Transcript Ingroups, Outgroups and Group Conflict.

Two studies of the relations
between ideas and social
structure
Anderson and Harris each show that
ideas and culture does not hang in mid
air, but is created and sustained by
social relationships.
Culture neither changes nor persists by
itself; but by the persistence or change
of the structure on which it is based.
How do group and institutional
structures get inside one’s head?
1. If you lived at the foot of Germantown
Ave. would you join a gang? Why? Or
why not?
2. If you were Hindu, would you feel real
loathing for cow-killers. Why? or Why
not?
3. If you worked at Auschwitz would you
gas Jews? Why? or why not?
Elijah Anderson:
Vice president of ASA 2002
Streetwise: Race, Class and Change in an
Urban Community (1990)
Code of the Streets: Decency, Violence
and Moral Life in the Inner City (1999).
Topic of symposium American Journal of
Sociology May 2002
(Entry to the methodological and substantive findings of urban
ethnography as possible paper topics)
Groups and Norms along
Germantown Ave.
The head of Germantown Ave. (Chestnut Hill) is
very upper class; and the foot is very lower class.
*pp. 366-7 shows the same structure of Lancaster
Ave. from ghetto poverty to the “main line.”
The head is characterized by a norm of civic
politeness; the foot by “rep” or “juice.”
The head is white; the foot is black.
Is this an example of institutional racism?
Structures that make the code of
the streets crazy in Chestnut Hill
Some Chestnut Hill residents see most blacks
from down town as very “rude.”
Where does that behavior come from?
Anderson argues that down town, showing that
you are “bad” and that anyone who “messes
with you” is “asking for trouble” is adaptive.
If you behave that way in Chestnut Hill, people
will look at you as though you are crazy, and
you may be arrested.
Anderson argues it is like a language, a code.
Situations and structures making
resisting the code of the streets
hard at the foot of Germantown
Ave.
Similarly, if you behave, downtown, in a
way that would work and would be
appropriate in Chestnut Hill, people will
look at you as though you are a turkey,
and take advantage of you.
But in Chestnut Hill being “nicey-nicey”
signals status, class, kindness and
character.
e.g. #1 The Story of Robert:
Small business and Old Heads
“When I was dealing, I was treated as a
king, and no one messed with me.”
“When I follow the rules, I am in a dead
end, everyone steals from me and every
petty bureaucrat dumps on me.”
The view of the “old heads” in Mantua is
that they are suckers and pathetic Toms.
Why?
Why Does the city discourage
venders?
In the overall structure of power and influence,
people like Robert are at the bottom.
They were the “last hired” (in 1969-73); and so
they were “first fired” (in 1972-81)
The city department that issues and enforces
vendor licenses is mainly responsive to
storeowners that regard Robert as a nuisance.
What are the main priorities of the police?
Anderson suggests that no one with any power or
influences is particularly interested in having
Robert succeed; but his success is key to who
wins the battle between the “street” and “decency”
Example #2: the story of Tyree
Tyree’s Grandmother - “decent folk.”
The ‘bols’
Tyree’s situation.
Tyree’s solution.
The Outcome of Tyree’s solution: He is
now in a gang, fighting in the street; and
hanging around with the worst people.
Why doesn’t he “Just Say No”
The structure does not insure that every
person joins a gang; certainly not with
commitment, but
– It insures that enough do so that the structure is
reproduced.
– Those not in a gang, get it from all sides.
“Not an option?” Well, not quite. But there is
a special role for those who have no group.
– They are losers; they are bullied; they are
cowards; they are turkeys.
The structure of alternatives means that the
constrained choices reproduce the structure.
Wacquant‘s criticisms of COS
Anderson is not honest about his own
position as pro-decent and anti-street.
The code has no reality: there are two
different fractions of the black working
class that have different situations.
Mentoring and opportunity-policies will not
have much effect.
Anderson’s replies:
I’m an ethnographer, not an ideologue:
The people in the neighborhoods make
the distinction between decent and street.
People make choices under constraints.
The situtional change that makes street
toughness a virtue is disastrous for the
community.
Mentoring examples show the real tug-awar.
The Persistence of Culture: a
third anthropological example
Do ideas and cultural systems persist, out
of inertia.
What are the dynamic structures of
persistence?
What groups, activities and rewards come
into play?
Harris’ “Cultural Materialism”
Marvin Harris: Cows Wars, Pigs and
Witches.
Thesis: no element of culture persists
without reasons
These reasons usually have to do with
class, economic and ecological structures.
Food (pigs, dogs, cows, people) are
exceptionally clear examples.
The “sacred cow” of India
The cow has been sacred for 2,000 yrs.
Only “untouchables” butcher or eat cows;
cow-killing produces an even more
powerful reaction than murder.
Most Indian food is cooked in butter-fat
Nearly 100,000,000 foraging cows are
everywhere.
Even cow dung is used and is treated as
pure.
The Rockerfeller view
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Millions of people starve while millions of
cows are protected by religious superstition.
Avoiding cow-killing is:
Inefficient,
Wasteful,
Superstitious,
Traditionalism
India needs capitalist agriculture like the US
Problems with that explanation,
according to Harris
Millions of Indian villages have destroyed their
livelihood.
A sustainable economy must preserve the land
and the population,
unlike the commercial farming that created the
dust bowl.
Killing a cow creates one feast for one family in
the short run, and disaster for the community in
the not very long run.
Even when a cow is too old to calf and is past
milking, it is crucial to the ecology.
Harris’ explanation:
700,000,000 tons of cow manure per year are
crucial to preventing ecological disaster.
The non-cow-owners have a particularly strong
motive for saving even an old cow.
Unless we look at the social and ecological long
run dynamics, we cannot understand present
arrangements or suggest reasonable changes.
Mixture of functionalism and conflict theory
But why make the cow sacred?
The cultural rules that preserve the society
as a whole – particularly those that require
that people act in the public interest –
usually take this form.
Bargaining over when to kill which cows
could never preserve the society.
For all cows to be sacred for all Hindus
can and did preserve the society.
2 Aspects of Bureaucracy
Nice:
1. Efficient,
2. Systematic,
3. Fair
E.g. the passport
office
Nasty
1. Bottom line
2. Arbitrary
3. Without values
Parking authority
The debate about Weber:
Weber believed that modern rational
organization has to be exploitative (one
needs to concentrate resources) and
undemocratic (one needs chain of
command.)
But this produces a society of Auschwitzes
– a world without community or value.
Getting the best of both worlds:
Marx, Durkheim, Murray, and a host of
other sociologists have tried to get the
best of both worlds:
Bureaucartic rationality and efficiency.
Social conscience and community.
Buddy systems and other ways of
structuring formal organization in such a
way as to use primary group structures.
Alcoholics Anonymous as a
Hybrid Form.
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Primary Group
Characteristics:
Small groups
High fellowship
No Professionals
No Authority sponsorship
Core identity
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5.
Secondary group
Characteristics:
Tens of millions of
members.
Anonymity.
Service arms.
Conferences.
Open networks.
Alcoholics Anonymous as a
SPIN
The reason that AA can generate several
million members in Russia in a few years is
that it is a kind of SPIN
The groups are autonomous and independent
There are no leaders who could disgrace the
organization by falling off the wagon
But the members are committed to the
organization and to its expansion.
It can often socialize and incorporate new
members relatively rapidly.