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.