Monday
29 May 2019: Screening - DON'T COUNT STARS.
Wednesday 1 May 2019: Review for Final:
Week of 22 April 2019 Social
problems are always of a variable nature. What is a problem to
one, is not necessarily a problem to another. Then too there
are times that a problem is obvious, but those around do not
get involved nor they simply feel it is none of there
business. The human being is not altogether monistic in their
evaluations of what is going on with others. People judge
their involvement in a social problem according the the
sum-loss idea. Sometimes something has to be done about a
social issue, but the risks to one's position or economics
causes them to ignore what is going on. Many times one can not
blame someone for this because to enter into a solution may
endanger their vested interests as, for example, the safety of
their family and loved ones. One can not really blame them and
in today's economy often the resolution of social problems may
be too much to take on for many. Often too the real difficulty
is that to get significant and true information about the
social world is dissed by politival and vested interest
groups. The truth sometimes is hard to come by and, even if
one is informed, often they simply wish to interpret the world
in their capricious terms.
Week
of 15 April 2019: Online learning
for those that WERE NOT THERE!!!: Drug dependence is generally
looked at from two standpoints: One is that a person is born
with a dependent personality that influences them to being
drug dependent while (2) there are people not as such and are
not prone to dependency. This does not mean to imply an
irrevocable predisposition to being dependent nor
non-dependent. It simply means that atavistic tendencies make
one more susceptible than others. Genetic dependency traits do
have their difficulties because the medical field has taken
over here and considers "alcoholism" as The opinion
of many is that it is a mixture of both and should be
approached that way. Nevertheless, it has been found that
treating it as a disease with 12-step programs have failed and
that similar programs simply make the person dependent on
something else. Dependency, socially, is more a situation
where one strives for a certain goal in society and fails.
This being the case, the person wants to abandon (some people)
their efforts, but to no avail because the goal is still
there. In many instances, the best approach to such is simply
escape, but "escape" is not seen as a profound
behavioral attitude. That can be problematic because the
difficulty is still around so they then turn to escape from escape
and this generally involves some form of dependency as drugs.
Of course, it is argued that everyone is born with some sort
of dependent personality. I would argue that, but have to have
my morning coffee or the rest of the day is just not right!
Week of 8 April 2019 Review
and Exam Three
Week of 1 April 2019 3rd
Exam due Tuesday 10 April 2019. The topic is EDUCATION.
Write on 1. What education is supposed to be. 2. What
education does. 3. What education does not do.
Week of 18 March 2019 THE
CULTURE OF POVERTY If one ispoor or hungry in American culture
they are judged as something has gone amiss WITH THEMbut maybe
it is more a problem with the structure of society. This
attitude has often led those judged as falling into a
deprivation of opportunity by their dismay or by the attitude
of others. People who are socially deprived do not think in
terms of going to the opera or making good grades, they are
interested in surviving and subsequently have a deprivation of
opportunity. There has been a trend for the poor and homeless
to move from urban to suburban areas because there are less
homes in the inner city today, yet urban poverty is hard to
see. Poverty is much more than one can imagine and, in truth,
is a epidemic. Many assume that the poor do not work and this
is not so. Their problem is a lack of money due to inadequate
jobs! The US culture is based on individuality and
opportunity. his compounds the problem. People who are poor
are considered under achievers because they did not work hard
enough and persevered long enough. This ina way stigmatizes
them and continues their inability to get good work through
demeaning their personalities and reflected in how they
approach life. Another reason for the poor is the minimum wage
and increasing skilled jobs. Machines also are taking over and
this too increased the likelihood of more on the poverty
rolls. Poverty fostes attitudes that do not look forward to long
range goals and the poor will seek immediate gratification by
taking public assistance and unemployment checks which many
resent. Then too, the "haves" in society
intentionally or unintentionally keep the poor in their place
to protect their place through economic exploitation. The
upper class pretends to help the lower classes but they are
just posing to keep the lower classes in such a position as to
keep them in their class!
Week of 11 March 2019 In
terms of education, it has been postulated that The Factory
System is antiquated and that another should be put in its
place. It has been suggested that more of a campus atmosphere
should replaced the present high school paradigm because that
is the social scenario the future student will move into. Many
suggest that it has been too long that the student has been
considered a "product" similar tio the factory
metaphor and more should be looked at as an emerging person.
Of course, this tends to be subsumed by the fact of online
learning which has no consideration for the individual needs
of the student and dictates its procedures more to a perceived
money making aggregate.
Week of 4 March 2019 2d
Exam
Week of 25 February 2019
The "swimming meet" situation revealed another
aspect of social problems. Using Eric Hoffer's concept of
Innovator, advocate, etc.. we followed his schemata and understood
the difficulty from the school's point of view. However, one
could also make up a theoretical scheme in the same manner for
the mother and child! This points out how difficult finding a
clear analysis. In other words, if the two processes are
similar, who is right in this instance? This is always the
difficulty with social problems. Each side comes up with an
evaluation and solution that becomes difficult to judge which
has the more stable and logical ideas on the issue. Actually,
most social problems are of this nature and the answer lies
not in some Platonic Truth but simply who convinces the
collectivity of their argument. Not this may mean whoever wins
the ppublic's imprimatur does not mean that concept is
"right" or even beneficial to everyone!
Week of 18 February 2019 and Snow
Day
To end the discussion of the family, one has to look at an
empirical analysis of its commonly conceived structure and
postulate those areas of difficulty in its interaction. One
could suggest that the family follows the theoretical concepts
of Eric Hoffer in that there are three main elements; The
Innovator, Advocate and true believers with resisters at the
side. The innovator is that person who sets the standard of
collective behaviour in the family. This is generally a parent
whose job it is to build the structure such that it produces
good citizens and ones that have a positive social identity.
This is not as easy as it seems (unless there is one parent)
because two parents (adults) will most generally have some
diverging ideas. Here is where difficulty can occur and the
two have to come to some common agreement as to the accepted
behaviours. If this is not the case, then one can foresee some
difficulties if not the demise of the union. What the
innovator(s) do is also a predicate for the advocates and true
believers. An advocate could be another parent or the
children. It is always the case that advocates )children) in
this scenario do not have a great deal to say in the building
of accepted behaviour. This is not a bad thing if the dynamics
of innovator(s) is realistic and manageable. In fact, If the
tandem of innovator and advocates is a highly positive one,
then they all may become true believers in that they develop a
genuine ethnocentrism and feel this is the best place to
socially be. Unfortunately this will or may become a negative
value when the children leave home and find out that others
may not share the same values they learned. Actually, the
family is a unique situation and NEVER is there a
corresponding other situation so the graduate has to learn to
accept certain values they are not often comfortable with to
establish their own personal familial situation. Families
become anti-dynamic when the innovator or any member becomes a
resister to its values through ego control, drugs and/or
laconic economics. A functioning family has to share the
predominant social idea of positive behaviour. If this is not
the case, then problems arise and if they are not compromised
or solved, the family no longer exists and this situation must
be changed or the social order must be abandoned. t makes no
sense to live in a negative social environment for it only
perpetuates the demise of its inhabitants. Sometimes it is
better to abandon than to maintain one's character being
obliterated when it need not be.
Week of 11 February 2019
Exams returned and discussed. The discussion on family
problems was a isturbing one because of the nature of how
relationships are contemporarily defined. It s difficult to
say what exactly is a family in today's social scenario.
Families range from the traditional to same sex with
variations in between. This places a great deal of stress on
students to determine which is the appropriate family
situation for specific cohorts and it makes everyone's notion
of the beneficial familial arrangement shaky at best. Divorce,
drugs, bad sexual maneuvering and other difficulties impede
the understanding of "family" situations not to say
what is a model for examining these factors in relation to a
family unit especially if children are involved.
Week of 4 February 2019 1st
Exam. Discussion
of the "wall" problem in concert with an article in
Rolling Stone magazine that there is ni immigration problem in
the U>S>/Mexican border and the notion that ElPaso has
its problems corrected recently, yet the mayor says it never
has!
Week of 28 January 2019
Follows
directions on e-mail for 1st Exam. The three theoretical ideas
on explaining social phenomena are:
1. FUNCTIONALISM- how each part
contributes to the whole.
2. CONFLICT THEORY- all social experience comes from conflict
between groups/people/cultures. Generally the foundation of
feminism and social rights protests.
3. INTERACTIONISM- more personal, i.e., people have a
background of psychology that explains what they do
sociologically.
Lecture for a Snowy Day: Problems of a political economy...functionalism
looks at the political system as a complex mechanism whose
parts may or may not run together. If one part slows down and
others do not, then someone or some group may be left out of
the system's running. That is to say often the political
machine emphasizes "parts" to the disadvantage or
overlooks other parts or services to its citizens. Sometimes the
parts may become outdated as racism and sexism preventing the
participation of certain people in government and it has to be
corrected. This was seen in the last election. Conflict
people take a different approach and do not see society as a
unified whole. The conflict people believe that the political
system benefits some to the disadvantage of others and this
must be corrected, not put into a "balance". In
other words, balance is not the goal, but social equality is
through the elimination of exploitation. The real political
problem is that one group is trying to take advantage of the
other groups. Generally it is a fight between the haves and
the have nots and, for example, this is why unions were
formed, but one sees this was an advantage for the worker, yet
in the late 20th century unions lost their power and so too
did the common person in terms of jobs and the minimum
wage. Interactionism looks at the political system as
its impact on the person and the person's impact on it. Interactionism
is more a singular emphasis and really does not
address large social problems, although the singular problems
may be the result of these. Capitalism, with its competitive
orientation, often is the cause of deep anxiety in the
individual and lessens the internal quality of life not only
for the person, but also for those around as the family and
near relatives. This milieu is not easily corrected because in
a capitalist economy everyone wants to have and be like those
who have accumulated such leading to a more than comfortable
life style. Keeping up with the Joneses is hard to ignore when
the "Joneses" live next door and flaunt what they
have!
Week of 21 January 2019
Discussions centered on
the individual's concept of what exactly were specific reasons
for some common social problems in the immediate area. One of
the axioms that applies to this was the concept that, in areas
of regressive economic activity whereby cultural capital is
either minimize or lost, it is expected that the behavioral
emphasis will be on sex and drugs. This was generally affirmed
by some experiencial examples of students. We will progress
from there next time with some problems with the government it
self and then on to family issues.
Week of 14 January 2019
A social problem is an undesirable social state. This is a
succinct definition, but the elaboration of such has many
difficulties as seen in today's discussion concerning aspects
of the abortion question. It was determined that both sides
have a reasonable argument, so who is correct? Generally,
there is no solid "truth" to a resolution of a
social problem because of the subjective nature and, most
often, the solution comes from those that have the greatest
social power, whether they are right or wrong often makes no
difference. One has to know the nature of the stakeholders and
their agenda to be accurate in assessing a social problem.
14
JANUARY 2019
Read Chapter 1 - text.
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