Tuner’s Discussion: Functionalism

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The society that people operates in quite sophisticated, a concise understanding of how things work could be relevant to addressing some of the social problems that emerge. People have used different approaches provide a clear image of how the society operates; some of the proposed approaches lack elaborate approach to underscoring various distinctions in the society. The analysis of social systems should proceed in a way that promotes the understanding of social needs which a given society must meet. In the initial discussions on functionalism emerged in social science but disappeared into biology and reappeared in 1950s. organismic analogy is a borrowed concept and helps in underscoring the actual reorganization and interaction which helps in boosting the survival of organisms in the community. Under the approach, social scientist explored the understanding of the interaction of various and systems in body of the human and how they work to form an orchestrated system. Close view of various even and reorganization similarly to the human body explains how diverse community explain the functionality of its systems.

During the second decade of the twentieth century, there was great focus in analysis of the evolution in the society. The central aspect of evolution happened to carry with it the ideas of functionalism. Theorist used functionalism to detail why certain things such as superiority observed in the ethnocentrism in European continent. Turner’s approach has been relevant in providing an understanding into concepts of biology and how sociologist integrate both aspects into explain some challenging concepts. According to turner, the approach to bring the logics of evolution in the society would be crucial in providing a clear image to the operations about a people’s culture. Turner highlighted that functionalism would save understanding of concepts in sociology which largely depends of some unviable ideas of Darwin. He proposed that the previous held ideologies of selection appears not on individual levels rather than on superorganisms. Knowledge from biology brought into unmasking the social efforts of functionalism fail to provide a clear image of how the society run and the adoption of certain cultural practices.

Turner noted that sociocultural systems are dynamic as they can gain new insights through the borrowing of ideas and innovation, which concepts in biology would not provide an explanation. Therefore, ignoring the pressures of selection and the aspect of need and conceptualization and appear to agents to form a reasonable social system central ideas of functionalism would be saved. Ideally, this would ensure that there is integration of the functionalism ideas into the social sciences. This would be crucial if social scientists would understand the beauty of understanding concepts of sociology and integrating it with some aspects of biology to help functionalism thrive.

The Talcott model found favor in functionalism as it reappeared in the half of the twentieth century. The evolution of his theory found favor in the sociology and it became an integral theoretic approach to understanding the sociocultural changes. The theory prioritized four different levels of understanding and analyzing the culture including later behavior, the social, cultural and the psychological view. The cybernetic hierarchy could explain some aspects that emerged with the use of the four levels of his theory. Importantly, Talcott provided his explanation through key milestone of information and energy. His model provided an elaborate view of what happens in the different systems. For instance, the cultural system according to Talcott enabled people to understand the interrelation of ideas. The other systems also provided an understanding of why things happen in a given way and the importance of regulating energy flow. The integration of the Talcott model’s system further ignited an understanding of how the human perspective operates in the universe.

Turner’s new system blends ideas from the biological view, the sociocultural view and functionalism in explain trend in understanding the scope of interaction in the society. Turner believe that adoption of the superorganism spectra provided by spencer in the social cultural system would enhance the understanding of scientific studies and analysis which give live to functionalism. According to turner the central idea of superiority appear in spencer’s model would require a prerequisite of understanding how various evolution and behavior changes occur. People should change the way they view the evolution pressures and they should recognize that selection pressures originated from wide variety of factors. There are no specific factors that led to the inclination of superiority as held by some social scientist, different factors shaped the organism in a way that it could fit and survive in its ultimate locality.

Turners new system is crucial providing an understanding into evolution and clearing the held notion of inequalities in the gender and race. Ideally, his system provides a system understanding into the central aspect of functionality and the behaviors of organism in nature. Importantly, the social pressure is not relevant in shaping the idealism of superorganism. Exposure to demanding environment rather than selection in active biology help people and organism to think out of the box to enhance their coping behaviors. Contrary, organism thriving in comfort zone would not realize the ideal aspect of superorganism as they are no drive to achieving beyond their quest. Categorical inequality is responsible for the creation of hatred among people, the superstition of superiority and gender roles further appear under the notion. Turner’s approach would be relevant in explaining the view of inequality brought about the sense of societal interaction. He would therefore point at critical difference and exposure to environmental factors that ignites certain behavior rather than using evolutionary theories to deceive people of being superior than other.

Conclusion

Functionalism is crucial in unmasking how the society operated and how different spheres of life influence the formation of certain characters. This approach is crucial in providing detailed explanation of societal forces help in building characters and the interactions that creates and orchestrated system of ideas through which our societies operate. Structural functionalism theory provides crucial understanding into various aspects of life and acts as link to different aspects. It’s the only approach that provide a brief explanation of how society work to achieve its overall goal of peace, love and cohesion.

References

Turner, J. H. (2017). Functionalism. The Wiley‐Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, 1-9.