Discovery Of Society Essay -- essays research papers

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, â€Å"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.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  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 â€Å"have not’s† and were the ones doing all the work while the â€Å"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, banks and the goods to trade and the proletarians who owned nothing but their own labor power. Marx felt that the division of classes was what was responsible for the conflict and suffering of all society. This is what encouraged Marx to believe that chaos was the only way in which classes would break up and no longer exist. Marx was able to get his point across in the modern socialist doctrine, better known as the Communist Manifesto. Even though, Marx was ordered to leave Paris because of all his revolutionary activities he did set a great influence on all communist literature. The situation of the banishment of Marx was very similar to what one of the characters in the book of, â€Å"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 go... ...on. In the book, â€Å"Things Fall Apart†; we are able to see this situation when the British attempt and succeed in colonizing the society of the Ibo and other neighboring tribes. In this example, its really a contradiction which is set by the British because they wanted to force this society to be who they weren’t and the British didn’t take into consideration the organization already set up by the Ibo. I feel we still have a few more years to go before we could actually comprehend the meaning of society. As for the past philosophers, some of them did depict a close picture of what was expected in the present time. To be honest, the social thinker I could relate the most is Karl Marx for the reason that he was so strongly opposed to class division. Even though, it would be great if there weren’t any divisions in our society but it is impossible. I feel this way because in our society exists too much racism. Also no matter how hard we try not to classify people into groups its difficult. You either have money and you are on the top level or middle or you have no money and are homeless. In this society and every other one it’s all about the Benjamin’s in your pocket and bank account!