Sociology Paradigms
Paradigms in sociology refer to an important structure concept and dynamics of a society. Paradigms are basic assumptions people make when trying to explain/understand a given social problem. It offers accuracy in describing the central concepts. There are two main basic assumptions that are used in society everyday. These paradigms we use today are Person Blaming and System Blaming. The reason behind these paradigms is the high amount of people who blame social problems on individuals, and compare the social system and how people look at social problems in the world. Person blaming is the assumption that social problems result from the pathologies of individuals. (Z.E. p.22)
Person blaming has three main assumptions that people use
to blame others: Individual Deficiencies, Cultural Deprivation, and Social Darwinism. Individual deficiencies are pathologies such as if something were wrong with the person. They might be considered lazy, stupid, and emotionally unstable. This is easily used as a solution because it’s easier to say the person is the problem, and not take account of other factors. An example of this is that someone who is unemployed is considered lazy and uneducated. Wrong, there could be many factors why the person is unemployed. It could be because when consumer demand is slow, businesses lose too much profit and they lay off workers. Or it could be because technology is taking over and machines are replacing a person, which is also known as structural unemployment. A lot of people today are unemployed because there is no work. There is no work because people aren’t buying products/services. Therefore, people don’t have money because they are unemployed. It really is just a cycle. So to blame someone for being lazy, stupid, or uneducated because they aren’t employed is a factor of person blaming.
Person blaming has three main assumptions that people use
to blame others: Individual Deficiencies, Cultural Deprivation, and Social Darwinism. Individual deficiencies are pathologies such as if something were wrong with the person. They might be considered lazy, stupid, and emotionally unstable. This is easily used as a solution because it’s easier to say the person is the problem, and not take account of other factors. An example of this is that someone who is unemployed is considered lazy and uneducated. Wrong, there could be many factors why the person is unemployed. It could be because when consumer demand is slow, businesses lose too much profit and they lay off workers. Or it could be because technology is taking over and machines are replacing a person, which is also known as structural unemployment. A lot of people today are unemployed because there is no work. There is no work because people aren’t buying products/services. Therefore, people don’t have money because they are unemployed. It really is just a cycle. So to blame someone for being lazy, stupid, or uneducated because they aren’t employed is a factor of person blaming.