Oliver Wendell Holmes once said‚ "we do not read literature for improvement or instruction." However‚ there are many reasons to disagree with Holmes’ conjecture; there is a great deal of literature that provides philosophical insight along with entertainment. The wisdom and education provided by books such as Mark Twain’s "Huckleberry Finn" and Frank Herbert’s "Dune" strongly contradicts Holmes’ view. "Huckleberry Finn" was a novel written two decades after slavery was abolished in the United States
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“The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay for All” * Herbert J. Gans Poverty is a persistent social phenomenon. A functional analysis (Robert Merton) of poverty may explain positive functions as to why such phenomenon continues to persist‚ as seen by Herbert J. Gans’ study‚ “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay for All”‚ which expresses thirteen positive functions of poverty and further expresses its consistency with the functionalist perspective. In society‚ everything goes hand in hand‚ the rich need
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In the article entitled "The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All‚" sociologist Herbert J. Gans discusses the strange alliance between the poor and the wealthy in American society. He states that the underprivileged in essence have kept several vocations in existence such as social work‚ criminology‚ and journalism. These vocations serve the double pretense of aiding the less fortunate and protecting society from these same individuals. He compares his analogy with that of Richard K. Merton. "Robert
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Erika Schafer Assignment 1 Due 9/14/14 Structural Functionalism The functionalist theory focuses on society as a system of interrelated institutions and structures that are designed to address human needs. They view society as functioning best when there is agreement about the social values and norms. The functionalist theory asserts that our lives are guided by social structures‚ which are relatively stable patterns of social behavior in each society. Each social structure has social functions
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it has to be recognized by society. Also‚ Herbert J. Gans‚ an American sociologist talks about poverty in his article‚ "The War Against the Poor Instead of Programs to End Poverty". Gans is a professor of sociology at Columbia University. Many of his books and articles are related to poverty such as "The Urban Villagers"‚ "The Levittowners‚ People and Plans"‚ "More Equality" and "Middle American Individualism". In his article‚ Gans talks about the attitudes from American society especially
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is a term coined by Herbert Gans. It refers to ethnicity that is individualistic in nature and without real social cost for the individual. These symbolic identifications are essentially leisure time activities‚ rooted in nuclear family traditions reinforced by voluntary enjoyable aspects for being ethnic (Gans 424-429). Symbolic ethnicity arises “as the functions of ethnic cultures and groups diminish and identity becomes the primary way of being ethnic” (Gans 1985:434). Gans predicted that this
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globalisation spelt the end of the idyllic traditional lifestyle affiliated with rural living? Also the definition of urban itself is one thrown into question. Herbert Gans’ theories on urban sociology; the compositional approach question the concept of urban itself‚ exploring the idea of suburbia and the inner-city as being two aspects of the same entity (Gans‚ 1962). Fisher’s subcultural theory also questions the validity of claims made by Wirth and in Georg Simmel’s “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903)
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the streets reflect that emotion such as aggression. Hence‚ it is clear that social imagination is a form of self-consciousness. In addition‚ Herbert J. Gans in his article which is “Uses of the Underclass in America” mentions poverty as a public issue and express that poverty one of the most important economic function of undeserving poor is job creation (Gans‚ 1994). Even if poverty is an undesirable situation for individuals‚ it has an economic function for society. At this point‚ sociological imagination
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Referring to Herbert J. Gans’ use of social functionalist theory in his essay titled “Uses of the Underclass in America”‚ four of the thirteen manifest and latent functions Gans applied to the problem of poverty could also be applied to the issue of Islamophobia in America. The first (manifest) function of Islamophobia emphasizes that the existence of Islamophobia supplies popular culture villains. Because many within American society oftentimes associate real-world terrorism with Muslims (at a
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SELF-TEST After completing this self-test‚ check your answers in the Answer Key of this Study Guide. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 1. Who studies the size‚ composition‚ growth‚ and distribution of human population? a. population experts b. growth specialists c. demographers d. social development professionals 2. The proposition that the population grows geometrically while the food supply increases arithmetically is known as the: a. food surplus equation. b. Malthus theorem. c
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