Download CONFLICT THEORY BUZZLE

CONFLICT THEORY BUZZLE
Man's struggle for power is eternal. Be it family or work place, play group or politics,
man wants to achieve the higher and authoritative position. It starts from personal level
to national level. There are various groups and communities of people in society
belonging to different classes, religions, and ideologies. All of them have different
perspectives and values. The clash between these various perspectives leads to conflict
between these groups. It influences the distribution of power, wealth, prestige, etc.
Social conflict perspective is all about the differences between social groups in the
society.
What is It?
Conflict perspective, also called conflict theory, is essentially based on the Karl Marx's
thoughts on class struggle. According to his theory, the society is divided in two groups,
namely haves and have nots, that is, rich and poor. The rich people are powerful
because they control resources and poor people are powerless as they are at the
receiving ends and have to live as per the whims and fancies of rich people. It is macro
level perspective that emphasizes on competition between different groups for scarce
resources, including prestige and wealth. The groups of people can be divided on the
grounds of sex, race, and cultural, political, and economical background. This is one of
the social science theories which believe that conflict is mandatory and also one of the
most important values in the society for its existence.
The conflict is also very important in order to bring social changes and revolution, as it
challenges the status quo. If there are no conflicts in the society then it will come to a
stand still, won't grow, and won't bring any change in the lives of human beings. This
theory observes that different groups have different values and agendas, and they are
always competing with each other to achieve their goals and agendas. This
argumentative nature of groups forms the ever changing nature of the society. In today's
world, the power is calculated in terms of money. The more rich you are the more power
you have. It is the rich people who control the resources and they are the ones who
steer public opinion for their benefit. According to this theory, societal norms that are
considered essential to hold the society together are biased. They are actually imposed
by dominant and powerful people through artificial consensus.
The Perspective on Family
Family is one of the important social institutions. Every social perspective has its own
perspective on family as a social institution. According to the interaction theory, it is the
family where a person forms his values and ideologies in the initial stages of life.
Another social theory known as functionalism theory, looks at family as the basic unit of
society which gives the sense of belonging to people. The perspective has a different
take on the family relationships. This society looks at family as miniature class society
where dominant groups oppress the weaker sections. For example, in the family, men
tend to dominate the family as they are bread earners and control economy of the
house. After marriage, women have no choice but to live with their husbands and
compromise accordingly because that is the age-old practice where women are
subjected to oppression. The children in the house also have to listen to parents as they
are more experienced and their authority is legitimized by the society. Parents always
have an edge over their children only because they are parents. Children do not have
absolute freedom in this situation. Such situations lead to conflict in the family.
Sometimes there are fights in the family between husband and wife, or parents and
children that is necessary to bring the social change.
It is criticized by a lot of sociologists, saying that it is over negative and cannot address
social harmony and cohesion effectively. It also fails to look at micro level phenomena
and generalizes things to the extreme points.
Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/conflict-perspective.html