"Sunny was right...the working man IS a sucker"

In sociology class, we recently saw the movie "A Bronx Tale." In the movie, Coliginal, or "C", is a kid who grows up in the Bronx of New York. Growing up he has two role models in his life: His father, a city bus driver with good morals and working ethics, and Sunny, a widely feared gangster with golden street-smarts. He grows up listening to the two constant, contradicting life-teachings given to him between Sunny and His Father. He has equal love for both of them, but as he grows up, he listens more to Sunny's life-advice, and becomes closer to him.  A famous question that is asked in the movie is "Is it better to be loved or feared?" Sunny answers this question saying feared, because it lasts longer than love, and people sometimes take advantage of loved ones. Sunny turns out to be wrong, because as great as it seems to have respect from everyone out of fear,  when Sunny passes away,  no one still fears him, but C still loves him. All C's father had was a low-paying, mediocre job, and a clear conscience when he went to bed every night. But to C, Sunny had it all, the money, the "respect", the street-wisdom. As do most human beings,C wants all of this, but even Sunny didn't want C to have the same life as him. Most things aren't always as great as they seem to be. In life, people tend to reach for this idea of  power and respect. It ends up being a matter of patience; whether you want to get it right away, or your willing to wait and work for it. In my life, my dad always tells me that "You cannot build a house of bricks in one day." This meaning that if you want something or need to do something, there are plenty of ways of getting it done right away, but if you are willing to put for the extra time and effort, no matter how irritating or how time consuming, you will be able to have a clear conscience knowing that you will have a "strong, long lasting, and safe house built."

About Me

          The fact that this was the first topic that we were assigned to blog about in our sociology class and I'm just doing it now, 6 weeks into the class, would make me appear to most as the typical second-semester senior, who couldn't care less about the rest of his academic life in High School. This stereotype couldn't further contradict my true personality. Though I am 17 years old and a college-accepted, second-semester senior in High School, my attitude towards school is still that "What could a few more months of lessons in academics and life, before I go into the outside world, hurt?" Some traits that I have always had pride in portraying have been creativity, determination, tolerance & respect for others, and trustworthiness. My family consists of my mom Donna, my dad Evan, my older brother Jason, and my older sister Alexandra. I am Jewish, but like most other Jewish families in my town, I'm really not that religious.  My parents are divorced, which isn't a big part of my life, but it makes things interesting. I feel that I've experienced a lot of situations in my life so far, that have really led me to accept & understand all sorts of people, their lifestyles and their hardships. I like to snowboard, play football, wake-board, draw, play volleyball, listen to music, workout, chill and do fun stuff with my friends, and spend time with family. I had 3 dogs, my family recently had to send "mika" ( An American Staffshire Terrior, commonly known as a pitbull) back to the shelter earlier this year. So even though this is a delayed post from a second-semester senior, don't let it fool you, I've acquired an fine interest in sociology while being in this class, and plan on showing my true understanding of the cool stuff we learn in class with more "on-time" posts.

"Walk the Plank"

We recently did an activity in sociology class, in which we acted out roles of different individuals during a ship wreck. This experiment was based off a real event where the passengers on the sinking ship had to vote people off because only so many could fit on the life raft. So we went through the experiment, mostly voting of the annoying kids playing the roles rather than the actual idea of the person they were roll-playing. It was a cool little fun experiment. But what we didn't know, was that our teacher had done this experiment over 50 times and he kept records of the experiment's outcomes. After we finished, our teacher wrote the accumulated data over the years on the board. Over the 10 year period, the many different classes, with different people, who have never talked to each other, had very, very similar outcomes. The Data of the experiments showed that most of the time, the people voted off the life raft consisted of those who were either old, injured, handicapped, or of no use to the survival of everyone in the situation. So these people who could have had families, fascinating backgrounds, done brilliant, wonderful things in their lifetime were judged by their current outer appearance, and forced to "Walk the Plank" so to speak. This activity had me thinking about so many people that are withheld of their true potential just because of how they are portrayed. Their are so many people that could be of  great use in our lives, that we just ignore because they, at first, appear to be no "use" for us. In my own life, I have had teachers that at first I would have never taken seriously in a million years based off their looks or personality, but have taught me crucial life lessons, have helped me overcome hardships, and have really prepared me for the world. This lesson really highlighted the idea of Sociological Mindfulness, ( a lesson I already thought I understood), for me, and really further explained the several different angles of the concept. I really enjoyed this activity and lesson in life.

Sociological Mindfulness... More than just paying attention to others

 

"Treat other people the way you want to be treated."

           After reading a recent article about "Sociological Mindfulness" by Michael Schwalbe, the simple phrase "Treat other people the way you want to be treated," that I've been hearing since as long as I can remember, suddenly suggests a lot more. In our world, scholars, elders, and parents constantly strive to think of new ways to teach children about respect. Usually, when taught to us in the past, respect has been portrayed with the idea that it is bad to be "not nice" to people, because we wouldn't want to be treated "not nice." While preventing this "not-niceness" is a seemingly quick, pleasant way to teach about respect, our parents and teachers failed to further explain that respect is much more than just paying attention to other peoples feelings. This is where sociological mindfulness sets in. As children we accept new things, new people, and new concepts naturally because we are so innocent and fascinated of the world around us. But, as adults, we become cognizant of the human's history and present. About the differences among cultures, races, and religions. With this acquired knowledge it is natural to, at first, be uncomfortable with lifestyles that our different from those of our own. We are told to be aware of people's differences and accept them, but that is not necessarily respect. Sociological mindfulness is where we can not only accept a person, thing, or concept, but appreciate its unique qualities. With this, all stereotypes and prejudices are disregarded. 

           So after reading this article, I realized how much of this I can relate to my own life. A lot of arguments or fights that occur in my life between friends and family appears to just be a failure of practicing sociological mindfulness. Some of my friends have family traditions or activities that they do and are sometimes teased about them a little, instead of being respected  for their own individuality. And from history I've noticed that failure of receiving sociological mindfulness has led to severe pain, suffering, devastation, losses of dignity, losses of self-worthiness, suicides, mass killings, and wars. I've also noticed that failure of using sociological mindfulness  has led to hate crimes, assassinations, humiliating and degrading stereotypes, generations of anti-Semites and racists, and in some extreme cases... genocides. So as simple and cliche as it may sound, "Treat people the way you want to be treated" and practice sociological mindfulness.

The Origin of Awkwardness

           Anytime that someone feels out of their comfort zone, feels alienated, or feels embarrassed, the situation is generally labeled as "awkward." In an "awkward" situation, people tend to be unsure on what to say or do, they become anxious because they desperately want to stray back into their own individual comfort zones, and this anxiety quickly spreads throughout all individuals in the situation. It is tacit among all in this scenario that the other individual or individuals are experiencing the same uneasiness as you.

          The first day of Sociology class, our teacher did not follow the cliche idea formed in our minds as students since we were very young of standing in front of the class and introducing himself. Instead, he proceeded to sit in a chair in the back of the class, almost acting as one of our peers. Not only did he sit in the back, but sat right behind me. He did not say one word. All the students including myself, began to find a sense of nervous humor in the situation, that sense eventually turned into a quite uncomfortable feeling. The silence continued for a good couple minutes and as people looked around confused on what to do, I figured that since this was out of the "social norm", he probably wanted one of us to say something to start off the class. So as an icebreaker, I looked directly at him, thought carefully, and decided a subtle "sup" was a suitable option. After I said that, a few people chuckled, including my teacher, but the silence still continued. A few more minutes past and finally a girl sitting in the front of the class introduced herself. Our teacher got up from the back seat in the classroom, walked to the front, and began class.