Social Conflict Theory In Action!

hello there fellow sociologists and welcome to the mr. sin Channel in this video we'll be looking at the conflict theory and how it views society we'll also be exploring this conflict cycle that apparently were all trapped in in a never ending occurrence of conflict solutions controlling order oppressed groups and oppressed huh my head is already spinning but fear not we'll figure all the answers out together now while watching this video make sure to take out your guided notes you can find the guided notes in the description below the guided notes have been created by me to go along with these videos they'll help you remember all of the important information now the best part of the guided notes is when you're done with the video you now have a study guide they will be able to help you with any reviewing you need for any quiz test or whatever you're preparing for so I really encourage you to use those guided notes now let's figure out what conflict theory is conflict theory was created by a German economists and historian Karl Marx also known as the father of communism now if you know anything about communism and Karl Marx you might have an idea of where this theory is going Marx believed that society always had two groups we had the oppressed and the oppressors and these two groups were always at odds whenever one group rose to power a different group then lost power and it became this back and forth all fighting over scarce resources now with this theory resources is not just something tangible like goods it could also be power time and all these other concepts that are not tangible so that's important to remember while looking at this theory and when applying it to society now Karl Marx believed that the capitalistic society would eventually cause a revolution a revolution that would actually be violent and that would lead to socialism and then eventually to communism and while this video is not going to break down all of the intricacies of capitalism socialism some communism it's important to just to understand that process of thinking because that is what conflict theory believes Marx believed that this conflict theory existed in every aspect of society we're still looking at a macro level here so this is looking at society from a whole one of the unique things about this theory is it views the dominant group as being blind now what I mean by this is the dominant group it was believed would plant the seeds to their destruction this seems kind of ominous and what it really does just boil down to is the dominant group wouldn't understand that they were doing something wrong or that they were oppressing someone that they were getting advantages that a different group wasn't because they weren't exposed to it they didn't have these life experiences that showed them this view of reality while on the other hand the oppressed group was constantly reminded of what they were lacking of how they were in equal and how the other group was more privileged and had more resources and they were the enemy to per se now what would eventually happen then is enough people would get frustrated with the dominant and oppressive group and they would rise up and take control then the old dominant group would be the new oppressed group they would have lost something and then this cycle would start now we're going to get into what this cycle is in just a second but I want to make sure you're understanding this whole seeds of destruction thing because it sounds kind of intense and if this is true it's kind of scary to think about because right now in society that means that there's a bunch of different people who are currently the dominant group and they're doing things that are ultimately laying the foundation for their own demise to take away what they currently have without even realizing it and it's kind of an interesting thing to think about before we move on to that whole cycle of conflict I want to make sure you understand this so pause this video and try to come up with examples of an oppressive group and an oppressed group what's going on with these two groups in society right now what is the oppressive group doing that they might not realize they're doing to the other group and is that oppressed group doing anything yet to try and fix this inequality that may it be existing according to you so pause the video try to come up with a couple different examples this will help you better understand this concept hopefully you were able to come up with some good examples if you're still struggling don't worry we're gonna go into examples in just a little bit I'm actually gonna explain though this cycle of conflict because I think this will help us in better understand this concept and it'll be easier for us then to understand how the examples connect to this theory so the conflict theory believes in this cycle really what we're going to see happen in society is we will have our controlling group our oppressive group will be up here and we are going to have the group that is being discriminated against or is missing out on certain opportunities our oppressed group down here you can see already if this was a scale it's not balanced we have one group higher one group lower and what would happen is the lower group would slowly but surely start complaining start becoming more vocal eventually revolt and try and change the status quo what would happen then is eventually conflict from that conflict then a solution would arise now maybe not right away maybe this oppressed group that takes them a couple tries but eventually they would be able to gain some new resources power or something and the scale would start to shift as soon as the scale starts to shift though this group over here that used to have things is starting to see some new perspectives and they slowly but surely become the oppressed group now the other former oppressed group is now the oppressive group at least in the eyes to this group over here hopefully this is kind of making sense so far what this cycle says would happen next is then that would all repeat this group is now going to become more and more vocal until they can start turning the scale again the conflict theory believes that it's just going to be back and forth like this we would never hit a point of equilibrium structural functionalism believe society would operate as an equilibrium with these institutions and social facts for more of that though make sure to check out my video on structural functionalism you can click the card on the top right to view that but conflict theory believes this cycle will just keep repeating because we have inequalities in society it'll never be balanced for our first example we're going to look at the education system in the United States of America particularly focusing on college now for our two groups conflict theory would say well for society it's broken up into the wealthy and upper-middle class and the low income or working underclass these would be our two groups the wealthy middle class are going to be our oppressors now oppressors is not necessarily saying that like they're harming the other side I'm not trying to go into that that's just the term that would be used here and our oppressed group isn't saying that they are currently being taken advantage of by certain people you may think that and that's completely fine in this example the oppressed group were just people who have less resources so for conflict theory conflict theory would say well the education system in America is not fair the wealthy have way more opportunities to go to college for someone who is poor they will lack these opportunities because they can't afford college now the wealthy going off this concept that they would become blind because they are the dominant group wouldn't see it as that way they are more likely to say well there's scholarships or if you work hard enough you'll be able to make it that maybe if you didn't do gangs and drugs or had an early pregnancy that you would be able to make it and those are your life decisions and I've worked hard for this and I deserve this and it's not my fault that you're not going to go to college while the other side of the scale would say well I don't have the resources that you do I didn't have a quality school that was able to prepare me for college I don't have a family that has money to help me those first couple years or I might not have had anyone who's ever gone to college so some scholarships aren't awarded to me or I might not even know how to find these scholarships because I don't have access to people who can teach me how to do that or even the resources to be able to find them now both perspectives are correct and they're both being viewed from a different cultural lens and it's up to you to decide kind of what would be the truth there although it's hard to argue that there is one objective truth when talking about this but conflict theory would look at that and conflict theory would say that hey this explains why we're starting to see in society more and more people pushing for free college or significantly reduced college because they're becoming frustrated that certain opportunities in our society are not open to them because they believe that they have less and are not able to access college on the other side - we would see that pushback of people saying that's ridiculous free college has no place nothing in life is her free ten staff lets an economic concept but they would go to eject that and it's this back and forth we have two very different ideologies coming from different cultural perspectives and that would be an example of conflict theory another example of conflict theory would actually even just be how genders operate in the family so over time the family structure has changed conflict theory would say that women would get frustrated with just being left at home and seen as taking care of the kids and supporting the family there while the men get to go out and work and do they have the income and they're the breadwinners and eventually women would want more roles and would eventually reject this because they were the oppressed group in this now today in society we still have plenty of people who are stay-at-home moms and plenty of people who are fathers and our breadwinners and there's nothing wrong with that at all but the conflict theory would also say look at how the family structure has changed women now are starting to take on a lot more roles in the professional business rule and we're also starting to see a lot more men cooking and cleaning and being stay-at-home dads we're starting to see some shifts we also are starting to see more pushback even in the media and in different political groups people are saying that now men are being vilified because it's gone too far the other way another example of conflict theory hopefully you're starting to understand how conflict theory works and operates how this cycle of conflict happens and how it views change in society conflict theory again is going to have lots of change and it's constant no equilibrium is possible due to scarcity and this always present inequality thank you very much for your time and watching this video hopefully it did help you better understand conflict theory both how it operates and how it can be used in society today before you leave make sure to subscribe so you can get new notifications when I post new videos and also just support the channel if you're watching this far it must have helped you so I'm glad that I was able to help if it didn't help you and you're just watching this because a class or someone well I'm sorry the videos at least over though so have a great day afternoon evening night whenever you're watching this I'm mr. syn and until next time I'll see you online

Channel: Mr. Sinn

Views: 75,930

Rating: 4.9103398 out of 5

Keywords: conflict theory, conflict perspective, sociology, karl marx, scarce resources, conflict theory explained, conflict theory examples, conflict theory sociology, theoretical perspectives, what is social conflict theory?, what is conflict theory?, How conflict theory views society, Cycle of conflict, Social conflict theory examples

Id: hLhSifNDU7w

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018