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Strengths of structural functionalism
Strengths of structural functionalism
Strengths of structural functionalism
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West Question’s 1-2. The purpose of structural functionalism focuses on the design of white males that was created to function successful for white men in society.Therefore,Cornel West explains that structural functionalism is problematic because it only focuses on whites and doesn’t focus on everyone as equal. I agree with Cornel West argument because the structural functionalism is a problematic because it doesn’t look at people of color and whites as one society. This causes inequality in the distribution of power and social standing. Also, the structural system works on white men. However, it doesn’t work on black men because people of color were not integrated in the …show more content…
system. Black people were looked as people who have no legal status and public worth. 3. West explains that the characteristics were developed among Black diaspora it was constructed to promote characteristics among black people by developing to counter negative images in order to unite them and obtain identity. However, the black people were looked as less confined and are looked are alienated because they are look as different. 4. The main problem of modern Black diaspora is that Black people had no power and legal status because when they are born in states that had racial domination and caused them to be alienated .Also, this created black people to be invisible and namelessness. Black people were viewed as not having legal status and no public worth. Also, they struggled to obtain material resources, dignity of being a human being and identity. Also, they are denied those things because of the negative images in cultural about blacks. 5. West believes that if we use the strategy of advancing black positive images it would be problematic because it would not accept black standards. Also, it will would identify all black people to alike. Also, it would create assimilationist the practice of policy of assimilating or it will encourage assimilations of ethnic groups and cultural of origins. 6-7.
The aim of cultural workers should focus on deconstructing images and how the images effect of how we look at blacks. Also, deconstruct black strategies in order to obtain identity formation. Also, incorporate class in power relations and diversity of black practices. Also, homophic biases patriarchal. 8. Demystification works by using theoretical inquiry by promoting new cultural politics of difference. Therefore, it looks at complex dynamic of intuitional and power structures to allow alternatives for transformative praxis .Also, looks at representational strategies that are responses to conditions and circumstances. 9. Demystificatory is prophetic critism because is identified to be the new cultural politics of difference. Also, it looks at the social structural analyzes and makes political aims. 10. I agree with West ideas in this article because black people were born in state domination and caused them to be alienated .This caused them to struggle to obtain ,material recourses and be recognized as a human being. They were denied to obtain identify based on the negative images in cultural about blacks. Also, the negative images are misrepresentation that affected on how they interact with others and reinforced stereotypes. Also, I agree that black workers should deconstruct images and their
affects
Functionalism views society as the stability and assimilation of a range of forces that function within it. While society is a separate entity with a life of its own, there are individual elements contributing to that stability. Functionalism as a sociological theory emphasizes assimilation rather than the dissociation of society. Therefore, the society is seen as a whole that is compromised of parts which give one another their identity and their function. The part, whether that is education, such as a school, or sports, such as a football team, operates in relation to the other parts, and cannot be entirely understood in isolation from the other parts. All the parts are interrelated, and when there is a disturbance in any one of the parts, is when you can see the interdependence. But what is important about this theory is that “there will always be some reorganization and tendency to restore equilibrium” (Wallace and Wolf 17). Functionalist do not believe it’s crucial that the people involved in the society to be aware of this interconnectedness anymore than the brain and heart consciously realize that they work together as an organism.
The issue of black success in a corporate world such as America is best understood as one of culture and ethnicity. Generally, success in business demands a certain personality and level of ability, just as does success in politics. A quick look at the current status quo of power and authority in the business world will prove that. But existing societal conditions remnant of the evil specter of slavery have created a persona within the common black identity that is fundamentally opposed to business success. Nagel writes: “Culture is constructed … by the actions of individuals and groups and their interactions within the larger societ...
It must be noted that for the purpose of avoiding redundancy, the author has chosen to use the terms African-American and black synonymously to reference the culture, which...
The Black Arts Movement (BAM), 1965 to 1976, started in Harlem, New York, was an influential movement for various reasons. The movement is characterized as a set of perspectives about African American cultural making, which presumed that black artists were main authority for the political activism. It additionally announced that the main substantial political end of dark specialists' exertions was liberation from white political and aesthetic force structures. In the same way that white individuals were to be stripped of their entitlement to prohibit or characterize dark character, white stylish benchmarks were to be ousted and swapped with innovative qualities emerging from the dark group. This movement was first and foremost a literary movement. However, during the late 1960’s and 1970’s the movement started to welcome visual artists as well.
Black Power and Black Art relate to one another in one major aspect: politics. The political aspect of both concepts aided in transforming African American culture. “The Black Arts and the Black Power concept both relate broadly to the Afro-American 's desire for self-determination and nationhood.” (Neal 1968) The desire for nationhood helped African Americans establish their independence in America and it aided them in developing what the world means to their culture and their views. The political views of Black Art and Black Power subsequently leads to the development of black aesthetics. Resistance is a main aspect of developing black aesthetics, because the motive of black aesthetics is “the destruction of the white thing, the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world.” (Neal 1968) With the understanding of how Black Power and Black Art relate and the motives of each, the critical understanding of the 1960s Black Arts and Black Power is
How a society builds or comprehends race alters across communities. Racism has been a critical issue for a long time in our society and while actions have been taken to prevent it, it is a controversial issue as to whether racism can be avoided or not. The belief that black people are human beings is a new discovery in the Modern West. The concept of black equality in beauty, culture, and intellectual capacity remains questionable and controversial within important halls of learning and cultured intellectual circles. The African Americans confrontation with the modernized world has been formed first and foremost by the principle of white dominance, which is demonstrated in institutionalized practices and achieved in everyday cultures under different circumstances and developing conditions. The Historical learning of racial thoughts and approach has frequently been improper by the impulsive present day. Earlier writers are held up to disdain without any acceptable attempts to locate their understanding within the circumstances of the ability available to their generation. Modern writers all too easily disregard the alteration in the meaning connect to the word “race” (Banton pg 51). We rarely view modernity through the lens of the enslaved and their descendants-yet we fail to do so at our peril. (West)
It is argued that “the African-American experience” has been shaped by multiplicity of factors. Scholars and students have identified such factors as race, culture, identity, community, and power and agency as the primary factors that have shaped the African-American experience. Barbara Fields in her article, “Ideology and Race in American History,” analyzes the role that race has played in shaping the African-American experience. Joseph E. Holloway’s “Africanisms in American culture,” gives an analysis on how culture has contributed to the African American experience. W.E.B Du Bois argues in his article, “of our spiritual strivings,” that the role of identity in shaping the African-American experience cannot be overlooked. Likewise, Kimberle Crenshaw in, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” has argued that, to some extent, identity has shaped the African-American experience. According to Michael Dawson in his article, “A model of Black Utility and Linked Fate,” the community in which the African-Americans find themselves contributes immensely to their experience. I examine how the concepts of race, culture, identity, community, and power have shaped the African-American experience. Further, I examine whether these concepts illuminate or obscure the African-American experience. Finally, I give a summary of my key points before making conclusions to my essay.
Most of the people has concerns about American history and its ideals that are most intimate, and while, some have a better understanding its nation’s history and current crisis. It has been said an empire of “race,” that damages us all but falls most heavily on the black community who had severe suffered through slavery and segregation era, and up to today, threatened, beaten, and murdered out unreasonable. Blacks have been treated as second-class citizens since the inception of this country. Stereotypes of blacks as lazy, stupid, foolish, cowardly, submissive, irresponsible, childish, violent, sub-human, and animal-like, are rampant in today's society. These degrading stereotypes are reinforced and enhanced by the negative portrayal of blacks
According to the textbook, Openstax, functional theory “sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society” (15). Racial inequality preserves social class order, through the maintenance of segregated geography or the racialization of geography, comes the separation of classes, and thus the fragmentation and marginalization of the political power of the lowest third of income earners. According functional theory, racial prejudice and discrimination serve positive functions for dominant groups. For example, racist views provide moral justification for maintaining an unequal society that deprives the minority group. Additionally, racist beliefs discourage subordinate minority from questioning their lowly status. Finally, Racial myths suggest that any societal change would only bring greater poverty to the
The significance of slavery and the slave trade in the 19th century was an economic engine driving colonial America. The Atlantic slave convey and their labors touched all corners of the world. Its complex existence greatly impacted social views, politics and many industries in colonial America, these effects would transcend that era. Frankly, its shadowy existence is still part of America today. This controversial part of America’s history is often unspoken, misunderstand, overlooked or flat ignored at this day and time. Socially the ramifications of these deplorable practices still hinder African Americans in various ways from the destruction of families, annihilation of cultures (forced to take slave masters’ names, language and religion) and self-hate which is a reflection from Machiavellianism infused propaganda tools used to mentally break enslaved Africans.
Functionalism is a materialist stance in the philosophy of mind that argues that mental states are purely functional, and thus categorized by their input and output associations and causes, rather than by the physical makeup that constitutes its parts. In this manner, functionalism argues that as long as something operates as a conscious entity, then it is conscious. Block describes functionalism, discusses its inherent dilemmas, and then discusses a more scientifically-driven counter solution called psychofunctionalism and its failings as well. Although Block’s assertions are cogent and well-presented, the psychofunctionalist is able to provide counterarguments to support his viewpoint against Block’s criticisms. I shall argue that though both concepts are not without issue, functionalism appears to satisfy a more acceptable description that philosophers can admit over psychofunctionalism’s chauvinistic disposition that attempts to limit consciousness only to the human race.
Structural Functionalism or what I call just functionalism, is just another theory that has society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society through the macro-level of orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole, and believes that society has evolved like organisms. This approach looks at both social structure and the social functions. Functionalism has society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms and customs, traditions, and institutions. There is a common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer that presents these parts of society as "organs" that works towards the proper functioning of the "body" as a whole. In the most basic terms, it simply emphasizes "the effort to impute and the rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or even practice the effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable and cohesive system.
Talcott Parsons’s was known as the greatest contributors, and specialist, of structural functionalism. Parsons’s theory was constructed from the AGIL system which is four functional imperatives. These imperatives include, “(1) The adaptive function, whereby a system adapts to its environment, (2) The goal-attainment function, i.e., how a system defines and achieves its goals, (3) The integrative function, or the regulation of the components of the system, (4) Latency, or pattern maintenance function, i.e., how motivation and the dimensions of culture that create and sustain motivation are stimulated.” (Mcgraw-hill.com) Once he developed this interchange system he began to focus on the evolution of societies.
A structural functionalist would view a large University as a whole unit that works together to provide an efficient and useful education to it students. Therefore they would examine the type of students in a large university as individual and vital contributors to the university (Henslin, 2012). Each students background, academic abilities, classroom participation contributes to the function of the university. Even students who struggle and have lower grades would be seen as essential to the equilibrium of the universities success (Henslin, 2012). Although the professors are at a higher education level and provide academic structure to the students, the students themselves are important to the structures organization and stability. A structural functionalist would seek the opportunity to examine the division of labor within the university, students jobs versus the jobs of professors much like the differentiated jobs of assembly time workers, the final product is education(Hachen,2001). Both the students and professors contribute to society’s education. The manifest function of students within
“The Quality of Slave Labor and Racism”, does not delve into how black people responded to slavery. It concentrated too much on the workings and process of the slave system, rather than the emotions slaves felt. This is why Fogel and Engerman fail to answer the question compared to Stampp, they are far too objective in this article for a question dealing with human sentiment which is subjective. Other complications can be found; they lack sources besides other historians. This is an issue as to fully understand the thoughts and opinions of certain peoples, quotes and stories of these people need to be discussed. Without these sources, readers are not able to interpret the feelings or causes of actions slaves felt, leaving out human characteristics