Capitalism 3
What is the meaning of society? It's a simple word but with a very complicated definition. Society is our own everyday reality. It's features such as economics, culture, language and philosophy is what unites individuals and creates a society. In the book, "The Discovery of Society", written by Randall Collins and Michael Makowsky we are able to capture the ideas and beliefs of a variety of social thinkers. All of these thinkers had a different perspective towards what a society needs to survive and maintain itself afloat. One of these social thinkers was Karl Marx (1818-1883). He was a German political philosopher and revolutionist. Marx was very concern with the history of class struggle. He felt that the history of society was a history itself of the struggles that existed between the ruling and the oppressed social classes. In Marx's time, slaves were considered the "have not's" and were the ones doing all the work while the "have's" were taking advantage of their effort. According to Marx, the economy was organized around industrial production and commercial exchange, which explains why he classified the bourgeois society into two main classes. These classes were; the capitalist who owned the factories, bank
The situation of the banishment of Marx was very similar to what one of the characters in the book of, "Brave New World", Bernard Marx, had to experience. This certain character is similar to Karl Marx because of the way in which he didn't agree with the system that already existed. This caused the World Controller to decide that it was best to sent him away in order to prevent him from putting ideas in the minds of other individuals of the society. In the case of Karl Marx the character, World Controller, could be associated with the Belgian government, who was the one fearful that the revolutionary activities undertaken by Marx, could influence people to be against their system. Both of them had to be isolated from their settled lives because of their views towards how the society would function more effectively. Durkheim felt that the common values shared by a society, such as morality and religion were the basis of social stability. In his opinion, these values were what maintained a society together and without them it would lead the society into social instability and the individuals within the society feeling anxiety and dissatisfaction. One of the results of these feelings could lead someone into alienation. We see an example of this concept with Durkheim when his weakness and insecurity lead him to lose reality of both societal and religious tradition. An example of alienation could be identified with the character of Onkonkwa, in "Things Fall Apart". Onkonkwa lost his sense of reality when he finally realized that the British had been successful in converting the society into what he couldn't accept to be so he decided to kill himself. This term of alienation is also seen in the book, "Brave New World", with the Savage, when he sees this brave new world as unsuitable to what he searches from life and feels he doesn't belong and takes his life away. It's difficult to decide on how one should interpret the true meaning of a society. In order to understand the social reality of society you must try to understand the other person's point of
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1401
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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