SOCI 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Alexis De Tocqueville, Making Money, Power Politics
Document Summary
Remember you"re dealing with thinkers that were writing a long time ago (consider context and meaning of terms they use) The words they use/assumptions they have aren"t necessarily the same as what we have. Example: john locke - famous for writing about property, theorist of capitalism (but. Locke said that all human beings have property/are equal in the eyes of god - not the word property in the capitalist sense of monetary possessions) Example: adam smith - thinks its part of human nature to imitate your betters/copy people above you (no sense of struggle for equality contrary to marx) Bear in mind that we are looking at the big thinkers - human nature, big questions, views of development of society/social condition, what we should do with our lives. Rule: try and ask yourself when thinkers are describing reality vs. prescribing the way it ought to be (sometimes gets mixed up)
