CANADIAN SOCIETY

Presentation Transcript

MODERN-DAY CANADA

2011 census: population is just under 35 million
Ethnically diverse metropolitan areas, with Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver attracting about 70% of all new immigrants
Dropping fertility rates + rising life expectancy = future problems funding social welfare and pension programs
English and French, but also Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Arabic, Spanish, Tagalog, Russian, Farsi, Tamil, Urdu, and Korean

MARX, THE INDIVIDUAL AND WORK

“Man makes his life activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness.”
In other words:

you are because you do
you are what you do
you are who you are because of what you do

MARX, MONEY & POWER

Society is made up of two groups of people, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat

Bourgeoisie: powerful because they own and/or control the means of production; “haves”
Proletariat: work for the bourgeoisie and consume what the bourgeoisie’s products; “have-nots”
The bourgeoisie exploit and oppress the proletariat through capitalism
Both the government and the law are just tools that the bourgeoisie use for their own benefit

MARX, THE VALUE OF LABOUR, AND ALIENATION

The value of a commodity is directly related to the cost required to produce or obtain it

Question: how much would you charge someone for a cake that you made from scratch and decorated?
Question: how much would you pay to have your uniform cleaned and ironed for you each week?
Question: how much would you charge someone to write a 12-page essay on the significance of water imagery in Hamlet?

More manufacturing = more labour = $$$$$

marx the value of labour and alienation1

If you control the means of production, then you control access to the product via pricing

marx the value of labour and alienation2

The bourgeoisie gained control over the means of production (via the Industrial Revolution); they do not want to give up control
How to maintain power over the proletariat?

Alienation: separating the worker from the finished product

Alienation achieved through specialization of labour: hire and/or train a worker to do only part of the job really well

Bourgeoisie bonus: specialization also makes workers more efficient!

marx the value of labour and alienation3

Powerlessness of the proletariat increases when jobs become so specialized that machines can take over

You would have to pay ONE worker a lot of money to build an entire car; that worker will build that car with care
You can pay less money to a bunch of individual workers to build one car; those workers will not care very much about the car
If you can automate the entire car-making process, you save money

Complete alienation of the proletariat from the production process; growing divide between bourgeoisie and proletariat – money AND power

LABOUR, ALIENATION, & THE INDIVIDUAL

Mechanizing simple tasks helps people:

prevents injury
frees up time for people to find meaningful work

If a person’s work can be done by a machine:

that person will be paid less
that person will feel devalued in society
that job will become devalued

LABOUR, ALIENATION, & THE INDIVIDUAL

Therefore, in order to be considered successful today, one must be highly skilled:

Greater importance to the community
Higher social status within society
Increased number of social benefits

Society values the highly-skilled individual more so than it does the rest of the population

One’s social class position determines one’s entire fate.

ANTONIO GRAMSCI and CULTURAL HEGEMONY

Please read Challenge and Change: Patterns, Trends, and Shifts in Society, pp. 105-106
Make point form notes on this section, add to your current note

INTERNAL DRIVES: FREUD vs. DURKHEIM

Freud looked at different states of consciousness & natural state to seek pleasure (ruled by unconscious)
Durkheim was interested in conscious internal and societal motivators
Anomie: what people experience when they are unsure of society’s norms and expectations

ORGANIC SPECIALIZATION & ANOMIE

Organic specialization: workers perform specific tasks for the benefit of the entire system

Like an organ in the body

Organic specialization causes anomie:

Workers are isolated by the specificity of their jobs
No shared work experience = no strong personal bonds
No social interaction  social rules not transmitted  social norms break down
Result: dissatisfaction, conflict, deviance

If you think the world of work is bad, imagine the anomie of an unemployed individual

FREUD & DEFENCE MECHANISMS

When we experience stress – whether financial, emotional, or other – we use defence mechanisms to deal with the problem

Unconscious response
Allows our minds to hide or distort a problem so that it stops consciously bothering us
Protects the ego from having to deal with shame, anxiety, and other uncomfortable/unacceptable feelings or thoughts

10 DEFENCE MECHANISMS

COMPENSATION: making up for weakness in one area by excelling in another
DENIAL: refusing to acknowledge the problem
DISPLACEMENT: taking out impulses on a less threatening target
ESCAPISM: fantasizing to escape reality
IDENTIFICATION: taking on the roles of others
MINIMIZING: “writing off” problems as being too minor to worry about

10 DEFENCE MECHANISMS

PROJECTION: putting your own faults onto someone else
RATIONALIZATION: using an excuse to cope with a problem
REACTION FORMATION: when a belief of yours causes you anxiety, you adopt the opposing belief
REGRESSION: reverting to immature behaviour to express your emotions
SUBLIMATION: acting out unacceptable impulses in a socially acceptable way

WHAT’S YOUR DEFENCE MECHANISM?

INSTINCT

Although the human brain has evolved to allow us to think rationally, creatively, and abstractly, we still retain our most primitive survival instincts
Stressors can still trigger our fight or flight response
Different people have different threshold stress tolerances
The way we act out our primal instincts varies from one person to the next

What’s your instinctual reaction to a stressor?

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF IDEAS

Social organization necessary as society becomes complex
Rules & expectations necessary for stability
How does one change these rules and expectations?
Who has the power to make change happen in society, and from whence does that power come?

WORK

Max Weber (Sociologist): around the beginning of the 1900s, noticed that society’s relationship to work was changing:

Paid work evolved to become a means of distinguishing the worker as a successful individual
Wealth accumulation became an important goal
In general, life started to revolve around the idea of producing, consuming, and increasing personal wealth

EARN MORE $$$

ELEVATE LIFESTYLE

SPEND MORE TIME AT

WORK TO PAY FOR

LIFESTYLE

Identification & Priorities

Worker ensures family is looked after during work hours
If need to work more, need to extend childcare
Earning more leads to elevated spending lifestyle
To pay for lifestyle need to earn more
Family gains benefit of increased income but suffers due to reduction in time spent together

LEARNED BEHAVIOUR:NOT JUST WITH CLOWNS

Please read Challenge and Change: Patterns, Trends, and Shifts in Society, p. 114
Answer all three questions at the bottom of the page

INEQUALITY, GENDER AND RACE

The increasing specialization of labour, coupled with the consumption-oriented lifestyle, helped institutionalize gender inequality
Positions of power in modern-day Canadian society continue to be male dominated, and heldpredominantly by Caucasians
1986: Employment Equity Act instituted in Canada