Blog 11

Dorothy Smith was one of the first sociologists to really bring about the idea of standpoint theory. To her, this meant observing a specific culture or group of people by actually interacting with them. She cautioned to not get too involved with the people that you are observing, however, because this could lead to your observations being biased, as you become one of them. Smith said that this was the best way to observe people because it allowed the sociologist to get a better picture of what these people do, but more importantly why they do it, as the observer is able to talk to his/her subject.

To go along with her standpoint theory, Smith also talked about a bifurcation of consciousness. (Smith’s bifurcation of consciousness is closely relations to W.E.B. DuBois’ idea of double consciousness.) This was brought about because at the time that she was doing her work, most of the theories that existed were created by men. To her that meant that the theories were only 100% true through a man’s eyes. Smith used an example of this bifurcated consciousness. Her identity as a woman versus her identity as a sociologist is two different consciousnesses that she experienced. The reason is that sociology, at that time, was dominated by males, so she knew that in order for herself to understand sociological perspectives; she would have to look at everything through a man’s lens.

I picked a picture that is a tree made up of words that have to do what a double consciousness is. I thought that this was an interesting picture, and even though it more closely relates to DuBois, I believe that these words all also describe Smith’s ideas of a bifurcation of consciousness. The reason for that is because, as stated earlier in the blog, she mentioned that she looked at society through a man’s lens, and in this picture there are words such as, “fragmented,” “dual,” and “covering,” which all help to describe what a bifurcation and a double consciousness is. 

Blog 10

Clifford Geertz’s ideas about symbols as well as culture and how they are defined in our society is something that I found fascinating in last week’s discussion. Geertz defines culture as “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about attitudes towards life.” Here I think that Geertz is just saying that culture is expressed through the symbols that people ascribe to and identify with. He also said that culture comes to an agreement on a symbol and all agree with the meaning that is given to that particular symbol. Finally Geertz said that our reality is made up of a bunch of different symbols; physical symbols like the American Flag or the bald eagle as well as non-physical symbols such as a hand shake or a smile.

A very basic example that I hold close to me is the symbol of the cross. I have a tattoo of one, so for me it means a lot more than just two lines of ink that are stuck on my body forever. The symbol of the cross, for most people, means church, religion, faith, God or something along those lines and that is why the cross is viewed as sacred (the value of religion), not profane (just two lines of ink).

The two pictures that I have found for this blog are pictures of the cross and the bald eagle. I found these pictures interesting and very representative of our country. I thought that it was neat that someone tied these two images into one to both represent our freedom (from the bald eagle) and the faith that someone holds (from the cross). Both pictures are very powerful and, for me at least, represent two of the most important things that I believe and trust in.

Blog 9

I found Erving Goffman’s theory about status, roles and self-label to be very interesting. He describes status to be your position that you hold within society. Goffman said that your roles are the behaviors that go along with your particular status and your self-label is how you present yourself to others, given your said status and roles within society. I found these three concepts and how they interact, something that I still see in today’s society. An example that I can think of is if someone is a pastor for a church, his status would be a pastor. His specific roles could be things like preaching on Sundays to his congregation, offering guidance to members of his church and doing baptisms and weddings. The self-label that he might put forward will vary from pastor to pastor, but most pastors will present themselves professionally, and in an unbiased and welcoming way. I believe that these three ideas that Goffman has put forth can apply to every single person in our society, except each person will have varying ideas and aspects that go into their status, roles and self-label.

Branching off of Goffman’s idea of the self-label, he says that stigmas are something that can come based on the self-label that you show to other people. Goffman described a stigma as something that society places on a person based on their presentation of their self-label that could prevent the person from achieving a goal that they may have. An example used in class was the fact that out of all of the CEOs, only 4.4% of them are females. Given the fact that someone is a woman sometimes places a stigma on her that would prevent her from reaching her goal of becoming a CEO. Obviously this phenomenon is not fair, but I do think that it is something that happens all of the time in many different situations.

The video that I picked is a funny (yet true) rap that people made up about Goffman’s theory, to go along with the theme song from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I thought that it was a short and concise representation of Goffman’s ideas about the presentation of the self, so I felt that it was appropriate to share it with all of you. 

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvuWLuAW8gw