Culture Shock

Sometimes Americans are considered ignorant and cocky because we don't understand other cultures. However, these cultures find our rituals and customs just as strange as we find theirs. Normally when we think of culture we think of foods, clothing and greetings as the cornerstones. Yet recent studies have shown that even the way we think is involved in the culture we grew up in. I find it fascinating that Westerners tend to think more logically then Easterners; who tend to allow contradiction more often. Perhaps this has something to do with the sterotype that Asians are good at math and science; maybe they really do excel at these things because of their culture. I find it perfectly plausable that different races and cultures may have different brain wirings. We have different skin tones, hair, faces and food choices; how much of a stretch is it to say that our brains are a little different as well?

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

We try to not think about what kind of unpleasantness we would do if it came down to protecting ourselves and making others suffer...or die. However, when it comes down to it; we are usually make the decision pretty quickly. Movies like Saw and Batman are great examples of this. The guy in Saw and the Joker force us to decide which of the evils we would rather experience. Like the survivors of the F-227 flight, these characters force us into doing things we never thought possible otherwise. Social norms tell us that cannibalism, choosing one person to die over another, or making someone else suffer for your safety is bad and unnatural. However, I think that it is in our human nature to survive, and choose the path that most easily leads us to survival and progress; however gruesome it may be. I am in no way encouraging cannibalism, or saying that it would be easy to make decisions like that; but I do think that it's interesting how society views and is intrigued by these things.

What is Sociology?

I see sociology as a big tree. At the trunk of it is the basic human instinct to understand how our world works. From this trunk of basic sociology comes the different types of sociology; structural, interactional, qualitative and quantitative. These different types of sociology work together to justify human behavior. From these come the social science branches. These branches include history, political science, economics and anthropology. Many of these branches connect with eachother as well. Each of these branches has a different view of the world from where it is on the tree; consequently theses different social sciences interpret and explain situations differently from eachtother. Because we as humans cannot fully prove many sociological findings, the combination of different types of sociology and social sciences is crucial. Having different perspectives on a situation can give us a much better understanding and open our eyes to things we may not have considered before. The example that the article gives us explains different ways that different social scientists would perceive teen deliquency. In my opinion, in order to understand it, we must take a little bit of truth from each of the perspectives.