Refresh, Refresh, Refresh-The "Looking-Glass Self"

Facebook has become the predominant social networking site for teenagers and young adults.  How many times have you sat in front of your computer clicking "refresh" waiting for a comment or someone to like your status?  We live in a society where instant gratification is everything.  It's amazing how a text from the guy we like or a complimenting comment on one of our pictures can make our day in one split second.  I can't even imagine being in my parents' shoes and having to pick up the phone and actually call someone if I wanted to have a conversation!  And no, it wouldn't be through a cell phone; at that time it would have been through a phone with a cord most likely located in a family area such as the kitchen where everyone could hear your conversation!  Secretive is one of the best adjectives to describe adolescents.  With the use of technology, being secretive is easier than ever....

In class we watched a Frontline video on teenagers and the internet.  One girl featured on the episode was "Autumn Edows".  Jessica, known as "Autumn", created a new risque persona for herself to express her true self through the internet where she would not be judged, unlike how she was at school.  She constantly uploaded photos of herself to her website without the knowledge of her parents until her website was discovered by another parent of a student in her school and was brought to the attention of the school principal.  Her parents were shocked when they found out what she had been posting and initially thought that it was wrong.  However, eventually they came to the conclusion that they did not want to stifle Jessica's creativity and let her express herself through her site.  She wasn't a bad kid, she just found a way to be accepted and creative through the internet.

Like Jessica, many teenagers see themselves through the reactions of others.  This is known as the "Looking-Glass Self" as formulated by Charles Horton Cooley.  "Cooley used the familiar figure of a person looking at his or her refelction in a mirror as a metaphor for understanding the development of the social self." ("From Mirror Self-Recognition to the Looking-Glass Self: Exploring the Justification Hypothesis", Leigh S. Shaffer).  A well discussed topic in class, the question was brought up if a "true-self" actually existed if we are only seeing ourselves to others and conforming to what we think they see in us.  Personally, I believe that a "self" is a compilation of past experiences and choices that we have made on our own that defines who we are.  Although people may have similar characteristics, we are all our own "self" if we so choose to be.  I think that when one makes a decision for himself or herself, that is exercising his or her "self".  However it can't be overlooked that we are influenced by what is around us.  We are constantly seeking to justify our behaviors and reactions, and the ToK (Tree of Knowledge) system, formulated by Henriques, defines this.  According to the article "From Mirorr...", "...'self' has evolved because human beings are the only animals that have had to justify their behavior to others."  If you think about it, everything that we do seems to have to be justified.  Just yesterday I told my parents that I was pretty set on attending the University of Illinois, and went on to explain the reasons why.  My mom stopped me mid-way and told me that I really didn't need to justify my reasons for attending the university because they hadn't even asked the question!  It made it so obvious how often we try to justify our actions when it isn't always necessary.

I would like to spend just a little bit of time discussing the title of the honors article that I read as a reference for writing this blog entry...The title, "From Mirror Self-Recognition to the Looking-Glass Self: Exploring the Justification Hypothesis", contains a pun.  Can you find it?  "Mirror" is the word I was looking for.  The word "mere" would be grammatically correct in this sentence, but "mirror" is so perfectly placed because of the connection to the "looking-glass self".  "Mere self-recognition" would represent just being able to recognize yourself, while "mirror self-recognition" is a whole different animal.  It refers to how we see ourself.  It may not be physically, but could be referring to how we see and define ourself as an individual.  I just thought the title was witty!

"Mirror self-recognition", unfortunately, can be detrimental to a teenager.  On the Frontline episode that we watched in class, a father was featured talking about his son who had been bullied in middle school so severely online that he ended up committing suicide at the age of thirteen.  This really hit me hard because my brother and sister are both thirteen and they are living in this generation where the media and social networking is everything.  They're constantly wired in to everything around them including XBox live games, Facebook, and texting.  There is so much that goes on with technology that it is impossible to know what people are talking about.  I'm worried that they wouldn't know how to handle online bullying and would take it too personally.  Unfortunately, from personal experience, I know a thing or two about cyber bulllying.  When I was in eighth grade, I made the local travel soccer team.  As extatic as I was about it, my future teammates just used it as an advantage to torture and taunt the "newbie".  I remember signing on to my AOL instant messanger account during the summer break and an instant message came up from a contact I didn't have in my buddy list.  I still remember the screenname, but out of respect for the individuals involved, I won't post it over the internet (see I'm not abusing my rights to the internet!).  It started with a friendly "hey how are you?" but transpired into something much worse.  The girls started mocking me and jokingly saying how good I was at soccer, but I knew it was all a big joke because of the way they were saying things.  It would be sarcastic like, "You are SOoOo good at soccer!  Way to make 1 goal in try-outs."  These rude, snide remarks made me miserable and any chance that I had to skip practice I would, not because I didn't love soccer, but because of how rude the girls on the team were to me.  It wasn't an environment conducive to learning and getting better at my soccer skills, but I was afraid of telling my parents anything because I didn't want to get the girls' parents involved and them treating me even worse than before.  I began to think that the image that the girls had of me was actually who I was, just like the Looking-Glass Self.  Luckily I was able to put it all beside me and move on, but I can see how easily it can be to get caught up in what others are saying about you.  I ended up quitting soccer (I loved the sport, but couldn't take the harrassment anymore) and joined the track team, where I am quite happy and accepted by all of my teammates.  It's amazing how a team of over 100 girls can get along so well, but my soccer team of about 18 players couldn't accept one person.  Now looking back, I realize that at least I found my niche and my passion, even if it had to come out of something unfortunate!  Tomorrow I'll probably share my story with my brother and sister and make sure that everything is going alright in their "cyber-world".  Communication is key, even if it has been disfigured with the use of social networking.  Oh, for the record, I didn't check Facebook once during writing this one hour blog post :)

Live, Breathe, Speak American

Throughout the United States, many different dialects of English are spoken.  Although we as Americans all live in the same country and speak English, it is sometimes difficult to understand others because of their accent.  For example, a southern accent is much different from a midwestern accent.  Accents also affect how intelligent we perceive other people to be.  This clip from "Do You Speak American?" helps to discern the difference between correct and incorrect English as we perceive it to be...

As stated in the video, people perceive Southern accents to be a sign of unintelligence.  However, if we look at the presidents of the United States, being from the South did not affect their intelligence but rather helped candidates such as Bill Clinton and George Bush to win the presidency because the public could equate themselves with the presidents.  Southern accents seem more welcoming and like the common-man speak, which appeals to people in that they feel the president is no different than themselves.  


In "Do You Speak American", we learned the difference between Chicano English and Spanglish.  Chicano English is English with some Spanish slang used.  Often, people who speak Chicano English do not even speak fluent Spanish, but they have grown up hearing common expressions in Spanish being used and have incorporated the words into their vocabulary.  Spanglish on the other hand is a combination of Spanish and English.  Many native Spanish speakers once they learn English do not notice that they are switching between the languages when speaking because it seems so natural.  I thought that it was very interesting that there are so many different dialects of English in one country!  Below I describe some common expressions used in different dialects or definitions of the dialect...


1. Valley Girl Speak: Exemplified in the movie Clueless.  Includes phrases: "like", "oh my gosh", "and I was all..."

2. Chicano English: English with Spanish slang.

3. Spanglish: English and Spanish spoken together.

4. New York Accent: Changes the "OR" sound to a "OW" sound

From personal experience, I know how hard it can be to understand people with accents different  from my Midwestern accent.  For example, my grandma and her family were from Georgia.  When I was younger, it was very hard for me to understand what they were saying because they pronounced words in many different ways than did I.  When I stayed overnight with some of the family in Georgia during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, I was only three years old.  My parents were attending a basketball game, and I was left with my relatives since buying a ticket for a three year old was not economical.  Even today I can remember having a hard time understanding what these people were saying to me, and it's crazy to think that we only live about 2 hours away from each other via plane!

While some dialects may seem like a totally different language all together, different languages seem millions of miles away.  Guy Deutscher in his article, "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" describes that the English language is much more private than other languages because other languages use pronouns to describe the femininity or masculinity of a word.  For example, if someone was telling someone else about their night spent with their neighbor, they would use "el" or "la" vecino/a, and instantly the other person would know what the gender of the neighbor was.  In Chinese, there is only one verb tense for past, present, or future actions, but, "...this does not mean that the Chinese are unable to understand the concept of time."

I found it interesting that in the article it stated, "...grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers toward object around them."  Some words in Spanish were feminine while the same words in German were masculine.  This determined how people perceived the words to be gender wise.  An example cited is the word "bridge".  In Spanish, bridge is masculine, but in German, it is feminine.  People therefore assigned different gender roles to the word based on what their language described it as.

Bridge=El Puente=die Bruke

Finally, I found the Australian tongue, "Guugu Yimithirr" to be very interesting.  Instead of describing this as behind us, or to the right of us, they use Cardinal directions.  For example, if I were to say that the desk was behind me, in GY I would say that the desk was south of me, assuming the south was behind me.  I read that we are egocentric even with languages.  "If you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself.  In fact, he is pointing at a cardinal direction that happens to be behind his back."  I found this to be interesting because often we use the pointing hand gesture to point at ourselves when we are talking about ourselves, but this dialect uses it to express direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guugu_Yimithirr_language 

Overall, we live, breathe, and speak American.  We have determined our "rights and wrongs" of English and continue to express ourselves through the language that we have been raised in.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, as a side note, this week in Sociology we had the opportunity to go to a presentation for a group called Purse of Hope who is working to save girls in Uganda from sex trafficking.  The numbers were astonishing...80% of people taken for human trafficking are girls who are sold into sex trafficking to make money for brothel owners.  The other 20% are boys who are forced into the military.  We have life so good over here as a society, and we really need to come together to help the society of Uganda to save the lives of innocent boys and girls.  Fortunately, our high school has been able to save a young girl named Prossy from Uganda and bring her into the Purse of Hope home so that she can get off the streets and not have to be sexually assaulted anymore.  The girls in the home learn vocations to raise money for their families (some of the girls become pregnant through sex trafficking), and also money to support themselves so that eventually they can live on their own and operate their own businesses.  The girls made bracelets and necklaces that are being sold at my high school, and I learned that one necklace can save a girl from 140 acts of sexual assault.  140!  These poor girls have a skewed image of their society because all they have seen is the men in the brothels who take advantage of and sometimes hurt them.  I feel so blessed to be living where I am today.  None of my problems seem as grandiose as the ones that these girls go through on a daily basis.  I hope to be able to help those girls in need by the resources that I am fortunate enough to have!  No one should be forced into sex labor.  The video below really touched me and made me want to become a part of the Purse of Hope organization so that I too can help these girls get out of horrendous situations and eventually become strong, independent women.

Pass the Leafy Greens Please...You Are What You Eat.

I remember the first time that I stepped foot in my best friend's house.  The smell coming from the kitchen was overwhelming.  I had never smelled anything more disgusting in my life!  No matter where I went in the house I could not escape the smell.  My friend was Indian, and her mother was always making traditional Indian cuisine when I would be over at her house to hang out.  I remember seeing the yellow curry for the first time on a plate and being asked if I wanted to try any.  Of course, being twelve years old, I said no.  I didn't even give the food a chance because of my ethocentricity.  I was judging my friend's food as inferior to my own food because "ours is right and superior and smells good and theirs is wrong and inferior and smells bad..." (You Are What You Eat, Rappoport).  However, as I grew older, I began to try new foods, and eventually found that curry sauce was absolutely delicious!  I remember the first time my mom bought a bottle, I used the sauce on everything...it took me awhile to get out of that ethnocentric mind set when it came to food, but once I had left it behind, all the different flavors became part of my pallet that I enjoyed eating!


It's ironic for me to think that five years ago I never considered eating like my friend, but today I eat almost identically to her.  I am a vegetarian, just as she is, and through that I have discovered so many new foods that I never would have tried before.  For example, tofu is one of my favorite snacks!  Most people look at tofu (pictured below) and remark at how disgusting it looks, and I don't blame them, but people need to give foods a try before they judge.  

Foods most definitely reflect who we are.  I had never really thought of food defining who I was, but if I look at what I eat in a typical day, it is all drawn back to who I am and who I was raised as.  For example, I eat a very healthy cuisine consisting of vegetables, fruits, protein, etc.  I did not take eating into my own hands until I began to be a serious runner.  The article I read, "You Are What You Eat", said that, "Adolescents in athletic programs may begin to follow the dietary recommendations of their coaches..."  I found this to be incredibly true because I always listened to my coach about what and what not to eat because I thought that it would help me with my running.  I have recognized that when I eat healthy foods, I am more likely to be happy throughout the day and feel good during a workout rather than when I eat junk food, I feel unhappy with myself and end up having a stomach ache later on in a run.  So what was the point of this?  Food reflects who we are.  My healthy eating habits are a reflection of my devotion to athletics.  Also, food can be a reflection of social status.  The article said that our food preferences reflect our social class.  For example, people who drink white wine are seen as people of high social status, while people who drink whiskey are seen as low social status individuals.


Food...who knew such a simple concept could grow into something so large!  Food is even associated with music!  Imagine walking into a Chinese restaurant and hearing Hispanic music.  It just wouldn't go together!  You would expect to hear something more calm and serene in a Chinese restaurant, and something upbeat in a Mexican restaurant.  This is known as a norm.  Norms are the expectations, or rules of behavior, that reflect and enforce values.  


Norms and values often go hand in hand.  What we value is what we use as a pedestal for what is good, and what is bad.  For example, in Sociology class, we saw the conflict of values occur in our deliberation over Euthanasia.  Our question was, "Should our democracy permit physicians to assist in a patient's suicide?"  I was one of three out of the entire class who thought that this should not be allowed in our country.  Although I am looking at it from a religious perspective, where we do not have the right to choose when to end our life, there are also other arguments that support my point.  For example, allowing this law to pass could result in moral detachment from death.  People would begin to see that if death is acceptable, that the law is bendable.  Also, under the Hippocratic Oath, which many medical schools teach to their students, doctors promise that they will not give deadly drugs to patients upon request.  Euthanasia completely breaks the oath, as it is assisted suicide.

Could you really let yourself be stuck with guilt of permitting your own loved one's death to occur?  How would you make the decision to pull the plug?  Could you do it for your own mother?  Your mother who loved and raised you for your entire life?  This unnecessary guilt is placed upon an individual who has to make the decision for someone who cannot make a conscious decision for themself about their own life.  Euthanasia could lead to the killing of innocent people, such as the Nazis did to the mentally disabled, homosexual, and gypsies for no fault of their own.

However, some might watch a video like the one below and wonder how euthanasia could not be allowed...

Yes, this recent story makes you think, but did you see the picture of the woman and her three children towards the end of the video?  Her children must have loved her, and would probably have not wanted to see her go.  Although the lady was unable to see, she was still able to move around and to express herself with her words.  In her case, euthanasia seemed selfish.  She was leaving behind her children, her loved ones, her family...

Everyday we are faced with questions of values and norms.  They could be on the scale of the social norm of food, or on the much larger, grandiose scale of Euthanasia.

American Cultures and Values (Blog Entry #4)

Privacy, equality, time, informality, looking to the future...all are major U.S. American values that the American society has developed over time.  What makes our definition of life so much different than other nations?  Or why are other nations so different from us?  By definition, "values" are socially shared ideas about what is right.  Robin Williams (1914-2006), a sociologist who studied and identified the core values of the citizens of the United States, came up with a concrete list of American values.  I'd like to take a bit of time to explain the meanings of some key American values, and to explain them in the context of other nations.

1. Privacy

Privacy can have many meanings, but for our discussion, I would just like it to take on two meanings.  First, privacy could be physically "private", separated, away from the outside world.  In the United States, we put up signs on hotel room doors, such as the one shown to the left, to keep people out.  We like to keep to ourselves, and to not always have to invite someone inside.  However, in Singapore, people live in such tightly compacted areas that there is no privacy, and people learn to live in close quarters with each other.

A second meaning that the word 'privacy' can take on is being secretive, keeping things to ourselves and not telling others what we are truly thinking about.  On a handout that the University of North Caorlina uses for its foreign exchange students, it explains that the question, ""What is on your mind?" may be considered by some to be intrusive."  As Americans, we are brought up in a society that believes in keeping to yourself and being very independent.

2. Time

  A second major value of the American culture is time.  We are constantly hurried, and rushed, needing things immediately and on the go.  For example, even our food is "fast".  We are a fast-paced society that keeps moving at all hours of the day.  The expression "time is money" is often used in the business world.  Peter, a "Lost Boy" who came over from Africa, observed that in the U.S., "Time is money.  But there in Africa, there is no 'time is money'."  Because of this thinking, people in Africa seem to be a lot more social because they are not concerned with just getting money as many Americans are.  They actually take time out of their day to talk to one another, unlike Americans who would not be willing to forfit their salaries for a conversation with a friend.  In the U.S., we are so concerned with being on time for places, and are often criticized if we are late.  There is no such thing as being late in the U.S.  If we are late for class, we are punished with unexcused absences or tardies.  If we are late for an interview, we most likely will not get the job.

3. Material Comfort

Americans are also very concerned with material items.  Madonna sang in her song "Material Girl", "You know that we are living in a material world and I am a material girl."  Americans often lose sight of what is important such as family, friends, religion, etc.  In our society, a person defined as rich has a lot of money.  However, while talking to a friend from England, rich is defined much differently in his country.  Rich actually entails having a lot of friends, etc.  When someone says, "he is rich", it could be interpreted as "he has many friends; he is rich in friends."  It seems sometimes that it is not about who you are, but about what you have.  While watching t.v. even for a half hour, we see dozens of commercials flash across the screen advertising products to make us look younger and healthier.  It isn't ever possible to be content with your body because a new product is out on the shelf every week pointing out that something else is wrong with our bodies.  Even from this week while reading my Seventeen magazine, I noticed that every other page had an advertisement for perfume or for makeup.  "Get longer lashes", "drop ten pounds in two weeks"...these are just two of the slogans I saw in a magazine for teenagers!!  At the teenage year we are so vulnerable, yet we are constantly being told through the media that we aren't perfect, that our bodies could look better to attract others.  We forget to be who we are and start becoming someone the advertisement agencies would use as a model for their product.

We have grown up learning social norms.  In each country, different social norms are prevalent, but people are judged nonetheless upon whether or not they follow the social norms of their respective countries.  In the Sudan, the "Lost Boys" spent many nights dancing with the other members of their community, as it was a ritual.  However, if they were to dance and sing here in the United States, they would stand out from the rest of us because that is not part of our culture.  Norms are "expectations about what behavior, thoughts, or feelings are appropriate within a group or culture."

In college, I would love to have the chance to study abroad in Spain.  However, it will be a huge cultural adjustment for me because I have become so accustomed to the American ideals and values that everything else seems foreign to me.  I empathize with the immigrants who come to America not understanding how different our culture is and having to adapt to the culture in order to fit in.

Love Around the World (Blog Post #3)

I had not given much thought to how Valentine's Day is celebrated across the world, or even if it was considered a holiday in other parts of the world.  For Valentine's Day this year, I received some chocolates, a sweater, and a movie, all from my loving mother :)  Now for others, there was dinner and the movies and presents, and maybe even a kiss here and there, but for others who are not in a steady relationship or a relationship at all for that matter, Valentine's Day in the United States is just another way of saying "you're not loved."  I'd rather refer to it as Single's Awareness Day though...but this is besides the point.  The fact of the matter is, we as a society have created Valentine's Day to be a very important holiday in our community.  From the generic Hallmark greeting cards to flowers and teddy bears, and even to over-dramatic commercials like the one below from Kay Jewelers (my sister and I mock this commercial every time it is shown on the television).

In America, we seem to get so caught up in the act of giving that we forget what the holiday is truly about.  Valentine's day is just another "Hallmark holiday" here, whereas in other countries such as Norfolk, 'Jack Valentine' knocks on the door to bring children presents.  I found this article on Wikipedia especially interesting about the different customs of Valentine's day in different societies throughout the world: Global Valentine's Day Customs 

While we might find some of these customs obscure, it is because of ethnocentricity that we believe that we are right and others are wrong.  Ethnocentrism is using our culture as the basis upon which we judge other cultures.  While reading in class about the "Nacirema" and the "Rac", we were so quick to judge other cultures without putting ourselves in their shoes and understanding that what is normal to some cultures is not normal for us.  After our teacher told us that "Nacirema" and "Rac" were "American" and "Car" spelled backwards, it made so much more sense, and I was appalled at how quickly I had judged another culture, when really it was my own culture.  In the Nacirema article, the human body was discussed and it was obvious how much energy and time we spend perfecting our body.  While I was reading the article under the perspective of "Nacirema", I was so confused as to why these people performed such obscure rituals, but after rereading it from the perspective of "American", I realized that things such as "the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses" was just like our culture where everything is about what you have and not who you are.  From the "Rac" article, it was so intriguing to read "some people move their homes because the rac paths must be as straight as possible..." under the notion that racs were animals, but once I realized that they were talking about cars, it was so true!  When the government wants to build or expand an expressway, under the constitution it has legal rights to cease the property owned by homeowners upon which it wishes to build.  Therefore, we value our transportation more than we do our own homes.

Finally, in Sociology class today, we discussed values (the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable).  What we value in society is not always what others value in their societies.  Such is the case with the Yanomamo tribe.  The Yanomamo Indians live in southern Venezuela in many different tribes scattered throughout the area.  Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (referred to as Shaki by the Yanomamo), lived with the tribe for a year and a half, and described his initial experience as a culture shock (fundamentals of life learned no longer apply).  Because of ethnocentrism, he immediately thought that the warring tribe was savage like.  He described the people as being 'barbaric' and 'aggressive'.  They believed that beating their wives was a sign of your aggressiveness and power, "Beating a wife with a club is considered to be an acceptable way of displaying ferocity...", whereas in the United States, beating your wife would put you in a courtroom being charged for battery, and spending years in a federal prison.  Shaki also learned that Kaobawa (the headman of Upper Bisaasi-teri) had a wife who killed her newborn baby at birth because she thought that it would take away the nutrition of her other son from the milk.  I believe this to be very similar to abortion because women decide to take the life of a child because it is unwanted, even though that child is still creation.  

However, not everything that Shaki saw was different from our culture.  For example, he noticed that the geographical locations of the cultures really played a role with how they acted.  This is similar to the United States where Northerners are often much more fast-paced while Southerners act in a more leisurely fashion.

Shaki saw that the Indians were very manipulative, and would try to steal his food by threatening him.  He didn't understand why he couldn't be friends and allies with the tribe...this calls for a musical break:

It wasn't until he realized that he had to adapt to the culture around him.  Eventually he adapted to the culture of the Yamomamo and in doing so raised his own status.  The people were more accepting of someone who was more like themselves.  For example, Shaki set the Indians into the current to let them float away after they had stolen his palm boards to use as paddles for their canoes.  Shaki writes, "whenever I took such action and defended my rights, I got along much better with the Yanomamo."  

Finally, I noticed that something we take for granted is the use of names.  Everyday we call someone by their first name to get their attention, but in the Yanomamo tribe, names are held sacred and are seldom used.  No one uses the name of a deceased individual, and becomes very offended if the name is spoken.  This created difficulty for Shaki because he wanted to trace the genealogy of the tribe.  However, he became allies with Rerebawa through a common connection of being outsiders in the tribe.  He learned much from Rerebawa about the history of the tribe.

We are very culturally different from many different countries, but we need to be accepting of each other and take part in 'cultural relativism', which is "not judging a culture, but trying to understand it on its own terms."  

Eating Your Friends? (Blog Entry #2)

What would you do if you were stranded in the middle of the Andes Mountains after a terrible plane crash and you overheard that the search party for you had been called off? Would you lose hope and not even try to survive the cold temperatures, or would you do whatever it took to stay alive?  Now ask yourself this question...would you resort to cannibalism in order to have a chance at survival?

After watching the video, you might have cringed at the end when you saw the man cutting into the dead man's body for a source of food.  What would make someone get to this point where cannibalism was acceptable?  In Sociology class, we learned about a sociologist named Max Weber who discovered that "people attach meaning to their own actions of others" and that our choices are products of our environment.  At first, cannibalism seemed disgusting to the survivors of the plane crash, but as time progressed, they realized that it was their source of survival and they had attached a new meaning to the word.  This idea follows the concept of Symbolic Interaction, which explains that nothing comes with a 'built-in' meaning but rather that humans attach meanings to things.  The article states that, "the dead became part of their lives." 


Once cannibalism had been implemented into the survivors society, they had to establish some rules to create order.  They began to delve out jobs and tasks for the survivors to complete, which included cutting up the bodies, keeping the bodies cold, taking care of the plane (their shelter), and some used aluminum to melt snow for water so that the survivors would not be dehydrated.  It was clear that some of the survivors were stronger than others, and these members had more power in a sense than the others did because they were allowed a bigger portion of "food" so that they could build up the strength to go seek help.  This idea has to do with the conflict perspective which states that "social living is a contest of who attains the most power".  To diverge from the cannibalism idea and provide a more relative example to everyday life, in the pilot episode of the show, Freaks and Geeks, Jeff, the principal, uses his authority and power to make Lindsey, a very intelligent student, a mathlete by threatening to hold her accountable for ditching school.  It is much easier to identify with the characters in the Freaks and Geeks show because they are of an age close to ours in which life is a constant power struggle.  Everyone is vying for spots on athletic teams and plays or positions on clubs and they are building up their social status in order to achieve this positions.  But I digress.  In society, we search for a form of government to maintain stability and order in the world.  In class, we discussed that out of the French Revolution came "self-government and democracy".  From this we can gather that people feel the need to have rules to create an equilibrium within society.

--If you observe this picture, it is clear that in society we have many labels for each other based on outward appearances, and because of the amount of power we have in our given society.  The geeks do not have much power within the school so they are often picked on, but can do nothing about it because their words mean nothing to the people with the most power like the jocks or the preps who believe that their social status is held in a much higher regard than others.--


Although in the survivor's society cannibalism became a social norm, when they were finally rescued and returned to Uruguay, physicians and government officials did not release that the survivors had survived by means of cannibalism because it would not have been accepted in the Uruguayan society.  It is interesting that in different societies, different things are acceptable and banned.  This is because of the different associations people have with words; with cannibalism, in normal society it is viewed as illegal and immoral, but in the survivor's society, it was viewed as the source of life.  However, it is interesting to note that in societies people believe that they must justify their actions for other individuals.  The article reasons that the priests explained that the bodies which were eaten had no soul left because after the people had died, their souls had gone to heaven, so eating the bodies in order to survive was acceptable.

From my perspective, I don't know if I would be able to resort to cannibalism if I was stranded anywhere.  I became a vegetarian about 4 months ago, so I don't eat meat period.  To have to eat my own kind would just be disgusting!  I don't think that I would be able to hold a piece of someone else's flesh to my mouth...Although I might die, I think that if I was meant to live, I would live, and that if it was my time to die, I would die and go peacefully.  To be clear, I was in a plane crash!  Obviously it was supposed to be the end of something!  Maybe it would just be a sign that I shouldn't be a vegetarian anymore...

Unwritten Rules (Sociology Blog Week 1)

Who decided what was right and what was wrong?  Was it an innate instinct, or was it something that was developed over time.  How does each individual define their own right and wrong?

When I think about it, everything that I've been taught about right and wrong has come from my parents, my teachers, and my mentors.  Where did it all come from?  Sometimes I feel like I do not have a choice, that my life is predetermined.  There isn't a rule book for what is right and wrong, and if there was, it would probably be the book that sat alone on the library shelf and never was picked up because people wouldn't want to know what they were doing wrong.  We all live our lives as if we are doing the right things, because we have been told that it is the right thing to do.  Even today my parents sat me down and had another one of our conversations about college.  While it may seem obvious which school I should attend next fall, that it is the right thing to do, it's not the right thing to do in my eyes.  It's the right thing to do in their eyes.  When can I make decisions for myself?  It seems like even that has been predetermined with a number.  18.  The age of adulthood.  Sure, younger children need guidance with choosing the correct path to follow, but once they are older, they are quite capable of making decisions for themselves, and should be encouraged to do so.  We can't just be expected to live on our own at 18 after not learning the correct right and wrong for ourselves.

It wasn't until last year until I started realizing I was in control of my life.  My parents are there to guide me, but I can choose the path that I want to follow down.  I started challenging everything last year, from my beliefs to my friends, and I believe that I discovered who I am, but more on that another time.  For me it was an act of rebellion.  As Henslin described in "What is Sociology", circumstances affect who we are.  As sociology would observe, external forces affect an individuals decisions. I had been raised in a Christian family, in an affluent suburb of Chicago.  Rarely had I ventured outside of that bubble of mine, and it was as if I were in a fish bowl with everyone else looking in, but not being able to touch me.  These are my circumstances.  I am fortunate enough to attend a highly respected high school whose name alone could get me into college.  However, I wanted nothing to do with my "circumstances".  I didn't want to be just a character in a fairy tale whose story was already written out for me.  I wanted to know I made it to where I am on my own.  So i began to challenge my life, to discover who I am.  Henslin writes, "we have the added pleasure of constantly discovering and rediscovering our changing selves."  It is so true!  I started with my religion, challenging God and figuring out if it was truly what I believed in or just what my parents had told me was the answer.  After a mission trip to New Orleans this summer, there was no doubt in my mind that my God is an awesome god.  So this being said, I had "rediscoverd" my faith.  From a sociologist's point of view, my faith would have come from external forces, the Christian people around me in an Anglo-Saxon community.  However, I have to argue that although it may have influenced me on which path to follow, after last year I believe that I have the made the decision on my own.

I digress, but with good reason.  But back to the original point of right and wrong.  C. Wright Mills questions "And who is to decide and to accomplish whatever choice is made?"  From a sociological perspective, it is the society we live in.  Structural issues.  What defines juvenile delinquency?  Society's rules and standards.  What society doesn't realize, however, is that they are stereotyping.  The police who question the troubled youth do not look at the individual as a clean slate.  All they see is trouble and consequences.  Sociology would study how police define people, how any authority figure defines a person.  For example, you're in the airport security line with 1,000 other people whom you've never met.  You see a man with a turban, and I bet your first instinct is to think he is a threat.  Well that comes from stereotyping.  Although the terrorists on September 11 may have been wearing turbans, this does not mean every person wearing a turban is a terrorist.  Just as every girl who wears a pair of Uggs is not the same.

So sociology studies structure, society, societal rules and agendas.  Think about these unwritten rules of right and wrong.  Are they really what you believe in, or are they just what someone told you to believe?