Question:
Discuss and analyse a perspective of the applications of psychological and sociological theories of society, discuss and analyse an ideology and the way it generally defines the social world and discuss and apply a given psychological and sociological perspective and the way it relates to and has relevance for the explanation of health, illness and death?
Answer:
Introduction:
This report will discuss and analyse the ideologies of Marx, Durkheim and Freud and evaluate the way in which they generally define the social world of health, illness and death.
Karl Marx theory of alienation
This theory tells about the partaking of the human in four broad relations. These broad relations are so distributed that they can cover the whole human existence. These relations include men’s relation with its product, with its production activity, with other men and with other species. Active alienation is the capitalism in production activity. Marx describes the four types of relation of a worker labouring in the industrial production department (Raekstad, 2015).
Alienation from work of the worker
The determination of product design and how it is produced is not determined by the producers who produce it or not, through the customer who purchase it, but it is determined by the manual labor of the worker. But due to the refined system of industry profit gained through the labor activity is paid to the functional capitalist and retailer capitalist not to the labour (Robertson, 2006).
Alienation from working of the worker
In the industry production of product complete with the endless repetitive motion of workers that give them a little type of physiological satisfaction (Stack, 2004). The physiological estrangement starts with the unmediated relation between wages paid to him and his labor. This type of alienation converts the worker to an instrument or an object.
Alienation of the workers as a producer from himself
Social existence of men is conditioned by his relationship with the things that facilitate his survival and relationship with the person which force the person behave as social animals. So his consciousness is determined collectively and individually. Thus the interest and benefits of an individual constitute the state of un-alienated labor that will restore the fullest exercise of workers and determine their nature (Whalley, 2012).
Alienation from other workers
In the capitalist economy, businesses that own the production establish the competitive labor market by selecting the best labor by the means of capital among the labors. This system causes the false consciousness in the labor.
Emile Durkheim theory of suicide
Durkheim studies the social facts, especially the case of suicide. Durkheim concludes that individual suicide behaviour is based on aggregate statistics of human such as suicide rates in protestant and Catholics. This type of inference can be explained by the micro properties of the environment which can mislead a person. The deaths due to illness or unspecified cause and sudden deaths are concluded as suicides in protestant but not in the Catholics. The intensity of suicide increases with the psychological effects such as depression and non-social or independent cause of suicide. These variables are affected by larger social forces and if these forces don’t occur than the suicide will not occur.
Durkheim explained the term suicide as a positive or negative act of the victim which he knows that result in death directly or indirectly. He describes that suicide is of four subtypes.
Egoistic suicide
Durkheim explained that this type of suicide is done due to excessive individuation that is long term detachment from society or from family members. The person those cannot build a strong bond with the society, got a little or no support or guidance from the society, so they commit suicide on increased rate.
Altruistic suicide
These types of suicides are committed by the person those are overwhelmed by the beliefs and goals of society. These types of suicides occur in society which is of high integration where the individual need or wish is very less important as compared to the society need. Thus, those people stand on the opposite integration same as the egoistic suicide.
Anomic suicide
Durkheim explained the anomic suicide as the state of mind having the moral disorder where the person does not know the limits of their desire and disappointed everywhere. These types of suicide are committed when the person undergoes extreme changes in wealth or the ruining of economic environment. This state occurs due to lack of social support and moral confusion.
Fatalistic suicide
Durkheim describes the fatalistic suicide is type of suicide opposite from anomic suicide. These types of suicide are committed in totally oppressive societies where the person likes to die rather than to live in that society. Example of this type suicide is the imprisonment of a person; a person would like to die rather than to live in imprisonment.
Durkheim defines that moral regulation and social integration are two social forces, those when imbalanced become the cause of all four types of suicides.
Freud theory of illness and mental health criticism
Freud tells that the neurotic behaviour or mental illness occurs due to the unpleasant or traumatic incident happened in childhood and that was repressed or suppressed by the conscious mind. Freud said that the unconscious mind by the means of symbolism communicate with the suppressed or repressed thoughts. Freudian slip refers to the term used for the speech error which occurs due to the unconscious thoughts or feeling and true feeling. Through the studies of patients, Freud tells the early sexual state has high influence on the unconscious mind because the way by which society forces to suppress the sexual feeling and behaviour of developing children. Freud explained the three stages of sexual development: oral stage, anal stage and genital stage (Chikaodiri, 2010).
Oral stage: The lips tongue and teeth of the children are the centre for the understanding of the world. In this stage thirst and hunger impulses are paramount of the baby. In the late oral stage, aggressive impulses force the baby to bit the mother’s breast (Freeden, 2005).
Anal stage: In the anal stage, the children learn to control the urination and defecation by controlling the urinary bladder. In this stage, praise occurs due to successful toilet practice and criticism for faecal material. This is known as anal fixation.
Genital stage: this stage link with the sexual pleasure due to closeness with one of his parents. Child feel obsessed with not having a penis or having a penis. During this stage, a child wants to sleep with his parents and feel jealous if they do not concentrate on him.
Freud believed that the neurotic behaviour is the reflection of earlier stage regression. That is true because Freud death was due to throat cancer as he is a cigar smoker (Cook, 2001).
Criticism of Freud theory
Freud theory of unconscious feeling had many of the criticism that are only focus to male and the clinical data used by Freud was inaccurate and flawed. Other critics said that the psychoanalysis is not a simple science also the principles used in this theory is inaccurate. Beside these critics Freud theory influences the modern psychotherapy (Goldstein and Zuckerman, 2010).
1.1 Perspective of structural–functional theory
A theory describes how and why the world operates and processes work. In terms of sociology the theory tells how the groups of people get together a certain work and how the societies work and change. For the social sciences it is important to study the perspective framework to understand the phenomena of sociology, psychology and economics. Without the support of these theories we cannot find the way to organize the society (Garner, 2003). With the help of theories we can understand for any decision or behavior of society. For understanding and analysing the perspective of the application of psychological and sociological theory of society, this report will discuss the perspective of structural-functional theory. In this theory society considered as a complex system, but interconnected with each other. For the structure-function approach metaphor is the human body (Garner, 2003). The individuals have eyes, ears, brain, legs and all parts have their neurons, but all the parts are interconnected to each other and function together in the body. For understanding the structure-function theory an example will be considered, for the success of a sports team, the team needs groups of working bodies. All of these work independently, but are interconnected with each other (Bhadra, 2012). A soccer team requires fullback, forwards and goalkeeper, also require referees, the coach and the person who pays for the equipment. The playing without an audience is very little fun, so each member of the soccer team has its own contribution that is the audience when to cheer and where to sit. For the successful working of a team, all the members of a team should work together.
Ideology
Ideology is the complicated term; it differs with the context for which it is used. In daily language, it is insult to ask someone ideological because it gives rigidity to the belief of one. Marx explains the reality of ideology is the belief system which justifies the action of a person in power. If someone wants to explain the ideology than he should carefully explain the term that what is it?
An ideology is the set of beliefs, ideas and principles that describes a perspective to interpret political and social realities. The ideology contains political connotation rather the ideology term is used in a neutral sense. Marx describes the ideology as the wrong-consciousness of the society that is ruled on the other and thinks that their ideas are universal truth. These ideas only serve the class interests of them (Graetz Simmonds, 2006). Ideology is a political tool to fulfill the hidden interest by distorting the political and social realities. There are many types of ideology we will discuss and analyze the political ideologies and the way it defines the social world..
Political ideologies
The political actions of many political parties are based on ideology. Social study states that the political ideology sets of principles, doctrines, symbols or myths of institution, class, large group and social movement that will explain how society should offer blueprint and work for a social order. Political ideology has two variables: Goals and Methods
Goals: how society should be arranged or work
Methods: The convenient way to achieve the goals
A collection of ideas is ideology. Each ideology contains set of ideas which considered the best form of economic system and best form of government system (KENNY, 2007). Sometimes, to explain both ideology and best idea same words are used. Socialism belongs to economic system or an ideology that defines the economic system. Ideology is also defined by their position on the spectrum of politics that right, left or corner although it is controversial (Bunyard, 2014). Ideology is different from the political strategies and single idea that the political party is built. Political ideology is concerned with many of the facts of society such as health care, education, economy, criminal law, labour law, and justice system, provision of security, social welfare, environment, immigration, trade, minors, race, military use, established religion and patriotism. For the classification of political ideologies there are many proposed methods. So the political ideology has very important role in describing the social world and control (Ostberg, 2012).
Marxist perspective of health, illness and death
Marxist perspective explained that material production such as food, clothing and shelter is the fundamental activity of all human societies. This type of material production requires organization and some sort of tools for the material produced. Production of any type involves social relations explained by Marxist perspective. In the capitalization of society all these material production requires division of labour that is reflected from different social classes. According to Marx, these production relations and forces describe the infrastructure of society. The political, educational, legal and health system like superstructure of society was determined by the infrastructure of society. Population health outcomes are influenced by the two levels of operation of capitalist economic society (Maidan, 2011).
First level, health is affected by the industrial diseases, injuries, ill health due to stress and indirectly effect by the commodity production in modern society. Due the modern production processes the pollution of environment increases and also consumption of these processed foods, chemical substances, accidents and many more affect the human health and cause illness (Ostberg, 2012).
The second level is the level of distribution which affects the health of society. The person’s standard of living is determined through their wealth and income that is the residential area where they live, their diet, use of health care facilities, and access to opportunity of education and so on. All these variables have a higher effect on the health of society (Nafstad and Blakar, 2012).
Conclusion:
From the above theories, it was concluded that social life has great impact on individual and individual health, illness and death. Marx theory tells about the effect of production activity of human being alienation related to these productive activities and its perspective also tells how the production activity affect the health, illness and death. Durkheim’s theory explains how the social life forces the individual to have suicide. Freud theory describes the impact of society on child development and his mental health. The Perspective of structure-function theory reveals the importance of coordination of society and how the different person of society works independently and connected to each other for a successful task. Ideology defines the idea or set of ideas for the achievement of any goal which is followed by the society. From the all above theories, perspective and ideology, it was concluded that social life has great impact on health, illness and death. Low grade production activity can produce harm to human health, poor relation with society can be the reason for suicide and also the improper child development under society enforcement can affect the mental health of human being.
References
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