Social Class

I think that social class in the United States matters to everyone. Nobody likes to be looked at as the under privileged. Everyone that I know of is always trying to get ahead. You never hear someone looking at a homeless person, or an unfortunate person saying, “now that is the life”. We are continuing to strive to better ourselves and acquire more stuff. This stuff in our minds will elevate our social status. This mind set can be directly linked to the thought process of keeping up with the Jone’s. We have to have what everyone else has, if not better.

Let’s take a look back at our high school days. Some of us it may be farther back then others. Who did you hang out and were close friends with. There were many groups that I can recall in high school. The “Jocks”, “Band Geeks”, “Nerds” ect. There was a constant struggle to move up from one group to another. We can all remember thinking why did this person go out for the sport. They might have truly liked to play basketball, but maybe they wanted to try to move to the “Jocks” from the “Nerds”.

Looking at today there are still the social groups that everyone wants to be member. These groups are looked up to and admired. Just at work you can see different social groups forming with the popular employees and the not so popular employees. What do we do. We try to associate ourselves with the people that have established themselves socially and not with the other individuals that might hurt our status or opportunity to move up in the world.

In closing I just want to reiterate that social class matters in everything we do. From how we interact in high school, to work, staying at hotels, and eating in restaurants. Nobody wants to do anything with a 1 star rating if we can associate ourselves with a 3 or 4 star rated item. Social class and how we think about it revolves around most everything that we do in the United States.

Technology and Sociology

As I look around at all my friends and coworkers they all have something in common. They carry around cell phone, have face book accounts and are texting people left and right. I have a cell phone also but the only person that I talk to with it is my wife. Another place to look is on the highways. How many people are using cell phones? A lot. Can you remember a day without cell phones? Can you actually remember when had to ask another human being to borrow a land line (a real phone)?

I honestly think that Americans are isolating themselves from social contact more each day with the advent of technology. As I stated above, everyone has a cell phone and they use it non stop to talk and text friends. Everyone I know, even myself, have face book accounts. They are on them all the time. I am probably the exception. I joined to see what my high school friends are doing and where they are living. I go on about once a month to deny some friend requests and that’s about it.

With everyone so immersed and becoming so efficient with technology they are loosing the skills of socialization. To these people they can text while driving but have trouble holding meaningful conversation or be able to interact in public. I believe that communicating in person or in a social event takes different set of skills then on the computer. With technology we can just type and we don’t see the adverse effects of what we said.

I think that this is going to be a big problem in the future. As with any problems we need to start to find solutions when they are small and not too big. I don’t think that we as a society are so far gone and immersed into technology that we can’t turn it around and learn social skills again. But we have to start soon before more advances are made and we don’t have to have any contact with any one else. I know this sound far fetched but you never know what someone will create in the future to make our lives easier.

How to Reduce Crime

I fully believe in prisons and keeping criminals off the street. I do think that they way the United States is going about it a little bit wrong. The first thing is that our social system has to be malfunctioning because of the shear ratio of prisoners vs. population. To think our proportion is 5 times more than any other country is mind boggling. A prison term is supposed to be a deterrent. This is not happening. We need to look at different ways to prevent crime from happening and more efficient ways of dealing with prisoners.
After reading the book and watching the assigned video I believe there may be better ways of preventing the underlining cause of some of the crimes committed. I think that we, as a country need to go back to good old fashion family values. The lack of parental supervision and attention can cause children to go astray. If the parent is not there to guide and direct the child on the proper way to act in society, they turn to other sources (T.V., movies, friends, music) to learn and develop the way to act. As everyone knows, these are not the ideal behaviors that we want our children to possess. Our society has gotten to the point that we need to keep up with the Jone’s instead of providing the necessities and social skill’s for our family.
The death penalty is a highly debated topic. I think in order to be a true deterrent it needs to be administered quicker. Criminals stay on death row for years and years. To be an effective deterrent the sentence needs to be carried out sooner rather than later. Of course this means that the evidence needs to be overwhelming and there is no question that the person committed the crime. Only then should the sentence be carried out. If criminals are being executed within a year of conviction, then this is truly a deterrent.
I think another option to jail time for more minor offenses could be public shame. We need to take a page out of the Japan’s social and criminal justice system. In order for public shame to work, everyone needs to have some sort of social worth. For this to happen we have to refocus ourselves back to a family oriented society and hammer those values into our children. Only then would public shaming have a perverse effect on the individual and the family.
One major thing that makes our society a lot different than others is the right to bare arms. This makes weapons more accessible to people for those spur of the moment crimes. I might step on some toes but, should the U.S re-look at this amendment. The reasoning behind the right to bare arms was a fear of British invasion. We don’t have that looming over our heads anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for home protection. How many weapons do you actually need to protect your home? On the other side of the argument, would this really deter crime in America, probably not because if they are planning this crime out, they will find the means to follow through with it.
I think that we would need a major overhaul of not just our prison system, but the criminal justice system and our society to fully impact the way we deal with crime in the United States. I fully believe the most effective way to prevent crime is at the family level, by instilling good moral values and providing that good example for our kids to follow.

Nature or Nurture

Nature or Nurture


This is a tough decision. I have thought about this for the last two days to try to develop an opinion. I have decided that there is overwhelming evidence that both effect each and everyone of us in different ways.

I can see many different ways that one can argue that nature is a big reason how we develop into social beings. Lets look at ourselves. We were made either male or female. Each of us have different duties in the world. By this I mean that females are made to carry and give birth to children and to feed the offspring. Men are typically more muscular and are able to provide for their families. I am not saying that females can’t, I am just pointing out differences. Men cannot bear children. With these differences comes different hormones and actions. Men are typically more risk takers then females. Even after I typed that comment, I am thinking of my daughter who likes to climb up furniture unlike my son.

Now with the nurture side of the argument I think that we are definitely influenced greatly by outside sources. One of the biggest sources that I see is in almost every single house hold in America. This is the television. Think back to when some of you were growing up. For me this was 70’s and 80’s. The shows on television were typically family oriented with little swearing and minimal violence. There was a wide variety of cartoons on that I would not hesitate to let my children today watch. Now you have shows that have even more violence, sex and language during the times that children are watching television. I have an antenna for my television and have been told by friends that I need cable. The main reason for the cable is it is a great baby sitter, so my friends tell me. This means that our children are not being raised by their parents but by the television. On the same lines as television is video games. Instead of parents sitting down and playing games with their kids they by them video games which can give kids a warped sense of what is right in society.

There are could be a lot of arguments made for either nurture or nature being the only factor but I think the more appropriate argument is which one affects us the most socially. I believe that the answer would have to be nurturing.