Dorothy Smith and Bifurcation of Consciousness Sumblog 11

Dorothy Smith's Bifurcation of consciousness theory is one that I think is still very relevant. This theory is something I really like because of the fact that she tells things how it is. She realizes how distorted some sociologists views are because they are not out there experiencing things. She recognizes that in order to truly understand the things happening in the real world we need to be out there experiencing it. I think this is largely because everything is viewed differently in each persons eyes. The film we watched in class was a great example of bifurcation. The guys on the streets selling books were passionate about there work and were good at what they were doing. They also viewed their work as very beneficial to the community and it kept them away from stealing and going to jail. Others like the man who had a business job complained that they were unfair competition. He also made it seem like no one could possibly like living on the streets and living the lives they lived. In reality the guys on the streets loved what they were doing and felt like they had a very rewarding job. This shows that things can very easily be viewed differently based on each individual. All people are different and we all like different things and this is why I believe Dorothy Smith's bifurcation of consciousness is so relevant today. It takes a smart person to recognize that we cannot continue to only view things through the white mans eyes. When she was talking about her theory she said that she believes female sociologists will understand things in a completely different way than male sociologists will. I completely agree with her we all view different things as being important to us and females are able to give a different perspective to things. One thing that I think is really important that goes along with the bifurcation of consciousness is stereotyping people. I personally think that many stereotypes occur because we like to judge people before we actually know the situation that the person is in. From the film we watched in class there is a perfect example of a stereotype that occurs because of not actually understanding the individuals situations. A stereotype in our society is that homeless people are all lazy and don't work. Clearly from the film we watched in class the homeless people were hard working and actually loved to work. We often turn our head to reality because we look down on certain things that people do. Just because some individuals don't consider  what these men were doing as work, doesn't mean that it isn't true work. In Dorothy Smiths eyes she said her along with other woman would be able to recognize and appreciate some things that males often turn their heads to. Just from hearing about her in class and reading about her, I also realized how quick we are to judge people before we are actually in the same situation as them. This is why she criticizes other sociologists so much because they often just sit back, yet they still have opinions about things when they may not know exactly what is happening in society in individuals eyes. One thing this class made me think about was the book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. This book was about how the author Barbara Ehrenreich actually went out in society and worked low wage jobs to see if it was possible to get by in America making minimum wage. I kept thinking about this book because she actually showed that she cared enough to go out into the community and experience what many Americans experience every day. Until you get out and experience things that others go through you truly cant put yourself in their situation.
This is a book I read in a college class that honestly is one of my favorite books. I also found it to be something that I felt fit really well with Dorothy Smith's bifurcation of consciousness theory. In this book as I said above Barbara Ehrenreich showed that she was willing to go out in society and face the problems that others face. I respect that she was willing to not just sit back and say that minimum wage is to low and a big problem in society she actually went out and proved that it was a problem.

System Tasks and Parsons Sumblog 10

The four system tasks that Parsons had talked about in the text are adaptation, goal attainment, integration and pattern maintenance. Adaptation refers to making improvements to different aspects of our world. A great example that we talked about in class was needing to offer more English as a second language classes because we have more Hispanics living in the U.S. An example relating to Social Work that I can think of is having a larger number of nursing homes and places to take care of elderly people in our population. We needed to make changes and adapt to the rising number of older people in our nation and that is what we did. The next system task to explain is goal attainment. This refers to being specific with your goals and stating clearly what you want to achieve. For example, if you want to get an A in a class you need to show up to class, study and do well on the tests and complete all the homework and other out of class tasks that are assigned. An example of a goal that I had when I was a freshman in high school was to make the varsity baseball team. In order to make the team I worked hard in the offseason, attended all open gyms, kept my grades up, and every time I stepped on the field I worked as hard as I possibly could to succeed and be a team player. When we had a meeting for baseball my freshman year we had to write down what our goals were individually and as a team. I feel like this is a great example to show how goal attainment has to be clear so you know exactly what you want to achieve. I know what my goal was individually and as a team and it helped me work hard to get on the team and achieve the goal I ultimately wanted. Integration is simply talking about how we interact with people in our everyday lives. This deals with all people working together to achieve goals. An example from my personal life where this has occurred is also a baseball example. Our baseball team had a goal to win 20 of our 28 games and to make it to the sections my senior year of high school. This is a goal that can not be accomplished individually so it involves integration of everyone on our team coming together to achieve our goals. This is a small example of integration where people had to come together to achieve a common goal, but there are many more examples of integration on a larger scale. Integration occurs in almost all aspects of everyone's daily life and people working together is what gives us support and help to achieve goals and to make them possible. The last system task is latency. Latency as we talked about in class deals with having an area where we are able to deal with our frustrations. We need an outlet and place to deal with our frustrations so that we do not blow up in peoples faces when we are not happy with the way things are going. We know that it is not acceptable to blow up on a waitress if our food is not warm, but we may be frustrated. We have to find other methods of dealing with our stress and frustrations. Personally when I am frustrated and stressed out I go and work out and this is how I take out my frustrations. One other thing that we talked about with latency was how we value the American dream, but we are not really achieving it. The reason we aren't achieving the American dream is because it is not really something that is attainable for everyone in the U.S. In class we talked about how we have reached stagnation and that is why the American dream is something that is not attainable. Most people are likely to have the same social status as their parents as we talked about in class and that is why the American dream is not achievable. I personally really like Parsons system tasks and how much each of them builds off of each other. The way I really interpret Parsons system tasks is we first need to make adaptions and improve our systems, then we make clear goals of the things we wish to achieve either individually or as a group/organization/social system and then we integrate and work with others to achieve these goals. The latency part in my opinion kind of plays off of goal attainment. It sort of relates in my opinion because of the fact that we may make some goals that may not be attainable, like we talked about with the American dream. Then after individuals do not achieve the gals they wanted to achieve they may need an area where they can deal with their frustrations. Parsons system tasks is something that I often use in my own life and that is why I really like it and feel it is extremely relevant to individuals in our society. It can also help explain many things that are happening in peoples lives and the goals we have and wish to receive.

I chose this picture because it displays the integration part of the system tasks that Parsons theory contains. I also like this picture because it shows how the individuals are integrating together in order to attain a common goal of success.

Georg Simmel and Individual Consciousness Sumblog 9

I personally find Georg Simmel's belief of free will to be one of the more interesting theories that we have discussed so far throughout the year. Georg Simmel unlike many other Social theorists beliefs that individuals have more free will instead of just being products of society and our parents. I happen to agree that on some issues individuals do have free will. For example most of us can dress how we want to, vote for who we want to, listen to the music we want to or go to school for what we want to. While I agree these are all things were free will can occur, I often don't think it does. I believe individuals minds are shaped to follow what is looked at as acceptable and the "in" thing in society and that is how we decide what hair style to have, what music to listen to and what way to dress, etc. I think most people would agree we often like to follow what others are doing with their personal appearance. Not only do I think society shapes our minds, but I think our parents are the main factor in individuals making decisions. We like to follow the things our parents are doing and we look up to them as role models. Some examples in my life of things I follow my parents on is the way I vote, the foods I eat, and the way I talk. In my family I have the free will to eat whatever I want, talk however I want and vote for whoever I want, but I still decide to follow the way my parents do things. It's very easy to see how your parents do things and to want to follow in their footsteps. I believe that Simmel is very relevant with his idea of individual free will because I do think it is prevalent in our society with many issues. Most people would agree that they have the freedom to make choices for themselves and that no one tells them what exactly they have to do. However, many people will tell you they choose to follow a lot of things that their parents believe in or do. Another great example of following your parents lead is parents who own a family business and their children often go to school to eventually take over the family business. I strongly agree that we like to make the choice to follow our parents and that we are not forced to follow them. This is another reason why I think Simmel brings up a great point that free will is very attainable, but are we willing to stray away from our parents beliefs and ideals is the real question. I personally follow my parents on almost everything except for a few things and this is all by choice not because i am a product of them and society. I do however believe that parents and society can be influential and sometimes may make it seem like we are just products of them. When I look at this theory I mainly picture people having the freedom to make choices and choosing to follow the safe route and the only route they really know and that's to follow in their parents footsteps. So because I see free will present in society I tend to partially agree with Simmel, however I don't think we embrace the free will and choose that option like he thought we would.

I wanted to use this quote to illustrate why I think we have the freedom to make choices, but like to follow our parents instead. This shows we are not forced to be products of our parents, we just respect how they live and the decisions they make. We like to watch how they do things and follow their lead.This quote shows that Simmel was right that we have free will. However like I said above we choose to follow our parents over free will and this quote helps show that.

W.E.B. Du Bois and Double-Consiousness or 'Twoness' Sumblog 8

 I believe the term double-consciousness or 'twoness' which originated from W.E.B. Du Bois is a very in depth and important term to recognize. Being a white, male American I very seldom see discrimination towards myself and never really have to question the way others view me just by my appearance. For me I don't question the way my countries feels about me or the way others feel about me because of race, I believe they will view me on my personality and the way I conduct myself. It's sad to see that people of different race, in this case African Americans have to question how to identify themselves. Like we talked about in class majority groups usually know how to identify themselves, but minority groups will often double identify themselves because they don't exactly know if they should identify themselves as American or Black. In the reading W.E.B. Du Bois said "one ever feels his twoness, -An American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strenght alone keeps it from being torm asunder." This really shows me how difficult this issue is for African Americans and how frustrating it would be to live in a country and walk around everyday not even knowing your true identity. The words from Du Bois's reading that stuck with me the most were when he said, "In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. he would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. he simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face." This passage is so important because it explains that an African American should be able to keep his history and be able to blend it with the American ways to make a better self. I personally believe history is something that can help explain a lot about a person and it also plays important roles in people lives. Therefore, it is important for not only African Americans to remember their history, but also all people in the world. I also think it's important to adapt some American ideals like Du Bois said, because America does have so much to offer. I believe if it were easier to merge the American and the African American into one it would reduce much uncertainty and ease things for the Africans who live in America. They should not have to walk around each day not being able to identify who they truly are. As a developed nation we should accept all individuals who live in America as equals and not look differently towards others because of race or ethnicity.
I personally think as a societal view as a whole we expect to much from African Americans. Why are they not able to attain the same occupations, schooling, live styles, etc? Du Bois said "Here in America, in the few days since Emancipation, the black man's turning hither and thither in hesitant and doubtful striving has often made his very strength to lose effectiveness, to seem like absence of power, like weakness." I really like this quote and the way I interpreted it is that he believes we are expecting so little from African Americans that we are making them feel like they do not have to be effective in our society and make differences. I almost feel like he believes the blame should be placed on whites because we are not giving African Americans a chance to rise about what is expected and be successful and make differences in our society. I also believe he blames the African Americans for accepting the views whites have of them and how they will not rise above and work to prove others wrong. I think all of this reallky goes along with his theory of double-consciousness because the majority groups are not expecting African Americans to want to rise up and be successful and they are treating them as if they cannot be successful therefore the African Americans start to act upon the views of the majority groups. I liked the comparison to what Du Bois states as double-consciousness and how it relates to self-fulfilling prophecy. In my communications class we talked about self-fulfilling prophecy and how it involves making a prediction, acting as if the prediction were true, and because of how we act the prediction then does become true. I completely agree that African Americans in our society can be and are successful members who do make a big difference, but I think that majority groups needs to view them as active and successful members and in turn African Americans will also start to view themselves in this positive and active way in our society. If we start to view everyone as equals in our society I then think African Americans will have a much easier time identifying themselves and will not have to question the way others feel about them and the way they are viewed by our country.

This picture backs up what Du Bois said about African Americans feeling trapped and not knowing how to identify themselves. They are black people living in a society where they are being torn between Americanizing and keeping their history. This illustration shows the American part and Negro part going seperate ways and that is exactly how the African Americans in our society feel. Du Bois wants these arrows to be pointing towards each other and the merging of being Negro and American to come together in America.

3/24 Sumblog 6 Charlotte Perkins Gilman & Social Construction of Marriage

Since I'm going to school for marriage couselling I found the discussion and reading on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's perspective of marriage to be very interesting. It's important to notice how the social construction of marriage has drastically changed over the years. In Gilman's time marriage as she stated was looked at more as the husband as the employer and wife as the employee. We clearly know this is not true of every family today. I think the main reasons for this view of marriage in the past was that families were having more children. The woman did not have a chance to get into the work force steadily and therefore they were looked at as more of an asset in the home. Gilman believed the main economic value of woman was through men. They took care of the kids, made the food and took care of the house and in turn the man could focus more at his job. While this is the true reality of that time period and I completely agree with Gilmans view of what marriage was like, I dislike how things were in some aspects. I feel woman have much more of a value than just being looked at as a housewife. I don't think woman who stay home should only be viewed as economically valued through men even if they don't work.
Like I stated in class I strongly believe that one of the main reasons for divorce is because woman do not feel trapped in marriages anymore. Woman were so dependent on males in the past that I feel like they were often not even living their own lives. It's sad to think that men were able to go out and meet people and woman were often trapped in the home. I don't exactly know what the marriage live was back then, but i would think that the men often tried to have all of the control strictly because they were the money makers. Now woman can be economically stable on their own if they do not like the marriage they are in. Divorce is something I believe could often be avoided if individuals continue to work on their relationship instead of just going with the flow. I like that now woman who stay in marriages for the most part actually want the marriage to succeed instead of just being forced to stay in it because of money like in the past.
I liked the questions we were given at the start of class because I think they gave a good preview into our class about Gilman. It also made me reflect on what I'm really looking for in a marriage and how it compares to the way Gilman believed marriages were valued. One thing I dislike about Gilmans view of marriage is how much she placed on economic value. I personally could care a less about money with marriage, I would rather be happy and with someone who I want forever than worrying about marriage as benefiting more economically. Also, I would love for my wife to be a stay at home mom, but the reality is that most woman have to work in order to help providing for the family. One reason why woman are having to work more now is because children are looked at as an economic liability instead of economic asset. This means that the cost of having children and providing for them has really risen. This in turn means to help provide for children woman often need to work. I also don't like the idea of woman being the only ones raising the children. I love kids and I want to be there to raise my children as well. I also believe the household duties should be shared between men and woman.
Overall, I believe Gilman was accurate of the time period she lived in when it comes to marriage, but her theories are much less relevant now. However, I think they are still useful to show us how things used to be. We can look at how marriages were maybe based more on economics than happiness and that's never how a marriage should be in my opinion. Her reading and our discussion on her were very interesting and I learned a lot about something that really interests me.

This graph shows that of woman who are married that even in the last 50 years woman clearly are employed more often than in the past and also may be out earning their husband.The graph doesn't say more woman are employed more often now however it is implied by the drastic percent increase. This backs up one of my speculations that divorce is more common now because woman can depend on themselves economically.

Rise of Capitalism and Max Weber

I wanted to do this blog on Max Weber and his view on capitalism and how it would come about in our society. I think it's a very interesting topic and reasoning that he identifies would be the cause of capitalism. Weber believed that capitalism would come from Protestants. He thought this would be the case because Protestants work ethic promotes capitalism because they are inner worldly. Being inner worldly means focusing on the here and now. On the other hand outer worldly means that individuals are focused on their afterlife more than the here and now. Weber thought that Protestants were more inner worldly and Catholics were more outer worldly. An example of being inner worldly means putting an emphasis on material goods. This is why he believed Protestants would promote capitalism. Things in society would become more competitive and it would be all about getting more and more to have more than other people in society. Weber talked about Protestants believing that if you're wealthy you have been chosen to go to heaven. Because of the work ethic, predestination beliefs and simply wanting to have more he believed that Protestants would bring the rise of capitalism.
I really liked the group discussions we had last class about the Starks articles and critics he had especially on Weber. Although he was very critical I think that his arguments against Weber were very valid. I personally think Weber's biggest problem was trying to be so exact and to the point with everything. He linked the rise of capitalism strictly to Protestants which we discussed in class that is very untrue. capitalism was in place long before the Protestant religion even came about. I personally do not think that capitalism happened for any reason other than the greed of individuals wanting to rise above others. Personal gain and competition are highly valued in our society now and I would like to believe that that is also why the rise of capitalism came about so many years ago even before the protestant religion was found. Starks argument mainly showed me that Webers belief that there was causality between the Protestant religion and capitalism is completely not true and irrelevant. He had the time order of the two wrong and I also do not believe that even now just the Protestant religion keeps driving capitalism. I believe almost all individuals in our society want to have more, weather its money or material goods, we just want more. I'm Catholic and I believe I value competition and being successful just as much as anyone of a different religion. I strongly disagree that capitalism just stems from Protestant people so I completely disagree with Webers view on how capitalism arose as well as why capitalism is still in our society.
One other thing I found very interesting was the worksheet we did in class about the different countries and their values based on their religious belief. It seemed like a lot of the groups in our class had mainly Protestant strong countries, yet it was hard to completely back up Webers ideas about the protestant religion being linked to capitalism. The Protestant countries all highly valued competition, but they did not believe that we should want more at the cost of others. By the answers the countries gave there was simply no way to back up Weber that even now Protestant strong countries completely favor all the areas that make up capitalism.I honestly just think that capitalism is something that all people need to deal with and value or they will be left behind in their society. Protestant or not,capitalism is relevant to everyone in a capitalist society, therefore we are all responsible and contribute to the capitalist society.

 I believe that this chart completely backs up my belief that religion does not really affect views on capitalism. I think it's more about individual factors. The chart shows that more Democrats believe that Capitalism is at odds with christian values and that Republicans believe that capitalism is consistent with Christian values. This shows me that religion doesn't affect how much capitalism is valued because all of the individuals who were surveyed in this chart are Christian, its rather personal traits and lives that are more of a factor of weather capitalism is favored or not. I strongly believe that religion and capitalism really do not have any correlation.

Authority Tpyes and Max Weber

I chose to focus on Max Weber's different authority types he believes occur in societies. The three different authority types he explains are Rational, Traditional, and Charismatic. Traditional authority means that its legitimized by tradition. In traditional authority the right to rule is usually passed down in the family. The main things to understand what traditional authority is to recognize that it doesn't change over time, and doesn't facilitate social change and decisions are more inconsistent and irrational,. According to Weber in traditional authority the creation of laws that differ from traditional norms is not possible. Charismatic authority is found in leaders that influence and persuade others. Weber believed a charismatic leader is someone that is instilled with super natural powers. He believed a charismatic leader would hold positions of importance such as president, leaders of social movements, or people in roles that can influence others. I personally think Weber seemed to favor charismatic authority and he spend a lot of time talking about it. He also thought it played a very strong role in traditional authority so the two kind of overlap. The important things to note in a charismatic authority are that it can undergo change, we have order and structure because of influential leaders and we also would have staff or people that follow the leader and act on his behalf. Rational authority means it's empowered by the law or natural law. Law refers to being legal and natural law refers to rationality. This is where the term legal-rational comes from. The best example of legal-rational authority according to Weber is a bureaucracy. Legal-rational is often found in modern state, voluntary associations, city governments, and private and public corporations. The simplified way to describe each type of authority is that traditional is un-dynamic, charismatic is personal, and legal-rational is rational. Weber explained that an authority over time can lose its power and transform into a different type of authority. An example of this would be charisma and tradition which are both more irrational weakening legal-rational authority.
I'm going to provide examples of each type of authority now and explain which type I think is the most efficient and effective. An example of traditional authority is kings that have attained their power from tradition. They received this power because their father had been a king and it has been passed down through family not through popularity or personal traits that qualified them to take over the role of king. An example of a charismatic leader would be President George W. Bush's bush to send us to war against Iraq. He only had a little bit of military experience but he was able to persuade the people that we needed to move into Iraq in an urgent matter and people followed him because he was such an authoritative figure. An example of rational-legal authority are the police arresting someone for a DUI because it is against the law. I personally believe that rational-legal is the most efficient and effective. With rational-legal there are no grey areas to what is right and what is wrong. We follow a set of laws and regulations and there is no questions to what is right and what is wrong. In traditional authority people can attain authority by not being qualified. I believe in personal achievement and traditional is more based on hereditary. I think charismatic authority is effective, however Hitler was a charismatic authority and look at how he took advantage of his authority and abused his power. I believe rational-legal can be very tedious and may be more work and paperwork to have all of the laws written out to be followed, but it is the most effective and it is working for us in the United States.

I chose this picture because I believe it helps show terms that can be associated with rational-legal authority. I wanted to focus the picture on rational-legal authority because it is the type of authority that I think is most effective.