I have learned a lot of things from this sociology class an I am actually happy that I took it because there is a lot of things that I can hold onto and remember when it comes to looking at the views of society and the reasoning behind why everybody is the way they are. I would like to point out one very important concept which is global sociological imagination. Charles did a very great job in defining this term to the whole class and providing useful examples to help support the theme. Everything we learned can be linked to this broad term. Global sociological imagination can be defined as the global context of social life. It allows us to link history with us as individuals and how it interlinks with someone from a different part of the world. My favourite example would be the one that is related to Charles and the cocoa beans. I was able to relate to this and it helped me better understand the term. As the course continued, there were many other things that could have been related to global sociological imagination. For instance, I was able to connect myself to the concept and I discovered that I am able to influence different communities around the world as well. Thanks to my mom immigrating here and allowing my dad to come here, I was given the opportunity to get an education here and then going to India to teach kids in my village. Others specific issues that we talked about in class changed my views. For instance, I used to believe in the term race before, but after listening to the lectures in class on race and racism, I was able to understand the concept better and get a better understanding. I guess I can say that I unlearned that fact that race exists. I can conclude that racism does exist though. Race is something that was invented by us society members, but really there is no major difference between all of us. The difference in skin colour can be due to climatic reasons, and the whole biological experiments depicted show that there is no certain aspect of a person making them unique or distinctly different due to their particular race. Racism does exist however. Racism can be described as the discrimination or prejudice that is involved in which a certain ethnic group. The idea that one race is more superior than another can ultimately cause many problems in society. Everyone should live by the ideology of an egalitarian society in which everyone has equal rights and there is not difference in the way people are treated due to their physical appearances.
To conclude, this is one course that will help me a lot in the future. I was ultimately able to learn and put my personal experiences into this class to better understand the course and the content that Charles taught us. Charles did a great job teaching the class on all social matters and I was able to learn a lot about society.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a very intriguing video that we watched in class. The experiment had university students (males) in which some of them would be put as prisoners while others were going to be guards. The students had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but they knew that it was an experiment and they would receive money as a reward. The prison was established in the basement of the University but the students did not know that. The experiment initially was not that bad until the students started actually playing their roles as if it was real. The guards had become violent and were actually punishing the prisoners, but the prisoners were also protesting at the same time and trying to free themselves. There were students that did not want to participate anymore (mostly prisoners) and one of them did end up leaving. The study had to be suspended due to the circumstances that had arisen. When the students were asked why they acted the way they did, they explained that they felt as though they were realistically performing that role. To them, once the guards had gotten the power, they felt the need to use it all and actually make it seem like it was happening for real. Whereas, on the other side the prisoners were acting as though they had been wrongly accused and were actually acting as prisoners would. It was interesting to see how they reacted once they had received that power. Power can ultimately change a person’s attitude and views.
I forgot the name of this video that we watched but it was basically about students at a university that took part in a study or experiment. The experiment dealt with genes and DNA and the similarities. It was interesting to see how students thought that they would have more similarities to someone who had the same race as them or were culturally linked, but in the end they had more similarities to someone who they thought they would be linked with least likely. This proves that race does not make that big of a difference. Two people who are distinctly different racially may have the most things in common biologically. In biological terms, the term “race” does not have significant importance. The video also went into further discussion of how certain scientists were trying to see why there was a larger number of say blacks who were faster runners. They were trying to prove the fact that there are differences in the internal body of a “black” person making them unique. In the end, they were proven wrong because there is no such thing. Internally, we all have the same organs, bone structure etc.. and there is nothing that makes a different race more capable of a certain task compared to others. Instead our capabilities and specialities are based on our experiences and environmental factors. The students even looked at different places in the world and other people who may have some common genes as them and it was quite surprising that someone from a totally different region had some of the same genes.
One very important video that we watched in class that really struck to me was the danger of a single story. In the video, Chimamanda Adichie illustrates how our lives and different cultures is more than one story that overlaps one another. We all experience different things in our variety of cultures and religions, but we are also interconnected and not that distinctly different. this article would help in decreasing the amount of discrimination. I feel that she was right in all of her arguments that she made. We as society members should not judge people solely on their physical appearance or what we assume to be true of all races, but instead we should have an open mind when we communicate to any citizen. The personal examples that she used of her experiences being an African citizen helped me understand what she was trying to say. I believe that more people should watch this video in order to learn to be more open and not be prejudice all the time. Yes, physically we may seem different, but internally we have a lot of things in common and this video helps state that argument. I now know that it is not right to make pre judgements about someone without really getting to know them. Just because they look a certain way and have different religious views, we should not assume that they are going to act a certain way. Chimamanda was really a good speaker. I was interested in the whole speech because she used great examples and it was easy to understand.
In this article Charles talks about the controversial issue of race and racism. The statement is quite agreeable that there is no such thing as a race in biological context.I really like the line in which Charles says “UNESCO constitution rightly notes that war begins in the minds of [men], and that it is in the minds of [men] that the defences of peace must be constructed”. There is a lot of truth in this line because it is the people of the society that creates terms like revenge and war, but we should also learn to live in peace. I feel people need to be more educated in order to end racism and war on terror. I think that people need to learn that race is not an important word in society. We need to stop racism once and for all.What I learned from this article is racism is a term that we humans have created and we need to work together to put an end to it. It is a difficult task but it can stopped. We need to stop our ethnocentrism views in which we see our society as being more superior than others and we need to start the concept of cultural relativism where we look at other cultures with an open mind and no prejudices. Making our community a better place will ultimately make our future more prosperous. There is so many more important and interesting things out there in the world compared to race and racism. We need to look at everyone equally whether they are racially different, different gender or have different religious views.
This article illustrates the fact the “Bush doctrine” is spending useless money on Saddam Hussein and Iraq when in reality there are poor people in other countries that are starving themselves. This basically goes back to the issue where richer and wealthier countries are looking for their own personal interests rather than thinking about sharing their prosperity or the consequences that their negative actions can have on developing countries. We can use the term ignorance that we learned about in class. Societies are just not paying attention to the troubles and hardships that some countries are going through. They are suffering and dying everyday but everyone is blindfolded by the media and government where they can only think about the benefits of their country.
“In a world driven by the “Bush Doctrine, it makes sense to spend 4 billion dollars a month to defeat international terrorism, of which Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was said to be “potentially” part, when that amount (4 billion dollars) would be enough ti provide basic health and nutrition for half of the world’s population”.
This section of the passage is quite elaborate in what Charles is trying to say. The amount that is being wasted on trying to kill terrorism is enough to feed the homeless and hungry. It is something that everyone should think about. The only reason that they were going after Saddam and Iraq is to gain power of their oil which Liberia does not have. And when Bush did not see any profit in freeing Liberia, they ignored it. Societies need to stop looking at their own personal gains and start helping other countries.
This article describes the effects of the 9/11 attacks on the president of the United States of America and other significant members. The term “forgiveness” seems like a joke nowadays. It seems difficult as time is going by. President Bush is using the word justice in order to get revenge. There is a big difference between the two. I believe that is not justified to kill more civilians in order to get revenge because in the end, the civilians were not the ones that made the decisions, it was the ones in power of that country. Killing will never end the problems, instead it will just increase them. For the countries it is just “Retribution: A body for a body” (Quist-adade,93). The article talks mostly about the decisisons made by George Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
” If forgiveness was among the lessons learned, Bush and his team would not be seeking to go into another war-against Iraq in the shadows of the anniversary of 9/11. If forgives was among the lessons learned, the cries and moans of thousands of Innocent Aghan men, women, children from their graves would temper Bush’s war-mongering rhetoric and intentions. he would ponder over the potential loss of innocent lives of Iraqi citizens when he attacks Saddan Hussein”.
I chose this passage because I believe that there is a lot of truth in these couple of lines. There needs to be forgiveness in the world and not only revenge. If we learn to forgive there are many issues that can be solved without the numerous killing of the people.
