skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Week 6, Chapter 18
In the beginning of chapter 18, British sociologist Anthony Giddens "suggests that people in society are active agents in the sense that they are "able to act otherwise" and have the capacity "to make a difference." (p. 237) I agree with Giddens statement. I think people in society can almost in a way structure what society is. I think if how society used to be and how society is today. People have changed that. They have stood up and fought for their rights and practiced what they believed in. Society used to be more conservative and now it has more liberal and less conservative traits. Today's society is also much more materialistic than it was 20 years ago. I don't know from experience but I know that even when I was a kid, I used to play sports and with beanie babies and creepy crawlers.. that was fun and entertaining for me! But now it seems like my nephew and neices all want video games! I know this has a lot to do with advances in technology, but it also has to do with the people wanting more and more materialistic things. I don't know many people my age who don't have the latest video game console, an ipod, or the latest "hip" phone. I think it kind of sucks that todays society is so materialistic because you have to keep on spending money to feel "status" or satisfied with fitting, but I guess it also depends on how you live your life.
2 comments:
I agree with you, its baffling how much people in our society (especially the youth) cherish material goods. I hope that my kids will still enjoy sports, and outdoor activities (remember four-square, kickball-baseball, and all the ball games played against those ridiculous walls?).
I think that in the near future there is going to be a lowered drive for certain pointless material goods because out country's in such an economic crisis, that isn't going to be fixed anytime too soon. Even if people don't enjoy being outdoors or active, whatever happened to board games, or simply communicating with people face to face, and getting to know something new about someone you love? I guess we can really see what corporate capitalism does to a country of people who believe everything they see in the media, and have been bred to be shallower with each generation.
In theory, people create structures so they should also be able to change them. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, and similar social movements have changed larger societal structures. So to some extent, we do have choices. But there's also the reality of power--who has it and who doesn't. And the consumer culture in which we live makes it all the more difficult to challenge oppressive structures because individuals are too busy buying things and then working to pay for them to pay attention to the small world they're boxed in to.
Post a Comment