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RebelSteve33
Amateur Mycologist
Registered: 05/28/02
Posts: 3,774
Loc: Arizona
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Society and Who We Are
#1237147 - 01/21/03 01:49 PM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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Tonight I had my first Sociology class, and let me just say that I am very excited for this semester and the things I am going to learn in that class! The professor started off her lecture today with this statement:
"Who we are and everything we do is a result of the particular society we are part of."
Do you guys think this is true? I agree with it to a certain extent. Our actions and behaviors and what we can and cannot do are certainly limited or constrained by the society and culture we are a part of. There's no doubt about that.
But, in my opinion, this statement seems to put a limit on our free will. I believe in the strength of the human spirit too much to accept the statement my professor made as pure fact. I think that we, as humans, have the ability to do whatever the hell we want to, no matter what society we are born in.
So to what extent do you guys think the society that we live in shapes who we are?
-------------------- Namaste.
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Anonymous
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I think people are shaped by their society but everything society teaches is sunken in with the person's own opinions and thoughts. If whoever is the common ignorant person, they don't have much of an opinion anyway so they seem more average or society conformed.
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Evolving
Resident Cynic
Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
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I think your professor is exaggerating a bit.
-------------------- To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.' Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence. Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains. Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.
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Murex
Reality Hacker
Registered: 07/28/02
Posts: 3,599
Loc: Traped in a shell.
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I took Sociology last semister and was suprised that it actually made me think a little more. I really allready learned all this stuff while thinking about society on my first mushroom trip, but hey.
-------------------- What if everything around you Isn't quite as it seems? What if all the world you think you know, Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, Is it all you want it to be?
Edited by Murex (01/21/03 03:26 PM)
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Sclorch
Clyster
Registered: 07/12/99
Posts: 4,805
Loc: On the Brink of Madness
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Re: Society and Who We Are [Re: Murex]
#1237759 - 01/21/03 04:51 PM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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I took Sociology last semister and was suprised that it actually made me think a little more. I really allready learned all this stuff while thinking about society on my first mushroom trip, but hey.
LOL!!!
-------------------- Note: In desperate need of a cure...
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Adamist
ℚṲℰϟ✞ЇѺℵ ℛ∃Åʟḯ†У
Registered: 11/23/01
Posts: 10,211
Loc: Bloomington, IN
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I think Nature and Nurture are two sides of the same coin... Which is us.
-------------------- { { { ṧ◎ηḯ¢ αʟ¢ℌ℮мƴ } } }
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socratesmind
old hand
Registered: 02/22/02
Posts: 1,193
Loc: in your house :)
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Re: Society and Who We Are [Re: Adamist]
#1237940 - 01/21/03 06:05 PM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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well Sociology wasn't that great when i had it. just an intro level course and just takes how societies affect/mold individuals and how different societies are that much different with norms and such. not that interesting, though philosophy on the other hand is a diff subject all together
-------------------- Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. - Abraham Lincoln: Speech in the Illinois House of Representatives, Dec 18, 1840.
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NiGGy
Stranger
Registered: 02/10/02
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Loc: Nova Scotia, Canada
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Everything that we do, that were around, since when we were born molds us into a part of our society. Being on this computer right now is. Everything I do pretty much is because of our society. Going to school and all, all a part of molding you into a productive part of our society looking for technoligical advancement. Humans like to have goals and something to strive for it must seem. Because if thats not true then I don't think our society would be like this..As a race we all strive to live and do it in the best way we can think of. I live in a capitalist society, which strives to live and advance. Advance to make peoples materialistic lives better..Im cool with that. I accept it. I pretty much have to. If you don't, you pretty much are thrown away by society and become a beggar or something. Which doesn't make you anyworse than anybody else, just because you can't live in this society or don't like it doesn't make you bad. But its much eaiser to go with the flow. Its pretty much the only way to go. But im not saying we have a super strict way of living or anything, I mean we still have free will. I want to eat mushrooms, I will. What I desire I pretty much have the ability to do. Our society is just what people thought would be the best way for humans to live. We could be very spritual and live off the land, growing our own crops, not taking what we don't need to live. More the native lifestyle. But humans seem to like to strive for something. Like technogical advancement. Or mabye we just do because we were born into it and haven't seen life any other way. So we accept it. If you were born into a primitive technoligal society that is spritual and material possessions don't mean much to you. Thats cool too. Its just as good if they are happy with it. When your born into a society and your existance and life has been molded from the beginning you don't really question it and see it as the only way of living. That happens with life, or there probably wouldent be live. You need to be a part of somekind of society some how to be alive. Even if its just living in the woods farming your own vegetables and shooting animals for food...So yes are are the result of our society to a degree, If we wasen't we'd be dead. Its needed for existance. Laws, rules everything are just inforces of our society...Our socirty runs on a big part of money and consumerism. Its very hard to exist without money in our society. Being ignorant about existance and living with eyes closed is what our socirty wants us to do I think. If that were not true, mushrooms would be legal. They figure if people are put in a society trance without questioning it, life will go along much smoother. And yes...Enough rambleing.
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GazzBut
Refraction
Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
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Re: Society and Who We Are [Re: Evolving]
#1238470 - 01/22/03 03:08 AM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
I think your professor is exaggerating a bit.
But only a very, very little bit!
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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RebelSteve33
Amateur Mycologist
Registered: 05/28/02
Posts: 3,774
Loc: Arizona
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Re: Society and Who We Are [Re: GazzBut]
#1238896 - 01/22/03 06:34 AM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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I was thinking about this last night before I went to bed, and something occurred to me....
We create society. We can change society.
So how can WHO WE ARE be a result of something that WE have created?!
-------------------- Namaste.
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chodamunky
Cheers!
Registered: 02/28/02
Posts: 2,030
Loc: sailing the seas of chees...
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go ahead and ask your prof. you will either stump him or he'll have a crafty answer already waiting for you
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SnuffelzFurever
Psychonaut
Registered: 09/17/02
Posts: 734
Loc: Miami, florida
Last seen: 20 years, 1 month
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Quote:
I was thinking about this last night before I went to bed, and something occurred to me....
We create society. We can change society.
So how can WHO WE ARE be a result of something that WE have created?!
we only help perpetuate society, and change it. we havent actually created it. It has created us, and used us... But isnt that a perpetual motion machine, in a weird metaphorical sense? denying the laws of thermodynamics... somebody better get shot for that fuckup
-------------------- "I think it's time we stop Children, What's the sound, Everybody look what's going down"
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Zero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland
Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
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"So how can WHO WE ARE be a result of something that WE have created?! "
i dont know if im understanding you correctly but i think you just answered your own question friend but maybe backward, what we create is a product of who we are . what we do here and create comes back to us and builds who we are. notice all the chaos in the world, all the chaotic people? all the glutinous people all the greedy corporations? the world doesnt change cause everyone is against everyone else and depend on that system for survival cause they know no other way, yes we do have the ability to change who we are but most people are so entrapped in the world around them they dont think twice about creating a world for there own, i mean after all they sell lives at wal mart these days, they sell intelligence, sell your own health back to you. this internet thing we got here is probably one of the first things human evolution has brought for us to come together and make some sort of common goal. when everyone is asleep they are fighting eachother and their ego or fears. i had a dream about hell the other night and i saw all these people horribly masacering eachother in a nasty pit, eventually people just become part of the hell they created. and soon i think with all the chaos society has made they will soon catch up with. what you make eventually will get back to you in some way, and as we all know experience shapes who we are. i wish our world was different and could get better, but without a miracle or some way to get out and show EVERYONE at once that what they are is all just so small and distorted they will just continue till they walk off into oblivion. you would think everyone would wake up, but sadly they dont and who knows what will happen because of it.
-------------------- What?
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Grav
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 4,454
Last seen: 11 years, 3 months
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What society told you that the sky is beautiful, or taught you to love music?
What society told you to have your phobias?
I think society definately shapes your physical behavior, and does a good job of trying to define your morals, but it can't touch some things that are just 'human'. In all of us.
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andrash
The Oceanminder
Registered: 12/11/02
Posts: 86
Loc: Rome, Italy
Last seen: 20 years, 9 months
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In risposta di:
So how can WHO WE ARE be a result of something that WE have created?!
I think that we are born in an already established society... so when you are a child you are mostly influenced by it. But when you become older, you develop a certain degree of awareness that can make you change the society in which you live, or if you're still sleeping, conform to it.
It's up to you!
Peace,
Andrash
-------------------- --- Who am I, where is me, when I' am away from myself? --- F. Battiato
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learning_byte
click here
Registered: 10/07/02
Posts: 1,280
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Re: Society and Who We Are [Re: Grav]
#1241360 - 01/22/03 10:03 PM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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...Who we are is because society...
Of course, society shapes us, and we shape society. blah blah blah ..
one of my thoughts about society:
Society is "us" in a different way of view, more globally speaking, that us has always been there. Now think of it as a big organism, that is evolving, and it is gifted with intelligence, a tool to go forward. But it got stuck, instead of going up it stopped and it is heading down, not because of itself anymore but no others than us, The little parts of it that wont function correctly, causing it a disease. In one point of men existence something went wrong, we missed something, or that something haven't happened yet, but the way things are going that organism wont ever see it happen.
It is sad.
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RebelSteve33
Amateur Mycologist
Registered: 05/28/02
Posts: 3,774
Loc: Arizona
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Re: Society and Who We Are [Re: Grav]
#1243927 - 01/23/03 05:13 PM (21 years, 2 months ago) |
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Interesting points, Grav! I didn't think about that!
-------------------- Namaste.
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