The Lone Critic

Many believe that everything they learn is accurate and unquestionably correct. Why is this? In addition, many students believe everything they read from a textbook is accurate. Again, why? I think it is because education is thought of as a trust worthy institution.

Education has a high moral value in our society and placing lies and misleading facts in our textbooks wouldn’t be right. Sadly, that isn’t the case. Many of the facts and stories we read in our textbooks are misleading or do not cover a specific area on purpose. This is a good time to consider power and social control in our society.

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The science of sociology in organizations and institutions is extremely powerful. Understanding how and why organizations are set up and the power of institutions can help us better understand ourselves and society.

Once consciously outside of society’s iron cage of rationality, a sociologically mindful person may come up with many questions and pondering ideas on why/how they act a certain way, belief a certain ideal, eat a certain food, and much more. There is much more to consider though.

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The current institutional foundation our society has learned to grow on is slowly starting to crack. Although it may be cracking, that doesn’t mean it will be fixed. Power is always the architect to our every-day sociological formulas.

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Reading Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation is a great way to get introduced to sociology and the sheer dominance of organizations and institutions. Obviously there is always more than meets the eye when observing popular organizations, but understanding where to start and what to consider is crucial. Standing in line at McDonald’s can provide a flood of sociological observations. Watching person after person after person designate what they want to eat by a number and wait no longer than 1 minute to receive their food can be a little disturbing. In addition, there is primarily young teenagers working the counters and delivering the final product. Quality and Quantification are the key elements in fast food, or uniformity. Presenting customers over thousands of convenient locations with food they know will be satisfactory for a low price can raise many questions.

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After reading an in-depth critique by Edward Seidman on the errors of conceptualization, I couldn’t help but agree with re-framing all the premises involved in traditional research problems. We need to learn that there is always an alternative to consider, not just for the social science in the justice department but in our health, education, welfare, and other systems.

The problem with our society is that we get too caught up with repeatable, institutionalized theories and ideas that we become completely dependent on it, much like what Maruyama has called monopolarization. How can we train our society to consider other alternative thinking patterns? Why must we always ‘victim-blame’ or label people with an implicit, automatic response trained in the first-order conceptualization process?

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“Reframing Society’s Attitudes on Animals”

This essay is written after reading Regarding Animals by Arnold Arluke. The attitude on animals is currently at a disgustingly low level in our country and incidentally the entire world. Has our level of humanity decreased so low that we are completely ignorant of other living creatures that share the same land we walk on?

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We need to remember that it is the science and technology related fields that drive innovation and development for a society. Research and development in these fields aid in transportation, defense, energy, communication, and so much more. Although I am biased (I am an engineer), I believe that our country”s priorities are completely out of line. We need scientific-based jobs to compete in this new world. India, China, and Russia all value science in a way our country cannot even imagine.

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Can the process of socialization be considered a modifiable tool, used by people with power, to control a desired outcome?  Teaching the young, our country’s future, proper values, skills, and behavioral rules to obey by, is a good way to socially constrain our growing children.  But although this system may be beneficial for some, how does it affect others?

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