Sociology offers context to almost any human endeavor.
I jokingly tell people that I got my degree in sociology because I am interested in everything.
Joking or not, this is true. Anything that involves two or more humans is fair game for sociological analysis. This is the key to the sociological imagination concept that is found in almost every single sociology text book in the world (or at least in English).
But this brings us back to where we started: an informed citizenry. The more we understand how humans interact, the most adept we become at living together in every way, including everything from our intimate lives to our civil lives. I ran across an interesting video last night that I felt summed up how an understanding of organization has consequences:
While Grey is speaking from history and politics, he is also making an organizational argument based upon the understanding of human interaction. The rules of engagement have influence over the actions individuals make and these rise to collective, unintended consequences. This little video is an elegant explanation for the current federal budget sequester, the log-jamming of gridlock in our law-making, the negativity of our campaigns and why I feel like I've picked the least bad politician since I voted for Carter (1976 was the first year I could vote), and why some of the smartest people I know no longer bother to vote (including me a couple of times).
A sociologist could also add to this video by explaining group stability and why this will not change from the inside. The argument (when one is made beyond "America is #1") is made in support of our two-party system and first past the post voting practices, is that the United States has been in existence for over two centuries, so we must be doing something right. We have a "stable" system of government.
Sociologists, however, have noted that group stability (defined as a group identity that outlives the original members and the decisions made by the members of the group) has some serious drawbacks. To wit, this same argument could have been and probably was made about slavery. After all, slavery had a longer history since Columbus than our constitution has had.
Group stability reduces the power of the individual members of a group. We sacrifice our power under these systems and, by the way, that was by design.
There was great fear among the gentry in early American history of giving too much power to common people. They also fear too large a government. In an attempt to have cake and eat it too we now have a someone antiquated idea of the "republic" and "representative democracy" that has led to an unintended consequence of create divisive stalemates that are easily manipulated by people with money and power, instead of the well-balanced government intended.
I have come to have as much disdain for a strong central government as I have for oligopolistic businesses (and I will save my central bank rant for another day) so I don't totally agree with all of John Green's conclusions in the video. I don't have definitive answers to the mess we call American politics (and let's not forget the messy economy either), but I do know that without sociologists at the table, we will not find a way out.
But, of course, this is SOCIOLOGY in all caps -- big questions and big answers. But if that's not your brand of social action, you might enjoy this:
First Person, Plural Radio (2003)
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