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?

Freewill or Fantasy?

I WAS VERY INTRIGUED BY OUR CLASS DISCUSSION ON FREEWILL AND WEATHER OR NOT IT IN FACT EXISTS OR IT IS JUST AN ILLUSION. WHAT I FOUND TO BE INTERESTING WAS THE VARIOUS OPINIONS OF MY CLASSMATES, SOME BELIEVED THAT THE UNIVERSE IS DETERMINISTIC AND THEREFOR FREEWILL CANNOT EXIST, AND OTHERS (LIKE OUR PROFESSOR) BELIEVED THAT FREEWILL IS SIMPLY THE CHOICES WE MAKE, WEATHER THEY ARE INFLUENCED OR NOT BY OUTSIDE FORCES, THEY ARE NEVER THE LESS A CHOICE THAT WE ALONE DECIDE IN OUR MINDS TO MAKE. I BELIVE THAT BOTH CAN BE TRUE. ALTHOUGH IT IN INEVITABLE FOR US TO BE INFLUINECED IN OUR ACTIONS BY MANY FACTORS SUCH AS FAMILY, SOCIETY ETC. WE ARE ALSO FREE TO THINK, DECIDE AND MAKE CHOICES THAT SOMETIMES MIGHT BE CONTRARY TO WHAT IS EXPECTED OF US. ANY DECISION CAN BE SCRUTINIEZED AND GIVEN SCIENTIFIC CONNECTIONS BUT I DONT BELIEVE THAT DIMINISHES THAT FACT THAT IT IS STILL OUR WILL THAT DECIDED THE ACTION. WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

My E-mail

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Song

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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!

detect the tone of an era

by how President frames it at the inagural. <-- Click to Writer Post
Theory 414 people also check: http://sorenkerk.com/2009/1%20theory.htm
There will be a sign up sheet for your choice of topics/writers on which to focus. We'll get that all straight next week.

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

IS RELIGION GIVEN?

WHAT DO YOU THINK...

Is Homosexuality a Choice?

I found this video that makes a nice point. I don't agree with the birth order thing though, maybe they're saying it's more common statistically. Hope it doesn't offend anyone with how the guy's name is emphasized as "Christian." Everyone seems to be generalizing everyone so I don't want to reiterate that. Trust me, one of my best friends is hard core church going Christian, memorized the bible, word for word but is totally pro gay.

The Bad Economy is on me.

Today I was layoff along with 7 people at work. I feel frustrated but I think that everything happens for a reason. I 've been wanting to do community organizing work or just anything where I can help out others. But since I was comfortably paying my bills, I did not bother to seek for a job that could satisfy my needs. I am looking for a community organizer job, if any one knows of anything please help out. Getting layoff has to bring something good into my life.

Zeitgeist

The word zeitgeist describes the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate of an era or trend. There are 2 parts to this movie. The first is the "Zeitgeist, the movie" that you should watch first (located on the bottom of the linked page) then watch the recently released "ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM" (located on the top of the linked page). "Zeitgeist, the movie" is in 3 parts, it starts a little slow but trust me it will all make sense after you watch the whole movie. The newly released "Zeitgeist: Addendum" is very relevant to what our economy is going through at the moment. Be ready to get blown away.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm

700 billion bail out

It is ridiculous that members of Congress decided to bail out all these corporations who got us on this mess. Congress should have just let them go bankrupt. Let them start from zero just like all those home owners on foreclosure. It is sicking to my stomach that when corporations say "ouch I cut my my hand" Congress runs to them and makes things better for them.
But yet when millions of Americans lack of free health care insurance (for all), a decent budget for the CSU, UC system, college, veterans psychological treatments, benefits (like giving them all a deed of their dream home), youth programs, after school programs, arts and job skills programs in high school, social security, etc, etc, Congress turns around and says "sorry we have a $700 billion deficit." And the only thing we do is what Parson's said, we define our integrations of loyalty to social collectivity by pretending to be happy that the $700 billion bail out will bring us some benefits. Will the bail out make things better for stress home owners, students, small business owners, for us or for the bourgeoisie? Absolutely not! Marx will say "political parties only serve those who control the means of production (i.e. corporations, the 8 (or more) most rich families in the world)."

Women, Men, and Other?

Just wanted to make a comment about today's banter against men. I just wanted to add it just seemed a little generalized, at least by today's standards as well as cross culturally. Yes, I do believe it is men who are the oppressors but at the same time there are sub-groups within the male identity that should be addressed as well, not just the fe/male dichotomy.

In a few of my other sociology courses, some of my TA's have emphasized that it's not just the men in this culture, it's the men in the upper class; rich, white men who are the one's running the game and in certain cases they use the issues of race to deter our attention away from the issue of class. By doing so, the separations in class according to race will keep people fighting so they will not realize that their enemy is the upper class, not each other.

I'd like to point out that something that tends to be underplayed in discussions about sexism, or anything in general and that's hetero-sexism. Hetero-sexism is the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and by doing so people are lumping together a whole sub-culture into an assumed mainstream culture just because they look like one particular sex; as with the case with gender roles. Our culture of maleness and femaleness emphasizes this (or at least did emphasize this a lot more before) in a lot of ways, as pointed out by feminism (the GLBT movement wouldn't have worked as well if feminists didn't pave the way); i.e. girls wear pink and boys wear blue, boys like sports and girls like to play kitchen.. etc. One or the other.

There are other cultures that are more inclusive of these other sexual orientations or in some cases called the Third Gender. There are several Native American tribes that believed in the people with Two Spirits who fulfilled varying roles rather than the set gender roles. There's actually 2 countries where you can see the how the influence of the colonizing powers on the population's behavior towards these third gendered individuals.

The Hijra of India used to be honored and called upon for births and other special occasions for blessings. As someone once put it to me, "In some places in India still, you cannot imagine having a birthday, or some kind of celebration without them..." you can see how integrated into their society Hijra's were until the British (an imperialistic colonizing power) came and colonized them. With their feelings and ideals about Godliness guiding them and justifying their actions, they felt they should "civilize" these polytheistic heathens by teaching them our ways, their attitudes towards the Hijra changed from a position of honor to some sort of perversion.

Thailand on the other hand was one of the few powers that was not colonized by a western power. Their version of the third gender, the Kathoey, are more readily accepted. For example, when I went on a trip to Thailand a while back, there was a biological male working at the Baskin Robin's there with a full face of makeup on, AND IT'S NORMAL TO THEM! Doubt you can see that in any westernized/post colonized country.

Anyways, my main point is that not ALL generalized men should be blamed. In fact, by acknowledging that there's more than just the roles of man and woman and destroying the dichotomy, it would destabilize the power that said masculinity is supposed to have. You can't really ask a homosexual couple, "Who wears the pants in the relationship?" because they both can at the same time (ideally speaking of course, but that's another blog there..).

Welcome Autumn Thinkers

Blog well and dare to comment. Anyone can comment - you don't have to be a member. Send me a "survey" and I might post it. Imagination exercise with theory on Monday.

last 10 weeks

Like my fellow classmate jay said "I am aware that the course is almost coming to an end but I cannot let the opportunity of my most memorable moment pass me by!" The most memorable moment for me was the epoche discussion. How can we not epoche the crier "right". I did epoche him because my first judgment was you are a "man" stop crying. Then I thought, hey it could be hard to know that person you are infatuated with dose not have the same feeling. But what a moment "uh". The reaction of the class was another thing but we will remember class the because we all epoche the crier "right". This soc class thought through a intuitive and unconventional way that one learns and keeps learning way after the class is done that is because is given by one of the best professors in Cal State LA. It would be hard to forget this class.

Class Memory

I am aware that the course is almost coming to an end but I cannot let the opportunity of my most memorable moment pass me by. The class over all was a great learning experience filled with creative ways of understanding contemporary theory. We had so many discussions over these past ten weeks but the one that impacted me the most was the heated discussion over the "N" word. I was surprised by the reaction of my fellow classmates. There was a variety of opinion with great detail involved. Listening to the opinions and facts given by my classmates, I now have a different view of the usage of the word. I am no one to judge or say whether it is right or wrong but the impact of the discussion will forever stay with me.

Can we really do Gender? Somthing they dont want you to konw!

I did once believe that gender was socially constructed. However, I must say that I do not fully agree with Zimmerman and West. I no longer believe gender is fully socially constructed. I watched a documentary about a Canadian sociolgist who did an experiment on two twin boys. He treated one as if he were a little girl, and he treated the other twin as a little boy. The twin that was socialized as a girl was dressed as a girl, given dolls, and even worse his hair as a girl . At about twelve years of age he decided that this wasnt right. He said all along it didnt feel right, and he always desired to play with his brothers trucks. He eventually transformed his life to that of a typical male. He even ended up getting married to a woman. Still, he could not live with all the images of his childhood and commited sucide in his early adulthood. This poor young man's story tells us that there must be more to gender than what Zimmerman and West are arguing. Somthing biological was calling him to become intouched with his man hood. In the end the whole experiment was a tragedy because his life was taken as a latent consequence. Eventually, his twin killed himself as well. Absolutly nothing good came from this experiment! Maybe, the death of these two men can teach us to stop conducting immoral experients on humans for the sake of science....but probally not because people seem to do what they want to do.

Functionalism

Despite of being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, United States is experiencing growing inequalities in wealth distribution. One theory of class and social inequality is Durkheim’s functional approach at explaining the inevitability and social functions of inequality. Durkheim views the world as a balanced system composed of different interrelated parts. Society, therefore, exists as a result of interdependence and consensus of values among its members. Under this concept, some roles in society are believed to be more important than others and thus are worth receiving more resources and rewards from society. As a result, inequality is viewed not only as inevitable, but also as a beneficial feature of all societies.

I think that functional theory of inequality has its merits because it helps us understand how a society functions and the reason behind the existence of inequality within a society. It addresses the issue of class and social inequality on a broader spectrum as opposed to concentrating only on narrow issues such as ownership of poverty or bureaucracy and occupation.

Functionalism, however, does have some shortcomings. First of all, this theory favors social stability instead of change because of the view that inequality is functional and inevitable. Second of all, it underemphasizes the significant impact of wealth attained through inheritance on the creation and perpetuation of inequality. Also, this theory could be viewed as circular as it is hard to establish the causal relationship between high paying jobs and their functions in society, i.e. are high paying jobs defined as the ones with most function simply because they are high paying or vice versa. Furthermore, if the assumption of interdependent nature of people in a society is true, then all roles should be equally important and therefore deserve equal compensation.

L.O.V.E

What is love really?? What's the difference between being "in-love" with someone vs. you "love" someone?

Love can be broken down in many different meanings and expressions. What do people first think when they hear the word LOVE? Is it the face of their lover, their crush, their family, their life, their job, their pet? I mean, really, what is really love?

Let me tell you what i personally think, i think the word LOVE is overrated. Don't you agree? The word love has been commonly used among people. The strong three words "I LOVE YOU" supposed to be this sacred word to say to someone you truely love right? or no?... My first "I love you" was to my parents and i slowly started to say it to my dog and relatives because i was told not to say "I LOVE YOU" unless you truely mean it so i have not said those words to any of my lovers...

has that beautiful phrase lost its meaning?

Recently, my friends and my girlfriends say "I LOVE YOU" to each other all the time like its water.. I hear it quite often among my group of friends and others.. I usually hear it when people are quite drunk..why do people tend to express themselves with these words while being under the influence? is it really their true feelings or just an expression of word to make someone feel love and special, or just saying it to SAY it?

Love can not be explain into words but should be express through actions. Love should be felt and remembered. It should make you feel GOOD. Love shouldn't loose its' meaning. Love is a like medicine to all wounds. Everyone wants love and be loved but what is it really?

I have not been able to get my mind of the heated class session about the "N" word

My thoughts on how we should use the “N” word. I believe that the word nigga, not to be confused with nigger, should become a universally used word for the word friend. If we took the word of its pedestal and stopped letting its usage be exclusively for black people, then the words negative meaning would become extinct and we can come closer together and all become each others “niggas” One day we can maybe even have it in the dictionary as a synonym for friend. Then we can all live in the same world like the “Blondie” from the view said. Dr. Tabor, one of the most brilliant individuals I’ve ever met, made a statement that shed much light upon me. She said, “ since I understand the word, can I say it?” I would answer that question with a yes! I believe if we can understand the word and if its meaning means my friend, then why can we just leave it at that?

Meet My Representative

Going back to Monday's conversation about romance, I personally believe in love and romance but I do have a side of me that is cautious when I meet new people. Reason being is that when you first meet someone you meet their representative. Their representative is usually the ideal person that they want to be or who they think you want them to be. Then little by little their representative goes away and you meet the true person. Unfortunately, their representative may be in place so long that you get deep into a relationship and then..BOOM!! the real person comes out and you don't know what to do. And of course I am going to give you an example. So, earlier this year I meet this girl and she was telling me all about herself. She liked to travel, to camp, be outdoors, going out to bars and such, etc... She was also finishing up grad school in a couple of months, she had a good job, good credit and was debt free. Yes, she told me that on the first night we meet. She also said she wanted a man that she didn't have to teach how to be a boyfriend. It took a couple of months but eventually her representative left and the real her came out. She really didn't like doing any of that stuff she talked about, all she liked to do was to go out to dinner, to the movies and shopping. She was finishing grad school but she had no idea what she wanted to do after and she had to quit her good job because she had to do an internship. Also, she really doesn't know how to be in a new relationship because she was so focused on what happened in her last relationship that she sabotaging ours. I really thought she was a keeper but as soon as she showed her true colors she was too much to handle and she didn't know how to be in a relationship. I mean she is a great person but it required way to much effort to be with her and it had only been a couple of months. Why do people have to have a representative? Why cant we just be real from the beginning?