Sumblog 13 Samuel Huntington

This week's reading was very interesting.  Samuel Huntington saw a different way of mapping the world due to the consequences of globalization.  His main thought was that the different cultures of the world would create the future conflicts. He saw that civilization identity would become more important with about seven or eight major civilizations becoming powers.  Cultural differences among these civilization would be the cause of future conflicts.
The Cold War would be a good example of how cultural differences can cause conflict.  The Cold War began after the end of World War 2 when two superpowers rose.  It was the west against the east, United States and allies versus the Easter Bloc, the Soviet Union.  Both superpowers wanted to influence the rest of the world.
The Cold War was essentially a 'war' between two different ideologies.  Americans feared a communist attack while Russia feared an American attack.  Russia's fear of the American's atomic bomb and America's refusal to share nuclear secrets.  Russia's need for a secure western border and its aim of spreading world communism.  America wanted a balance of power in Europe and sent aid to help, the USSR refused the aid for Eastern Europe.  The space race and the Olympic games also showed the clashes of these powers.  This feeling of suspicion lead to mutual distrust because of the differences in culture.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9ev0qYVn-_PsTg1CNVOC7klBaOykuVQSd2Ay-DPPuC3o2ES0T
This was not a war with just two countries against themselves.  This war affected the world with each area picking sides.  Countries invaded other countries over capitalist and communist ideas.  This shows how cultural ideas can cause conflict.

Sumblog 12

Anthony Giddens theory of modern society was quite interesting.  He believes that modern society can be described along four dimensions:  displacement and reembedding, intimacy and impersonality, expertise and reappropriation, with privatism and engagement. I found displacement and remmbedding to be very interesting.  Displacement can be described as feeling isolated and not connecting with others while remmbedding is the ability to connect and interact with others. 
I think in modern society the internet shows this dimension well.  People may not want to leave their homes and have difficulty fitting in so they instead go on to the internet to interact with people they may not know but share the same interests.  These people may begin to live in a fantasy world where they have remade themselves to be everything that they ever wanted.  While doing this, they may isolate themselves from reality and real relationships.  I think video games can do this to a person too.  My kids do not really care what is going on when they are playing their games.  They can sit up in their rooms for hours playing if I do not stop them.
Others use the internet for reembedding purposes.  They connect and interact with people they know or organizations they participate in.  They usually do not pretend to be something that they are not. 
I like how this idea shows how one or something can be reconnected or how it can become more isolated.

 

http://barefootrunninguniversity.com/2012/03/28/gamers-will-rule-the-world/

 

 

Video games and the internet can make people feel more isolated in a society that they do not fit in with or..

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=isolation&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=yQ2eUsDFOIGMygH6roCoDg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1680&bih=930#q=social%20isolation%20video%20games&revid=918542280&tbm=isch&imgdii=_

 

make them feel more connected as a group with interactions between them.

 

I think these photos show how the games can get a person to go off in their own world or how the games can create a time for interaction between people who share the same interest.

Sumblog 11

I chose to do my Sumblog 11 on Peter Berger's ideas of society.  He saw society as being socially constructed.  Society is created through are interactions with others.  He had three key ideas of how society is made through interaction.  Externalization is the idea that we need each other to influence our attitudes to create society.  An example would be women needing to stay home with her children while the husband worked.  Collectively the society thought that this is what middle class people should do.  Today society has changed that women are no longer expected to stay home.  Attitudes have changed.  Habitualization is the idea that people get involved in things taken for granted which results in routine and habit.  This would be things that you no longer have to concentrate on to do, like driving a car or knowing that you should not be loud in church (depending on your religion).  It is just the ways things are done that you do not wonder about.  Institutionalization means that you become what is around you.  Society is made up of shared interactions which does effect the way you act.  A person wants to be part of the norms of the society.

http://motifmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/retro-housewife.jpg
I think this image captures how society thought that ways should be.  A mother should stay home with her children to teach them manners and to care for the house.  Fathers should be the bread winners and make the money.  Wives should be domestic and do what ever she could do to further her husband in the job market.  This idea of the family was supported in middle class values.  Today this is not seen as doable because attitudes have changed and with it society.

Sumblog 9

Talcott Parson uses pattern variables to show social systems.  He believes that these variables show the structure of relationships.  He believed in five patterns:  Affectivity-affective neutrality, diffuseness-specifity, universalism-particularism, achievement-ascription, and collectivity-self orientation.  I thought the universalism-particularism variable was interesting.  This variable shows how someone is evaluated based on universalism or if the person gets special treatment for some reason or the other based on particularism.

I think many people would wonder about this variable.  Especially is you work somewhere where a relative of the boss person is raising faster in the company than other people who are doing more work.  I know my husband liked to work for a superintendant that what not his father because he did not want to have anyone think that favortism was happening.

I think affirmative action would be another example of this variable.  Should everyone be judged the same or should certain groups deserve to get extra points because of their race?  I think these variables do show how structures of relationships can differ.

I think this picture shows how universalism and particularism both do seem to affect each other.  By using both terms, the sign shows that we will lead a more stable life.  If something is just one way, we either get chaos or rigidity.

Sumblog 8

George Herbert Mead looks to describe what makes up identity of people.  He believes that people's identities are made up from the 'generalized other' and the 'self'.  The 'generalized other' says that people's surroundings influence them.  That the culture they learn from family, peers, media, and education influence how they act in the real world.  They are worried or aware of fitting in with their community.
The 'self' is what is actually going on in their brain.  The mental characteristics we all have.  The 'self' is made up of the I and the me.  The I is your actual thought about something that is unfiltered and not based on what your culture would tell you is appropriate.  The me on the other hand is your thoughts after they have been filtered, the way society sees you react to something.
I can think of a lot of examples to the I and me.  Two weeks ago my oldest son, Sam, who is almost 11 had a friend over for the night.  I over heard them playing some X Box game and just swearing up a storm at the television.  My children know that they are not allowed to swear.  I went upstairs and told them that their behavior was not appropriate and if I heard anything else they would not be playing their game.  The next day the kid's dad came to get him and I mentioned the swearing.  He started laughing and said that they were learning to become men.  I then nodded my head and said that boys would be boys, but I have a five year old here and I do not think he should be hearing it.  What I really wanted to say was well your son will not be coming here again and I don't think that is the way to become a man. I did not want to be rude though so I did not say what I was really thinking.  Everyone has their own way of parenting and no one wants to hear others opinions on their choice of parenting.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=__R3Q93zDL5Y-M&tbnid=v1sC_UqhDM76yM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoc331.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F05%2F06%2Fblog-three-the-me-and-the-i%2F&ei=3SN5Uv6JG-jv2QWVo4DAAg&bvm=bv.55980276,d.b2I&psig=AFQjCNFWgAiCBI8do1AWMCyNFZYq-ryAgw&ust=1383756655576404

I think this picture shows people choose the way they act in front of certain people depending on their environment.

Sumblog 7

William Edward Burghardt (W. E. B.) Du Bois made studies of self and identity.  Double-consciousness and the veil two of his strong theoretical points.  Double-consciousness or 'twoness"  he sees as one person having two very different identities.  Acting one way with a population and then acting completely different with another population.  He also saw that some people lived life under a 'veil', that something was blocking their perspectives from seeing the whole picture, or life as everyone else saw it.
I think Ted Bundy would be a good example of someone who shows having a double-consciousness.  Ted Bundy was a smart, atrractive man who earned a Bachelor's degree in psychology.  He was confident and had is hand in politics.  He fit in with his community having girlfriends and a place in society.  Ted Bundy also raped and killed many women.  He kept some of the heads of his victims at his house and also admitted to performing necrophilia with some of his victims.  He had admitted to fifty murders but many people believe the number to be closer to 100 victims. 
Some how Bundy managed to convince Carol Boone to marry him while he was on trial.  She had completely believed in his innocence even with the vast amount of evidence against him. 
Ted Bundy is a man who showed one facet of his personality to his girl friends and colleagues and a very different personality to the women he brutally kidnapped and killed.  Ted Bundy showed the signs of having very two different identities.
Here is a link of Ted Bundy's profile.  It shows how he had ups and downs but still managed to fit in with society and get people to trust him.
http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/tedbundy.htm

Sumblog 5

Harriet Martineau was a woman social thinker in the 1800's in a society that was male dominated.  She wrote scholarly articles about society that were received well.  She believed that you needed to be out in society to know what was going on.  She reached out to the masses to explain society to everyone.  She wanted to understand the 'why' of things, how society worked, and how inequalities kept people from achieving human happiness which she saw as the essential fairness of society.
 Martineau saw disruptions in society.  She focused on America in one of her studies and saw how the constitution was built on natural rights and how these rights were not extended to everyone.  She saw that these inequalities would affect the society.
The way she looked at society is still important in today's world.  Inequalities still exist and keep people from achieving happiness.  People look at the American dream, what ever it may be for the person, and they want it.  An example would be of someone living in poverty with a family and low income.  Both parents may work but if their job pays minimum wage, that really is not enough to pull themselves out of poverty and getting them to the point that their dream is possible.
http://billmoyers.com/content/slideshow-poverty-in-todays-america/
The eighth picture is this slide show shows a family in poverty who does have inspirations but no way of attaining them.  The rest of the pictures make one think, is it really fair that some people have so much when some people have almost nothing?

Sumblog 4

Max Weber believed in three types of authority in a given society.  Authority is a type of power that is legitimate.  Weber's three forms are rational, which is laws and written documents, traditional, how things have always been done, and charismatic, the social context of the day.  I believe that rational authority is overtaking traditional authority and has been for quite a while.
I think a good example would be the Civil Rights Movement.  It took charismatic speakers such as Martin Luther King to build an audience.  Once enough people listened, how things were done in the past were reevaluated.  New laws were then written.  Society changed.
Traditional families have also changed.  No longer is every family on the block arranged with a mom and dad and brothers and sisters.  Easier divorce laws have made step families a type of norm.  Or in many cases, some parents do not even get married which is now acceptable but wasn't in earlier times.
This is why I think rational authority has overtaken traditional authority.  New laws make it possible to look a head and not always do what has already been done.
This is a picture from the show Modern Family which shows that families are made up very differently than in the 1950's.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2UiI17jib6lk6kz9XmMNSbAsRSx1M-EuwYgtRO99EzUBbCHeu8w

Sumblog 3

Emile Durkheim believed that things sacred,God and society all came from the same roots.  It takes society to believe in something added to and above the real to become sacred.  Things or ideas become sacred through beliefs, rituals and church.  This was from his sociology of religion and knowledge.  I think his idea held true then and now.
Santa Claus is a good example of how someone becomes sacred even when the idea of him is above the real.  Santa is known by children around the world.  He is a big joyful man who wears a red suit and delivers presents and candy to the 'nice' children on Christmas Eve.  His image is reinforced through movies, books and posters throughout the world.
The Santa tradition of today can be traced by to the 1820's.  He lives at the North Pole, has magical elves who help him build the toys, and flying reindeer who carry him around the world in a night dropping off goodies.
The idea of Santa came from earlier figures from all around the world such as Saint Nicholas in the 4th century and Father Christmas in the 16th century.  Both are usually depicted by long white beards and the giving of gifts to the poor.
I have already reminded my children that Santa has been reviewing his list of the nice and naughty children.  This website I have used for my children.  After you put in some information such as their name and how they have been behaving, Santa sends the children a email with a video that sends the child a personal message.  This reinforces the idea of Santa in a society that completely accepts this myth.
http://www.portablenorthpole.com/watch/g-VrZG9DVxTRskr8X3iWeXg?fb_action_ids=4638570798534&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Sumblog 2 (Ginger Egging)

Karl Marx's theory of materialism mentioned in his consequences of capitalism struck me as significant and very viable in today's world.  Everyone uses and buys commodities.  Society was changing from simplistic to more complex.  Resources were sold based on its use value and exchange value.  Marx realized how problems would arise by people losing sight of how much something is useful.  He also believed in the fetishism of commodities, how people were getting things without knowing where the product came from and how it came to be.  He believed in this being a downfall of capitalism.
Materialism affects many aspects today.  People buys things just because they want them even though the object may have no use.  Children may get bullied because they do not have the material items their friends have.  Speaking from experience, my children tell me that they have to have something or they will be teased.  That could range from a new game or system to a certain brand of shoes.  People have lost the sight of value in things.  They go to the grocery store and buy but no longer put any effort into thinking about how the items have gotten there or what it took to produce them.  To me there seems to be a major disconnection between producer and consumer.  In my opinion, Marx was correct in his assessment of how materialism would become a consequence of capitalism.
I found this essay that demonstrates how commercialism and materialism had adverse affects on society.  http://www.studymode.com/course-notes/The-Simpsons-And-About-a-Boy-1826037.html  This essay demonstrates how materialism has ill effects on both the person with the objects and the person without.