Functionalism: Sociology and Social Order

The officealist prototype of how inn plant life has umteen limitations and few strengths. Explain and also asses this thought process. By Sadhana sanba In the study of sociology, utilitarianist perspective is a view of edict that focuses on the behavior various parts of society have functions and live in a consensus that maintain the stability and loving order of the whole. Functionalist set of how society working tends to focus to be an organized, stable, well integrated trunk , in which most members agree on base grades which is as called value consensus. except, functionalist theory alongside the other school of theories such as marrxism (conflict theory) and interactionism is criticized for having many limitsaitons of explaining thew social phenomenon of its working. Herbert spencer an early functionalist and later emile Durkheim comp bes the working of society to the organic coincidence and the way a biological organisms works. Any organisms has a structure- tha t is , a curry of inter-related components, such as head, limbs, a heart lungs and so on.Each of these parts has functions that is a positive and remove consequence for the whole system. In th3ee same way, spencer argued , a society has structure. Its inter-related parts are family, religion, values and norms, social elements and so on. Ideally,hence, to each one of these componenets also has a function that contributes to the overall stability of social system. However, the proportion has many . limmits. it is difficult for example to compare the way organisms grow to the way society grows and change. Is therea social equivalent to the DNA the genetic program point in every species?Does a society really have a series of complementary institution together to make the whole function smoothly to the mutual benefit of all? Although, Modern-structural-functionalism does not press the semblance between a society and an organism and has subsequently been much corking and modified, however, the functionalist view of how society works still has few strength provided Talcott Parson(1951) argues that any society has four functional needs or pre-requisites that need to be met for it to survive these are adaptation ,goal attainment, consolidation and latency (AGIL).However , his model of societys working has been havily criticized for being bland abd fruitless by the way arsons went about examining society. Parsons also tried to show how consensus based on shared values is essential to social order. He also reason that the stratified system is crucial in mainting consensus in society which, in the other way, conflict theory of karl marx describes as inequality.Parsons and Durkheim evidently sawing machine social inequality stratification as a necessary and ecumenic feature of society and that inequality could be mitigated by the preponderance of social mobility completely disregarding the fact that social inquality in a society is a key source of social confli ct and dominancy. Also, the functional view of assuming the worldly concern of a meritocratic society i. e, a society where everyone has a equal chance og achieving high social position and reward is not contextual.This kind of role and effects only works if many other features of society are ignored and nonetheless distorted.. here, Melvin Tumin (1953) argues that how and wherefore are some social position assumed to be functionally more important than others ? Who decided and how ? The concept of functional satisfication is value affluent and deciding which postions are functionally more important than others cannot be do objectively for example the payment that the top football stars in the Uk and the net income of the prime minister in the same country. The players ears six times mored than the semipolitical figure .Hence, society always cannot be induced by the visible rewards and functional theory maybe dysfunctional and damaging it may knuckle under conflict and ant agonism between social strata rather than furthering social integration to which Weberain view explains the dynamics of stratification in modern society with existence of conflicts between owners and workers creating white collar and blue collar workers. Functional view of creating social order an important model of society ,has been criticized for its limitation on the fact that it serves only the selfish ambitions of the rich and powerful.As Durkhein believes t hat society is in its essence its moral codes . The rules and order, the degree competitiveness between nation and governmental conducts help to cement and build social order he called them the mechanical and organic principles of solidarity . The description of mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity provides insides about the basic way of forming social order in society which in spunk Max Weber argues is more applicable and impliable only in the industrial complex societies and is criticized by Marx for disregardin g the poor , economically weak and labour as in his words, society.Hence, the phenomenon of collective conscience and value consensus the functionalist theory implies in one way or other inherently conservative that is concentrate only on a particular social theme. It does not construe that order and conflict exist side by side and as Marx says is achieved through the domination by the few over the many, and that domination is potential because it excogitates the economic circumstances of the groups which is constantly unstable as it is based on equality and continuing conflict of interest between those who own the way of production and who dont.In the same way interactionist view of how society works emphasizes that members of societies are not just constrained in their everyday lives by moral codes or by economic relationships but that each private are actors in each situation they negotiate or front to which is also simplifiedly said situational interaction Hence, functionl ist perspective is limited with logical business it embraces,if something in society is recurrent, functionlist say that it must be meeting a need.Functionalism lacks any real power to explain social change or changes. It leans heavily towards describing society in a stable condition and seems to emphasizes the status- quo the media reflect all views, women are domestically oriented, marriages are happy, all individualist are ladened by values and norms that they internalize confining into it to create social order and so on.Functionalist risk the temptation of dismissing disruptive changes as dysfunctional, even if those changes are necessary, inevitable and beneficial in the long run However functionalist theory perspective is useful in explaining the functions or consequences, that a presumptuousness element has in society which contribute the stability of the social system as a whole and hence, therefore, insights human beings of their existence and role in a society. Posted b yingsamaat906 AM 1 comment 1. BuzzerOctober 9, 2011 931 AM It really helped me a lot. ReplyDelete Add comment