I started studying sociology in first year. Since it was a new subject, I was slightly apprehensive. I entered the class and the professor was Father Arun. He started talking about the flaws in our education system and how he teaches stuff a little differently around here. He said he wasnt going to give notes. That the muggers would take down whatever they could at breakneck speed and the real students could just listen to him and learn more than the muggers. We thought he was kidding cause what would we do without notes? So we took out our books anyway.
Before he started, all he said was "Muggers of the world unite, you have only your brains to loose."
We ignored him.
He started on Durkheim. He talked about his childhood.
We scribbled.
His love life.
We scribbled.
His travels.
They scribbled. I gave up. I wasnt getting anything.
I decided I would just listen. Research about it later.
Probably the best decision I ever made.
That was probably when I started to look at everything in a new light. Things werent as simple as they seemed. Through these 2 years I have been only listening to Arun and he's the only teacher in Sociology that made me think. Question. How difficult it was to define and be precise because there were always flaws.
We learnt 2 perspectives to a large extent in the last 2 years. Let me give you a run through.
Functionalist Perspective by Emile Durkheim
Society was held together by the sharing a set of social guidelines or norms, based upon a moral consensus or collective consciousness. These norms set the boundaries for acceptable behavior within a society or culture. In more traditional pre-industrial cultures, he believed that members were bound together by common experiences and lifestyles, with shared beliefs that evolved from having similar occupations, which he termed as 'mechanical solidarity.' There existed what Durkheim referred to as a 'conscience collective' that is a collective morality or set of values which guide and control individual behaviour. The strength of these shared beliefs is repressive to any individual action which threatens or challenges the community's traditions and existing patterns of life.
Marxist Perspective by Karl Marx
Society is divided into the workers and capatilists. The capatilists own the means of production and hence control everything ranging from employment to media. This makes people conform and not question their will. They tell the people through various channels how society should be ordered so as to suit their interests. This would repress any uprising that would take away their ownership, thus restricting social change and labelling the opposition as deviants.
Every single chapter we did, they were constantly at loggerheads. I could almost imagine Durkheim as this calm serene man who always wanted peace, delusioned to think that everyone was good. Marx was like this maniacal person who always criticized and never thought anyone could do a selfless act probably.
During my first year, I liked Marx. But when economics and Political Science seeped in me too (since i started questioning those subjects too), I came to realise that Marx is very flawed too. Now I've come to take a critique things realistically.
I wasnt prepared for my last Socio Arun's paper which was today. It was the last paper and I wasnt motivated enough. Other distractions were coming up too. So I decided to start on the morning of the exam.
I was studying both these perspectives on tourism. As i read both the perspectives, my eyes widened. This wasnt possible. Never had it happened in any of the previous chapter had they agreed. On something.
Those Socio students who still remember will probably say that the theories on Tourism were different and im wrong. Look closely guys. Ill put it down for you.
Tourism:functionalist perspective.
The process of industrialisation and urbanisation threatened mechanical solidarity, as labour was divided into more specialist types and tasks, and people relocated from rural and urban areas. The characteristics of pre industrial societies started to undergo a change. The face-to-face relationships that characterised mechanical solidarity and other forms of informal social control, including cultural customs that held society together, were replaced by more formalised ones through the state and law,which Durkheim termed 'organic solidarity'.
In this form, there is absence of clear standards, leading to disruption of an individual's orientation.
Hence, they go on a holiday..as a form of escapism...
Marx
Work is central to our lives and leads to fulfillment of one's life. He said that capatilism increased alienation not only because exploitation is at its highest, but also because the market mechanism encourages the treatment of workers as commodities of production, to be used and discarded as required. Workers in a capatilist industrialised system have less autonomy and fulfillment and are subject to market forces in terms of job secuirity. Hence, there is no fulfillment. He suggests that people travel because they no longer feel at ease where they are, neither where they work nor where they live.
Of course, it is far more complex..There are variants of these theories which were made by their followers but ....
Alleluia!!!
They both agree specialization is bad.
Of course, I have to think and figure out where i stand.
As I end SYBA and devote my entire next and last year to the study of the most objective of social sciences- Economics- I feel Ive lost something far more. I wish I could do all the three subjects in one go. But I've made my choice.
But I would like to take this opportunity to thank these professors who made learning not just literacy but education. This is a tribute to them.
Professor Agnello Menezes (Economics)
Professor Arun D'souza (Sociology)
Professor Prathiba Naithani (Political Science)
The others were pathetic.
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