davidwitht-blog

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFZoVIDx5dg)

Jeb Bush was asked a simple question, “If you go back in time, would you kill a baby Hitler?”. He answered, “Hell yeah, I would”. It’s a popular question and people have mixed opinions about it, including sociologists.

The question has two answers: yes, I would kill baby Hitler or no, I wouldn’t. If you answer no, meaning you would not kill baby Hitler, you have functionalist perspective for this case. “Functionalism is a theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important (or necessary) function to keep society running” (Conley, 2017, p. 31). Society is a system of organized parts that work together to maintain a state of balance. You might think that Hitler’s cruelty serves as a lesson for humanity in a long term and we wouldn’t be here where we are now. After all, world war two saw several technical breakthroughs that got introduced in our civil lives including internet, communications, aviation, medicine, etc.

However, Jeb Bush has different opinion about this. He thinks that the world would have been better place without Hitler. Sociologists call that conflict theory. “Conflict theory is the idea that conflict between competing interests is basic, animating force of social change and society in general” (Conley, 2017, p. 32). Although functionalists think that inequality is a necessary aspect of society “conflict theorists argue that it is unfair and exists at the expense of less powerful groups” (Conley, 2017, p. 32).

Although there is no “good” answer for this question, I think, here, I will be functionalist and say that the world needs both sides to maintain the balance and the overall progress. As Steve Jobs once said “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something”.

Word Count – 329

References

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90_kTc4I_c)

In this video Taylor is talking about American smile. One of the most distinguishing part of American culture is that famous American smile. Taylor mentions that it wasn’t something she gave lot of thoughts to when she was in USA. However, things have changed when she moved to Germany and realized that almost nobody had that smile. A huge part of it comes down to USA’s rich history of immigration, which has built nonverbal communication (like smiling) into the fabric of American culture as a way of letting other people know that Americans are friendly and mean no harm.

One way of thinking about culture is “it is what feels normal or natural to us but is, in fact, socially produced” (Conley, 2017, p. 83). That’s exactly how Taylor was feeling about smiling, as she mentioned she never thought about it because it was natural to her. After moving to Germany, she felt that something had changed. Sociologists call that culture shock. “Culture shock is a doubt, confusion, or anxiety arising from immersion in an unfamiliar culture” (Conley, 2017, p. 83). People who move from one place to another (thus experiencing change in culture) learn to code switch by “swapping out one set of meanings, values, and/or languages on the fly” (Conley, 2017, p. 83).

Unfortunately, lot of Europeans (also non-Europeans) see this smile to be fake. “Cultural relativism means taking into account the differences across cultures without passing judgment or assigning value” (Conley, 2017, p. 86). By employing the concept of cultural relativism, instead of judging and criticizing, we can understand difference for the sake of increasing our knowledge about the world.

Taylor explained the real reason why smiling is in American culture and honestly, that story is much more pleasing and meaningful than the global misconception of American smile.

Word Count – 301

References

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPBcUUqbew)

In this video Hank is talking about mass incarceration in America. He points out that USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world which is a bad policy to cope with the crime. The incarceration is a pie which consist of punishment, correction and deterrence. From 1984-2014, the incarcerated people in America increased by 400%. Instead of increasing the size of prisoners (punishment), Hank thinks that prisoner’s correction should be the most important piece of the pie.

Here, Hank uses quantitative methods for his sociological research. “Quantitative methods seek to obtain information about the social world that can be converted to numeric form” (Conley, 2017, p. 47). In order to support his opinion, Hank brings some numbers including: the rate at which incarceration in America is changing, government’s spending on incarcerated people, homelessness and suicide rates of people who have conviction on their records.

Good sociological research begins with a puzzle and asks, “what causes such a thing to happen” (Conley, 2017, p. 48). To answer that question, Hank uses deductive approach. “Deductive approach starts with a theory, forms a hypothesis, makes empirical observations, and then analyzes the data to confirm, reject, or modify the original theory” (Conley, 2017, p. 48). As theory, Hank states that it’s a bad policy to fight against the crime by increasing the size of incarcerated people. “The proposed relationship between two variables” are the size of the incarcerated people and the rate of homelessness and suicide among incarcerated people (Conley, 2017, p. 52).  Hank used quantitative method for his empirical observations after which he confirmed his original theory by calling it 75 billion dollar failed experiment.

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References

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCO8eoDWqHQ)

In this video Hank is talking about life after high school/college and shares his opinions on how to adopt to the new world in general. Diplomas, careers, job interviews, and jobs themselves seems to be normal cultural constructions in today’s world. However, in reality, these constructions didn’t exist like 300 years ago. Our society expects from us to do/be so many things that if you do, it’s going to be really hard to be happy.

Here, Hank talks about how institutions and society as a whole socialize us. Socialization is a lifelong learning process, essential for our development as human beings. Through socialization we acquire a sense of self as well as emotions. “The self emerges from our ability to assume the point of view of others and thereby imagine how they see us” (Conley, 2017, p.132). Hank’s concern was that society is asking for too many roles and because of that people are having hard time finding happiness in their lives. “Status is a recognizable social position that an individual occupies” and the roles are “the duties expected of someone who holds a particular status” (Conley, 2017, p. 132). Basic statuses that society expects from a person to have in US are: a status of wife/husband, parent, college student, homeowner, car owner etc.

One reason why people are failing to find happiness and fulfilment in their lives is because of role conflict. “Role conflict is the tension caused by comparing demands between two or more roles pertaining to different statuses” (Conley, 2017, p. 133). The more roles one serves, the more often this role conflict happens, and it causes various problems. Role conflict can be stressful. Trying to manage the demands of different roles takes energy and time, and it can be overwhelming. People often get sick when they have too many roles to fulfill. We do lots of things to successfully manage role expectations. For example, we make detailed plans for our days or we change one role make it fit with another. Still, role conflict is part of our life, and sometimes there is just no way of getting around it.

As Hank mentioned “humans are, above everything, adaptable”, but it’s important to remember that all these roles and statuses that society is expecting from us is not “normal” and i think it’s about time to tone it down a little bit.

Word Count – 373

References

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KEN-cxmGw8)

Jeremy Clarkson, who is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer, is best known for co- presenting the BBC TV show (2002-2015) called Top Gear. Top Gear is a 30-minute show where hosts talk about everything that is related to cars.

In this interview Jeremy Clarkson was asked to talk about Tesla. For him, Tesla is the new way of looking at what a car is. Clarkson tested a Tesla car in 2008 and gave hard-hitting review to it, because he didn’t like the car. However, nearly a decade later, Tesla has come a long way and in Clarkson’s opinion the new Tesla models are very impressive.

As we see, Jeremy Clarkson isn’t a big fan of Tesla. In his other interviews, he brought up couple reasons why he didn’t like the car. However, all of those reasons are almost nothing compared to one. That one reason is “It’s a really interesting, new way of looking at what a car is”. Tesla, unlike any other car, is powered by an electric motor instead of a gasoline and most car enthusiasts have mixed feelings about that. People are used to the idea that car runs with gasoline. Tesla, by challenging the norms, becomes deviant. “Social deviance, loosely understood, can be taken to mean any transgression of socially established norms” (Conley, 2017, p. 191). Everything about Tesla is deviant—the way its cars look, the way it sells its cars online (without a showroom), and the way it runs without using gasoline. 

With that being said, deviance is not always bad thing. A good example of this is the Apple’s first iPhone. When Apple introduced its first iPhone back in 2007, people thought that it’s ridiculous to make a phone with no keyboard. Needless to say, people were wrong. So, even though there is lot of controversy around Tesla for now, I think electric cars are the future (unfortunately).

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JANApS0P4z8)

When we think of money, it’s usually in terms of what things we can buy with it. However, our income and wealth doesn’t only determine what we own or what we can buy, but also it can determine entirely what our life looks like. At the bottom of the pyramid, we have population that economically considered the poorest. Working middle class makes up about 90% of the population. Middle class is considered to be the “Heart” of the economy. Middle class ranges from $10,000 to $300,000 and the median individual income is a about $38,000. It’s hard to make any consumptions by only looking these numbers as they can be misleading. for example, $38,000 can be a lot of money for an adult who is single, but for a person who carries family, $38,000 a year is pretty rough. Finally, at the top of the pyramid we got the top one percent.

As we can see from the video “public generally divides society into the upper class, the middle class, and the poor” (Conley, 2017, p. 258). “Upper class refers to the group of individuals at the top of the socioeconomic food chain” (Conley, 2017, p. 258). Generally, when people refer to upper class they mean the top one percent. There has been lot of controversy about that one percent, as they own about forty percent of the country’s wealth. Needless to say, most Americans think that this is wrong and inequality is a huge problem in America.

There are three different ideologies or belief systems regarding equality: Equality of opportunity, Equality of condition, and Equality of outcome.

Equality of opportunity is “the idea that everyone has an equal chance to achieve wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game, so to speak, are the same for everyone” (Conley, 2017, p. 245). In other words, everybody has an equal opportunity in any given situation, regardless of skin color, race, sexual orientation etc. I think the situation in America is far from being ideal, however, things are much better here, in U.S., compared to almost any other country.

Equality of condition is “the idea that everyone should have an equal starting point” (Conley, 2017, p. 246). Under equality of condition everyone would experience the same lifestyle: equal incomes, equal standards of living, and equal levels of education, health care, and work. I personally would disagree to have this kind of equality. It reduces the incentive to succeed, and it distorts the value of things. There will be less motivation and creativity in the given society which will stop the overall progress.

Equality of outcome is “the idea that each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness of the game”(Conley, 2017, p. 257). This is the idea that everybody should literally be equal. There are many problems with this idea. For example, people will not have any choice, or any freedom. Whatever you do, the outcome is the same. No motivation and no creativity. Bright people will be no different than non-bright people. The fact is, life is not fair. It is important to realize how we benefit from things being unfair. 

In a free market economy, people become wealthy making what the rich enjoy today into something almost everybody can enjoy tomorrow. In the 1960’s a computer costed over a million dollars. Nowadays, thanks to billionaires like Michael Dell, we have incredibly advanced computers that cost us a few hundred dollars. Consider the cell phone. Now we all have them, but when Motorola manufactured the first one in 1983, it was the size of a brick and had almost no features except of calling (kind of). It costed $4,000. If no one had enough money to invest more money in the cell phone market or bought those expensive phones, there wouldn’t be a $40 cellphone that is ten times better than the old one. So, should we hate the people who became wealthy because they have more money than we do, or should we be grateful for the economic system that allows them to enrich our life.

We need people like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and many others to be in better positions than we are, so we can benefit from their successes.  

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BWDW5ctLjQ)

In this video, popular tach YouTuber MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) discusses the latest scandal about Apple slowing down the older iPhones. Batteries aren’t perfect as they age over time. Old batteries can’t maintain the same massive changes in voltages as good as the new batteries do. So, when Apple sees an iPhone gets software upgrade and they see it has a two-year old battery, they slow down the phone so the battery can keep up and doesn’t degrade too fast. The bottom line is that Apple slowed down the older iPhones (even though there was a good reason) in order to sell their new iPhones.

This is a good example of planned obsolescence. “Planned obsolescence is a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and require replacing” (The story of Stuff Project, 2009). In other words the company, that produces the given product, designs the product with artificially limited useful life. In this example, Apple slowed down the older iPhones (artificially limiting the useful life) so that people would buy the new iPhones. Planned obsolescence is extremely popular in today’s economy. Apple, despite being the most valuable public-traded company in the world, is no exception. Some might say that it’s wrong and unethical way to run a business, and others might say it’s bad but necessary policy in order to keep the business healthy and to keep up with the overall progress.

I think planned obsolescence is acceptable and necessary in tech industry. Without planned obsolescence, companies would charge much more for their products, as they know people aren’t going to upgrade the given product any time soon. For example, let’s look at watch industry. One of the best and most-respected watch brands, Patek Philippe, advertises its watches as being something that the owner merely conserves for the next generation. Well, that might sound great but the problem is that the cheapest Patek Philippe is like $40,000.

In today’s world, where technology is getting better every day (especially the smartphone industry), it’s better to pay $1,000 every year or two for the newest and most advanced technology than buy the product for $3,000 and stick with it forever.

Word Count – 355

References

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

The Story of Stuff Project. (2009, Apr 22). The Story of Stuff. Video Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBo-G8QRpEo)

Without a doubt, advertising is inherently a good thing. It allows for companies, big and small, to succeed and spread their business or product on a much larger scale. However, despite all of the good that comes with advertising, there are also some extremely negative parts that come with it.

This video shows what some modern advertisements look like. The interesting part of the video was that the audience were little kids. One boy said that it’s “Disgusting”. “I don’t want to look at this picture anymore,” said another, while one boy said flat out, “I don’t want to talk about it, it makes me feel uncomfortable.” Kids clearly didn’t like the advertisements. As an industry, and a society, people ignored the issue with ads containing sexism and objectification for a long time.

“Sexism occurs when a person’s sex or gender is the basis for judgment, discrimination, and hatred against him or her” (Conley, 2017, p. 307). Women are the primary targets when it comes to sexism in advertisement industry. Women are often used in advertising products and often have a minimal amount of clothing on. As saying goes, “sex sells”. Although lot of people don’t agree with this idea, it seems that most companies still think that using women’s body, they can sell their products better.

Another problem with advertisement is objectification. Objectification, by definition, means “viewing and/or treating a person as an object, devoid of thought or feeling” (Rector, 2014, p. 17). It ignores women’s personality and dignity by turning them into objects. Often, objectification is targeted at women and reduces them to objects of sexual pleasure and satisfaction. Objectification is much more popular than sexism as it covers bigger area in advertisement world.

I think objectification and sexism in advertisements are real issues. However, there is a flip side of this problem. I think advertisements are giving what our society wants. Advertisements are meant to bring as much profit as possible to the given company. If people didn’t like what they see, companies would simply stop ads that contain sexism or objectification. They don’t care how they will sell their products as long as they do. Advertisements both influence as well get influenced by society. We can disagree with this idea as much as we want but I think advertisements are the mirror of the given society. We need to change ourselves before we can change the world.

Word Count – 395

References

Rector J. M. (2014).The Objectification Spectrum: Understanding and Transcending Our Diminishment and Dehumanization of Others. New York, NY:  Oxford University Press.

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist(5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8YAK8oMEKI)

In this video, famous stand-up show comedian Dave Chapelle tells two stories that happened with him.  When he was in Mississippi, he tried to order some food in a restaurant, but the waiter interrupted him by saying that he already knows what Dave wants. In waiter’s opinion, Dave wanted to order some chicken because he was black. After that incident, Dave didn’t feel comfortable to eat chicken in public place anymore, because public would think that he likes chicken because of his race.

Let’s look at the first story. The waiter thought that Dave wants chicken because of Dave’s race. “Race refers to a group of people who share a set of characteristics – typically, but not always, physical ones – and are said to share a common bloodline” (Conley, 2017, p. 324). Waiter thought that black people had distinct cultures and behaviors when it comes to food choice. Obviously, Dave didn’t like this and said that the waiter was a racist. “Racism is the belief that members of separate races possess different and unequal traits” (Conley, 2017, p. 325). Although Dave tells this story using humor, racism is real and it’s a huge problem. We have come a long way from the days of slavery; however, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less obvious now in many cases, its existence is undeniable.

Dave said that he doesn’t feel comfortable to eat chicken in public place anymore, as public would think that he likes chicken because of his race. He experiences the concept of double consciousness. “Double consciousness is a concept conceived by W. E. B. Du Bois to describe the two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudiced onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans” (Conley, 2017, p. 30). So, what Dave did is he looked at what people would think about him if he ate chicken in public place. In other words, the second consciousness of African American is the idea of being “normal” and not to do anything which can make others think that his or her actions are connected to his or her race. Double consciousness is a result of racism.

Word Count – 374

References

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist (5th core ed). New York: W.W. Norton.

[davidwitht-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vDWWy4CMhE)

By definition, social movement is a group of diffusely organized people or organizations striving toward a common goal relating to human society or social change. Perhaps the most famous civil rights activist in the US is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who led a social movement for change in the 1950s and early 1960s. He is best known for his “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1964, at age 35, Martin Luther King, Jr. became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Scholars identified four stages of social movements’ lifecycles, emergence, coalescence, bureaucratization, and decline.

The first stage is known as emergence. “Emergence can be thought of as widespread discontent” (Christiansen, 2009, p. 2). In this stage potential movement participants are unhappy with the policy, but they have not taken any actions. There was, of course, a general sense of discontent among the African-American population. However, they were not yet organizing the mass actions that came later, characterized by the Civil Rights Movement

The second stage of the social movement is known as coalescence. “It is characterized by a more clearly defined sense of discontent. It is no longer just a general sense of unease, but now a sense of what unease is about and who or what is responsible” (Christiansen, 2009, p. 3). The American Civil Rights Movement again provides a good example. After the initial emergence, the movement began a series of high profile campaigns that wanted to highlight the plight of African-Americans.

The third stage is known as bureaucratization. This stage “is characterized by higher levels of organization and coalition-based strategies” (Christiansen, 2009, p. 3). The whole idea of this movement was to gain attention from the government and demand the equal rights for all. The freedom riders, Martin Luther King Jr., and some important marches were all major events that brought attention to government.

The final forth stage is known as decline. “Decline does not necessarily mean failure for social movements” (Christiansen, 2009, p. 3).”Not all social movements end in defeat through repression or co-optation; some decline because they are successful” (Christiansen, 2009, p. 4). Fortunately for humankind, this movement had a big success. The major civil right acts were successful in gaining equality between whites and blacks and improving for African-Americans in terms of economic opportunity, voting, and much more.

Word Count – 386

References

Christiansen, J, (2009). Four stages of a social movement, p. 1-7. Retrieved November 30, 2017, from EBSCO online database https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/imported/thisTopic-dbTopic-1248.pdf

[davidwitht-blog]

Hey everyone.

My name is Davit and my major is Engineering (Materials Science). This is my last year here, in HACC, since I have earned all the credits that is required for my major. I will get my AA degree after this semester and I’m planning to transfer to four-year institution for my Bachelor’s degree.

There are two reasons why I chose engineering as my major.

1.    For some reason I like math and numbers and I never really had any issues with solving math problems.

2.    My English was/is poor and without good communication skills I thought it would be pointless to choose a major that involves lot of talking or communicating.

I have been in United States for about four years. Originally, I’m from Armenia. I came here in 2014, when I was 17 years old. Overall, it has been an “interesting” four years for me.

Although I like math and physics, it’s hard to say that I’m passionate about them. Instead, I’m passionate about sports, especially soccer, table tennis, and chess. Despite having full-time job and being part-time student, I always find time to play all of them during weekends. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in one those activities so we can hang out and have some fun together :)

Sociology is the study of social life, social change, social causes, and consequences of human behavior. As you can guess, sociology covers lot of controversial, but also very interesting topics. In this blog, you will find discussions on some of the popular sociological topics where I also express my own thoughts and opinions (because in the end of the day, this is my blog).

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Dear fellow & future students,

I would like to give couple advices that I think can be helpful during this class.

1.    Start this project as early as possible. This project is bigger than it seems. In my experience, the hardest part was finding a good article to talk about. So, give some room to yourself to surf on the internet in order to find a quality content.

2.    I found Study Guides to be very helpful. It sums up all the important points from every unit, so instead of re-reading the whole chapter you can just use the study guide to prepare for the quizzes/exams.

3.    During this class I realized that sociology loves the idea of “seeing the bigger picture”. The problem is that when you are looking at the bigger picture sometimes it can be depressing, as you realize how “average” you really are. My advice is not to worry about that and be grateful, because the sooner you see the real picture, the better for you.

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[davidwitht-blog]

Study of sociology not only helps us to know our society and people but also the others, their role status, social structure, occupations, traditions, social norms, mores, culture, social institutions, religion and belief system and many more things beyond imagination.

I’m glad that I took sociology class, because this class helped me to understand where I stand in society. When I first came to US, the first six months were the weirdest period in my life. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any relatives or friends and my English was extremely poor (I knew the letters and couple words like apple, home, girl). Needless to say, it wasn’t all that fun for me. Everything was very different and strange in my eyes. However, during this class I realized that my situation is pretty normal and even has a name, called “Culture shock”. Many people are afraid to be normal or average, but I think it’s a great feeling to realize that you aren’t the only one experiencing the same thing and that it’s OK to be in a given situation.

Obviously, after all this years I got used to everything (almost). Moreover, after experiencing culture shock I realized that despite variation in cultures, languages and ethnicities, we all are similar. People around the world are more similar than we think. Sure, customs and settings vary, but we all share the same goals, trying to follow our passions, and dream big.

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