TyroCity: Sociology BA LLB

Westernization

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

‘Cultural homogenization, Americanization, westernization, the global village even modernity itself are all variants of myth-a cultural narrative to use the terms of this study-whereby the West imagines its own being and becoming and that of the rest of the world.’ - BOOK Suitably Modern: Making Middle-class Culture in a New Consumer Society

By Mark Liechty

Historically Western civilization is European civilization. In the modern era, Western civilization is Euroamerican or North Atlantic civilization. Europe, America and the North Atlantic can be found on a map; the West cannot. The name “the West” has also given rise to the concept of Westernization and has promoted a misleading conflation of westernization and modernization: it is easier to conceive of Japan “Westernizing” than “Euroamericanizing”. European-American civilization is however, universally referred to as Western civilization and that term despite its serious disabilities will be used here…In the earlier phases of change, Westernization thus promotes modernization. In the later phases modernization promotes de-Westernization and the resurgence of indigenous culture…’-Samuel Phillips Huntington (BOOK: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order)

Features or characteristics of Westernization

Anglicization
- Prominence and dominance of English language
- Though the term is westernization but the linguistice dominance is that of English
- Language of study, entertainment
Rationalization
- Westernization is based on rationalization
- Modernization and westernization are both based on rationalization.
Individualism
- Individuals are given more importance than the family or group.
Weakening of religious values
- Westernization means weakening of religious values
- Dominance of scientific and rational.
Weakening of family ties
- The westernization means people have less attachment with their family
Nuclear family
Flexibility in marriage
- Seriousness of marriage will be in decline.
Relaxation in sexuality
- Sex is no longer viewed as evil, impure or dangerous.
- Sexual relationship outside marriage is seen as natural
Prominence of western education
- Westernization means use of western education in non western societies.
Dominance of western perspective of the world
- History and philosophy of the west gets prioritized
Dominance of western art and culture
Deification of the west

Westernization in Nepal

Westernization in Nepal began before 1950s but it was only after 1950 that when Nepal was finally opened to foreign tourists that westernization began in Nepal with more force.
The western tourists who came to Nepal began westernization in their own small way.
In 1970s Nepal and India’s Goa became the center outside California for Hippie youths of America who were spiritual, rebellious, anti-government, and anti-war.
- Kathmandu was popular for marijuana and hashish which was not illegal till then.
- Hippies came in large number in Kathmandu and settled in Jhose which till this date is called freak street.
- Hippie did not directly bring westernization but they showed Nepali youths that western culture was different.
- Youths were attracted to them.
The culture of sending the children of upper and middle class to westernized schools in India (Darjeeling, Kalingpong, Dehra Dun) also started after 1950s.
In 1990 Nepal overthrew autocracy and accepted the multiparty democracy.
The multi-party democratic system uplifted all the restrictions on foreign literatures, and medias.
The foreign medias and influx of large number of foreigners to Nepal started westernization in Nepal among youths.
The upper and middle class began to send their children to expensive westernized private school within Nepal.
The post 2000 Nepal saw the explosion of internet and internet related subculture (facebook, chat etc).

Detail theory of John Locke

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Wrote Two Treatises on Government.
The first treatise is concerned almost exclusively with refuting the argument of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, that political authority was derived from religious authority, also known by the description of the Divine Right of Kings.
The second treatise contains Locke’s own constructive view of the aims and justification for civil government.
Believed that people entered into society to protect their “life, liberty, and property”.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, admired Locke.
The government’s main job is to protect the citizen’s property.
If they government is not providing you with protection for your property you have the right to revolt.
Justified the American Revolution

Modernization

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

‘…modernization involves change in the basic values of society. In particular it means the gradual acceptance by groups within the society of universalistic and achievement-based norms, the emergence of loyalties and identifications of individuals and groups with the nation-state, and the spread of the assumption that citizens have equal rights against the state and equal obligations to the state.’

-Samuel P. Huntington

Features of modernization

Dominance of Rational culture
Use of science and reasoning in lifestyle work and education
From traditional to democratic nation state
Highest loyalty to the nation state than to religion, tribe, ethnic group or political organization.
Goal achievement based culture
State laws are more powerful and dominant than religious and tribal laws.
Use of meritocracy in recruitment (education or employment).
From family based management of organization to professional based management.
Use of science and technology in economic, political and cultural sectors of society:

Economic sector: Use of technology in agriculture.
Politics: Use of electronic voting system during elections or use of mass media for election campaign
Cultural sector: The use of internet to study Vedas, Quran or Torah or Bible etc.

Dominance of this life and this world attitude.

Modernization in Nepal

Modernization of the state
- From absolute monarchy to military dictatorship
- Military dictatorship to Panchayat dictatorship
- Panchayat dictatorship to democratic state
Modernization of education
- Religious and tribal education to formal education
- From propaganda based state led Panchyat education to facts based education
- From facts based to more reasoning and critical thinking based education.
Modernization of culture
- From belief in caste system to the belief in the equality of everyone
- From belief in male superiority to the belief that men and women are equal.
- Mono-cultural tendency to multicultural
Modernization of economy
- From agricultural to trade, service and industry based economy
- From use of traditional equipment to the use of modern technologies.
Modernization of infrastructure
- Traditional roads to roads that are planned by engineers and sociologists.
- Traditional transportation system (horse, elephants) to modern motors, planes etc.
- Traditional source of light to electricity and solar based electricity.
Modernization of Law
- Law based on religion to law based on human rights and democratic principals.
Modernization of health
- From use of shamans to the use of doctors
- Hospital services in village level

John Ssebunya

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

It is said that John Ssebunya, also known as ‘The Ugandan Monkey Boy,’ ran away from home when he was three years old after witnessing his father murder his mother. He fled to the Ugandan jungles where he was said to be taken care of by green African monkeys. In 1991 he was found hiding in a tree by a woman named Millie who was a local tribeswoman. After spotting him she went back to her village to alert the men who then went into the jungle to capture John. While they were eventually successful, John and the monkeys, which had become his protectors, fought back, throwing sticks to defend him. In the end he was captured and taken back the village.

Once back in the village he was cleaned up but his entire body was covered in hair called hypertrichosis, a condition that brings about excessive amounts of hair in places that there usually isn’t hair. Also since he was living in the wild he had contracted a case of intestinal worms that were said to be over half a meter long once they exited his body. He was full of injuries- mainly his knees from imitating how a monkey walks. He was then given to Paul and Molly Wasswa who ran an orphanage, and the two taught him how to speak, though many believe he knew how to talk before running away. Today he sings with the Pearl of Africa children’s choir and exhibits little to no animalistic behavior.

Dina Sanichar

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Dina Sanichar, named ‘the Indian Wolf Boy,’ is one of the oldest known cases of a feral child. He was believed to be about 6 years old when he was found by hunters in 1867. The hunters saw a pack of wolves enter a cave followed by a human who was running on four legs. The men smoked the wolves out of the cave. The men then went into the cave and found Dina. He was rescued from the jungles of Bulandshahr and put through treatment, though not much existed during his time.

People worked with him to rid him of his animalistic behaviors, which included eating raw meat, ripping off clothing, and eating food that was on the ground. After time he was able to be fed cooked meat, but he never did learn to talk.

Ralph Dahrendorf & Karl Marx: conflict theory

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

What is Conflict Theory?

Conflict theory generally surrounds the idea that most struggles in society happen because of conflicts between different social classes or groups
Each group struggles to attain more resources and because resources are scarce, they must struggle with other groups
Groups try to protect their own interests, therefore blocking the progress of other groups
From conflict comes social change

Ralf Dahrendorf’s (1929-present) Conflict Theory

Society is always in tension between :

consensus and coercion
function and conflict

The central questioned of all social thought

How do societies stay togather? Two well established positions:

The Utopians (Functional Theory)
- Represented by the Functional Theory
The Rationalists (Conflict Theory)
- Represented by Conflict Theory

Conflict between the two positions is old.

Hobbes vs. Rousseau
Kant vs. Hegel

Utopians are represented by the Functional theory of society
Rationalists are represented by the Conflict theory of society
The two positions are mutually exclusive in most fields and people, but not is sociology.
Good Sociology uses one in A, another in B and both in C. but does not exclude any.
Every Society is at every point subject to the processes of change. Change is everywhere.
Conflict is everywhere
Every Element in a society contributes to its disintegration and change
Every Society is based on coercion of some members by others.
In society there is division of labor but in a division of labor, not every occupation based status is equal.

Dahrendorf’s key concepts : the authority conflict

Different people have different occupation
The different occupation have different status
People’s status increases or decreases according to the link it has with authority.
In society there are many organizations.
Each organization contains two groups
- super-ordinates (order-givers) with authority
- sub-ordinates (order-takers) without authority
In authority relations there is a fundamental conflict between:
- those who have power
- and those who do not have power

Dahrendorf’s key concepts Conflict of interest

The conflict is fundamentally based on two type of interest
- Those With Authority: Their INTEREST is to maintain status quo
- Those Without Authority: Their INTEREST is to change status quo

Dahrendorf’s key concepts : difference between power and authority

Power is essentially tied to the personality of individuals
Authority is always associated with social positions or roles
Dahrendorf was most interested in studying authority
When someone has authority in one setting, that authority does not extend to other social arenas: a boss holds legitimate authority at work but outside of the work setting they cannot legitimately tell people what to do.
Dahrendorf is only concerned in his presentation with authority

Dahrendorf’s key concepts: The Three Types groups

Quasi groups
Groups that are not well organized because they have latent or natural interest but are well conscious of their group interest.

Interest groups
When the latent interest becomes manifest interest then the group becomes conscious about their group interest. Due to this they are organized and can put pressure on the rival groups.

Conflict group
When interest group evolved into an organized group to overthrow the rival group then it is a conflict group.

Dahrendorf’s key argument

Higher the group interest consciousness among quasi groups the more possibility of intergroup conflict between super ordinate and subordinate groups.
More there is a link between organizational authority and the distribution of rewards the more possibility for conflict.
If the movement of subordinate group to higher position is made more difficult the more there is conflict.
If the economic, political or social goals of the organizations are less met then more there is conflict.
More intense the conflict the more possibility of change.

Karl Marx
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a socialist theoretician and activist, a major figure in the history of economic , sociological and philosophical thought, and a great social prophet.

“There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases in wealth without diminishing its misery, and increases in crime even more than its numbers.” -Marx, K. (1859). Population, crime and pauperism.Collected Works, (16).

The main argument of Karl Marx can be summarized as follows:

The purpose of philosophy is to reconstruct the world and not to explain the origin of the universe.
That the force which shapes the course of history are primarily economic.
That society is divided into two classes: owners and workers.
That there is always a class conflict going on between the two classes.
That the workers are exploited by the owners who misappropriate the surplus value, which is the result of the workers’ labour.
That this exploitation can be put an end to by nationalisation of the instruments of production i.e. abolition of private property.
That this exploitation is leading to greater and greater impoverishment of the workers.
That this growing impoverishment of the workers is resulting in a revolutionary spirit among the workers and the conversion of the class conflict into a class struggle.
That as the workers outnumber the owners, the workers are bound to capture the State and establish their rule, which he called the dictatorship of the proletariat.
These factors are irresistible and therefore socialism is inevitable.

Detailed Study of Karl Marx

Fundamental Concepts (derived from Marx):

1. The “Mode of Production”: Basic system of production ? Impacts all other social relations

“Mode of production” describes the economic base of politics.
Societies are assumed to have developed through a series of “modes” of production.
Marx was particularly interested in explaining the transition from the feudal mode of production to Capitalism and, eventually to Socialism.

2. The “Relations of Production”:

On top of the economic base of society, or mode of production, Marxists assume that there is a political and social superstructure, or “relations of production” which is deeply influenced by the mode of production.
The “social superstructure” is society’s laws, politics, culture and ideology
Determined by mode of production (?) Contentious issue:
Relations of production were actually determined by political struggle between different groups in society over the control of the mode of production.
- E.g. For example, despite the fact that feudalism was based on aristocratic control over land and agricultural labour, this did not simply determine that there would always be a feudal set of relations of production. Rather, capitalists, emerging industrial entrepreneurs, were able, through political struggle to alter the relations of production in way that eventually led to the emergence of a dominant capitalist mode of production.
- Best way to say it . . . : Marx and history – the dominant group in the dominant mode of production . . . But people make their own history, just . . . .
Marx also argued that societies could simultaneously have multiple modes of production and in particular that during times of transition, such as from feudalism to capitalism, that competing modes of production could coexist for quite some time; thus, Marxists argue for the importance of examining the Social Formation.

3. The importance of history: Specific historical & geographical settings have different modes/relations of production

Each society may have a different balance, or mix, of modes of production and thus the actual social formation of the society must be closely examined before we make assumptions about the relations of production in that society.
The reason studying the historical social formation of a society is so important to Marxists is that underling all modes and relations of production is a basic set of social classes.
- Class, and class analysis is the single most important concept in socialist analysis.
- Where liberalism focuses on individuals as the basic unit of analysis, socialist political economy lumps individuals into broad social groupings and attempts to understand those groups, or classes, as the basic unit of analysis.

4. Class:

Each mode of production organizes individuals into classes:
- Those who own and control the means of production; and
- Those who sell their labour

Key points:
Classes are social collections of individuals that have shared interests in the distribution of benefits emerging from the mode of production.

5. They often share a similar ideology and values

E.g. in the capitalist mode of production: Capitalists (the bourgeoisie – in traditional Marxist terminology) have a shared set of interests in promoting liberal political economy, a liberal ideology that supports their ability to generate profits and a legal system that ensures their continued private ownership of the means of production. Workers (the proletariat) have an interest in collectively advancing their own claims to a greater share of the profits emerging from production – whether that be through the collective seizure of capitalist private property, progressive/redistributive tax laws or through unionization and collective bargaining to increase wages.
These opposed interests are the basis of the “class struggle”

Class Struggle

While Marx argued that modes of production play a role in determining the superstructure of politics (what laws there will be, or, what the state will do), ultimately all Marxists agree that the real driving force in this process, is class struggle and indeed Marxists see “politics” as a struggle between productive classes for the control of production.
- This “Drives” history
Since several modes of production may exist simultaneously, often political struggles in each society are very complex. Different factions struggle for political dominance; however, the basic divergence in interests produced by the process of production creates a tension which plays a determining role in political struggles.

Marxist Economics:

The starting point for all Socialist analyses is Karl Marx’s Capital which offers an alternative “Marxist economics” of capitalism to that provided by liberal economics. Marx developed a number of important points in his analyses of capitalism. Firstly, much like the classical political economists, (Smith and Ricardo) . . . .

1. Labor the basis of all value

Total direct & indirect labor in production determines “true price” of product. Marx argued that the value or “true price” of any good, over the long run was determined by how much labour went into producing that good.

[What is indirect and direct labour?] The total direct and indirect labour used to produce a good determines the value of a good.

Secondly, much like the classical political economists, Marx argued that profits were the engine of growth in capitalist economies, but he argued that profits were based on surplus value.

2. Profits based on “surplus value” Occurred when capitalists kept the difference between how much the labor cost them in producing a good, and how much they could sell that good for

Even though capitalists and workers need each other in the process of production, Marx argued that because workers had no choice but to sell their labour (or otherwise starve) while capitalists could choose not to invest their savings (without facing the prospect of immediate starvation) that capitalists had a kind of advantage over workers to artificially reduce their wages.

= This artificial reduction of wages created surplus value.

Furthermore since the extraction of this surplus value is the basis of profit, and since profit is the engine of growth in capitalism,
- Capitalism always exploitative Workers had to be exploited or the system would not work.

3. Increases in profit only achieved by increasing extraction of surplus value Marx argued that the employment of capital (or investment) itself produced no surplus value. Over the long term, the only way that investors could make profits was by employing people. The only way profit levels could be increased was by increasing the extraction of surplus value from workers. This could be done either by increasing:

Relative surplus value (which would mean increasing the productivity of workers by forcing workers to work harder or more efficiently), Or by increasing the:
Absolute surplus value (by forcing workers to work longer hours for less money).

Marx argued that once created,

4. Capitalism was dynamic – would spread. Efficiency in organizing production and extracting surplus value made it superior

It is important to understand this – Marx and those influenced by Marx assumed that capitalism was extremely efficient – it was much better than any mode of production that had come before; however, unlike liberals, they were deeply concerned about the levels of inequality that capitalism produced. Capitalism based on fundamental “tensions”:

Once Marx developed this understanding of how Capitalism “worked” he went on to argue that the inherent logic of Capitalism created basic tensions that would lead to crises and even, eventually a complete collapse of the system. Marx argued that the economic competition between capitalists, at the core of the system, created three main problems:

1. Economic concentration: Competitive markets produced “concentration”

E.g. monopolies Eroded market efficiency assumed by neoclassical liberal economics

2. “Falling rate of profit” Competition forced firms to continually expand their investments in new technology and machinery to remain competitive. Because profits came only from exploiting workers, these investments on their own did not create higher rates of profit.

As the ratio of indirect labour (machinery) grew in relation to direct labour, there would be a steady decline in the rate of profit. The only way to reverse this trend was by increasing the exploitation of workers – making them work longer or harder, or for less money.

3. Growing exploitation of workers: Falling rate of profit required greater exploitation of workers Gradually, workers would earn less money with which they could buy goods. Falling rate of profit led to greater exploitation

Produced “crisis of under-consumption” = Recessions and unemployment

Marx thought that this trend towards under-consumption would ultimately undermine Capitalism – that capitalism would have to be replaced by some sort of socialism in which consumption was ensured, possibly by abandoning Capitalism’s competitive markets for direct state ownership of the means of production.

Bottom Line: Capitalism prone towards crises and collapse

Capitalism, although volatile, has proven to be extremely flexible and dynamic, and has somehow avoided the complete crises predicted by Marx.

Effects of the social contract

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Hobbes: People will live in peace but without rights except for the right to self-defense
Locke: The three natural rights which exist in the State of Nature will be easier to enforce by the government. Those who have given express consent will be bound by the contract; those who have given tacit consent can opt out and leave.
Rousseau: Life will be fair for all if we employ the general will and set aside our personal interests.
Kant: The people will be fairly represented by the Sovereign without actually having to participate.
Rawls: We will have decided on a system that is fair for everyone, using the “Veil of Ignorance.”

Caste inequality

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Class based inequality

‘India lives in her villages, we’re told, in every other sanctimonious public speech. That’s bullshit, just a figleaf. India dies in her villages.’
– Arundhati Roy

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: ie, the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”
– Karl Marx

‘[Classes are] large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it.’- Vladimir Lenin, A Great Beginning – June, 1919

Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries A-F:

‘The main body of class analysis is based on Marxist and Weberian approaches. The Marxist conception of class defines it as a group of people with a common relationship to the structure of political and economic power within a particular society. The Weberian perspective views class as a group of individuals who are categorized according to common socioeconomic indicators that are termed ‘life chances’. While the Marxist and Weberian approaches differ in many respects they share three important characteristics. First both approaches hold the control of economic resources as central to class analysis. Second the approaches define a particular class location in relation to its links with other class location in relation to its links with other class locations. Third they both view class as an explanatory factor in determining the means and limitations of an individual’s pursuit of material resources such as income’.

‘We can define class as a large scale grouping of people who share common economic resources, which strongly influence the type of lifestyle they are able to lead. Ownership of wealth together with occupation are the chief bases of class differences’- Anthony Giddens.

Erik Olin Wright:

Three types of classes:

Control over investment or money capital
Control over factory and offices
Control over labour power.

Above 85 percent people of the world belong to third category.

Class according to Max Weber

Max Weber argued that class can be understood by understanding people’s access to economic wealth, social prestige and political power( three-component theory of stratification).

Economic wealth: There are people who own property and there are those don’t. And there are those who own very less.

Social Prestige/status: There are people who are highly respected in society because of their status. For example people who occupy certain position are more respected than people who do not occupy that position. For example a professor who owns no car (economic wealth) is more respected in society than a thief who owns three such cars. This is social prestige.

Political power: Sometimes people with no economic wealth and no social status have more power to influence their will in society than those who have (wealth and status). For example a woman without wealth or status can impose her will as against the will of rich or prestigious male in society because such woman may have support from organized sources such as women’s workers’ union. These organized sources may be religious, ethnic, racial, ideological but it is powerful because it can force society to accept their will. Weber sees class divided into class (economic wealth), status (social prestige) and party (political power).

Karl Marx and the theory of class

For Karl Marx there is only two types of classes. One is called the dominant class and another is the dominated class. The main difference between these two is that the dominant class owns the means of production (factory for example) and the dominated class workers on the means of production to produce (work as a factory worker). For Karl Marx the class that owns the means of production (ie wealth) automatically controls political power and social status.

Marx saw different dominant class in different economic society with different means of production. Here are some examples:

Primitive Communism Society

There are no classes in this society

Slave Master Society

Exploited slave class and the slave owning class called the masters class.

Feudalism

Feudal lords (exploiters – ruling class) who owns the agricultural land and serfs (exploited class) who work in these lands. Bourgeois or traders class destroy feudalism. They free serfs from dependence on lords and thus prepare the ground for capitalistic society.

Capitalistic society

Exploitation of workers (proletariat) by capitalists (bourgeoisie).

Socialistic society

Working class who wants socialism and controls the state and former capitalists who want to go back to capitalistic society.

Communistic society

No class

Class system is different from caste, ethnicity and gender:

Class system are not based on religious and legal provisions. For example the people of two different classes can marry.
Individual’s class is achieved and not ascribed.
Class is fluid that means there can be social mobility upwards or downwards.
Class differences are based on economic differences between groups or individuals.

Class structure in Nepal

Ownership of housing units: Altogether, 85.26 percent of the households reside in their own house whereas 12.81 percent in rented, 0.63 percent in institutional and 1.30 percent in other arrangements. In urban areas, 40.22 percent live in rented house. Kathmandu district has the highest percentage (58.65) of households living in rented house.
Type of foundation of house: Nearly ten percent (9.94 %) of total households live in houses with the foundation having RCC pillar, 17.57 percent households in house with foundation made up of cement-bonded bricks, 24.9 percent in wooden pillar, 44.21 percent in mud-bonded bricks and 2.33 in other type of foundations. In urban areas, 28.42 percent of the households live in houses with the foundation having RCC pillars ( reinforced concrete column )

Usual fuel for cooking: About two-third of the total households (about 64 percent) use Firewood as the usual source of fuel for cooking followed by LPG (21.03 percent), cow

dung (10.38 percent). Bio-gas and Kerosene is used for cooking by 2.43 and 1.03 percent

of the total households respectively. Very few households (0.08 percent) use Electricity as usual fuel for cooking. In urban areas, more than two third (67.68 percent) of the total households use LPG as their usual fuel for cooking.

Toilet in the house: More than one third (38.17 percent) of the total households do not have a toilet in their houses. Almost all the households without toilet (95.4%) are in rural areas. More than 75 percent of households in Saptari, Siraha, Rolpa and Rautahat districts do not have a toilet in their houses.

Household facility	Nepal	Urban	Rural
Radio	50.82	53.56	50.17
TV	36.45	60.67	30.66
Cable TV	19.33	53.80	11.10
Internet	3.33	12.11	1.24
Telephone	7.37	22.66	3.72
Mobile phone	64.63	84.07	59.98
Motor	1.57	4.03	0.98
Motorcycle	9.58	23.62	6.23
Cycle	32.38	29.95	32.96
Refrigerator	7.16	23.21	3.33

Absent member in households: One in every four households (25.42%; 1.38 million households) reported that at least one member of their household is absent or is living out of country. Total number of absent population is found to be 1,921,494 against 0 .76million in 2001. The highest proportion (44.81 percent) of absent population is from the age group 15 to 24 years. Gulmi, Arghakhanchi and Pyuthan districts reported the highest proportion of their population being absent (staying abroad).

Percent of households receiving remittance has increased from 23 percent in 1995/96 to about 56 percent in 2010/11

Food: In NLSS-III, around 8 percent of households reported that they could not afford to eat what they normally eat at one or more times during the past 30 days from the day of enumeration. Most of the households that experienced food shortages tried to overcome the situation by resorting to “borrowing the food or money to buy food”.

Nutrition Status of Children

The proportions of children (less than 5 years of age) who are underweight, stunted and wasted are 31, 42 and 14 percent respectively. The corresponding proportions for severe underweight, stunting and wasting among children are 8, 15 and 3 percent respectively.

Land tenure

About 95 percent of the agricultural households own land and 10 percent rent out some or all of their land to others. On the other hand, 32 percent of households operate at least some land rented-in from others. At the other extreme, 5 percent households do not own any land but operate land owned by others on contractual basis.

*Agriculture Equipment *

A large majority of farmers still use locally made agricultural tools. Mechanization of agriculture is at a very low stage. About 52 percent of farmers own the most basic equipment – a plough or improved type of plough (bikase halo). About 33 percent of farmers use bins and containers for grain storage. Only one percent of farmers own tractor or power tiller.

Food

Overall, 16 percent of the respondents think that food consumption in their households is “less than adequate” (or inadequate), while 82 percent say it is “just adequate” and the remaining 2 percent answer “more than adequate”. The percentage of households reporting “inadequacy” of food consumption is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The proportion of respondents reporting “inadequacy” is the highest in the far-western region (25 percent) and the lowest in the central region. Among analytic domains, this proportion is the highest in the mountains and the lowest in the Kathmandu valley urban areas,

Clothing

At the national level, 17 percent of households report to have “inadequate” clothing for their family members while 82 percent report it as “just adequate”. About a third and a fourth of the households in the mid west and the far west development regions respectively report to have less than adequate clothing for their family.

Among the domains, the highest incidence of reported clothing inadequacy is in the mountains (33 percent) followed by the rural mid and far western hills (31 percent) while the lowest incidence is in the Kathmandu valley urban areas (6 percent) followed by the urban Tarai (9 percent). The poorest quintile has the highest proportion of households reporting clothing inadequacy (35 percent) while the top quintile has only 4 percent of households reporting this “inadequacy”.

Health Care

Overall, 18 percent of households perceive their health care to be “less than adequate”. The percentage of households reporting health care as “just adequate” is 79 percent.

Schooling

In Nepal, 16 percent of households in the country think that schooling for their children is less than adequate, 70 percent think to be just adequate, and for 13 percent it is “not applicable” (i.e., they don’t have school-age children). The proportion of households reporting less than adequate schooling is roughly one fourth in each of the following regions: the mountains zone, mid and far west development regions, the rural mid and far west hills, and the rural mid and far west Tarai. A similar proportion of households in the poorest household consumption quintile think that schooling for their children is inadequate .

Income

About 49 percent of the households in the country perceive their total income as less than adequate and 50 percent think it to be just adequate. The percentage of households reporting their income as “more than adequate” is around one percent only

Food Security

In NLSS III, households are asked whether they had experienced any food shortages or shortage of money to buy adequate food for the family in the last 30 days preceding the day of enumeration. They are also asked what coping strategy they had to resort to in case of such shortages. Overall, about 8 percent households in the country report shortage of foods or money to buy foods in the last 30 days; this proportion is double for rural areas than for urban areas. Among the households who experience food shortage, the highest proportion (about 43 percent) faces the shortage for 3 to 5 days and about one-fourth of them face 1 to 2 days of such scarcity. There seems no significant difference between urban and rural areas regarding the proportion of households reporting food shortages for 5 days or less

Stunting Among Children

This is the proportion of children under five that fall below minus two and below minus three standard deviations from median height-for-age of WHO reference population.

Forty-two percent of children under five are stunted and 15 percent are severely stunted. Stunting is slightly higher among females than among males.

Underweight Children

This is the proportion of children under five that fall below minus two and below minus three standard deviations from median weight-for-age of WHO reference population25.

Thirty-one percent of children (less than five years of age) are underweight and 8 percent are severely underweight. Both the rates for females are higher than those for males.

Wasted

Fourteen percent of children are wasted and 3 percent are severely wasted. The wasting rates for females are slightly bigger than those for males.

Sanskritization

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

‘Sanskritization is actually a sociological phenomenon whereby in brief the lower castes take over the practices of Brahmins such as vegetarianism and perform the rituals for the major Hindu divinities’-Krishna B Bhattachan

Sanskritization, Hinduization, and Nepalization took place in Nepal were interconnected and help the development of each other.

The concept ‘Sanskritization’ has been used by various sociologists and anthropologists to study the social change in caste societies in India and later in Nepal. In Nepal scholars like Prayag Raj Sharma and Collin Rosser have used the concept to study the process in which a low caste attempts to rise to a higher caste by adopting the life of the higher caste. The term, for the first time, is defined by M.N Srinivas in his book “Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India” as follows:

“The caste system is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time. Movement has always been possible, and especially so in the middle regions of the hierarchy. A low caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, and by Sanskritizing its rituals and pantheon. In short, it took over, as far as possible, the customs, rites, and beliefs of the Brahmins, and the adoption of the Brahminic way of life by a low caste seems to have been frequent, though theoretically forbidden. This process has been called “Sanskritization” in this book, in preference to “Brahminization”, as certain Vedic rites are confined to the Brahmins and the two other “twice-born” castes ”.

According Srinivas he found in most Hindu societies the tribal and low caste people trying to imitate Brahmin life style. He called it Brahminization. He later concluded that low caste and tribal people were trying to imitate Brahmin, Kestriya and Vaishya (high castes) life style. He changed the from Brahminization to Sanskritization as the imitation was not limited to Brahmin but high caste Hindu life style itself.

Srinivas has pointed three essential characteristics of Sanskritization:

It is a group process which does not apply to an individual
Few generations are need to successfully complete the Sanskritization
Sanskritization is a process that has never worked for the untouchables because other Hindus cannot accept them as pure no matter how much they sanskritize.

Why Sanskritization is adopted by tribal and low castes:

Economic betterment
The acquisition of political power
Education
Leadership,
A desire to move up in the hierarchy

Sanskritization in the context of Nepal apply to Janajati and Dalits but mostly janajatis:

	From	To
Birth	Tribal, Janajati or Dalit birth rituals	Hindu birth rituals.
Infant	Animist, Buddhist or tribal socialization process of infant socialization	Hindu scripture focused socialization. Pasne is an example of this.
Name	Traditional name	Hindu name
Adolescent	Tribal ritual to	Hindu rituals like Bartamana and Gufa
Marriage	Traditional form of marriage	Hindu rituals in marriage
Death	Traditional cremation of dead	Hindu death ritual
Family	Tribal family Matriarchal	Joint Patriarchal
Language	Mother tongue	Nepali and Hindi
Cloths	Tribal, Janajati and Dalit dress	Hindu dress
Lifestyle		Imitation of Hindu life style
Food	Traditional food such as pork, beef, deer, chicken	No beef, non pork, Hindu foods
Occupation	Traditional occupation that contradicted with Hindu values	Leaving occupations that are considered by Hindus to be inauspicious and impure
Politics	Traditional village head	Village headed by Brahmin or Chetris
Religion	Traditional religions: Buddhism, Animism,	Hinduism Celebration of Hindu festivals.

History of Sanskritization in Nepal

1200-1769 Newar Malla kingdoms flourished in Kathmandu valley.

1743 Prithivi Narayan Shah is officially crowned as the king of Gorkha

1769 King Prithivi Naraya Shah of Gorkha subdues the last Newar Malla kingdom of the Kathmandu valley: origins of modern Nepal

Nathu and Pralad Gurung the two military officers in the Gorkha army had played a key role in the conquest of Kumaon and Garhwal region for the Gorkha Empire.

One the very first thing that Prithivi Narayan Shah’s Gorkha empire did was to ban cow slaughter in Gorkha kingdom which was a beginning of Hindu kingdom.
Each Gorkha army regiment had a Bahun pujari or priest who worshiped for the regiment thus Hinduizing the Janajatis .
In 1761 Prithivi Narayan Shah banned Jaisi Bahun from performing Vedic rituals.
The elite within Adivasi Janajati community were inclined to identify themselves as Hindus because they wanted to be closer to the Hindu ideology dominated Gorkha empire during Shah period, Rana period and Panchyat period.
This shift to Hinduism or what sociologists would call SANSKRITIZATION made Janajatis SPLIT into Hindu and non Hindu communities.
To identify themselves as Hindus the Janajati accepted Kashi Gotra or Aryan ancestry.
Janajati who accepted Kashi Gotra or Aryan ancestry were called as follows:
- Athar Jat among Tamang
- Bara Thar among Sunuwar
- Char Jat among Gurung
- Kutang among Bhotia
- Pradhan among Tharus
- Pukanthali among Chepangs
Janajati who rejected Kashi Gotra or Aryan ancestry and followed Lasha Gotra or Bodic ancestry system were called as follows:
- Bara Jat among Tamang
- Das Thar among Sunuwar
- Sorah Jat among Gurung
- Nighin among Bhotia
- Apradhan among Tharus
- Kachare among Chepangs

1806: Assassination of Rana Bahadhur Shah and rise of Bhimsen Thapa-Prime Minister

Bhimsen Thapa introduced modernization in Nepali army.

1814-1816 Anglo-Nepal war East India Company restricted the alarming growth of the Gorkha empire.

Nepal lost Kumaon, Garhwal and Tarai entire

1837 Bhimsen Thapa was overthrown.

1846 Jang Bahadur Kunwar stages a coup and installs hereditary line of prime ministers: beginning of Rana period

1850-51 Jang Bahadur visits England and France

1854 Promulgation of Muluki Ain, Nepal’s first legal code.

Muluki ain helped sanskritization and hinduization even further

Scopes of Sociology

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Every science has its own areas of study of fields of inquiry. It becomes difficult for any one to study a science systematically unless its boundaries are demarcated and scope determined precisely. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the part of sociologists with regard to scope of sociology. V.F. Calberton writes, ‘since sociology is so elastic a science, it is difficult to determine just where its boundaries begins and ends, where sociology becomes social psychology and where social psychology becomes, sociology, or where economic theory becomes sociological doctrine or biological theory becomes sociological theory something, which is impossible to decide”. It is maintained by some that Sociology studies everything and anything under the sun. This is rather too vague a view about the scope of Sociology.

The scope of sociology is very wide. It is a general science but it is also a special science. As a matter of fact, the subject matter of all social sciences is society. What distinguishes them from one another is their viewpoint. Thus economics studies society from an economic view point; political science studies it from political viewpoint while history is a study of society from a historical point of view. Sociology alone studies social relationships and society itself. MacIver correctly remarks; ‘what distinguishes each from each is the selective interest’. Green also remarks, ‘ the focus of attention upon relationships makes sociology a distinctive field, however closely allied to certain others it may be.

The scope of sociology is, indeed, very vast. It studies all the social aspects of society such as social processes, social control, social change, stratification, social system, social groups, social pathology etc. Actually, it is neither possible nor essential to delimit the scope of sociology, because, it would be, as Sprott puts it, : “A brave attempt to confine an enormous mass of slippery material into a relatively simple system of pigeonholes”. It is actually neither possible nor essential to delimit the scope of sociology.

However, there are two main schools of thought regarding the scope of sociology:

The specialistic / formalistic school and
The synthetic school

The specialistic School

The school of thought is led by the German sociologist George Simmel. The other main advocates of this school are Vierkandt, Max Weber, Small, Von Weise and Tonnies.

Simmel and other are of the opinion that sociology is a pure and an independent science. As a pure science it has a limited scope. Sociology should confine itself to the study of certain aspects of human relationship only. Further, it should study only the ‘forms’ of social relationship but not their contents. Social relationship such as competition, sub-ordination, division of labour etc., are expressed in different fields of social life such as economic, political, religious, moral, artistic etc. Sociology should disentangle the forms of social relationships and study them in abstraction. Sociology as a specific social science describes, classifies and analyses the forms of social relationships.

Vierkandt says that sociology concern itself with the ultimate form of mental or psychic relationship which line one man with other men. According to him, the actual historical societiees, for example, the French society of the eighteenth century, or the Chinese family are of interest to sociologists only as a illustration of particular types of relationships. He further maintains that similarly in dealing with culture, sociology should not concern itself with the actual contents of cultural evolution but is should confine itself to only the discovery of the fundamental forces of change and persistence. It should abstain from a historical study of concrete societies.

Max Weber opines that the aim of sociology is to interpret or understand social behaviour. But social behaviour does not cover the whole field of human relations. He further says that sociology should make an analysis and classification of types of social relationships. Indeed not all human inter-actions are social. For instance, a collision between two cyclists is in itself merely a natural phenomenon, but their efforts to avoid each other or the language they use after the event constitute true social behaviour. Sociology is thus, according to him, concerned with the analysis and classification of types of social relationships.

Von Weise says that the scope of sociology is the study of forms of social relationships. He has divided these social relationships into many kinds.

Tonnie also supported the view of formalistic school. He has differentiated between society and community on the basis of forms of relationships. He interpreted social processes quantitatively and gave a mathematical formula. He says:

P = A x S
Where, P = Social processes, A = Attitude, S = Situation and attitude is made up of;

A = NxE (N = Basic social nature & E = Previous experiences)

S = BxA (B=Geographical conditions & A = Attitude of the participants)

Thus, according to the formalistic school, sociology studies one specific aspect of social relationships, i.e. their forms in their abstract nature, and not in any concrete situation. A comparison is drawn between the forms of social relationships and a bottle. A bottle may be either of plastic or any other material. It may contain milk, water etc. But the contents of the bottle do not change the form of bottle. Similarly, the forms of social relationships do not change with the change in the content of social relationships. For example, the study of competition – a form of social relationship will not make any difference whether we study it in the political field or economic field. Sociology has been compared with Geometry. Just as Geometry studies about the forms of physical things triangular, rectangular, square or circular etc., similarly sociology studies about the forms of social relationships. The relation of sociology to other social sciences is similar to the relation of Geometry with other natural sciences. The formalistic school has limited the scope of sociology to the abstract study of the forms of social relationship.

Criticism of formalistic school

The views of the formalistic school are widely criticized. Some critics remarks may be cited here;

The formalistic school has unreasonably narrowed the field of sociology. Sociology should not only study the general forms of social relationships but also their concrete contents.

Secondly, the distinction between forms of social relationship and their contents is not workable. Social forms can not be abstracted from the content at all, since social forms keep on changing when the contents change. Sorokin writes, ‘We may fill a glass with wine, water or sugar without changing its form, but I cannot conceive of a social institution whose form would not change when its members change’.

Thirdly, sociology is not the only science that studies the forms of social relationships. Other social sciences also do that. The study of international law, for example, includes social relations like conflict, war, opposition, agreement, contract etc. Political science, Economics also study social relationships.

Finally, the establishment of pure sociology is impractical. No sociology has been able to develop a pure sociology so far. No science can be studied in complete isolation from the other sciences. In fact, today more emphasis is laid on inter-disciplinary approach.

The synthetic School

The synthetic school of thought conceives of sociology as a synthesis of the social sciences. It wants to make sociology as general social science and not a pure or special social science. In fact, this school has made sociology synoptic or encyclopedic in character. Durkheim, Hob House, Ginsberg and Sorokin have been the chief exponents of this school.

The main argument of this school is that all parts of social life are intimately inter-related. Hence the study of one aspect is not sufficient to understand the entire phenomenon. Hence sociology should study social life as a whole. This opinion has contributed to the creation of a general and systematic sociology.

The views of Emile Durkheim:

He is one of chief proponent of this school of thought. He says that sociology has three main divisions or fields of inquiry. They are as follows: Social Morphology, Social Physiology and General Sociology.

1. Social Morphology: Social morphology studies the territorial basis of the life of people and also the problem of population such as volume and density, local distribution etc.

2. Social Physiology: Social physiology has different branches such a sociology of religion, or morals, of law, of economic life and of language etc.

3. General Sociology: General sociology can be regarded as the philosophical part of sociology. It deals with the general character of the social facts. Its function is the formulation of general social laws.

The views of Morris Ginsberg:

He says the main task of sociology can be categorized into four branches: social morphology, social control, social processes and social pathology.

1. Social Morphology: ‘Social Morphology’ deals with the quantity and quality of population. It studies the social structure, social groups, and institutions.

2. Social control: ‘social control’ studies formal as well as informal – means of social control such as custom, tradition, morals, religion, convention, and also law, court, legislation etc. It deals with the regulating agencies of society.

3. Social processes: ‘Social process’ tries to make a study of different modes of interaction such as cooperation, competition, conflict, accommodation, assimilation, isolation, integration, differentiation, development, arrest and decay.

4. Social Pathology: ‘Social pathology’ studies social mal-adjustment and disturbances. It also include studies on various social problems like poverty, beggary, unemployment, over-population, prostitution, crime etc.

Sorokin’s View: He says that the subject matter of sociology includes:

The study of relationship between the different aspects of social phenomena;
The study of relationship between the social and non-social.
The study of general features of social phenomena

Karl Mahhheim’s view: He divides sociology into two main sections:

1. Systematic and general sociology: It describes one by one the main factors of living together as far as they may be found in every kind of society.

2. Historical sociology: It deals with the historical variety and actuality of the general forms of society. They are categorized into two sections: firstly comparative sociology and secondly social dynamics. Comparative sociology deals mainly with the historical variations of the same phenomenon and tries to find by comparison general features as separated from industrial features. Social dynamics deals with the interrelations between various social factors and institutions in a certain given society, or instance, in a primitive society.

Ginsberg has also summed up the chief functions of sociology as follows:

Sociology seeks to provide a classification of types and forms of social relationship.
It tries to determine the relation between different factors of social life. For example, the economic and political, the moral and the religious, the moral and legal, the intellectual and the social elements.
It tries to disentangle the fundamental conditions of social change and persistence and to discover sociological principal governing social life.

Recently, a Sociological Seminar was held in America which gave a general outline of scope of the sociology. Alex Inkeles has put it as follows: Social analysis, primary concepts of social life, basic social institutions, and processes.

J.B. McKee holds that social action, social structure, social processes and social institutions are included in the scope of sociology.

Human & Animal Societies

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Need of society for animals and humans

Evolution
Humans and animals both live in society not as their choice between isolation and society but because they are genetically programmed to be living in society. There are of couse exceptional cases in which humans or animals live away from society but in majority of the cases the evolution have made it this way.

Survival
Chances of survival in society is much more present than in isolation. This is true for humans and animals.

Reproduction
After survival the second greatest human instinct is for reproduction. It is easier to find reproduction partners in society than in isolation.

Intelligence

It has been proven through scientific research than human beings and animals learn from experiences of other social mates. This means that if one lives in group then it gives more opportunity for one to learn than when living alone. People and animals learn from each other.

Biological difference between humans and animals

Ability to Speak
The larynx ( voice box) is located at the lower throat in humans than in chimps, one of several features that enable human speech. Human ancestors evolved a descended larynx roughly 350,000 years ago. We also possess a descended hyoid bone — this horseshoe-shaped bone below the tongue, unique in that it is not attached to any other bones in the body, allows us to articulate words when speaking.

Upright Posture
Humans are unique among the primates in how walking fully upright is our chief mode of locomotion. This frees our hands up for using tools. Unfortunately, the changes made in our pelvis for moving on two legs, in combination with babies with large brains, makes human childbirth unusually dangerous compared with the rest of the animal kingdom. A century ago, childbirth was a leading cause of death for women. The lumbar curve in the lower back, which helps us maintain our balance as we stand and walk, also leaves us vulnerable to lower back pain and strain.

Nakedness
We look naked compared to our hairier ape cousins. Surprisingly, however, a square inch of human skin on average possesses as much hair-producing follicles as other primates, or more — humans often just have thinner, shorter, lighter hairs.

Hands
Contrary to popular misconceptions, humans are not the only animals to possess opposable thumbs — most primates do. (Unlike the rest of the great apes, we don’t have opposable big toes on our feet.) What makes humans unique is how we can bring our thumbs all the way across the hand to our ring and little fingers. We can also flex the ring and little fingers toward the base of our thumb. This gives humans a powerful grip and exceptional dexterity to hold and manipulate tools with.

Extraordinary Brains
Without a doubt, the human trait that sets us apart the most from the animal kingdom is our extraordinary brain. Humans don’t have the largest brains in the world — those belong to sperm whales. We don’t even have the largest brains relative to body size — many birds have brains that make up more than 8 percent of their body weight, compared to only 2.5 percent for humans. Yet the human brain, weighing only about 3 pounds when fully grown, give us the ability to reason and think on our feet beyond the capabilities of the rest of the animal kingdom, and provided the works of Mozart, Einstein and many other geniuses.

The human brain is the largest brain of all vertebrates relative to body size
It weighs about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms)
The brain makes up about 2 percent of a human’s body weight

Clothing
Humans may be called “naked apes,” but most of us wear clothing, a fact that makes us unique in the animal kingdom, save for the clothing we make for other animals. The development of clothing has even influenced the evolution of other species — the body louse, unlike all other kinds, clings to clothing, not hair.

Fire
The human ability to control fire would have brought a semblance of day to night, helping our ancestors to see in an otherwise dark world and keep nocturnal predators at bay. The warmth of the flames also helped people stay warm in cold weather, enabling us to live in cooler areas. And of course it gave us cooking, which some researchers suggest influenced human evolution — cooked foods are easier to chew and digest, perhaps contributing to human reductions in tooth and gut size.

Blush
Turns out, the cheek-reddening reaction is a universal human response to social attention. Everyone does it some more than others. Common blushing triggers include meeting someone important, receiving a compliment and experiencing a strong emotion in a social situation.

Blush biology works like this: Veins in the face dilate, causing more blood to flow into your cheeks and producing a rosy complexion. However, scientists are stumped as to why all that happens, or what function it serves.

Long Childhoods
Humans must remain in the care of their parents for much longer than other living primates. The question then becomes why, when it might make more evolutionary sense to grow as fast as possible to have more offspring. The explanation may be our large brains, which presumably require a long time to grow and learn.

Life after Children
Most animals reproduce until they die, but in humans, females can survive long after ceasing reproduction. This might be due to the social bonds seen in humans — in extended families, grandparents can help ensure the success of their families long after they themselves can have children

Cry
How odd that sadness causes water to spill from our eyes! Among all animals, we alone cry tears of emotion.Not only do they serve the purpose of communicating feelings of distress, scientists believe tears also carry certain undesirable hormones and other proteins that are produced during periods of stress out of the body, which may explain the cathartic effect of “a good cry.”

Socio-cultural difference between humans and animals

Respect for the dead
When a human dies, we all feel sad emotions if we felt a strong bond with that person. We often have elaborate burial ceremonies to show respect for our dead. However, animals rarely do such a thing. Only a few animals have been observed to throw a few leaves on their dead. But animals do not routinely bury their dead like us humans.

Animals are mostly driven on instincts
We humans also have instincts, however, we can control them much better. We are mostly driven by reason. Animals are driven much more by instincts, and only use some reasoning. They have it pre-programmed in their minds from birth on what to do in most situations. Most animals from birth know what foods to eat and how to eat them. They know how to reproduce, where to migrate, and more. Even a baby turtle comes out of it’s shell and immediately knows to swim towards the ocean.

Humans are aware of “self,” and contemplate the afterlife
Other animals do not think of the afterlife. They tend to live in the “now.” They live in the heat of the moment. Their main goals all day long are to eat, sleep, mate, and survive. Humans, however, spend a lot of time thinking of the future, past, and present. We think about ourselves and how we relate to life. We think of what happens when we die.

Humans feel a sense of right and wrong
We all have a basic conscience. Animals kill and never think twice. They kill for food, and they kill based on instincts. They do not stop to think about if they have “sinned.” When a human murders another human, it is out of evil pre-meditation. We know better, but we murder someone anyways. That is a huge difference. Most animals kill purely to eat, or to defend themselves.

Humans have a complex language and communication method
Humans can talk, write, read facial expressions, gestures, and more. Some can even speak multiple languages. Animals do communicate, but they cannot communicate with the level of a human.

Humans use their brains in much more complex ways

The cognitive abilities of a human compared to an animal is incredible. Humans can critically think, invent, find solutions to problems, and much more. Animals are much more simple-minded. An anteater looks for ants all day. A bear gets in the water and slaps salmon out. They never stop to think of a more efficient way of doing things. The bear never creates a net or constructs a fishing pole. They find something that works, and will continue doing it. Humans will always seek out more efficient ways, and even invent complex tools. Again, this gets back to our more complex mental faculties.

Technology
We humans have the ability to quickly learn new technology, and adapt and use that technology. We can create machines and computers that help us to do work more efficiently. Even the most complex animals do not share this feature. The only tool you will likely ever see an animal use is a stick or a rock. And even then they look confused and clumsy with it.

Justice
Only human society goes against nature and seeks justice. Natures is for the survival of the fittest. Human society is governed by the philosophy of justice.

Planning
Only human society plan for the future. Not animal societies.

Religion
Only human society have religion.

Protection of the weak
Only human society allows weak to be protected through laws and rules.

George Homans: Social Exchange Theory

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

What is Exchange Theory ?

Basic premise: people will continue to engage in behaviors they find rewarding and cease to engage in behaviors where the costs have proven to be too high in the past.
Self-interest was the universal motive that made the world go around.
A reaction against Parsons, Durkheim, and structural functionalism in general.
Sociology should concern itself with explaining individual behavior and interaction and have little interest in consciousness or large-scale structures and institutions.
Focusing on what people get and what they contribute in turn to the relationship.
Homans believed that in very interaction something is being exchanged. Not only in the economic realm but also come in the form of approval, esteem, love, affection, allegiance, and other nonmaterialistic or symbolic expressions.
In industrial observations, for example.
If workers feel that they are paid unfairly they may form a union, bargain collectively with the employer or strike. But at the same time, they will weigh the potential benefits against the cost. When multiple value are involved, the rational calculation of benefits and costs becomes very difficult.
In short, Homans’ exchange theory “investigaes social behaviors as an exchange or activity, tangible, or intangible, and more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two persons”
He concluded five clear-cut propositions that he felt explains all human behavior. These propositions are the cornerstone of his exchange theory.