Status and Role (Sumblog10)

                What’s your role in society? Is your perceived status associated with that role? Or are they separate? What other factors are associated with your status? That aren’t just your role? These are all questions that I found myself asking when thinking of these two ideas in class.

                First, let’s take a look at a person’s role. Someone’s role is basically where do they fit into society, and what is their job. So for me, I am a student, while I also have a job, the forefront of my role in society is to get educated and bring that into the workforce once I graduate. I once heard an interesting phrase, and it has always stuck with me. “We have the group ‘students,’ so that we can have millions of people labeled as that, instead of ‘unemployed’ or ‘impoverished.’” I thought this was interesting because of how much we rely on those statistics for knowing whether or not our society is doing well, but we sometimes bring a blind-eye so as to not see the potential for harm in our society. I just was always interested by that.

                Next up to bat, status, this term is really interesting to me. Why would this term be interesting you might ask? Well, because of how much discrepancy, so to be a little bit more specific, let’s talk about perceived status. This is what a person thinks your social status is based off of a bunch of ascribed or even achieved identification. This is why I find it interesting, because as people living in the US, specifically myself, who moved to and lives in Wisconsin (newly declared most segregated state in the US) these ideas of what a person is based off what they appear to be are completely off often enough. For example, how big of a role does a person’s race play into what we think of them? Like, if we see a black man have to shop at Goodwill to save money, we generally have fairly negative thoughts about the entire race. Whereas, if we look at a white man shopping there, we wonder what happened to the individual. Then once they are wearing those clothes. We’ll even say they buy the exact same look and it happens to be a suit. We might perceive a higher status for the white guy compared to the black guy just on race alone. Now, this status isn’t just about race, gender, age, appearance and other factors play a role. But if we look at that, how often does a person’s status actually connect with a person’s role?

Found this picture off an interesting blog post about Cisgender folks. If you're interested in gender stratification and privilege check it out; http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/list-of-cisgender-privileges/ 

The Stranger

                The theory of “the stranger” by Simmel I think is extraordinarily accurate. In this theory, Simmel discusses how interaction works in small groups. I think that it’s very valid because of a lot of experiences that I have had, and after conversation my friends have had as well. We’ve all felt like the one person in a group who didn’t quite fit, but at the same time, still would be in the group and be able to add new perspective.

                This concept is interesting to me because I see a lot of potential in the job of the stranger and how it can add a diversity to a group that might be extremely necessary. For example, if we look at the idea of social issues, it took people standing up and making a stand to people outside their own groups to make a difference. If we enhance everyone’s knowledge and grow in our thought and ideas, I don’t think bad can come out of it.

                I know that on a personal level, I have been the stranger many times. Sometimes I find it fun because learning about inside jokes, and different experiences is always really interesting to me. I think it’s really fun to meet people with different backgrounds from me. For example, I spent the weekend meeting people from all over the state. These people all had the common thread of being student activists specifically in Student Governments. Learning about how they view the issues students face, versus how I view them and how other campuses view them was a really interesting experience. I learned that there are universal problems on all campuses and some that are just specific to a few campuses. How this relates is that I would actually talk to whole delegations, so a group of 3-4 people who have worked together for a long time on their SA’s and have come to give reports. Hearing how they interact and how they have been dealing with issues is really interesting and then also adding perspective from my experiences on different campuses.

I think this picture describes the theory because it shows how one person can change how a person thinks about people.

The I and the Me

    

I think that Mead’s theory on the self is very interesting with a lot of valid arguments that make you think differently. Mead’s general idea is that the ‘I’ is your true thoughts. These are thought that you think of before any social structures like norms, propriety, or other social context comes into play. Through socialization, those social structures are built into your ‘me’. Then once your ‘me’ is established, (this is ever changing depending on many variables, mainly the person’s current environment.) it filters the thoughts from your I, and either decides not to say it, alter it, or leave it as is.

     This concept is really cool, because of how many example can be found to prove this accurate. You can look at two groups of people, and look at how and what they say, and you can get a better understanding of how much input either their ‘I’ or ‘me’ gets.

     Another interesting piece of this, is the Me’s interpretation of others’ responses to what they do or say. So, if you begin to respond a certain way, a person’s facial response, body language, or even words can dictate how you restructure your thought to either improve a person’s response to you, or sometimes trigger other responses from someone.          

     Overall Mead’s ideas are really interesting, and bring an interesting concept of looking at an individual’s response from their environment. When so often we look at groups and groups of people and try to understand all of their common behavior. Instead of looking at humans, and choosing individual people to get interested and learn about. Especially, when you pair this with non-psychological theories, and theories that are more based on the environment or other social factors.

Happiness? Is that really a priority? (Sumblog 6)

               Harriet Martineau is a really interesting social theorist, but one of her main theories that stands out to me is her idea of, “Law” of Social life with the emphasis on happiness and how we are all striving for it, no matter what. I would tend to agree with this. Because even if we’re doing something that could be viewed as completely altruistic, I think that we still take some pleasure-some semblance of happiness- away for ourselves from helping others.

               I think that happiness is a core to our existence, and that in order for us to be completely fulfilled humans, we have to have some semblance of happiness to survive. Even if it is only a moment at a time, and it doesn’t last very long, we crave that intimacy with ourselves. We have the urge to get the giggles so bad that our stomach muscles hurt. And honestly, is there really anything wrong with that? I think arguments can be made that it can hurt people, because what if one person’s goal for attaining happiness is to hurt another person? Come one Amanda, it’s not appropriate for people to cause harm to others to get to their happiness. I definitely wouldn’t disagree with either of those statements, however I think that identifying those people would be really important in our society, especially figuring out what social constructions created the person into having those desires. Understanding, what leads to people being able to do and not do things is important. I think that if we all strive to create happiness in ourselves and others, we will slowly be able to build a stronger community. There will be many roadblocks and missteps along the way, but isn’t that part of life? Understanding that not everything is glitters and gold, and actually trying to polish that sand to turn it into a pearl? I think that eventually, if we strive for improvement and betterment in the area of happiness, a lot of positives will be reached that were never imaginable before. 

Founding Fathers of Sociology (Sumblog 5)

                What would happen, if we stopped “worshiping” the three so called “Fathers of Sociology,” Marx, Durkheim, and Weber? Would sociology as we know it change forever- either in a positive way or a negative way. Or would we go on as we are now, continuing to study sociology, but maybe leaving our odd triangle, and breaking new ground outside the three most commonly compared theories?

                Personally I think that it would be very interesting to just stop thinking about the three founding fathers. I typically go by the motto look at your past to know how to fix your future. But, you have to agree that it would be intriguing to just go for a couple years pretending that the three most famous sociologist were only okay at their work. And while the information they found was very good, there is always ways to grow. It. Maybe not completely forget the work they did, but instead of worshiping it, and trying to a, disprove it so that it becomes completely meaningless. Or b, work so hard to prove that it is as accurate now as it possibly was then. I think not thinking that those three theorists are the start and end of sociology is a cool idea. I mean, just imagine how many new theories could happen on their own based off the society we have now. And hey, if they are similar that’d be interesting to study too! We could actually locate what is similar and different, instead of looking for a specific idea and finding cases to prove it correct. We might just come up with an idea and then comparing it to what has been done, and see the similarities and differences in how the society has grown, or maybe hasn’t grown. I think that would be really interesting.

                But of course, if we did do that, we would lose a lot of fund sayings and might lose all footing and try so hard to do your own work that we completely ignore what’s been done. Then once that happens, there could be a constant repeat in society studies which could make for a lot of doubling up of information from sociologists all over the place.

                Either way, there are positives and negatives to the work that the three sociologists did. However, I don’t think we’d be where we are today without them. While there’s always a constant need to grow, maybe knowing our roots will help us to know why we’re here. But hey, let’s let sociologists decide for themselves shall we? Or is that opening up a whole other philosophical question, ya know free will?

Religion and Me: The Impasse (Sumblog 3)

                The Idea that everyone and everything has a role in our society has always fascinated me. To think, that each and every position held in our world is of use … I just can’t wrap my head around it. I think that it’s mainly because I look at things like poverty and homelessness, and can’t help but think “Wow, our society would function differently if we didn’t have people living in horrible conditions? I just can’t believe that.” So, call me kooky, when I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that we all play a part of a bigger picture… sometimes massively bigger picture.

                For Durkheim, I found myself interested in his views on religion. I mean, I tend to go day-to-day without thinking about religion, so I couldn’t really fathom what he meant when he brought up the idea that society and religion coexist within the same sphere almost completely. It didn’t particularly make sense to me, because I figured, if I didn’t think about it all the time, why would it exist in my reality. Then, I decided I wanted to go a day, and think about how everything I do, think, say, and behave has been affected by religion… and boy was I shocked at how much impact the ideas of Christianity have integrated into my life from the few times I went to church as a child.



Found this picture off of a blog which was ranting about whether or not athiests were religious: http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2013/03/are-atheists-religious.html. I found it intersting because of the context of my personal journey with religion.

                To get some background, I was born Catholic, and baptized as such. My mother is an ex-nun who lived in a Monastery for a chunk of her adult life. My father is an Evangelical Lutheran, and it seems that I try to steer clear of religion all together. Opting for a world where I don’t need to go to church, or other religious ceremonies. In fact, I’m a self-proclaimed agnostic because I just can’t fathom how any higher being could exist. However, over time my family has labeled me the atheist… see Hispanic culture, and you may begin to understand.  Through all of that, I really have found myself at an impasse with religion, and it seems as though the car I was using to drive down that road has shut down.

                So, when I challenged myself to look at how Durkheim saw things, and specifically how he saw that religion and society danced in the same tango, imagine my surprise when I found he was kind of right. I mean from the time that I get up, to the time I go to sleep, ideas of Christianity are so strong in my mind that I find it hard to believe I could ever be viewed as an atheist. While, I choose not to go to church, I find myself constantly think of God, praying in my head, and quite frequently using what my grandma would call using the Lord’s name in vain. I mean, even at meetings, we always open with the pledge of allegiance and God is mentioned in there as well.

                After experimenting with this for a day, I now find myself at an even bigger conundrum, how does one get over the fact that they might be at a religious brink, and still call themselves atheist or agnostic. For me, I think so long as religion remains a big part of society, my family structure, and even how I view myself in relation to others. I don’t think I’ll ever be truly not invested in religion. So, for now, I’m still at an impasse, but my understanding of how religion affects me is at a whole new level.

Only time will tell, which path I take, for now, I'll just take a look around.
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