Tag: sociology

Critical Thinking

Writer/journalist Joan Didion said:

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” 

Me, too. I am coming to understand the value of writing in this way. Life and life events unfold around us willy-nilly every day that we wake up and engage with the planet. Every day is the herald of new experiences, events and, inevitably, change.

Writing gives me a platform from which to analyze what is happening in the world and corral events within logical boundaries. It is a form of intellectual sheepherding if thoughts were sheep.

It also keeps me honest. I often ask, “Is what I am writing today consistent with what I’ve written before? Is it a shift or alteration in my perception or belief system? Am I growing or regressing or stagnating?”

If we’re lucky, our daily analysis of what is going on in the world draws from multiple disciplines and experiences gathered during our own life stages. The fundamentals of a liberal arts education that includes economics, history, medicine, engineering, political science can enrich that analysis.

We don’t need to be experts or steeped in a particular discipline to apply its principles. It can be enough to simply be aware of the discipline and that certain principles may apply.

Take the recent Super Bowl, for example. That was a sociological and psychological phenomenon. It had the largest TV viewing audience since the 1969 moon landing.

Why? Okay, let’s apply those education principles.

The Super Bowl is a massive and increasingly worldwide cultural event. Attendance (in person or via TV screen) means belonging which is a widely acknowledged social and psychological need.

The Super Bowl spectacle demonstrates tribalism. “My team’s better than your team!” That is a higher level of “belonging” and reinforces the twin conceits of superiority and dominance over another group.

Whether that inflated sense of superiority is an actual need or not is debatable, of course. What isn’t debatable is that many people seek out and sign up for a cause they can get behind and take pride in. Whether that is a sports team or a charity or a church or a cause.

When “the cause” (or team or country or chess player) we support excels, we can feel vicariously excellent, too. We can congratulate ourselves on our good judgment and shrewd sense of discernment.

I have heard guys talk about sports (hockey or football come to mind) where you’d think that they were actually playing on the team and had something to do with its victory.

If we stand back and look at the phenomenon of sports hysteria and fandom critically, we can appreciate what a complete and complex construct these sports events are.

Much like religion, these events have been wholly invented by humans to serve as a distraction and opiate for the masses. I am not including money-motivated in here though that bears closer economic analysis.

You really have to admire humans for their ability to elevate humble sports competitions into the histrionic mega-events that they are today.

By comparison, humans had nothing to do with the creation and fundamental dictates of nature. Sure, humans dabble extensively to intervene and alter natural processes, but humans didn’t “invent” trees.

They didn’t build mountains. They discovered how to use them to their advantage. Science taught us that.

Nature also has inherent concrete laws. Try as we might to do otherwise, we are going to die. It is an inherent process in each human that science has not yet managed to stave off indefinitely.

Each day, I am aware I observe and explore events and issues through my own personal filters. I have biases and values that influence what I write. I have formal education which further influences what I think. I have professional training where objective facts are essential.

I suppose this mixed background bag is what makes my writing different and maybe distinct from other voices “out there.” I am learning where my thoughts are likely to take me, what issues grab my interest and, most important to me, why they do.

I have frequently said in this blog that I write for myself. Like Joan Didion said. It is as much an exercise in self-exploration as any kind of pontification that should be seen as gospel or objective truth. It is an expression of my truth as I see it in this mind and body at this particular juncture in world history and my personal history. Absolutely nothing more than that. A single voice.

And yet, if individual raindrops didn’t fall, rivers would not run, plants would not grow and the ocean would eventually dry up. Sure, other raindrops would step in to keep the water flowing and countless writers could easily take my place.

But in the daily doing of this writing thing, I learn more about myself and the world I live in. My life then becomes an example of living authentically in concert with my own motives and beliefs, if I but follow those internal dictates.

I don’t know about you, but for me that state of being is “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Getting to know one’s own heart and mind sufficiently to travel through life with maximum joy and minimum chaos is well worth it to me.

The lessons of history – globally and personally – have taught me that pursuing that approach works. It may not seem like much when compared to the great men and women and the course-altering achievements of history. But I’ll take it.

Peace is the prize.

Still, Small Voice

In university, I studied a concept called symbolic interactionism (SI). It was an evolutionary and revolutionary reframing of the fundamental worldview in the “science” of sociology.

The discipline of sociology started its’ explorations in the early 20th century based on a normative world view. That means, sociology aimed to understand humans and society through the impact of culture, social structure, and socialization on individuals and society.

I apologize if that is too academic. I realize it certainly is dry. Simply put, sociologists believed most humans act the way they do due to external forces that had influenced and molded them: where they were raised, how they were raised, what they learned and internalized from the world around them. In short, people usually acted in accordance with how people around them behaved. “To be normal.” “To fit in.”

My studies focused on this crossover evolution in sociology from a “normative” paradigm to a emerging and more individually centered theory of “symbolic interactionism.”

Symbolic interactionism posits that individuals form their ideas and act in concert with their personal interpretation of the world around them. Those interpretations influence their behavior and life choices more than what is expected from them as they grow up.

Think how you might answer a set of questions like this: What is a home? What is the definition of a good person? Create a list of animals that are good to eat.

Depending on your personal experience, the answer to those questions will differ widely. And how you feel and think about them will influence how you behave in the world.

To understand society and how it operates, the SI argument goes that you must understand how individuals personally interpret what is going on around them. They make life choices and decisions according to those beliefs.

If your home experience was full of joy, fun and excitement, you will seek that out in your life and recreate it when you are able. But if home wasn’t a “happy place,” it may be hard to know how to start making a “happy home” yourself. For one thing, you likely don’t have a clue how.

I am thinking of this these days in the wake of the rape of the old oak forest behind us. The builder isn’t doing anything “wrong” per se and certainly not illegal. But morally? Ethically? The answers to those questions are harder to answer. According to who?

I realize that I see what he is doing in vastly different terms than he does. He did not see the value of the old trees. He does not care about destroying the peace and tranquillity his neighbors formerly enjoyed. He sees a fun-filled, happy future for himself and his family.

Like many life experiences, how we see something is influenced by how we have personally experienced it. There are many universal experiences we can relate to with others, but the actual experience is different for each person.

We can all empathize with someone who is “going through something.” Especially if we have gone through it ourselves. Marriage. Childbirth. Divorce. Death of someone close. Failure. And success. But we cannot experience exactly what someone else is experiencing. We are all inherently alone.

I feel stronger than ever about the affirmative need for humans to follow their individual dictates and passion. Everyone – and I mean everyone – around you at various times in your life will have an opinion about what is best for you, what should and could work, whether a step you are taking is wise or not. Especially when you are young.

As we get older and stronger and more comfortable with our own views and perception of the world, those internal dictates should by then be better understood and adhered to. The succinct advice to “pursue your bliss” evens the odds of fulfillment and happiness in your pwn life. In the end and at the end of our lives, it will be all that mattered.

The biggest errors of judgment I made in my life were because I ignored the dictates of the “small, still voice” deep inside. Sometimes, in fact, it was neither small nor still. It shrieked at me like a banshee. I still didn’t listen. And I paid a very high price because I didn’t.

In light of the current environmental inconvenience and distress we are going through in our home environment, I am trying to rely on the messages coming from my own internal dictates and direction. I have already made some choices. I will make more. My future direction and plans are changing in light of this development.

This was to be our “forever” home. Turns out it is just another pit stop. Change of plan. It happens. The private, deep-seated grief I am experiencing is mine and mine alone.

As it always is.