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?