One of the biggest debates in many countries since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is how to balance the desire for security against the restrictive nature of citizen surveillance.This USA Today story investigates the National Security Agency’s monitoring of all U.S. citizens’ phone calls. And this NPR series (also here) explores the debate over whether surveillance cameras make us safer or simply invade our privacy, as does this segment from CNN.
Sociologist George Ritzer has been a great popularizer of Max Weber’s ideas about modernity and rationalization. Using the McDonald’s fast food chain as the quintessential example of rationalization, Ritzer argues that much of our society has been “McDonaldized.” The website for his work can be accessed here.
This documentary examines psychologist Phil Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, in which the simulation of prison conditions revealed a great deal about the power of authority. Check out this website for information about the film and the study itself.
This PBS Frontline episode explores the growing reach of post-9/11 surveillance into the lives of ordinary Americans. The program can be watched in full here.
This documentary provides many examples of the rationalization of food in the United States. The scenes of chicken farming are particularly instructive. For more on how to use the film in class, check out this post over at Sociological Cinema.
Spike Lee’s film of a pizzeria boycott in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn is an artful depiction of race in America. It can also be used to illustrate Weber’s ideal-types of social action. Have students watch clips of the film and discuss how closely the actions of Buggin’ Out, Mookie, Radio Raheem, Sal, and Jade fit each ideal-type. You can watch the trailer here .
This PBS Frontline episode examines the increasing use of online social media as a means of identity construction and popularity, especially among teenagers. An excellent update to Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man. The program can be watched in full here.
This 1985 Terry Gilliam sci-fi flick about a man searching for a woman in his dreams provides some classic depictions of bureaucracy and totalitarianism, including this clip .
A film that takes us deep into the social and psychological workings of the former East Germany’s citizen surveillance programs. You can watch the trailer here .
This classic film starring Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, an anti-authoritarian patient in an Oregon mental hospital, provides moving examples of charismatic (in the case of McMurphy) and rational-legal (in the case of Nurse Ratchet) domination. The famous scene in which McMurphy tries (unsuccessfully) to change the rules in order to watch a baseball game is particularly touching. You can watch the trailer here .
Charlie Chaplin’s wonderful portrayal of a tramp who struggles to deal with the rationalization of capitalist production. The classic can be watched in full here .
Mike Judge’s popular film Office Space provides dozens of hard-hitting (and hilarious) examples of the rationalization of the workforce. This clip about cover letters and TPS reports is a great instance of many modern companies’ prioritization of rules over substance.
A critical take on America’s favorite leisure activity by one of the Frankfurt School’s most prominent theorists.
A brilliant and disturbing argument about how rationalization and bureaucracy helped make the Holocaust possible. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are especially relevant and highly recommended.
This collection of lectures from the British theorist provides a sweeping and mostly optimistic take on globalization.
Giddens examines changes in social institutions associated with modernity, providing both new opportunities and concerns. Giddens stresses ongoing tension between issues of trust and risk, and security and danger in modern society.
Lanier, the computer scientist who created virtual reality technology, takes a critical but balanced view of the disenchanting effects of many contemporary digital technologies.
A sociologist updates Foucault for the digital age, exploring how electronic surveillance technologies affect our everyday lives as well as the broader social order.
This provocative book by the UCLA sociologist argues that ethnic cleansing is part of modernity and, in particular, democracy. It is a different take than Bauman’s examination of the Holocaust but is just as important in its implications.
For a good example of the rationalization of food itself, see Chapter 5 on “Why the Fries Taste Good.”
A short article examining the use of the built environment and surveillance to create systems of consensual control at Disney World. A perfect companion for Foucault.
This collection includes “Science as a Vocation,” Weber’s famous lecture on what modern science can and cannot guarantee those who seek it out as their profession.
Another excerpt from Foucault’s study of the construction of “madness” in Europe. This chapter explores how “madness” was handled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In this book, Wheatland re-examines the role that the Frankfurt School, most notably Horkheimer and Marcuse, played in American intellectual life and German postwar sociology. You can listen to an interview with Wheatland here .
A fascinating look into the social and cultural origins of human consciousness from the perspective of evolutionary theory.
