EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
The focal point of sociology rests on interaction. How do you distinguish it from common sense?. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Sociology, Paper 1)
- Sociology focuses on the study of human behavior. Yet we all have experience with human behavior and at least some knowledge of it. All of us might well have theories about why people become homeless, for example. Our theories and opinions typically come from common sense—that is, from our experiences and conversations, from what we read, from what we see on television, and so forth.
- Deprivation theory challenges our commonsense assumption that the worst-off people are the most likely to organize for change. People do not organize simply because they suffer in an absolute sense; rather, social movements arise out of a sense of relative deprivation. Both Tocqueville and Marx—as different as they were in many ways—agreed on the importance of relative deprivation in the formation of social movements.
- Like other social scientists, sociologists do not accept something as a fact because “everyone knows it.” Instead, each piece of information must be tested and recorded, then analyzed in relation to other data. Sociologists rely on scientific studies in order to describe and understand a social environment. At times, the findings of sociologists may seem like common sense, because they deal with familiar facets of everyday life. The difference is that such findings have been tested by researchers. Common sense now tells us that the earth is round, but this particular commonsense notion is based on centuries of scientific work that began with the breakthroughs made by Pythagoras and Aristotle.
- Common sense generally takes cues from what appears on surface, sociology on the other hand looks for inter-connections and root causes which may not be apparent. A sociologist works like a skeptic, and sociology is a science of organized skepticism, looking beyond what meets the eye. Explanations for religion, suicide by Durkheim are best examples of such sociological outlook. While religion says ‘God created man’, Durkheim said ‘Man creates god/religion’. Sociology uses reason and logic, common sense uses conjectures and stereotypical beliefs. Common sense views are often based upon images that get reinforced through tradition.
- Thus, sociologists’ perception towards common sense changed over time as the discipline evolved. Earlier when it was close to philosophy, common sense was seen as complementary. When discipline moved closer to positivism, common sense was almost discarded. Anti-positivist on the other hand again tried to give importance to common sense. So, relationship between the two is dynamic and even mutually reinforcing at times.
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