TOPIC 1: INTRODUCTION
1. What is Sociology and Comparative Sociology? An introduction
Sociology is the scientific discipline that seeks to enlighten our lives by revealing
the complex causal connection between highly recurrent social relationships and
individual unhappiness and distress. Sociologists are in charge of two tasks: first,
they have a political task, which consists of identifying and systematizing personal
troubles to study their impact on social structures; and, second, an emotional task,
which consists of studying how social situations impact on the population.
Comparative sociology is the subdiscipline in sociology that contributes to
understand this connection by establishing comparison between different nation-
states.
The Content and Promise of Sociology
Humans have always searched for explanations about their social and political
reality. For long, most of these explanations had a religious content (agency to
trascendental entities), but also to non-religious intellectuals (philosophers, artists
and historians). However, the search for systematic formulations is more recent; it
starts between the beginning of the 18th century and begining of the 19th century
because of four main factors:
1) Democratic revolutions: The principles of equality and freedom, as well as a
new conscience of “national community”, spread on the society. Furthermore, the
population started thinking that they had to have the power and that they could
control their destiny.
2) Industrial Revolution: A massive social change occurred and a host of new
social problems, such as depauperation and defamilization, increases, so it was
necessary to forge solutions to these problems.
3) Generalization of scientific thinking: It began thinking that society could be
studied based on solid evidence, and that evidences were necessary to make a
case.
4) Perception of the arrival of a new era that needs to be explained and
rationalized.
Sociology emerged in the late 19th century as part of that scientific revolution.
Dominant theoretical approaches (conflict, normative and symbolic interactionism)
were established by the early 20th century, and empirical and theoretical research
grew immensely in the second half of the 20th century, when sociology also
became institutionalized.
2. How Does and Should Sociology Enlighten Our Lives?
The Promise
In contrast to other social sciences (for example, economics), sociology lacks a
cohesive ‘paradigm´ (it is hard to identify what is distinct about a sociological
argument). There is a good proxy provided by in the essay of Charles Wright Mills
The Sociological Imagination (1959).
The basic argument of Wright Mills in this essay is that the main task of the
social sciences is to establish links between “personal problems” and broad social
structures, which requires a heavy intelectual investment and lots of creativity.
Wright Mills introduce the term “sociological imagination”, which is an ability of
the mind that connects the social structure with personal troubles, which threaten
our ideal life situation, in order to enlight our lives and let us be free. According to
Wright Mills, sociological imagination is a source of personal empowerment.
