Hello there,

The last day of 2023 is coming and we are about to enter 2024. While surfing the internet, I came across a tweet that says you should not dedicate a year or a specific day to turn your life, instead at least 4-5 years with pure consistency can only make a long life effect.

With this wisdom, let's continue this series. And today we are about to start with thinkers. We will cover 6 main thinkers and a few who are critics of them, you know, the number of critics is always higher, lol. The main thinkers give foundational theories that form the pillars of sociology today.

Source - Giphy

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The Thinkers

We are about to study at least 6 main thinkers who gave evolutionary aspects of society, the workings of this society, and the current setup of the society. These thinkers when read together will make good sense, if read alone, it's simply like having food without salt! Okay so let's see who is in our royal rumble this week!

Source - Giphy

1. From the north here comes... Karl Marx

Karl Marx initially took the perspective of an economist to study the setup of society, his main focus was on the economic aspect. According to Marx, it's the economy that decides the stratification and working of the society. We will see his superstructure-substructure concept, we will also look at his approaches i.e. historical materialism, division of class, and communism.

2. From the south... the gentlemen who sat at home and made his theory by reading books... It's Emile Durkheim!

Source - Giphy

Emile Durkheim was the first person who took a sociological approach in a pure sense i.e. understanding society through societal means and not through economy or political science. He gave the theory of Social Facts and tried to bring rationalism into sociology. Later, Durkheim was called a positivistic thinker in his approach. He tried to combine the best of science with subjectivity.

3. From the west... with his maximum power... Max Weber

Source - Giphy

Max Weber took an L on Marx and Durkheim. He rejected the static notion and pointed out many flaws in the approaches of Marx and Durkheim. With his protestant ethics study he not only rejected the model of Marx but with the theory of Verstehen i.e. Social Action he took a great dig at Durkheim. He was a prominent non-positivist thinker.

4. From... what left? Oh east - Talcott Parsons

Source - Giphy

The person who eats an Oxford dictionary in his breakfast, whose words are as hard to decipher as the ancient texts... One and only... Talcott Parsons, baby! His theories took a long time to get settled in my brain. His books are not easy to read but once you understand him, you know, you have to just settle with it. His main research was on social systems and revolved around pattern variables. His theory is not an absolute unit but rather a mix of multiple small theories that come together to establish itself.

5. From... let's say from up... R.K. Merton!

Source - Giphy

R.K. Merton was a great critic back then. He was the most rational and with pure logic. I like reading his criticism because he knew what he was criticizing, he had points! His research was mainly around the visible and implicit functions that control the individual. His theory on conformance and deviance is what holds in today's world. According to him, not everyone is on the same page!

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Music Time!

Okay, I know you like my music taste! Here is the one for you... yes especially for you!

Source - Majik Topic