoing. A bride is eventually found, and the marriage takes place. The beautiful daughter-in-law joins the family and integrates into their lifestyle. Her education, aspirations, and individuality are not considered important by the family. Apart from maintaining her cultural values, her role mainly consists of managing the household, participating in festivities, caring for the elders, and essentially embodying the traditional image of "The Good Wife."
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