SOC101 Lecture Notes - Georg Simmel, Verstehen, Social Darwinism
19 Feb 2013
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1960"s, and functionalism led us to other thinking. Survival of the fittest" justifies why only the strongest should survive. Societies evolve because they need to change in order to survive. Environmental pressures allow beneficial traits to be passed on to future generations, solving problems together. Social darwinism" draws upon darwin"s idea of natural selection, which basically asserts that societies change over time the same way other creatures do. Laissez-faire approach" where the theorists are arguing that if you don"t interfere, then everything will work out properly, they disapprove of regulating natural processes. Human actions originate in the collective rather in the individual, we need society, we need institutions that we create together. Our behavior is driven and controlled by a collective conscience, the rules" of society. Social facts" are general social features that exist on their own and are independent of individual manifestation, seeing some elements of positivism.
