3. February 2009 by student.

This is a huge social problem. How can someone be a productive member of society if they cannot remember their own children or even their own name? It saddens me to think that there are people among us who have this problem because there is really no way to solve it. Usually it affects people who are over 65 but there are cases involving a younger audience called early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. This causes a problem with costs because this is an expensive disease to treat. As the population gets older, this cost for treatment will only rise. This is not mentioning the cost of physical and emotional strain on the bearer’s friends and family. To take care of someone is one thing, but to take care of someone who is suffering from Alzheimer’s is a totally different story. This person does not know what’s going on and is prone to lashing out because they are confused and scared. It seems like they make progress and might even act “normal” but that regresses and slowly becomes worse over time. This person will eventually need constant care and supervision and becomes something of a burden within society. It is difficult to be an active member of society when you don’t remember anything about being apart of it in the first place. The social norms are out the window, along with any interactive structure to function within a society. They have become outsiders looking in, aliens living on their own world. This is something that is a horrible occurrence, and there is nothing currently we can do about it.

Posted in Social Problems | 1 Comment »

3. February 2009 by student.

Racism was a cultural norm for America’s southern states for generations and has thankfully digressed over the past 50 or so years. If you were a white person in the south around that time chances are you would have had some sort of derogatory stance against black people. It would not be a strange occurrence to get on a bus and see the entire back row filled with blacks and the front whites. It was just a social construct for that particular area at that particular time. You would be different in the eyes of white and blacks alike if you felt that this was of life was wrong. It was actually strange because the idea of a white person sympathizing with the black population would shun the white person out of the white population. I compare this kind of situation to adultery in some religions; if that congregation finds out that you committed that act, they will excommunicate you along with the other person from their community. In the case of the south, whites would treat black sympathizers as blacks themselves. During the marches for civil rights whites among the blacks were beaten just a brutally if not worse than the blacks. This is the oddest thing to me; people who hate and distrust other people because of the color of their skin hate people of their color if they like the other race that is being scrutinized. This makes me think that racism is not about color but about ideals. You do not follow the same ideals; someone is not going to like you, regardless of color. I think that blacks were thought of as not having the same “beliefs” so they were perceived as a lower class in a society that had some common ideology not privy to the blacks. This might have not been the actual cause of racism, but I am sure it plays a part in some way.

Posted in Social Problems | 2 Comments »

3. February 2009 by student.

Our society is built off of religion and most of its aspects, if not all of them. For example; the calendar that is generally accepted within our society is based off of Jesus’ birth. This is the not the most obvious occurrence. This also affects our overall belief system which includes our daily values, laws, and customs. For instance, people know right from wrong because it says so in the bible. We obviously apply that knowledge everyday when we are socially interacting. I don’t want to say that sociology is based off of religion because there are always other factors that dictate people’s understandings and teachings plus the utilization of those things, but it seems to me that religion plays the ultimate role in sociological factors.

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | No Comments »

3. February 2009 by student.

We as a society have adapted to wearing clothes everywhere we go.  We have workout clothes, sleeping clothes, going to the club clothes and even clothes we don’t want anymore that we give to other people so they can have clothes. Clothing represents specific social aspects in society; namely because it shows prosperity and cultural backgrounds of its wearers. If someone has a new pair of 100 dollar Nikes it shows that this individual is doing very well. On the other hand, if another person is wearing old, raggedy looking clothes, chances are that person is not as prosperous as the first individual. This is not to say that decrepit looking clothes promotes a negative picture of that person; that is totally up to the viewer. It could just mean that this person is from a different set of circumstances. For instance, in Muslim countries kids wear clothing that was passed down from his/her siblings. Of course those clothes would look old but that does not mean that the kid is worse off; it’s just the way the culture is. It is true that the Muslim culture is commonly perceived as a “poor” culture in financial terms so it is possible that this might be one reason why those kids get hand me downs. Still, passing down things is a social norm for that culture; even more so than ours. On another note, most clothes today involve name brands and logos to signify who makes what and where. Some brands and logos signify a higher quality than others thus being more expensive. This in turn promotes social inequality because not everyone can afford these pieces of apparel. The types of clothing that we wear in a sense set us up for all sorts of sociological circumstances. Who knew that clothing could have all these social factors?

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | 1 Comment »

3. February 2009 by student.

Who has the right to get married?  Who determines who has the right to get married?  Is marriage a religious or government based institution?  These are all important questions that we need to answer here in this blog.

 More than half of all people in the United States oppose gay marriage, even though three fourths are otherwise supportive of gay rights. This means that many of the same people who are even passionately in favor of gay rights oppose gays on this one issue of gay marriage.

“Gay” relationships are those which can be characterized as homozygous, or between two people of the same sex.  As our society evolves, people are becoming more and more accepting of this activity as being part of our culture.  After all, America is a huge melting pot of people from all different societies and cultures that have come together.  However, evenn though many people (especially liberal people) in our society are accepting of this behavior, there are some people in our culture that downright do not accept this behavior and they having many interesting reasons for doing so. Gay people have been around since the dawn of man kind.  There is mention of homosexuals in the bible and other religious texts of that time period.  There are several reasons why people of today’s generation oppose gay marriage, I will discuss a few and include responses.

MARRIAGE IS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION: This is, of course, related to the motive above. But it is really subtly different. It’s based on the assumption that the state has the responsibility to “sanctify” marriages - a fundamentally religious idea. Here we’re dealing with people trying to enforce their religious doctrines on someone else, but by doing it through weakening the separation of church and state, by undermining the Bill of Rights. Not that there’s anything new about this, of course. But the attempt itself runs against the grain of everything the First Amendment stands for - one does not truly have freedom of religion if one does not have the right to freedom from religion as well. It would seem to me that anyone who feels that the sanctity of their marriage is threatened by a gay couple down the street having the right to marry, is mighty insecure about their religion and their marriage anyway.

IT OFFENDS RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS:  Whose religion? Many mainstream Christian denominations, to be sure, and definitely most branches of Islam and Orthodox Judaism, but outside those, most religions are unopposed to gay marriage, and many actually favor it. When the Mormon church arrogantly claimed to represent all religions in the Baehr vs. Lewin trial in Hawaii, the principal Buddhist sect in that state made it very clear that the Mormon church didn’t represent them, and made it very clear that they support the right of gay couples to marry. That particular Buddhist sect claims many more members in Hawaii than does the Mormon church. In a society that claims to offer religious freedom, the use of the power of the state to enforce private religious sensibilities is an affront to all who would claim the right to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience.’

GAY COUPLES CAN’T RAISE CHILDREN: That’s an interesting one, in light of who society does allow to get married and bring children into their marriage. Check it out: murderers, convicted felons of all sorts, even known child molestors are all allowed to freely marry and procreate, and do so every day, with hardly a second thought, much less a protest, by these same critics. So if children are truly the priority here, why is this allowed? The fact is that many gay couples raise children, adopted and occasionally their own from failed attempts at heterosexual marriages.  Several scientific studies. have shown that the outcomes of the children raised in the homes of gay and lesbian couples are just as good as those of straight couples. The differences have been shown again and again to be insignificant. Psychologists tell us that what makes the difference is the love and commitment of the parents, not their gender. The studies are very clear about that. And gay people are as capable of loving children as fully as anyone else.

MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN: Well, that’s the most often heard argument, one even codified in a recently passed U.S. federal law. Yet it is easily the weakest. Who says what marriage is and by whom it is to be defined? The married? The marriable? Isn’t that kind of like allowing a banker to decide who is going to own the money in stored in his vaults? It seems to me that justice demands that if the straight community cannot show a compelling reason to deny the institution of marriage to gay people, it shouldn’t be denied. And such simple, nebulous declarations, with no real moral argument behind them, are hardly compelling reasons. They’re really more like an expression of prejudice than any kind of a real argument. The concept of not denying people their rights unless you can show a compelling reason to deny them is the very basis of the American ideal of human rights.

So whats the big deal? If two people love each other, shouldn’t they be allowed the same rights, privileges and responsibilities, no matter their genders? Yet, marriage is so much greater than the commitment of two people to each other. Marriage is an institution that much of our culture revolves around. It is also an institution that is in crisis. Divorce rates are at an all time high. Infidelity in marriage is an epidemic. When someone can compete on a television reality show to “Marry a Millionaire”, the argument about saving a sacred institution seems kind of pointless!

There are many things that gay people could do to better their predicament.  They could rally lobbyists or create more interest groups to try and legalize gay marriage.  They could start a revolution against society and spark an all out civil war between liberal and conservative America using gay marriage and other issues to spark the flame.  Heck, they could even establish their own “gay” religion under which they would be guaranteed First Amendment rights of freedom of religion.  The point is gay people aren’t hurting anyone, and more people should follow the motto, “live and let live.”  People are spending more time worrying about other peoples lives than they are their own!  Wake up America!

 Other people, please respond to me and my views!! Thanks!

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | 1 Comment »