Blog Eleven

Dorothy Smith is similar to other theorists in this unit. Up until the 1950s, sociologists were objective and worked with sociology in a top-down way. Smith realized that this methodology of sociology was very distant from the subject and projected a lot of cold emotions. She said this methodology needed to change, otherwise with thin descriptions sociology would be superficial. Dorothy Smith’s standpoint theory is all about her new methodology for sociology. Like Geertz, she emphasized thick descriptions, a sort of one on one with people and with cases. Dorothy Smith emphasized experience over perspective, in order to get a detailed look into a case, one needs to be in the group.

If top down and perspective was emphasized before, I wonder how theorists even learned about their subjects in an emotional way. Armchair anthropology came before participant observation in anthropology, which is sort of like thin versus thick descriptions or the term ‘experience.’ In order to collect insight on a group, such as the homeless book sellers, a sociologist should become a part of the group and share ‘experience’ with the group, which is similar to anthropology because ethnographies occur from participant observation nowadays. It seems like anthropology and sociology are overlapping disciplines.

There’s a video on youtube that I watched, called Dorothy Smith’s Standpoint (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ldZ-EPmM1k) and the creator of the video, a female with a PhD, states that in her undergraduate education her sociology professor neglected to talk about Dorothy Smith because he didn’t perceive her way of doing sociology as a credible way for research. Um what? Can someone punch that teacher? The creator was very interested in Smith and she states that Smith’s standpoint was very interested in the experiences of the subordinated and becoming a part of the group to see the perspective of the subordinate subject. I really liked this video because this PhD female, Debra Marshall, seems to praise Dorothy Smith.

I shall end with..two facts about Dorothy Smith… she’s still alive… and she’s a Canadian!

Blog Ten

Clifford Geertz. First of all I’d just like to admire his name Clifford…that’s an awesome name. Second of all, I think it’s interesting that he was also a student of Talcott Parsons, just like Merton was. Merton followed Parson’s footsteps while Geertz was critical of his teacher.

Geertz was a cultural anthropologist. He was interested in the role of ethnographies and symbols. As simple as it is, he talks about thin and thick descriptions. He takes the example of boys who are winking, but are they really winking? If you haven’t analyzed the situation of the boys, then it’s a thin description which to Geertz isn’t true anthropology. In order to understand the situation of each boy, one must dive deeper into each scenario. This would be Geertz’s thick description. This is the heart of real anthropology and ethnographies.

Geertz also defines culture. He believes it is a system of inherited concepts that are expressed in symbolic forms. Culture is public because meaning is. Symbols are objects that we prescribe a meaning to and all agree upon the meaning. The middle finger is a symbol. What is it? The middle finger is a finger on each hand which is surrounded by the ring finger and forefinger. Profanely, it is just a finger but since we prescribed meaning to it, it became an obscene gesture. Weirdly enough this gesture dates back to the classical era, when this symbol was referring to anal intercourse. Also, a symbol such as this could be a symbol for a specific country. For example, the middle finger could be an obscene gesture in the United States, but not in Australia. In certain countries, giving the “V” sign, otherwise known as the peace sign, with the back of the hand facing the person, could be taken as obscene, equivalent to our middle finger.

I don’t know if any of you remember the character Mr. Bean, but on one of the episodes he perceives giving the middle finger as a good symbol. He snaps a picture of a man on a motorcycle so the man gives Mr. Bean the bird. He then proceeds to flip everyone off with a smile because he doesn’t know it’s an offensive symbol. He is not well received, but it makes me laugh every time. This timeless clip is called Mr. Bean Points his Middle Finger. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH0kugMR4BI) This is a great example that Mr. Bean doesn’t share the same meaning of the symbol. Lesson learned; understand the prescribed meaning of shared symbols in a country or you might get beaten up. 

Blog Nine

Erving Goffman examined status, roles, and what he called the self-label. Social status is a particular social position while a role is the behavior that is expected of someone that holds a particular status. Self-label is an identity that one presents to others in an attempt to try to attain their impression they give off to others.

Goffman is attributing power to the individual with creating their own identity. If you meet someone new, you as an individual have a lot of power to present yourself and how you interact and essentially, how you create your own identity to that other individual.

It’s interesting that Goffman examined the disconnect between status and roles. If we expect someone to fill a certain role due to their status, and they don’t, then we’re not only thrown off, but it becomes sort of an awkward situation. How we act should align with the self-label we give to ourselves, otherwise, it’s almost fake or hypocritical. If I have an identity or self-label that is against alcohol and I present a certain set of priorities, and I go out into the world and go against what I just said was my label, it becomes one uncomfortable situation.

Not only this, but Goffman also looked at stigmas. A stigma is a negative label. It becomes difficult to achieve roles and overall acceptance due to stigmas. In between self-label and roles lay the stigmas. Stigmas are very hard to get rid of and sometimes can last for decades, such as a stigmatization of African American people and high rates of crime. If you’re driving through a bad neighborhood where predominately African American people live, you might stigmatize everyone that they are trouble seekers.

There’s a set of videos on youtube called Kill Stigma for a ‘kill stigma campaign.’ They are videos trying to kill stigmas for things such as stigmas for drug abuse, autism, schizophrenia, etc. The one I liked the most was “Stigma Associated with Autism:KILL STIGMA” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hseZ32OcInQ) This video talks about stigmas that can be demoralizing and how the stigmas that society has placed on autism makes family members of autistic individuals almost ashamed of their relative. These stigmas related to mental disorders or abuses don’t seem to ever cease. 

Blog Eight

Georg Simmel analyzes what he calls ‘the stranger.’ He structures society in three categories.

1.      Psychological aspects of social life

2.      Interpersonal Relationships

3.      Spirit of the Times

He describes the first category as internally what the brain thinks, what’s inside of your mind as a human being. Category two discusses the interactions with others that you have. Category three is essentially culture and society. He describes a two way flow. If you start at number one, the brain affects how we interact with people and also influences larger cultural patterns. It can create culture essentially, like norms or values. On the flipside, culture can influence interactions in society, but also affect one’s personal beliefs.

I see the two way flow mostly in one direction. Culture and society’s values directly affect one’s own beliefs and values. In our society, most people are raised to believe in God. Most people are raised to believe that they should strive to make a lot of money. Our culture emphasizes higher education. We have distinct societal norms. We all drive cars, probably can be wasteful with natural resources, and underappreciate what we have. We enculturate as young children and base our ideas in life off of the culture we take on. In a developed country such as the United States, our culture emphasizes certain traits or characteristics. It’s interesting to look at people who reside in an underdeveloped country. Their culture can be drastically different than ours and a lot of their beliefs contrast with ours. If we look at the emphasis of higher education, we have this emphasis due to the opportunity of higher education. Underdeveloped countries might not have these opportunities, so work and family is emphasized instead. This emphasis of their culture affects their beliefs just like our cultural ideals affect our psychological aspect. Also, I think it’s interesting because the U.S. GDP per capita is roughly 48.3 thousand dollars, while a lot of underdeveloped small African countries are in the hundreds, such as Zimbabwe which is roughly 350 dollars. Such small countries have a great emphasis on culture because it had been constructed many generations before their time. On the flipside, someone could assume leadership easily in a small country so their individual beliefs could affect society/culture, so I wonder if people’s internal thoughts affect larger cultural patterns and interactions more in a small country.

I found a video on youtube called “What is Culture?” where people were asked to define what it means. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57KW6RO8Rcs) I think after all the classes I’ve taken in college, I still don’t know a concrete definition of culture, but I do know that culture has an effect on social interactions and one’s own mind/beliefs/values. I feel like we strive to comply with societal norms and to mingle into our own culture, thus why our brains base a lot off of our culture.