Week 10

This week in sociology, we talked about influences from our childhood that make us who we are today. Nature, which is the natural, non-influenced factors that affect us, and nurture, which are the sociological factors that impact us, work hand-in-hand when considering why we grow up to be who we are. From conception, we are influence by our mothers, who we are most impacted by in forms on nurture. From the very beginning, our mothers drastically impact the outcome of our life, and influence what kind of person we are, and this is not necessarily solely based on genetics. Naturally, one could argue that siblings share the same values with one another because they all were influence by the same mother, whereas the parents may have different values due to their different parents. It is all based on perspective. This is a really compelling topic because it poses the question: which is more impacting, nature or nurture? And many sociologists and the realm of sociology ultimately argue that nurture is more impacting due to our socialized world. And I would agree with this. I do share the same values with my family, which is caused by nurture, despite the fact that all of us were born at different times, years and different places, and grew up in different places,which could be considered nature. The dynamics of a family, I believe, are firmly based off of the initial nurture of the mother to the child.

Week 9- Values, Happiness, and Nothing.

This week in Sociology we started off the week by watching a movie, Tuesdays with Morrie, which was about an old man slowly dying and his lessons that he taught to a middle-aged man who had little sense of direction in his life. Through many laughs and deep talks, they developed a strong relationship and Morrie changed the man's life forever. The movie taught us a lot on how to live, and also emphasized cultural values us as Americans have. Morrie emphasized to Mitch that Mitch should stop working so much and just stop and realize what is most imporant to him- his relationship with Janine, his passions for music, and overcoming his fears of confrontation and death. The American value of work as a dominant activity in life affects our everyday life and is easily compared to other cultures that are not so focused on their work, but are instead focused on their families, friends, and experiences. Also, Morrie brought up a point about how the American culture nearly shuns away the idea of death and values the hiding of true emotions on any given situation, and Morrie argued that in order to lead a successful life, one cannot simply be afraid of what they deem as "awkward" situations. This movie offered great lessons on life, as well as gave a better insight to AMerican values and how that affects our daily lives as Americans.

We also looked at the concept of Happiness and read an excerpt from the book, "Thrive", which described different ways that happiness can be created in your everyday life, from having a garden, to seeing theatre performances on the weekend. THis article gave great insight to how the AMerican culture allows us to achieve happiness, but also how it hinders it. Our firm value of work and individualism is a hinderance to achieving happiness, but our sense of equality (for the most part) encourages happiness. Salituro also told us about a test that would determine one's level of happiness. I took it and got a B+, but arguably, I'm not sure if happiness is neccesarily something that can, or should be, measured by a statistic or grade or percentage. Happiness, in itself, is a very complex and varying emotion, and I am unsure what the criterion of "being happy" truly is. Is happiness something you determine for yourself or something society determines for you? This question stayed in the back of my head while reading these articles and really made me reconsider my idea of happiness and what I can do to achieve my own definition of happiness.

Our experiment, referred to as the "Do nothing" experiment was incredibly rewarding and showed so much about our society and human inclination as a whole. Here is what i wrote for the reflection of the experience:
" In Dominick's, with many people walking around with their lists of things to buy and tight schedule, I sttood in the bakery session, turned my phone off and did absolutely mnoting. At least I thought i was doing nothing. However, I soon realized I wasn't doing nothing- I was simply just doing everything, but only in me head. My mind was a cluster of thoughts on stress and emotions about both the past and future. What was strange, however, was that I wasn't thinkiing about the present- adn then i realiized that us as humans never really do think about the present that much. We are instead always thinking what did happen, and what is going to happen. Why is that? Also, I was originally assuming people would look at me and ponder why I was doing nothing, but then I realized how consumed each person that passed me by with what they wanted to do and wanted to pursure their purpose for walking to the meat aisle or snack aisle and were basically oblivious to the fact that i was just standing there. Us, as humans, always feel the need to have something to do, and we can be so distracted by our own stask that we forget to be sociologically aware of the people around us. This exeriment led to many thought-provoking concepts and I really enjoyed it."

Week 8

This week in sociology, we discussed differences among cultures, and the idea of a subculture, which is a culture seperate from its "mother" culture. One subculture we discussed was the subculture of Our high school, which we said was different from other high school cultures due to many things that set us apart, such as the more of not stepping on the Patriot, different phrases we use that other schools wouldn't understand, such as FMP, ILC, and traveling, as well as things that we value at Our high school, such as hard work, college and extra curricular activities. all of these traits set us apart from other high school cultures, making Our high school's culture a subculture. I knew about this subculture, due to the fact that when I talk to my friends from different high schools, they say that the amount of pressure we face as students that are expected to excel in school is drastically different from the pressures they receive in their school. Another example of subculture that I see multiple times is the rural culture of Pennsylvania, which is separate from our metropolitan-Chicago culture(suburbia). Although the cultures are both a part of the American culture, and there are many similarities between the two culture's, there are still distinct differences among the cultured, which thud creates two different subcultures. In Pennsylvania, where I visit my grandma, the nearest chain grocery store, such as Target, is nearly a half hour away, and the closest city is Pittsburgh, which is an hour away. Due to this, the way the people living there value more "consumer products" is different from the way we value it, because we are surrounded by brand names everyday, whereas the local grocery stores by my grandma sell baked goods and other products that are made by a "friend of the owner of the store", rather than Frito-Lays, or Hostess, which are brands we are surrounded by everyday. Another thing that sets that culture apart from ours is their minimum use of modern technology. My godmother has nearly no knowledge of how to send an email, whereas here, four year olds would understand how to copy and paste a word document onto a blog, for example. The way in which we value technology is completely different from. The way in which is more rural community values technology, which then changes the way they communicate. Subcultures are nearly everywhere and all play a part in making the whole culture more diverse and fascinating.

The Yes and No's of Cultures

This week in Sociology we discussed material and nonmaterial culture and went into further depth of different kinds of gestures, languages, and norms within the realm of nonmaterial culture. We first discussed the differences between certain gestures between cultures, such as the idea that in the Indian culture, it is considered to be disrespectful to eat with your left hand, whereas in America, both hands are acceptable to use during a meal. We also discussed how cultures that share the same language have certain words that don't translate to anything in, say, English, and just have a meaning in its own language. We then discussed folkways, which are just little things that are perhaps seen as rude or disrespectful, but are not that big of a deal, such as having your elbows on the dinner table. A more, however, is a step further than folkway, and would be something that would possibly offend someone or disrupt the natural flow of a given society. A taboo, however, is nearly a forbidden thought or thing that should never be said or thought. An example of a taboo would be selling bacon in the Middle East, for their culture is very against production of pork, due to its sacredness to the religion(s) found in the Middle East. Culture is very intersting to me because it allows us to value different cultures and see how the world functions due to each individual culture affecting the world.
          When learning all of these types of non-material cultural ideas, I began to think about its relation to my own life. When we discussed the social norms that went along with the nonmaterial culture, I began to think of my experience with both culture shock, which was a term previously discussed, as well as a realization of the certain folkways and mores of people in different cultures. When I went to Italy a few years ago, my family and I went to a small, family-owned restaurant on the Almalfi Coast for lunch. The Italian tradition is to have multiple course of meals in one sitting, as well as different things in each course. So, for example, we got our appetizers, and there were five or six plates of different things that we passed around, and same went for the pastas, the meats, the deserts, etc. However, my younger brothers are very picky when it comes to eating, so they did not want to try any of the new food being offered to us(mozzarella/tomatoes, rabbit leg, lemoncello), which we usually are fine with when we have dinner in our own house. However, when the owners of the restaurant saw that they were not eating what they were bringing up, they seemed to get offended and asked if the food was cooked correctly. This is a good example of a social folkway, for the Italian restaurant-owners felt a sense of disrespect towards them by my brothers not eating waht they served us, showing how the social norm of the Italian culture would be to try everything that comes out. This experience of culture shock and seeing the different social norms in the given cultures gave me a better insight to other cultures around the world and allowed me to realize that cultures are so drastically different from one another, that one motion can offend someone, or not offend one, given the certain culture we would be put into.