Sociology and Family Structure

Check out this video by a Sociology professor that discusses how family structures that changed and evolved into what they are seen as today. It was intersting to see and to hear a person's point of view regarding this subject. It's a little long, but in my opinion worth watching. HOPE YOU LIKE IT :)

Taxes

I was looking for the information on the plan for taxes and I came across a couple of things.
-Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses, cut corporate taxes for firms that invest and create jobs in the United States, and provide tax credits to reduce the cost of healthcare and to reward investments in innovation.
-Middle class families will see their taxes cut -- and no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase. The typical middle class family will receive well over $1,000 in tax relief under the Obama-Biden plan, and will pay tax rates that are 20 percent lower than they faced under President Reagan.
-Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s. Obama will ask the wealthiest two percent of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility. But no family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/taxes/

I've been having a problem with the terminology of Bergers sacred Canopy or its just I don't understand it enough to find it interesting. So I have been looking for a dumb down explanation of it but have yet been able to find one. I was wondering if by chance anybody could give me tips on the theory. thank you

Latent functions - the twist of social paradox

• The manifest function of the law is to prevent transgression; the latent function of the law is to create transgressors.
• The manifest function of marriage is to form lasting unions of mid-level* support among adults and children; the latent function of marriage is to break those unions. The break comes from the insistence upon fidelity and mutual support, two ideals which are not always honored.
• The manifest function of social stratification is to parcel people into jobs that need to be done to maintain a group; the latent function of social stratification is to maintain class differences in distribution of social capital and thereby weaken the supply of the right individuals for jobs. Opportunity structures are family-filtered and strangle supply routes for individuals to positions.
• The manifest function of religion is to stop and calm people and unite them in peace with the force that is bigger than all of us and keeps the cosmic ecology intact; the latent function of religion is to divide people in groups that "think" they are better or that the other is worse. To be a group - to unite with some - is to divide from others. Think gangs.
• The manifest function of a democracy is to concentrate the will of the people into a small number of vessels (legislators) so that they can publically exchange ideas and make decisions; the latent function of a democracy is to control the masses of people through control of the legislators by the few so that their will rather than that of the people is done. When representatives become targets, some will fall.
• The manifest function of a formal organization with a reporting structure is to pursue its goal (e.g., manufacture something, make profit); the latent function of an organization with a reporting structure, particularly a large organization with a heavily bureaucratized authority structure, is to create entropy and to permit or disguise waste and corruption.
• The latent function of rationality is irrationality. think Pi.
• The latent function of overpopulation (population density) is population reduction through chaos and breakdown. (natural disasters, mass layoffs, divorce)
• The latent function of "the news" is to create fiction.
• The manifest function of distinguishing between manifest and latent functions is to clarify; the latent function of the distinction is to blur and blend social institutions into the complex and magical fabric of social life.

*mid-level: the "family" unit exists between the individual and the collective.

Lyotard

I found these two quotes by Leotard to be very interesting:
"Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be vaporised in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange."
"One can decide that the principal role of knowledge is as an indispensable element in the functioning of society, and act in accordance with that decision, only if one has already decided that society is a giant machine."

Mid term: Qs & instructions

questions http://theory414.blogspot.com/2009/01/quiz.html
how-to http://theory414.blogspot.com/2009/02/midterm-quiz-instructions.html
Mon 3:30 - 4:10 in KH Lecture Hall 1: to launch the Sociology on-line journal - a place for you to publish your writing.

Database: Track Bailout $$$$

I found this thing on LA Times that's tracking the bailout money: http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-tarp-database,0,6602720.htmlstory

The Future of Communication

I found this video on Youtube and found some Marxian attributes within it, plus it's kind of comical in a way. Would anyone else want to analyze through the context of our other theorists?

Stimulus Plan: Food for Thought...

I actually heard a really good commentary on the opposition to the stimulus plan and the almost unanimous contention to it in the house and senate by Republican representatives (which was something we discussed in class). It was theorized that the Republican Party has quietly agreed to immediately oppose big issue bills that cross the senate and house floors for the simple reason of limiting the power of the Democrats early on and diminishing the momentum generated by BOs race to the White House. If they were to instantaneously concur with the Democratic platform it would not only solidify the perception of complete negligence in the previous administration by the American public, but effectively demolish their future bid for not only seats in the house and senate, but also for the successor to BO.

Seems probable with the way our 2 party system functions. Not even the threat of economic meltdown is enough to put aside petty differences... what do you think?

Era of Change or Just a Slip?

President Obama represents physical and structural change in the Unites States. But is it because America is ready to see and treat all ethnicities equally? I don’t think so. Bush’s greatest legacy is to be the "one" who f_ _ked up so bad, it made the American people willing to try anything. In this case, the people elected a black man to be the Commander and Chief of the United States. Don’t get me wrong, President Obama is an awesome man who has charisma and intelligence. I believe he is the one to prove to America you don’t have to be white to lead the United States. I also believe that he is the one to unify the people regardless of ethnicity. However, I can’t help but wonder if this new face of America symbolizes a beginning to opening doors that have been closed for centuries, or will it be a standing pillar of tokenism?

A Proud American

I am so proud to be an American today.. It has finally come... an end of an era- or should i say an Error... it is now Obama's turn to lead our country into some what of an order that we can all follow.. I am so emotional, that a country like the US has to go through so much... We as a nation have failed to secure one another in this tragic time of need. WE steal, lie, hate, and cause other chaos just to survive, i can not wait until some peacefulness arises after the storm has settled. i do not know how Obama is gonna do it... but i hope he has the patience and power to figure out how the super power of the world is going to get back on its feet. He has made very big promises and i hope he will be able to at least accomplish some of them. this nation does not need another failure, but a president that is preaching about hope, change, wisdom... as Obama has been doing! i wish him much luck and success in his 4 years in office!

Choices Really?

As systematically put by Weber, "There is no Objectivity". As simple as it gets, one gets to wonder how Weber came up with that, and then using the phrase to understand life, and choices. It really begins to sink in; how free is the the idea of freewill if we live in a society that is molded by traditions and from that environment we develop what we like to think of as freewill, and claim to make choices. Further thinking of Weber's approach only makes me begin to think that, perhaps having no objectivity is Change. I say that because given the fact that every one else is so ritually trying to squeeze change out of the ritualistic perspective of objective, of freewill and choice that has become to monotonous that the harder they try to emphasize change, the more stuck they actually are to the ritualistic perspective that they sort to change in the first place.

Multiple Traits

After giving it some thought, I would say that Durkheim is aligned with the control/formal concept due to his functionalist perspective making him more like a lion. Yet Marx a conflict theorist would be a peacock because he definitely does not go with the flow/formal model. Unlike Weber, who appears to go with the flow/informal hypothesis because he does not believe science should be a directive but should bring about consciousness, in return can provoke change. This would portray a dolphin type individual. Simmel, on the other hand is more aligned with the opposite of the control/formal theory, making the theorist more like an owl because he theorizes on the patterns and forms of groups that bring conflict rather it be good or bad. I would be considered a lion but I possess some characteristics that fall under all four types of individuals. Needless to say, I believe some of the theorist especially Simmel would not be as easily categorized as one or another.

A Little Bit of Everything

In class yesterday I was catagorized as a dolphin, which I think is mostly true, however, in certain situations I believe I am more of a lion, or a peackock, or an owl. This seems to be true of our sociologists as well. I had difficulty in finding the sociologist who is mostly a dolphin. It could be Marx, because of his passion, however, he seems to mostly have lion attributes. It could be Durkheim because Durkheim theorizes about suicide according to interpersonal relationships or lack of interpersonal relationships, however, Durkheim also theorizes about social facts and rules which aren't dolphin characteristics at all. Weber is convincing because he theorizes about ideas, believing that, "Ideas can change the world." He also is saddening by leaving the age of enchantment, (an emotional era) and entering the age of rationality. He also believes the three major characteristics we use to make a decision are tradition, charisma, and rationality, all interpersonal characteristics. You know what....as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that perhaps this catagorization isn't so hard after all, I think Weber is defenitley the dolphin of these four clasical sociologists. An intersting dolphin/Weber question for the test could be to give some of the negative outcomes of leaving the age of enchantment and entering the age of rationalization.

Darwin, final para - 1-2-3-4 - and new Qs

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being
1 - Growth with reproduction;
2 - Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction;
3 - Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse;
4 - a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms.
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Darwin left ROOM FOR "GOD" and ROOM FOR nature!
1-2-3-4:
Which is conflict consensus pattern change.
Which is peacock lion porpoise owl

Welcome Winter Thinkers

What do you think is the relationship between individual and society? How does your everyday life reflect the thought systems from which you come? Can you direct life? Can a group direct you? Yes, of course: both. How do we orchestrate that?
Image of brain is from a site on sales and gender http://michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing_to_women/2005/12/your_brain_on_s.html