my first semi-intellectual post...
first of all, here are some quotes that I might be using on my paper and I personally thought they were enlightening...it takes what we subconciously know and puts it into words
“most of the time we ourselves desire just that which society expects of us. We want to obey the rules. We want the parts that society has assigned to us. And this in turn is possible because it is much more than we have so far asserted. Society not only determines what we do but also what we are (Berger 94).”
“the expectations of their social world have long ago been built into their own projections of the future---they want precisely that which society expects of them (Berger 87).”
“‘Self’ and ‘society,’ in the child’s experience, are the two sides of the same coin. In other words, identity is not something ‘given,’ but is bestowed in acts of social recognition. We become that as which we are addressed (Berger 99).”
“As an individual is forced to gaze at himself in a mirror so constructed as to let him see a leering monster, he must frantically search for other men with other mirrors, unless he is to forever forget that he ever had another face. To put this a little differently, human dignity is a matter of social permission (Berger 103).”
“The person’s biography now appears to us as an uninterrupted sequence of stage performances, played to different audiences, sometimes involving drastic changes of costume, always demanding that the actor be what he is playing (Berger 105).”
“Inequality is not fated by nature, nor even by the ‘invisible hand’ of the market; it is a social construction, a result of our historical acts. Americans have created the extent and type of inequality we have, and Americans maintain it (Fischer 7).”
and from Comp Lit last semester:
"I have always wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others...So much more respect we have for what our neighbors think of us than for what we think of ourselves."
--Marcus Aurelius
Writing my sociology paper (and taking the class) made me acknowledge what i've always wanted to avoid. Many times I've given up on things because I thought that it was "out of reach" or "absurd" and now i'm finally starting to think about why i felt that way in the past. It's funny how society can influenece every choice that you make---usually without you even realizing it. Now that i think about it...why do i want to major in molecular and cell biology at berkeley? it's not like its especially interesting...i guess it's just because it sounds good? maybe makes good money? i don't know...i guess i've come to accept that work isn't supposed to be fun and surprisingly, i really don't mind. I guess the easiest (and maybe even happiest) way to live life is just to accept what society wants from you and convince youself that you want it too. So far, i really do like my life...it might be society convincing me that i'm living a great life...but i don't mind being ignorant. i always admired those who have the courage to rebel against what society expects of them...definitely not something i would do. To a certain extent, i do think that i am easily influenced and that i quickly start to like what people around me like...even if i once hated it. At the same time, i learn to hate what people around me hate too. Sometimes i get this urge to do something (not bad like smoking, drinking, etc.) but i quickly dismiss that thought because it would seem "out of the ordinary" and i get afraid that people might look at me weird....it's kind of funny because when you look at your closest friends...they really start resembling each other and resembling you (in my opinion at least) and it makes me wonder whether we seem so alike because we are very similar to begin with and that is why we ended up being close...or is it because being close made us change ourselves so that we are similar to (and therefore will be accepted by) those closest to us. o well, even after so much intellectual thought and analyzing of my life...i still want to conclude that i am VERY happy with life and VERY thankful to be in the society that i grew up and am living in. If this all doesn't really make sense to you...sorry...it really is just a bunch of jumbled thoughts. (o, sorry for the HORRIBLE grammar too...i'm just typing whatever goes through my mind...totally dismissing grammar...) anyway...back to cramming for midterms *GRRRRR*