Political Power and Social Dynamics: Insights and Reflections
First Questionnaire (Legal, Lawful)
1. In our political system, where does political power reside? Who exercises it?
The power resides in the people and is exercised by the government.
2. If only 30% of the citizens vote in an election, is the resulting government legal? Is it legitimate?
- Legal: According to laws enacted by a state.
- Legitimate: Accepted and recognized by those subjected to a law, conforming to moral principles, above all, justice.
It is legal because the electoral system allows it.
3. What bodies or institutions exercise coercive power in our country?
Police, army, prison officials, etc.
4. Provide three examples where a crime is committed and a sentence is implemented. Does the sentence seem fair to you?
- Rape: I do consider prison time to be just.
- Abuse: I find it unfair that the first offense often results in minimal consequences.
- Hit and run with a car: I consider it just.
5. Express your reasoned opinion concerning the following question: Do you believe that human beings are inherently good and generous or selfish and interested? Give an example to illustrate your answer.
Humans are inherently good and free because they have a social life based on the inequality that leads to the truth of their education and life circumstances. However, we can also say that humans are neutral, as they learn to be both good and bad.
Page 192, Text 1
1. Identify the subject of the text.
The text distinguishes between Mediterranean cities, where there was an absence of magical constraints on citizens, and cities in Asia, such as those in China and India, where these impositions did exist.
2. Look up the concepts you do not understand in the dictionary and explain why general parity did not occur in India.
- Endogamy: The practice of marrying people of common descent or origin within a small town or county. A social attitude of rejecting the inclusion of members outside one’s own group or institution.
- Parity: Equality of things together.
- Caste: In India, a social group within a larger ethnic unit that differs by rank, imposes endogamy, and where membership is a birthright.
Parity did not occur in India because of significant social differences and because, after the victory of economic kings and Brahmins, the integration of citizens was not allowed.
3. What does the total absence of magic-animistic impositions mean for the Mediterranean cities of classical Greece? Explain why.
It means being free to do what you propose, to move from one social class to another, and so on.
4. Can a worldview of human beings in the world hinder the ideals of equality, justice, solidarity, etc., attached to the ideal of citizenship? Find examples and produce a small lecture.
Yes, one can have a different way of thinking and be imposed on these ideals. However, the one with the vision and more power will ultimately impose their view.
For example, in India, girls are forced to marry men, even strangers, because in their culture, a woman who is not beside a man is considered a nonentity.
Text 2, p. 192
1. Identify the subject of the text.
Humans tend to socialize and also to isolate themselves.
2. What are the motives that lead men to enter society and lead them to become isolated? Develop ideas with your words and examples that come to mind.
A man enters society because he needs to carry out activities with others.
- Example: When you go out at night alone, you will not be isolated from society unless you are discriminated against or do not fit in with what society deems acceptable.
- Example: Not thinking the same as a group of people can lead to being no longer accepted.
3. Explain and critically assess the term “to which he can not bear but which can not dispense.”
There are people who, at any given time, do not want to see others and do not need anything from them. However, at some point in life, they may need some quality from those people, so they desperately need that person to achieve something they want.
Page 193, Questions
1. Summarize the text’s content.
The text tells us that the lives of students have changed, and today there is more freedom. Young people do not know how to take advantage of this.
2. Do you think young people really have it easier now than before? Explain.
Yes, because today there is more freedom and more facilities to get what we want, such as youth facilities.
3. Do you think that now young people are more apathetic and listless than before?
I think so because behavior is different now than years ago, and they show no interest in things like politics, etc. They only care about leisure.
4. What does each of the following have to do with it:
a) Greater and easier access to drugs
Young people today have easier access to drugs and more means to obtain them.
b) Exploited and insecure labor market
If young people cannot find work, they may give up, selling the idea that things are easy, and become frustrated.
c) Excessive consumption of audiovisual media
There are currently too many media, and they make some young people addicted. This excess consumption, facilitated by easy access, can distract us from our duties.
5. What advantages might it be for the powerful if lower-class youth are immature, insecure, and apathetic?
I do not think it would be beneficial, as they could study, gain access to a higher class, and challenge the powerful.
When people work, they are easier to control.
Brave New World
1. What is the role of science in the world that is reflected in the text? What is your opinion?
Science plays an important role, so important that life itself depends on it.
I disagree with this because one has to learn from mistakes to find one’s own happiness.
2. Remember the plot of the movie Matrix. What is the relationship with the text?
The relationship is that science prevails in all areas, and there is no freedom. Happiness is a fiction because, as seen in the world, it does not exist.
3. Would you like to live in a society where all were happy but no one could choose another model of life? What model of life would you choose?
No, I like to live in a mixed society. It would be nice if we were all happy, but everyone has the right to choose their own model of life.
I would choose a lifestyle in which there were both sad and happy moments because that is how we learn from mistakes and many other things.
4. Between happiness and freedom, what would you choose?
I would choose happiness because a person who has freedom but not happiness cannot enjoy that freedom if they are sad.
5. What is happiness for you? What is freedom?
Happiness for me is when you are in a very good condition, and you are happy with everything around you.
Freedom is the right to achieve what you want properly and without being controlled by anyone.
Item 12
A Social Machinery: Fundamental Powers and Political Power as a Regulator
Individuals in society relate to each other through a provision of forces that leads to a position in the set. The provision of power revolves around three axes or fundamental powers:
- The economic power: Refers to the relationships established in society to meet material needs.
- The cultural power: Refers to the control of the elements that build collective identity.
- The coercive power: Refers to control over the means of violence, which often means being in possession of state institutions like the army, police, prison officers, etc.
Political power is a regulatory authority over others. It seeks to intervene in each of these spheres of power to regulate through the creation of a legal order or set of laws that set limits on social relations and create opportunities within them.
The machinery or social system works, then, following the movements of these powers. What is the basic production target of the social machine? Producing human life in the community, and when political power helps your production with the majority consent of the population, we say this is legitimate or has achieved legitimacy.
Two Emergency Phases of Political Power
Marvin Harris discusses the phenomenon of power given from the most basic social organizations to the most complex. Consideration helps to understand how it could be that state of nature that Hobbes and Rousseau alluded to before the development of the states we know today. What conclusions did Harris reach? This thinker sees several models of social systems.
Model without bosses: In villages and bands dedicated to hunting and gathering, with populations between fifty and one hundred and fifty individuals, all know each other intimately. Being subject to random resources, they establish a basic principle: reciprocity. Within this same system, one can become a leader by working harder, showing generosity in the distribution of hunting or fishing, and knowing how to transmit sound advice to ensure survival and peaceful coexistence. The whole group ensures that this generosity does not result in a proud character because it predisposes to tyranny.
Model of the great men: Companies with economic systems based not only on hunting and gathering but also on agriculture and livestock, and therefore less subject to random resources, expand their population. Here, the figure of the leader begins a crucial role: redistribution. The redistribution exerted by the leader implies equity and generosity towards others and austerity towards oneself. Gradually, competition is introduced among leaders to offer the best deals and feasts, for which they and their supporters have to work hard to increase production. If they succeed, they will be considered great redistributors, great men. Many begin to develop a personality that seeks to accumulate prestige, something that soon will lead them to seek the distinction of rank within their group.
The former headquarters: Those who were able to create a great redistribution system became the first bosses. Importantly, the advent of agriculture and livestock was the way to increase production without depleting the resources provided by the territory. The chiefs, to specialize their tasks, gave up working like the others, forming a new lifestyle based on managing surpluses in times of shortage and ensuring the contribution of others. The change was accepted by the group and had three possible outcomes:
- Peaceful acquiescence of the population that recognized a guarantee for survival.
- The violent subjugation of their own.
- The creation of fear among the population by deriving their lineage from the gods.
Page 214, Text 2
1. Identify the main idea of the text.
Black people faced with being white, and their eyes nailed the white population, felt guilty because the black population was just looking at them, and they planned violence.
2. Think about what kind of conflict is implicit in the text above. According to the author, does political power reside only in state institutions? Develop your response.
The conflict is that the black race is considered inferior to the white race. Political power is represented by some institutions, but it ultimately resides in the people, who can initiate a revolution.
3. Why does King opt for a non-violent revolution?
Violence only begets violence. King decided on nonviolence to see who would generate violence.
4. Who wields coercive power? Why are they inhibited from using it?
The army and police wield coercive power.
They are inhibited from using it because it is regulated by politicians.
5. Relate what arises in the text to what you have studied on the constituent power.
As political power had become unjust and illegitimate, the black community revealed this, and thus social change emerged.
Page 214, Text 3
1. Identify the main idea of the text.
Power comes from the ability of individuals. Power is not something anyone really owns; it arises between individuals when they act together and disappears when they disperse.
2. The text states that communities are not unitary and have no pre-given essence and objective. What do you mean? Think of examples.
A community is plural and has different circumstances that cannot be classified as different.
3. Why is collective action more creative than a discoverer? What is creativity?
Because being in a group allows for more knowledge and, therefore, more creativity.
4. Relate the issues raised in the text with what you have studied about constituent power and constituted power.
Constituent power is generated by a community.
Constituted power is the one directed by the state or community.