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
Premium Adventures of Huckleberry Finn White people Black people
“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
Premium Poverty Sociology Wealth
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
Free Wealth Wage Poverty
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
Premium Sociology
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
Premium Working class Social class Middle class
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
Free Race Ethnic group Nation
In this article" Race As Class" by Herbert J. Gans‚ he illuminates that race is an irrelevant representation of individual groups of people since we are of similar species. The main point or the Thesis of this article is The last sentence of the fifth paragraph. “As long as people can roughly agree about who looks white yellow or black and find that the notion of race works for their purposes‚ they ignore its inaccuracies‚ inconsistencies‚ and other deficiencies”. As people we can interbreed with
Premium Race Racism Anthropology
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)
Premium Sociology Urban decay Urban studies and planning
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
Premium World War II United States War
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
Premium Sociology