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Status group
o Prestige, honor or lack of honor
o Lifestyle
o Associational community
Commensality [eating together]
Connubiality [intermarrying]
Hence sociability and sex are always boundary-creating
Marriage market [assortative mating]individual choices constrained
by other individual choices
Match-ups in couples with approx. equal
resources/attractiveness
[match-ups w. unequal resources personal power difference
e.g. who loves who more]
Friendship markets resemble marriage markets, but more matches at
a time tendency to homophily
Micro-mechanisms by which this happens:
Close friendships: serious discussions of personal
matters = similar backstage position in social structure
Fun, pleasure, enjoyment = similar standards and
tastes
o Goffman: spontaneous unselfconscious
involvement
Status group always has a name and identity; whereas classes are just
statistical categories, not necessarily conscious of themselves and others
Economic groups:
E.g. old money vs. new money (nouveau riche)
Race/ethnic/religious groups
Lifestyle groups inside closed community
E.g. high school groups
Pure status
Arbitrarily created
Murray Milner, Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids:
American Teenagers and the Culture of Consumption
(2004)
o Pure status structure = widely publicized
rankings
goldfish bowl
o autonomous from external structures [parents,
teachers]
o non-autonomy low status
o High status persons guard internal rankings and
external boundaries
Power
o Live in the house of power
Oriented towards grasping/maintaining power
o Power is the end itself;
o Getting into office can be based on classes or status groups,
But once in office, develops own interest
Great men in high office often follow the policy which they
attacked when in opposition. (262)
It is the nature of an heir apparent to oppose the policy of the
reigning monarch. (107)
Power:
The ability to impose ones will on others, despite their resistance
Can be based on many things:
Controlling resources others need but lack
Physical force
Ideas: legitimate authority
Extra summaries
o It is no surprise that Weber decided to aptly title his essay, Class, Status,
Party because the order in which they are connected to each other is
precisely that: Class, Status, Party. A person's class situation will undoubtedly
determine their social status and since social status is tied to lifestyle, which
shapes most people's ideals and convicitions the transition from status to an
affiliation to a certain political party is the nature progression. And it is that
natural progression, which comes to shape and structure the society as a
whole, often cementing the class, status, party formula.
o
Bureaucracy
Formal rules and regulations
Keeping records in files
Impersonality
o Separating person from position
Important difference from patrimony, venality of office, feudal
administrators
More efficient than any other system, according to Weber, modernly thought of to be
inefficient
They are rife with conflict