SOCIOLOGY 170

                        Conflict Perspectives


Perhaps in part because the Red Scare of the 1950s led to so=called
political witch hunts and persecution of many persons even suspected
of posessing overly liberal political values, Marxian thought was not
developed or applied to any significant degree until the mid-1960s.
Instead, a relatively "safe" theoretical position known as CONFLICT
THEORY emerged.

In order to distinguish between Marxian positions on one hand, and
positions that derive from non-Marxian premises but often employ
similar concepts on the other, it is convenient to apply the term
CONFLICT THEORY to those positions that subscribe to, but do not
substantially go beyond, the Hobbesian position.  For Hobbes, the
natural cupidity of people leads inevitably to battles for possession
of resources, and it follows that the stronger win.  For this reason,
people live in a continual state of hostility (conflict).  Yet, Hobbes
was a rationalist, not a pessimist, and he argued that reason is a
critically important tool that allows us to overcome the morass of
conflict and allows us to create that GREAT LEVIATHAN" called THE
STATE.

The state represents (or embodies) the interests of the "common
citizen," and mediates between primitive human desires and the
rational need for freedom and well-being.  Conflict theorists are
guided by the Hobbesian view that definitions of norms and values are
also a source of conflict over who has the right to name the world
(e.g., as in creation of laws and conceptions of "JUSTICE." In this
view, the state MEDIATES (or intervenes with the intention of solving)
the conflicts over these definitions of acceptable and unacceptable
behaviors.  As a consequence, not only BEHAVIOR, but also POWER
RELATIONS become important topics to study.

Unlike the functionalist (or "consensus") view of society, which views
HARMONY as the basis of order, conflict theorists see CONFLICT as the
NATURAL state of social existence.

Chambliss and Seidman have summarized conflict theory in four
propositions:

1. Society at every moment is subject to change; social change is
continuous.

2. Every society experiences at every moment social conflicts.

3. Every element in a society contributes to change.

4. Every society rests upon constraint of some members by others.

The research task for conflict theorists is essentially one of
political analysis:

     The political questions inherent in a conflict model focus
     on the use of social control in society.  What behavior is
     forbidden?  How is this behavior controlled?  At issue is a
     conflict between individual freedom and social restraint,
     with social disorder (anarchy) and authoritarian social
     control(Leviathan) as the polar expressions.  The resolution
     of this conflict entails a political decision about how much
     social disorder will be tolerated at the expense of how much
     social control.  This choice cannot be confronted as long as
     deviance is relegated to the arena of administrative
     policy-making.

Unlike symbolic interactionist perspectives, which focus on how the
SUBJECT of knowledge creates a world built up from meanings and
competent interpretations of those meanings, or the Marxist
(dialectical) paradigm which sees the social world as a dialectical
outcome of objective and subjective factors, conflict theory tends to
focus on the OBJECT of knowledge, and social factors such as special
interests, power, or status become "INDEPENDENT VARIABLES."

Conflict theorists, despite their critical examination of power
relations, tend to accept the fundamental existing social
arrangements, and instead of arguing for NEW SOCIAL SYSTEMS tend to
argue for rearrangement of existing relations.

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