SUMBLOG4 Max Weber

Max Weber really hit it on the head with his idea of bureaucracy and rationality.  What I really take an interest in is his six basic characteristics of rationality.  This idea in my opinion is what keeps everybody’s life in order?  For an example we as humans are afraid of change and we like things consistent.  We like to know what we are getting.  Let’s take a look at a franchise restaurant such as Denny’s.  When you walk into a Denny’s you are expecting the same service and the same food every time.  Now imagine if you walked into a Denny’s and receives a totally different experience and different food. In this case you would probably freak-out, because I know I would.  You would expect a certain level of efficiency from them because you were promised it.  Going off this idea, I think you can relate it to religion as well.  We got rules and religions all design to keep us save, but when those rules start getting broken we start questioning our faith.  What I mean by this is if we believe in something all our life but along the way found it to be false, that will shake and scare us a bit.  So I guess what I am trying to say is that rationality helps us cope with daily activity with a guideline and if these guidelines were to change it’ll impact us for the better or for worst.  I am using a picture with a quote from one of my favorite movie The Dark Knight to help illustrate this idea, which can be found below.

SUMBLOG3 Emile Durkhiem

I really like Emile Durkheim’s ideas on suicide.  I say this because it’s really hard to explain why anyone would commit suicide, and he manages to narrow it down to four logical categories (egotistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic).  With all the suicides that I had ever heard about, I can usually fit them into one of these four categories.  First, let’s take a look on anomic suicides.  Anomic suicide from what I understand results when there is a change in the economy that negatively impacts people financially.  I've heard about people committing suicide after learning that they have lost all the money that they have invested.  Secondly, let’s look at fatalistic suicides.  Fatalistic suicide occurs when there is a high degree of regulation. Institutions such as prisons are where most of the fatalistic suicides occur.  I can understand to why people would rather die than spend the rest of their days in prison.  Many bad things can happen to a person in prison (i.e. rape, unsanitary living condition, bullying, etc.).  So it’s easy to see why some would choose death rather than succumbing to that kind of treatment. Thirdly, let’s discuss altruistic suicides.  Altruistic suicide occurs when a person commits suicide for the good of the group.  This can be both a good and a bad thing.  Take a soldier covering a live grenade to protect his brother in arms.  He is gives his life, so his brothers can live. This is taken to be a good deed.  However sometimes it may not like the kamikaze attackers during WWII.  They attacker is sacrificing himself for the good of the group, but at what price.  The person dies and other countless dies, so is it really worth it in the end.  Nonetheless there is a reason as to why people would do such things good or bad, because it’s for the good of the group.  Lastly let’s talk about egotistic suicide.  To put it simply this type of suicide occurs when a person feels excluded.  A prime example of this is bullying.  Suicides that was committed as a results of bullying continues to be on the rise.  With the internet, cyber bullying is becoming bigger and bigger.  I saw this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XLcfdkkHQE) a while ago and it shows the effect of bullying, and I think it does a good job of it too.  So it’s easy to see why this type of suicide is the most talked about.  Overall I believe that Durkheim’s idea stood the test of time because it is still relevant today as suicides keeps on happening, and we trying to figure out why.

SUMBLOG 2

I really like Karl Marx’s consequences of capitalism, because it still applies in today’s society.  Capitalism divides people of society into two groups: the working class and the rich (Social Organization).  We have the rich controlling the vast majority of the wealth and the working class works their butts off just to get by and feed their families.  So to create the illusion of equality the government taxes the rich more than the working class to keep order.  However taxing the rich a little more does not impact their luxurious lives in any way.  It was like this way back when the idea was introduce, and it’s still dividing us today.  Another idea that withstood the test of time is our fetishism of commodities.  Goods and services are the driving force of any capitalistic government.  Without it the idea of a free market wouldn't exist, and thus no one could turn in a profit or obtain certain goods.  However, let’s get back to the idea of our fetishism of commodities and how it applies in today’s society.  We are always wanting new and technology, even though the older ones we currently have works just as fine if not just the same as the newer ones.  Let us take the iPhone for an example.  It seems like every year a new model comes out, with “newer features”.  From my experience these new features are minor and somewhat unnecessary.  Despite this, consumers continue to pour money into the new devices.  There is this news article that was recently published by abcnews.com that talks about this, and can be found on this link (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/gold-iphone-5s-high-prices-ebay/story?id=20357575).  I think this is a prime example of our fetishism of commodities.  Last but not least is the alienation of the “species of being”.  I like this idea because it explains a lot about humanity and human potential.  I make an item from scratch; my friend sees that item and wants it.  I decided to help him make one, and now we both have that same item.  So in a way we are connected, and that is our human potential as a whole.  So again I really like Marx’s idea of capitalism.  It was ahead of his time, and we still talk about it today.