Name: 什麼是社會學 (What Is Sociology?: Crash Course Sociology #1)
Uploaded: 2017-05-25T02:16:56.000Z
Duration: 9 min 42 s

Hello, I’m Nicole Sweeney and I have a question for you:

嗨，我是妮可·斯威尼，我有個疑問

Have you ever wondered how the world works?

你是否有想過這個世界是如何運作的?

I’m not talking about atoms and molecules, or wave functions and chemical reactions;

我不是在談論原子、分子或是波函數與化學反應

For example, have you ever wondered who goes to college, and why?

舉例來說，你是否想過誰要上大學，以及為什麼?

What is it that makes people march in the streets?

How do you know to raise your hand in math class, but not at the dinner table?

你知道為什麼數學課需要舉手發問，但在餐桌上卻不用?

Why do some people like Broadway musicals, and some people like hip-hop, and some people like both?

為什麼某些人喜歡百老匯音樂劇，有些人喜歡嘻哈，而有些人兩者些喜歡?

Well, we're gonna find out about all of that stuff and so so much more.

You’re going to learn about you, and your place in the world because this is Crash Course Sociology.

你將從Crash Course社會學認識你自己和你居住的世界

Sociology got its start thanks to a French philosopher named Auguste Comte in the 1800s.

首先感謝19世紀法國哲學家-奧古斯特·孔德

He wanted there to be a systematic science for studying society, a way to investigate and solve its basic problems.

他希望用科學系統方法解讀社會，能調查與解決基本問題

And while sociology today is very different from what Comte imagined, that’s still kind of what it is.

現今的社會學和孔德當初想像的不同

Sociology is the scientific study of society and human behavior.

社會學是社會的科學研究和人類行為

I mean, society is whole cities; it's the economy; it's politics.

我是指，社會包括整個城市、經濟和政治

And what does all that have to do with raising your hand at the dinner table?

以及包含必須在餐桌上舉起你的手?

A society is just a group of people who share a culture and a territory.

一個社會是一群人擁有共同文化和領土

And culture is in everything, from the biggest questions in politics to the smallest interactions between people.

文化包含每個層面，從大政治問題到人們小互動

So yes, society is big, but it's also very small.

所以是的，社會很大，但同時也很小

Want to see how? Let’s go to the Thought Bubble!

Imagine you're sitting alone in your room, singing along to your favorite Broadway show at the top of your lungs.

想像你單獨坐在你的房間，高歌唱著最愛的百老匯劇

Even if you ignore the house that you’re in – and the parents, siblings, or roommates you're probably bothering while you’re singing so horribly

即使你忽略房子內的父母、兄弟姊妹，或者室友，但也可能被你可怕的歌聲所干擾

– there’s still the song that you’re singing, and the music that goes with it.

Those things, along with literally every object in the room that you didn't make yourself, are all products of society.

所有在房間內非你自己擁有的東西，都是社會

And you might be all alone when you’re belting out Hamilton, but you weren't alone when a friend first introduced you to the musical, and its songs.

即使你獨自高歌著漢密爾頓音樂劇，但當你朋友介紹給妳這個音樂劇和音樂時，你就並非處於一個人狀態

And for that matter, your taste in music isn't purely yours either.

所以當你獨自品嘗這些音樂時，就不能單純用"你的"來看

What kind of music you like can be influenced by anything from what you were exposed to as a kid, to what your friends like now,

你兒時所曝露的環境會影響喜歡音樂的種類，以及你的朋友們

to what neighborhood you grew up in, or what schools you went to.

和你所成長的鄰居，或是你所就讀的學校

Society is tricky; it gets in places you might not expect.

社會是複雜的，包含你所意想不到的

So when we say that sociology is the study of society and human behavior, that means that sociology is incredibly broad.

所以當我們說社會學是社會研究和人類行為，代表著社會學是無法想像的廣

In fact, it may be the broadest of what we call the social sciences.

事實上，可以廣到我們稱作社會科學

The social sciences include disciplines like economics and psychology, and while they all have different focuses and perspectives,

社會科學涉及專業，像是經濟、心理學，它們有不同的專業和觀點

they're all trying to understand the social world objectively, through controlled and repeated observation.

它們都在嘗試了解這個世界，通過控制和不停地觀察

So what makes sociology different from any of these other social sciences?

所以是什麼使得社會學與這些社會科學不同呢?

Well, like the others, sociology is looking for patterns – recurring characteristics or events.

就像其他的，社會學是一個模式-循環性特徵或是事件

But it looks for all kinds of patterns in all kinds of places.

Sociology looks at all aspects of society, and at all scales, from two people talking, to differences between nations.

社會學探討社會全面性和範圍，從兩人對話到不同的區域間

It's this scope that really sets sociology apart, especially in what’s known as the sociological perspective.

它的範圍在社會範圍，特別是社會學角度

And the sociological perspective means two things:

1, It means seeing the general in the particular, and 2, it means seeing the strange in the familiar.

第一，尋找特定中的常態，第二，在相似中尋找異常

Seeing the general in the particular is a way of saying that sociology tries to understand social behavior by placing it in its wider social context.

尋找特定中的常態是指社會學在廣泛的社會背景中嘗試了解社會行為

To go back to you belting out Broadway tunes in your room, the sociologist who overhears you from the sidewalk might notice not just your choice of what to sing,

回到你在房間內高歌百老匯音樂劇，

but how that individual choice may have been influenced by your class, neighborhood, race, gender, or age.

但個體的選擇會被你的班級、鄰居、種族、性別或是年齡影響

To take another example, a sociologist might not care whether or not you, in particular, decide to get married,

舉其他例子，一個社會學家可能不會在乎是否是你，特別是決定婚姻

but she might be interested in learning more about a declining marriage rate in your society –

但她也許會很有興趣你處於社會的結婚率下降問題

and, say, what's causing it and whether it’s having any societal impacts.

然後說，是什麼造成這件事以及有什麼社會影響

Or maybe she’s more interested in the fact that, in the US, people tend to marry partners of the same class and race as them.

或者她更有興趣於事實，在美國，人們更喜歡與同社會階層和種族的人結婚

In both of these cases – what people sing or whom they marry –

在這兩個例子-人們在唱什麼或是他們與誰結婚

the sociologist is interested in a general pattern, a pattern composed of a massive number of particular individual choices.

社會學家對於普遍模型感到興趣，一個模型是個別參與者選擇性的混雜數

Each individual forms a part of the pattern, and in looking at their individual choices, a sociologist can see elements of the whole pattern, like seeing how a single stone fits into a mosaic.

模型中每一個各別形式和他們的個體選擇，一個社會學家可以看到模型的全部元素，就像在鑲嵌在馬賽克中的單一石頭

Seeing the strange in the familiar is the second part of the sociological perspective, and it’s maybe more difficult to do.

尋找相似中的異狀是社會學觀點的第二部分，但它也許更難運作

To see the strange in the familiar is to approach the everyday world as though you were seeing it for the first time, as if you were from another world.

尋找相似中的異狀就好像日常事，好像你第一次尋找它，好像你從另個世界來

This is hard, but it's also incredibly important, and kinda cool.

它是困難的，但也非常重要和很棒

When we asked, at the very beginning, why you raise your hand to ask a question in your math class but not at your dinner table, that’s a very small example of trying to see the strange in the familiar.

在一開始我們問到，為什麼你要在數學課舉起手，但在飯桌前卻不用，這是一個非常小的舉例，讓我們嘗試去從相似中尋找異處

And this is so hard to do because your own society tends to look normal to you.

這是一個非常困難的事，因為你的社會讓你覺得自己是正常的

As you're socialized into it, you're taught a common-sense understanding of society, and that's not a bad thing!

當你進入社會化，你被授予社會中的常識，但這不是壞事

After all, you need a common sense understanding of society in order to live in it, right?

因為你需要常識幫助你生活，對不對?

You need to know that you shake hands when you meet someone new, and that red means stop, and that you should try to show up on time to things.

你必須知道當你遇見新的人時要握手，紅色代表停止，然後你也要準時出現

But if sociology is going to study society, it needs to be able to look at these things as strange and unfamiliar, in order to really understand how they work, and to uncover patterns of behavior in a culture.

但如果用社會學去解讀社會，它必須有能力看見異處，為了更了解它們如何運作，並揭示文化中的行為模式

Common sense has to just get us through the world; but sociology has to know what's true.

嘗試讓我們進入這個世界，但社會學必須去了解真理

And this is important, because a society’s common sense doesn’t consist only of harmless conventions, like shaking hands.

這是重要的，因為社會常識不只包含無害的約定成俗，像是握手

Just 200 years ago in the US, it was common sense that only white men were capable of participating in society.

美國在200年前，只有白人男性能參與社會活動

It was common sense that slavery was right, and that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

在他們的常識中，奴隸制是正常的，女人也不應該擁有投票權

These things were common sense then in the same way that their opposites are taken for granted now.

這些是常識，在現代它們當時的對立也是理所當然的

And the sociological perspective – seeing the general in the particular and strange in the familiar –

在社會學觀點 - 尋找常態中特別的和在相似中找異處

helps us to understand problems like this, because it helps us see some of the key concepts in the study of society.

幫助我們去了解更多問題，因為它幫助我們去閱讀社會中重要的概念

Among these concepts: social location, marginalization, and power and inequality.

在這些概念中：社會地位、邊緣化、權利和不平等

If you imagine a map of society, laying out all the different social groups and their relationships to each other, then your social location is your spot on that map.

想像一個社會地圖，放置不同的社會群體和它們彼此的關係，你的社會地會就是你站在這個地圖的位置

Your social location is a way of classifying yourself, by race, social class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.

你的社會地位是一個對自己分類的方式，藉著種族、社會階級、性別、性取向、宗教等等

Understanding social location is important because, just like the sociologist looks for the general in the particular,

了解社會地位是重要的，因為就像是社會學家從特別中尋找共同處

a person’s life and choices will be influenced by their social location.

一個人的生活和選擇會被他們的社會地位所影響

This is true in a bunch of ways: Most obvious is that your social location can limit your choices.

在一堆方法中尋找真理：最明顯的是你的社會地位會限制你的選擇性

Some groups have legal rights and privileges that others don’t.

For instance, until a few years ago, gays and lesbians could not legally marry in the US, so their social location limited their choices.

例如，幾年前，同性戀無法在美國合法結婚，所以他們的社會地位限制住他們的選擇

But social location also impacts what you learn, and what you’re taught about society.

但社會地位也會影響你的學習，以及你從社會中學習到什麼

Whether or not you you go to college, for instance, can be heavily influenced by whether the social class you grew up in tends to see college as a real or valuable possibility.

是否是你要去上大學，舉例來說你處於的社會是否有帶給你"上大學是好的或是有價值性"的重要影響

And social location also affects what others have learned, and are taught, about you.

社會地位也會影響其他人學習和被教導關於你的事情

Take, for instance, the consistent finding that resumés with names that sound African-American tend to get called for interviews much less often than those with white-sounding names,

舉例來說，一如往常履歷上的名字如果聽起來像白人名字會比非裔美國人更容易取得面試機會

even though the resumés are otherwise identical.

In all these ways, social location can contribute to the marginalization of a social group.

在這些方面，社會地位也有助於一個社會全體的邊緣化

If a social group is marginalized, it means that it occupies a position outside the centers of power.

一個社會全體的邊緣化，意旨它佔據了權力中心之外的部分

Marginalized groups are often racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious minorities, and marginalized groups tend to have a clearer view of how power operates.

邊緣化族群通常是種族的、性別的或是少數宗教，他們通常更懂得權力操作

Heterosexual people, for example, often don’t recognize what a social power it is to have their relationships socially sanctioned,

好比，異性戀無法理解社會力量如何讓他們擁有社會關係的合法性

and to be able to display affection in public, in ways that LGBT people often can’t.

以及能在公眾表達情感，但對於LGBT來說卻無法

If marginalization is a matter of being outside the centers of power, that draws our attention to another fact:

如果邊緣化是權力之外的事情，那能使我們注意到其他事實

the fact that there are many different kinds of power, and many different kinds of inequality.

事實是有許多不同種類的權力，和許多不同的不公平

There are, of course, the obvious kinds, like economic power and income inequality, or political power and politically-enforced inequalities, like segregation or slavery.

很明顯的，像是經濟權力和薪水不平等，或是政治力量和政治執行的不公平，像是隔離或是奴隸

But then there are the less obvious kinds, like social or cultural power and inequality.

但也有不明顯的種類，像是社會或是文化權力，以及不平等

For instance, people who speak with non-standard accents or dialects are often judged harshly for them and can be seen as less intelligent or less mature.

舉例來說，使用不標準口音或是方言者，常被斷定低智商或是不成熟

Sociology can help us identify and understand all of these things, and maybe even try and fix them.

社會學可以幫助我們辨別和了解這些事情，甚至嘗試修復它們

And that’s the point: Sociology is about understanding society, and society's where we all live, so we'd like it to work as well as possible.

有個要點：社會學是幫助了解社會，以及我們所生存的地方，所以我們盡可能讓它運作起來