#sociology

[st-just]

A great question to get at this is: Did the trial of Galileo succeed or fail? If we believe that the purpose of the Inquisition trying Galileo was to silence Galileo, it absolutely failed, it made him much, much more famous, and they knew it would.  If you want to silence Galileo in 1600 you don’t need a trial, you just hire an assassin and you kill him, this is Renaissance Italy, the Church does this all the time.  The purpose of the Galileo trial was to scare Descartes into retracting his then-about-to-be-published synthesis, which—on hearing about the trial—he took back from the publisher and revised to be much more orthodox.  Descartes and thousands of other major thinkers of the time wrote differently, spoke differently, chose different projects, and passed different ideas on to the next century because they self-censored after the Galileo trial—an event whose burden in money and manpower for the Inquisition was minute compared to how hard it would have been for them to get at all those scientists.  The final form of Descartes’ published synthesis was self-censorship—self-censorship very deliberately cultivated by an outside power.

-Ada Palmer, Tools for Thinking About Censorship

[potatoesarecheese]

Capitalism always has a hand in everything. Now, I'm just pulling this out of nowhere so you should actually do all the research on your own (and I might mess up some of my facts) but-

When the idea of the nuclear family rolled around, it was directly an effect of the war and the solider's need for some kind of safe, stable life. Suddenly, there weren't bombshells going off all around you, you just walking to work.

Everyone had a job to do and a role to fit into- Dad made the money, Mom made the food, Son and Daughter made their parents proud at school.

And that was pretty good. Society had a system that worked, and an economy that was well on its way to recovering.

But the problem with the nuclear family is that it turned everyone into their own little units. We were all supposed to be villagers and cavemen or something, where there was always plenty of help raising kids and making food and being a community.

BUT since we're all now isolated, then that community falls away. Relationships arrange themselves in rings, based on who is or isn't in your little unit.

If you're raised in that kind of isolated family structure, then your family becomes more important than your friends. If your goal is to get a wife and kids, then your partner becomes more important than your family.

I would look into other countries that have different economic systems and what their societal norms are, but I don't want to. I'm tired. I'm gonna watch a movie instead. But, hey, you could probably write a whole paper about how the economy shapes our relationships with one another.

BASICALLY: yes. it does relate back to capitalism. but then again, what doesn't relate back to capitalism?

Hey gang, what if we didn't talk about relationships like they were hierarchies

[physalian]

An observation as of late

Worldview punnett square. Which are you?

[mysharona1987]

[animentality]

[annoyingalchemist]

The radical feminist movement as far as I can tell had a lot of their ideas enter the mainstream, so on the surface a brisk summary can seem reasonable- they popularized the modern idea of patriarchy, for example. But they've always had a pretty strong separatist streak, their sexual politics are pretty wild, and they're not usually huge fans of sex work.

It's also second wave feminism that shows it: it is fairly fundamentally opposed to the idea of intersectionality because it really wants to see "woman" as an insolvent category- there are no rich women, no poor women, no white women, no black women, just women.

sucks that "incel" is just like a generic insult now synonymous with "virgin" bc if people had much of an idea of what incel ideology actually entails, we could have a conversation about radical feminism being quite literally, beat for beat, incel shit for girls

[happyroadkillart]

actually made this before the election tho seems slightly more relevant after watching CA vote no on things like rent control and, like, Prohibiting Slavery

[queercodedangel]

The non-binary urge to be in a state of non-belonging because you feel too trans for cis people but not trans enough for trans people

[yuribeam]

(common superstitions from the perspective of a USAmerican- would love to hear superstitions from other regions and cultures!)

(follow the most often when the situation arises, or believe in the strongest)

[ed-recoverry]

THERE ARE NO USELESS MAJORS!!

Learning about theater is important! Learning about art is important! Learning about sociology is important! Learning about history is important! Learning about anthropology is important! Learning about philosophy important! Learning about music is important! Learning about English is important! Learning about dance is important! Learning about photography is important! Learning about art history is important! Learning about ethnic studies is important! Learning about theology is important! Learning about performing arts is important!

Usefulness does not equal high income!

All education is important!

[prokopetz]

It's fun watching sociologists try to refute the Fermi paradox because 90% of the time it's like "the idea of Fermi paradox says more about the institutional psychology of the STEM community than it does about the nature of universe because it reveals their unexamined assumptions about the nature of extraterrestrial life, and here's why", then proceeds to unwittingly put the commentor's own unexamined assumptions about the nature of extraterrestrial life on full blast.

[digitalismmm]

Jungle vines

[dakota-zen]

[cleoselene]

the anomie of our times

Anomie is a term in sociology. Its literal definition is "normlessness."

Anomie is what we are living through. This first 100 days especially. Anomie results when people are overwhelmed.

In sociology class, my professor explained it thus: we wake up in the morning, we take a shower, we brush our teeth, we pick out our outfit for the day, then we sit down and eat food that has been designated as "breakfast food" by whatever culture we live in. We have our routines to help stave off anomie. Because as human beings we have free will and we can choose to wake up, walk out naked, poop on our neighbors yards. It's a bad idea, which is why have norms, to discourage people from doing terrible things and also to help us narrow down our choices.

Because one of the results of anomie is literally mental illness. If you can't make sense of things, if you don't know what you can or are allowed to do, if you become so overwhelmed you become numb and depressed and anxious, all the time. It's while one of the founding fathers of sociology, Emile Durkheim, who studied suicide extensively, listed anomic suicide as one of the four kinds of suicide, or reasons people end their own lives.

Turecki and Brent define anomic suicide thus: "Anomic suicide is a type of suicide that occurs when there is a breakdown of social norms and values, leading to a sense of purposelessness and a lack of direction in individuals' lives."

What our government is doing to us now is pushing us into a state of anomie. If you are feeling your mental illness getting worse because of the news, it's by design.

They are overwhelming us with horror constantly to provoke a feeling of helplessness in the hopes that their opponents will simply give up. A sort of political version of anomic suicide. Or in the case of some people, very real anomic suicide has happened and will happened because of our current politics and the state of our society.

You have to battle the anomie any way you can. Don't let them think you're powerless. You're not. If you have a phone and a computer you can do something by flooding government officials with your complaints. Turn the anomie right back on them.

[travelingtwentysomething]

You know what's funny? The minute people start aiming higher and taking out the powerful and wealthy and "elite", they're going to change the gun laws. Because their goal has always been for us to stay fighting each other instead of looking towards them as the real threat to our life, liberty, and freedom.