1. Sociology is a different kind of knowledge than theology and philosophy. In the same way, sociology is different from just using common sense.
• We often make claims without being able to show that they are true. They are based on wisdom, common sense, or practical views and experiences of social life. Most of the time, though, they are built on ignorance, bias, and misunderstanding.
• Common sense knowledge, which is based on people’s experiences, biases, and views, is frequently inconclusive and contradictory. On the other hand, scientific findings are based on evidence that can be checked or a body of evidence that can be used to back up a claim. Here are some examples of common sense: men are smarter than women, married people are happier than single people, and high-caste people are smarter and more skilled than low-caste people.
In contrast to this, scientific study shows that women are just as smart as men, that happiness has nothing to do with whether or not a person is married, and that a person’s caste has nothing to do with how smart they are.
2. When people think about human behaviour, common sense observations lead to a lot of ignorance and a rejection of a sociological viewpoint.
3. The majority of people’s thoughts are based on common sense. They might, for example, try to understand family and marriage arrangements from a biological point of view. Women raise children because they have a biologically determined instinct to do so. In the same way, they may use a pseudopsychological perspective to explain suicide (people commit suicide when they are mentally unbalanced) or a moralistic perspective to explain crime (criminals are people who haven’t formed a conscience that controls their actions). People don’t find it easy to take a social approach because they are more used to looking at things from a common sense point of view in their daily lives.
4. The idea that we are all unique individuals with our own special qualities, which sociologists reject, further complicates common sense observation.
5. Sociology, on the other hand, requires that you be ready to reject what seems obvious, common sense, and natural and to look below the surface in order to understand the world.
6. Berger says, “The fascinating thing about sociology is that it gives us a new way to look at the world we’ve lived in our whole lives. Sociology’s first lesson is that things are not always what they seem to be.
7. Sociologists point out that what is “common sense” or “natural” may not be global or eternal, but is often specific to a certain group of people or time period.
• The common-sense view of how men and women behave in the family in our society is that there are biological and bodily differences between men and women, so some of their differences in behaviour are “natural.” For example, it’s often said that it’s normal and makes sense for women to take care of children and do housework while men make sexual advances and work outside the home.
• Mead’s study of New Guinea, called “Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies,” showed how skewed common-sense explanations of behaviour can be. Among the Apache, she didn’t see many “natural differences” between men and women, and neither was aggressive. Women did most of the heavy lifting, and men stayed home with their wives during and after childbirth to “share” the pain and strain. Among the Munduracco, both men and women were aggressive, children were treated badly by both parents, and lovemaking was like a battle.
• To the Hopi Indians of North America, it is “common sense” that rain clouds are gods and must be made happy by dancing in the rain. This view is not entirely consistent with that of the Meteorological office. The main point, then, is that one person’s common sense is another person’s nonsense, and sociological and anthropological research has questioned and exploded many common-sense ideas about behaviour.
• Most common sense explanations are based on what can be called “naturalistic” or “individualistic” explanations. A “naturalistic” explanation of behaviour is based on the idea that there are “natural” reasons for behaviour. An “individualistic” explanation of an event or phenomenon is based on the idea that the event can be easily understood and explained by looking at the behaviour of the people involved in it. For example, it is normal for two people to fall in love, get married, move in together, and start a family. The sociologist says that these answers are not good enough. Individualism is not a good answer because it doesn’t take into account how important it is that people are affected by social forces that they can’t control. The naturalistic answer isn’t good enough because it doesn’t take into account the fact that behaviour patterns aren’t mostly based on biology, but rather on social norms that people learn as members of social groups or, more generally, society.
8. As a result, sociology departs from both common sense observations and ideas and philosophical thinking. It doesn’t always or even usually lead to amazing things. But you can only find important and unexpected connections by sitting through a lot of connections.
• Sociological knowledge has advanced significantly, but usually in small steps and only occasionally through a big discovery. Sociology has a set of ideas, methods, and facts, even if they are not very well put together. You can’t just use common sense instead of this. Common sense is not thoughtful because it does not ask where it came from. Or, to put it another way, it doesn’t ask, “Why do I think this way?”
• A sociologist must be ready to ask, “Is this really true? ” about any of our deeply held views about ourselves.”Sociology’s method of looking at things in a systematic way and asking questions comes from a larger tradition of scientific study. If we go back in time, we can see why this focus on scientific methods is important. And try to understand the social situation or context in which the sociological point of view was formed, since sociology was heavily affected by the great advances in modern science.
What is the difference between social study and common sense?
1. Take any average person. By the time he or she is an adult, he or she has a “theory” about almost every part of social life. He has an idea of what is good and bad about getting married and having a family, living in the city or in the country, making money, or going into politics. Can we call this kind of theorist a sociologist? Well, yes and no. He is a kind of hobby sociologist, but not much more than that. Unless we want to call a person who looks at the stars an astronomer, a farmer an agronomist, and a tribe that lives in a forest a florist.
2. So, a view of social life that is just based on common sense is not sociology. This is true even though sometimes we find that statements based on folk wisdom are very close to sociological ideas. “Give the dog a bad name, and it will be blamed for a lot of things,” for example. It is a piece of folk wisdom that gets at the heart of Howard Backer’s “Labelling Theory of Deviance,” which says that a person’s behaviour is likely to be affected by the names given to him. If you keep calling someone a criminal, he might end up doing what he is called.
3. But we don’t have to defend the fact that Sociology is a specialised set of knowledge. Because even people who aren’t sociologists tend to look into the same places that sociologists do. Sociology is different from common sense because it looks at things in a different way. Other people can also look at the same things, but not in the same way as Sociology.
To say it again, sociology is a special way of looking at how people live together. This unique
Sociology is an organised study because it has a set of rules for how to look at things. It’s important to find out what
The following are characteristics of the sociologist’s perspective:
• Sociology looks at social life from the point of view of “man in society.” It shows a split and seemingly contradictory view of social life. It means that a group that includes everyone, i.e. Society and its members rely on each other. On the one hand, people are seen as being shaped by their groups and group heritage. On the other hand, people are seen as making their society and culture. Both of these ideas about social fact can be seen in how we talked about the parts of social life earlier. We talked about how people act in society based on their position. Because of this, their behaviour is limited by the need to fit the role expectations. These role standards are set by the rules of society, which are important for living together. Also, when people act in this specific way, they use symbols that everyone understands.
• Knowledge of different cultural facets, such as principles, norms, and beliefs, is necessary for social behaviour. So, society gets into a person and changes how he acts. Now, this shows the first part, which is that “society makes man.” “Man Creates Society,” the second part of sociologists’ view of social life, can be seen in how we understand social behaviour in terms of the meanings people give to things, which are the ground for the reasons behind social actions.
• Now, these meanings and reasons may be different for each person than they are for the group as a whole. This could lead to abnormal behaviour on the part of some people, which could change the behaviour of the whole group. People like Christ, Lenin, and Gandhi were able to change their cultures. Even the weaker people do it, but not as much.
• Sociology takes a unique and unimportant view of social life, as Peter L. Berger has said.
it’s about “busting myths about how people take the world for granted.” Sociologist by trade
is a person who doesn’t believe the obvious, common sense view of the world.
Rather than taking everything at face value, he tries to look past what is “visual” and “apparent” to find hidden patterns, implicit meanings, underlying causes, and unintended effects.
• A sociologist’s job is to look into other people’s lives, and he loves to look behind closed doors. In fact, a well-known textbook author has said that an adolescent who likes to look into places that are against social norms could make a great sociologist if he can keep that voyeuristic curiosity throughout his career and use it to study all parts of society.
• This attitude of debunking can be seen in the work of two famous sociologists, and nowhere is it clearer than in the study of religion, which is the most respected organisation in society. We can look at what Emily Durkheim and Karl Marx thought, who were two of the first people to help sociology grow. Even though they had different ideas about how religion should be used, they both had almost immoral ideas about religion.
• When talking about how religion affects social life, Durkheim said that sociologists need to tell the difference between what people think and what really happens. People might think that if they worship God together, they will be given health, wealth, or success, but Durkheim says that what really happens is that people become closer together. He says that religious views, like those about God or other holy things, are symbols of society. So, if you worship God, you are worshipping society.
• This is a big change from what most people think about religion. For example, Christians believe that “God made man in his own image,” while Durkheim said that “Society made God in its own image.” Karl Marx’s critique of religion shows the same kind of scepticism more clearly. For him, religion is one way that the rich take advantage of the poor, even though it used to look good and have good goals. It works like a painkiller, giving the poor a false sense of joy and making them blind to the real cause of their misery.
• These examples show that the goal of sociological research is to look deeper than the surface of social life and try to figure out what causes, meanings, or unintended effects different social events have. The fact that sociologists don’t agree with what most people think about social life can be traced back to how sociology came to be.
Sociology began when Europe was in a lot of trouble and going through a lot of changes. Commoners like Napoleon destroyed the old governments with their divinely given goods, crowned queens, and noble courtiers. In their place came the world of the industrial bourgeoisie. The problem with the new world was that, even though it was mostly made by people, it seemed to always be getting out of their hands. This is what made people unhappy, which is why they tried to learn more about the world by looking beyond the obvious. So, there was a rise in organised doubt, which became the most important thing about Sociology.
• One of the most important things about the way Sociology looks at things is that it uses clear methods to study social life. Because it was a latecomer, sociology was able to learn from the methods of inquiry used by other fields of knowledge. But at the same time, it had to deal with the fact that it had to use these methods to study human behaviour, which is the most complicated thing to study.
Conclusion:
• Because of this, a statement based on common sense may just be a guess, a hunch, or a random way of saying something. It is usually based on ignorance, bias, prejudice, or a wrong reading, but sometimes it may be wise, true, and a useful bit of knowledge. At one time, common sense statements might have been a way to keep folk knowledge alive, but now, most people use the scientific method to find out the truth about our social world.
• Sociology looks at social life in a unique and humorous way.
Peter L. Berger has called it a “debunking attitude towards the world that is taken for granted.”
“Common sense perceptions are prejudices that can make it hard to study the social world scientifically,” said Durkheim.
Alfred Schutz organised and defined stocks of knowledge that most people take for granted and don’t question.
Garfinkel says that common sense gives people a sense of order and cohesion because people learn unspoken rules about how to use CSK through socialisation, personal experience, and the experiences of others.
• Culture has been broken down into three parts:
Cognitive: This is how we learn to make sense of what we hear or see, like recognising our own cell phone when it rings or recognising a cartoon of a leader.
Normative: This is a term for rules of behaviour, like not opening other people’s mail or doing routines when someone dies.
Material: This includes anything that can be done because of a material. Tools or machines are also materials. Some examples are “chatting” on the Internet and making kolam designs on floors with paste made from rice flour.
Common Sense Justification for Poverty
• People are poor because they don’t want to work, come from “problem families,” can’t make a budget, aren’t very smart, and don’t know what to do.
Sociology explains why people are poor.
• Poverty in today’s society is caused by the way classes are set up, and it affects people who have trouble finding steady work and make low pay.
