https:/.../soc302_w1d1_m4_what_is_society_18_Let966.mp4

So with all of this,
and talking about

the sociological imagination
and applying it.

Basically what we're
trying to get you to do

is to step away
from your own life,

and everything that's
familiar to you,

and look at something
in a new way.

You might have a reflexive way
of thinking about these issues,

but you have to
hit pause and say,

okay, is my reflex
covering all the bases,

and I'm going to force
myself to look at it

from all of these
different angles.

Now in this interplay between
individual and society,

you of course, have a good
understanding of the

individual because that's you,
right? It is all about you.

But what about society?
We haven't really even

defined what society is
and that's something that

we need to do.
The problem is is that

society is a hard thing to define,
it can mean different things

to different people.
So I'm going to share with you

two very common definitions
of society in Sociology,

and I'm going to tell you
upfront that I do not like

either of these definitions.

So the first one is this,
a natural, permanent, and

historical structure, that
consist of a relatively stable

set of organizations, institutions,
systems, and cultural patterns

into which successive
generations of people are born.

Now I don't really like this,
I mean it's true,

but I don't really like it,
because it's so big, right?

It, the people
are getting lost in that.

You are getting lost in this.
Where are you?

The second one goes
in the opposite direction,

and it's a human construction
made up of people

interacting with one another.

And I don't really like this
because it's too small, right,

there's no, it's too,
there's no structure to it right,

it's too temporal.

Now even though I don't
like these definitions,

I will stipulate that
both of them are correct.

And the reason that both
of them are correct,

is because society exist on
all these different levels

at the same time.

So let's think about three
different levels of society.

The biggest level,
or the largest scale,

is the macro level,
so that's the big picture.

Right, that's all the machinery
of society that is bigger than

any one person.
That's bigger than you, right.

It's this whole thing that
you are apart of.

So that can be things like
the economy, the political system,

but it can also be things like
our migration patterns,

how people,
large groups of people,

move around and settle
over the course of history.

It can also refer to things
like the basic norms and ideas

that we have about something
like race, or gender, or sexuality,

really that are way up there
in the ethos,

but that influence us.

On the bottom is the micro level,
and that's the most intimate level,

that's the smallest scale.
And it refers to the people

that you are around in your
everyday life, right.

Your relationships,

your face-to-face interactions
that you have.

And in the middle of those
two things is something called

the meso level.
So that is smaller and more

personal than the macro level,
but it is bigger, and more

impersonal than the micro level.
And it is connecting those two things,

through the settings and the groups,
like your families or communities,

or neighborhoods, really,
that are bringing

those two things together.

Now, all of these things
are occurring at the same time.

It's all just a matter
of perspective,

it's all just a matter of
what you're looking at.

So I always use this metaphor,
let's say that you go

to a baseball game,
and you have a camera,

I know that this is becoming
an outdated example

because people don't really
have cameras anymore,

but let's say that
you have a camera,

and there's three lenses
on that camera.

And so you go to the baseball game,
and you put on your micro level lens,

and you take a picture
of the baseball game.

And it shows you a picture of
this guy in front of a white,

a white thing on the ground,
and there's a white thing

coming at him, right,
and you can see the

colors on his uniform.
And it's giving you an

incredible amount of detail
about that person, about that player.

But you don't really have any sense
about the game that he's apart of,

or the context that
he's apart of.

Right, so you switch onto
your meso level lens,

and that gives you
a much bigger view.

Now you can barely see
that batter anymore,

but you can see other things,
you can see the base pass,

you can see the other people
that are out there in the field,

you can see that
there is someone throwing

that ball to him,
so it's giving you a sense of the game

that this person is involved in.
You don't really know

anything about him anymore,
but you get a better sense of the game.

So then you put on
the macro level lens,

and it's way out there,
and you can't see people anymore,

right, but you can see
the whole field.

You get this sense of that
it's a public spectacle.

You understand something
about what's going on,

even though you don't
understand anything about any

individual person
who's involved in the game.

Right, so with each one
of these things,

you take a picture,
and it gives you something true,

and something important,
but you're losing something

in that picture too.

You're gaining something,
and you're giving something up.

You switch to a new lens,
you've lost something,

but you've gained something new.

There is no way that
you can take a picture

of that baseball game
that gets all