en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2436865 Comments by alexaxp http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/18/war-through-the-ages/#IDComment144569832 In this video, throughout time, many more battles occurred in modern times and the death tolls based on the explosion sizes increased. Sociologically, when there are technological innovations being created in different nations, other will try to emulate and surpass the other. This also begins to create a sense of nationalism and determinism that often leads to, and has occurred many times, war. Most of the large explosions and the pocketed numerous explosions were reactions of moves made by nations that were considered an “Empire” and that ran along with Imperialist moves. The most notable sign of imperialism historically and in this video was from 1914 to 1918, the time of World War I. The reason why these deaths occurred was because of a transition period modern soldiers had to adapt to, because new technology such as improved artillery, machine guns coupled with the old style of marching in a formation and attacking the enemy directly from the front. With these new technologies, the soldiers and officers had to find alternate ways to fight, and in the case of WWI, this was trench warfare, which led to even more deaths because of disease, close quarter mortar hits, and failed charges across barbed wire defended by machine gun nests. In this case as with the other Imperial ones, when humans go to war because of nationalist and imperialist fervor, often the death toll is higher and fighting is more common and more widely distributed across the globe. Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:18:26 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/18/war-through-the-ages/#IDComment144569832 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141971458 I have experienced the pangs and tribulations associated with suicide and other depression related illnesses. However, it is completely unfair that this seems to be eating away at our troops, the men who risk their lives against Kalashnikov wielding fundamentalists, only to be killed by everyone’s own worst enemy, yourself. As a newly joined Army ROTC cadet, this situation definitely hits home and scares me, for I wish to be in the infantry once I graduate and begin my mandatory 8 year commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. The way I see this epidemic spreading is the lack of training in this area for mental health purposes. Throughout basic training and any other form of military training, there seems to be no courses or exercises which deal with coping with the stresses of combat. Sure, during training recruits are thrust into horrifyingly difficult tasks such as the gas chamber and constantly being yelled at by drill sergeants, however these NCO’s don’t seem to prepare them for the waiting periods between deployment to combat zones. Additionally to this, the fractured relationship paradigm can be dealt with if the military had marriage and relationship counselors speak with the soldier and their loved ones about what to expect prior to a deployment. That way, the soldier won’t be confused and feel left out upon returning from a combat zone if they were to find out that their spouse has left them or any other relationship-type issue. As General Casey said, the problem is that the Army is shooting behind the target instead of at the target. The answer lies within family counseling before a deployment period and additional training for NCO’s and drill sergeants to prepare soldiers for the time between combat, not just during combat. Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:40:47 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141971458 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment140820662 There will always be a distribution of inequality within any human society. Throughout history, the top echelons of the socio-economic scale has always had a nearly infinite deathgrip on the distribution of wealth and power. In ancient civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, the Pharoah and his court controlled every single aspect of the peoples’ daily lives, and most of their belongings and earnings went directly to the king himself, which isn’t even half of a percentage of the wealth’s distribution. Along with medieval Europe, Lords, Earls and Kings always controlled the wealth and surplus wealth of their subjects living within their fiefdom. Sociologically, humans as we know are social creatures, we gravitate towards others for our needs and our dependencies. When in such a position of power as the top 20% of the income curve, more people are actually dependant on you and the income you make since you have a part in the control of it and in these terms that object is taxation. In terms of voting on tax breaks for the wealthy, people in that income bracket all have the same exact ideals upon the subject because they don’t want to have to give away a lot of the money that they have strived to earn throughout their careers. In terms of my personal opinion on the matter, I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with the continued practice, I just accept it as an inevitability that we as the human race suffer not unlike disease, death, war etc. I am aware that there are people who cheat their way through the social ranks via crime and exploitation, but that is still a generally small portion of the upper class and many people within the upper class have really strived and worked hard to make themselves wealthy through years of study. However, it is not right to say that people in the lower classes don’t work just as hard or even harder, granted that they face obstacles in life that those in the upper class don’t have to experience due to their wealth and power. Thu, 7 Apr 2011 20:33:08 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment140820662 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/religion-in-the-future/#IDComment138123357 Sociologically, the claims made in this article are false. Throughout history, religion has been the basis for every country’s laws and statues in terms of human morality and for setting behavioral norms for the general population. Additionally, the so-called “majority effect” doesn’t necessarily work due to the fact that those claiming to be unaffiliated are in the vast minority and in terms of the United States, Christianity and its values are heavily ingrained within the culture and practice of the government. In addition, predicting human behavior cannot be properly studied with simply mathematics. Sociologically, you can use mathematical facts and graphs to show certain trends, however when dealing with human beings one must consider a large number of other factors due to the psychological complexities of the human mind. No one human is exactly like the other and in the course of history, there has been no constant within humans overtime; except for organized religion. Dating all the way back to the Paleolithic era of human life, archaeologists found crude busts of many mother goddesses and animals with anthropomorphic qualities that would insist they were gods. This practice has been in place for over 10,000 years, and although the numbers of people disagreeing with organized religion are dropping, history and simple examination of the correlations between religion and governing bodies will show it would be disadvantageous and that the added sum of the population of 9 western democracies wouldn’t easily slip into that in the course of 40 years, which in terms of history is a very short time, and the “math” would agree with that, except the jumps in percentage were very drastic and didn’t follow the model they had previously set. Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:58:14 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/religion-in-the-future/#IDComment138123357 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/20/bigotry-can-get-ugly/#IDComment137079944 If one looks at American History in times of war within the parameters of what went on in the homefront, this type of occurence isn't something this country hasn't seen before. For example, in World War I and World War II, Germans were completely blasklisted from society and everyone remained suspicious of them, thinking that every German was a "Hun" that wanted to see America burn as the German Reich expanded it's dominion. Also in World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor prompted a large suspicion of Japanese-American families , resulting in the creation of Japanese internment camps, where entire families lived in squalor for the duration of the war because of a vaunted suspicion of people that had virtually no ties to the Imperial Army of Japan. Today, racial tolerance is a lot more prevalent than these eras, so this group hysteria has definitely dwindled since then, yet it can safely be said that this is a similar occurence. Because our current enemy is a group of Islamic Extremist groups, people will associate people of the Arab world and more specifically, Muslims with the evil men that we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sociologically, this can be traced back to the theory of groupthink, the protestors most likely have a common factor among them that makes them feel this way, specifically the congresswoman who's son is a Marine. The only reason why these people were speaking this way in public is because of their similar goal in trying to "expose" these "terrorists" and they seek comfort that they are correct because other people have similar thoughts to them, and therefore leads to these protests. Personally, I see this as a complete outrage and a breach of the victims of this protests' pursuit of happiness. These people were cursing and being completely racist and even yelling at little children who were with their parents. Little do these people realize, is that this bigotry towards Muslims following the 9/11 attacks is exactly why the enemy wants us dead. Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:21:34 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/20/bigotry-can-get-ugly/#IDComment137079944 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/what-would-make-this-guy-less-white/#IDComment135847584 The fact that this man in the video would be considered the quintessential white guy is by the way he speaks and how he conducts himself and what he wears. The first factor is his speech and the tone of his voice. He has a very nasally sounding voice and he makes a lot of strange and awkward pauses in his sentences and has to pronounce every word very particularly and slowly. This paradigm has been examined a lot within media that bridges or burns the bridge of the gap between white and black people where when one race imitates the other, each one is quintessential. Upon listening to this video, the guy’s voice sounded like Will Smith imitating a white person and his cousin Carleton from an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The other factor is the way he conducts himself. He is constantly staring into the camera while he is giving his demonstration and the video itself is extremely bland, boring and is in a very dismal setting that leaves very little to the imagination. As well as this, the fact that all he is doing is demonstrating a holster paired with the fact that his demonstration is taking over 5 minutes for a demonstration for a simple holster lends more credence to the typical “white” attitude. The final factor is what he is wearing. The fact that he is wearing a simple pair of jeans with a white polo shirt is the most common outfit set for any white male, and to make matters worse he has his shirt tucked in when he isn’t going to work, in the military or any other occasion where that dress code must be followed. However, the only reason all of these things are considered “white” is because of our current social structure has outlined that such behavior is considered “white” in contrast to any other ethnicity today. Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:26:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/what-would-make-this-guy-less-white/#IDComment135847584 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/stranger-kidnapping/#IDComment131899786 The reason why we keep our kids from speaking to strangers is due to the fact that generally, people in any given society will fear what they aren’t familiar with. I’m not saying that we should try to understand the norms of kidnappers, but it is the paradigm of a general mistrust of those that we don’t know. As outlined in the article about Americans trying to travel abroad, we as a human race tend to automatically think that people we don’t know or generally associate with is someone that is either dangerous, greedy or just out to get us in general. Take this general mistrust and then add children into the mixture, you get the following situation. Within parenthood, parents will raise their kids based upon their experiences, triumphs and their moral code. Within these factors, you will have to account for this distrust of people outside of the parents’ comfort zone, and therefore the parents will do everything in their power to instill to their children that these people outside their designated comfort zone and norms is something that is bad and to be avoided at all times. The fact that there is kidnappings in the first place is the reason why the whole “don’t talk to strangers” practice continues to exist. I would say it’s not because the kidnappings happen in the first place that causes parents to disallow their children to come into contact with strangers, but as a subconscious justification and scapegoat for the aforementioned practice of mistrusting that which we don’t understand. Wed, 2 Mar 2011 18:09:16 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/stranger-kidnapping/#IDComment131899786 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/17/how-much-government-do-we-need/#IDComment130655890 The fact that the IRS would want to give tax cuts to a personal decision is completely ridiculous. The government trying to control the way mothers wish to raise their children is a boundary that shouldnt be crossed by the government. Further, I dont see what credentials Michelle Obama has to tell every mother in America should do when it comes to feeding their infants. If she was an RN or an LPN or doctor I could see her reasoning to have the audacity to say something such as that. If the government decided to give tax reductions to the people who decide to breastfeed the government would be indirectly trying to enforce a social paradigm by giving benefits to people who think differently from those who choose formula. Although its not being forced, others shouldnt suffer economically because they choose to think differently from those who agree with a vaunted IRS decision, therefore making this a law would be extremely erroneous and above all, un-American. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:50:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/17/how-much-government-do-we-need/#IDComment130655890 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/13/the-other-side/#IDComment128646016 I am amazed at the reaction of the family members of the deceased in this case. Although more than 30 years has passed since the death of their loved one, I don’t know how they are able to sustain their composure and even forgive the man who took their loved one’s life. However, what I don’t understand is the parameters of a 15 year old boy committing a murder. At that time in my life all I was worried about and involved with was trying to get good grades and school and trying to make girls in my school want to go on dates with me. Yet, this statement begs a further exploration into what might have enticed this man to kill someone. In the article he mentions that he was a “coward ruled by his fear and ignorance”; this seems to suggest that there was a certain aspect of his life that may have fallen into the realm of crime and other such deviance. If such is the case, then sociologically one must delve into the normative system embedded within the realm of a crime ran society within the town of York, PA. Yet, personally I do not get how one who is 15 years old could commit a murder unless there was a present mental disability, influence of drugs or alcohol or just hanging out with the wrong crowd. Looking at the first assertion I have written, this can’t be the case since one with a mental disability wouldn’t realize the extent of their actions and feel genuine remorse like the author seems to portray here. Regardless of any of these factors, even though the family members have “forgiven” the perpetrator and that he feels genuine remorse doesn’t erase the fact that he took the life of another human being and that nothing he can do, say or try will erase the void he has left in that family’s life and the stigma of his parents who raised a murderer. Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:21:33 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/13/the-other-side/#IDComment128646016 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/04/the-not-so-invisible-structure-that-shapes-us/#IDComment127131978 The observed drop in Americans taking trips overseas can be largely attributed to the concept of groupthink. Throughout the article, the factors the author blantantly pointed out all are glaring examples of this concept. For example, the concept of ignorance and skepticism of other countries is outlined. The fact that many cringe at the thought of traveling to Nicaragua or other similar nations are viewed as an unfavorable travel destination is due to the amount of the media coverage of the war between militants within the country. Such is the case with Colombia with the perception that it is rampant with drug lords and other such criminals. The media attention focused only on these negatives seem to be the only thing the media decides to tell the American public, and therefore this is the canonical reaction a large percentage of the population will get upon being asked if they would desire to travel to said destination. The other factor mentioned was the economical stress of traveling abroad. Even though the exchange rate in Europe is pretty favorable to Americans, many other nations aren’t and currently, most Americans want to save as much money as possible or they want to avoid plunging into debt. As evidenced in George Ritzer’s article on credit cards, the new practices of banks and common credit card holders; debt and other financial insecurities have risen dramatically in the past few decades and continues to grow. A factor that the author doesn’t really mention is also the current status of the world. Throughout third-world countries and especially in the Middle East, civil war, genocide and other military incursions have been on the rise and tourists sometimes are caught in the middle, such as the American hikers in Iran. Even though this ties back to the ignorance and fear factor of group think, the dangers are extremely present and many people do not want to chance this. Eventually, this paradigm will change, however the social systems and public issues need to decline in order to rid America of this trend. Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:28:07 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/04/the-not-so-invisible-structure-that-shapes-us/#IDComment127131978 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/americans-gone-wild/#IDComment125500140 This situation is a very nebulous one. Although the child is only 5 years old and doesn’t have the maturity or capacity to comprehend the dangers of firearms and the stigma of bringing them to school, but the concept of rational systems also downplays this situation. I disagree that the child should be considered a “suspect” in a criminal investigation by the police department, but the school administration handled this situation as they should. In the concept of rational systems, it is known that systems want stability. In terms of the rules of bringing firearms or knives into school, the safest way to prevent anyone from deviation from the rules is to ban every type of gun, be it a toy or water gun to a fully automatic assault rifle. Additionally, if this kid was let off without any scholastic discipline, parents who have children within that school would immediately feel uncomfortable sending their children to a school where the district allowed a child to go unpunished for bringing a loaded weapon into the school. The suspension was the correct course of action, however the police action in disallowing him on school grounds for an investigation that the child was only an accessory to was very superfluous. However, one can also argue that within rational systems, irrational actions have rational options and consequences, which allows more credence towards the previous argument of not deviating from the rational system already emplaced. I personally am divided on this subject. From the sociological standpoint, I completely agree with the actions of the school district and the police department by adhering to their emplaced systems for dealing with one possessing a firearm inside a school. However, I also don’t agree that the child should be called a “suspect” and that he can’t return to school until a criminal investigation, which can take lots of time and energy and is only done in the case where there is a suspect with the intent to commit a crime. Since the child in question is only 5 years old, there is no possible way that he could have had any intent on discharging the firearm within his classroom, nor does he have the mental capacity to realize what he was doing with the gun, or even that what he had put in his pocket was in fact a lethal weapon. Wed, 2 Feb 2011 20:26:51 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/americans-gone-wild/#IDComment125500140 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/19/rise-in-national-guard-and-reserve-suicides-whats-it-all-about-soc-001-blog/#IDComment123983394 The rise of suicide within the military can be explained through Durkheim’s theory of Anomic Suicide. Anomic suicide coincides with the state of normlessness called anomie. In this situation, soldiers returning home from a hostile environment where life is predicated on war, taking orders, facing death and killing enemy soldiers return to a life that is completely devoid of these circumstances. Daily life in the United States is very self-reliant, such as going out to get a job, going to that job, interacting socially, and other such activities are all done by the actions of yourself and yourself only. No drill sergeant or a first Lieutenant is giving you orders on where to shoot, when to advance and retreat and so on and so forth. As was mentioned in the video, men who come back to the United States from a combat tour are immersed and surrounded with people who have not experienced what they have overseas and cannot even begin to comprehend some of the horrors they have witnessed in combat. Because of this, many will feel helpless and turn to drugs to erase this sense of normless and hopelessness. However, that doesn’t solve anything in the long or short term and often these men and women feel that they must end their life because they are stuck in a world where they cannot function since their way of life has been drastically warped by the experience of fighting in a war overseas. Another condition forming this phenomena is an aspect of Durkheim’s Altruistic suicide. In terms of a soldier, altruistic suicide is carried out on the battlefield to sacrifice oneself for another member of their squad, or buying time for the rest of the units to win the battle and die for the cause they happen to be fighting for. In the case of a soldier returning back to normal life from overseas, many will feel that they have lost their sense of individuality since they can’t function during a peacetime setting and have been so heavily integrated into their military units that they lose a sense of individuality and inevitably end their own life. Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:21:19 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/19/rise-in-national-guard-and-reserve-suicides-whats-it-all-about-soc-001-blog/#IDComment123983394 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cc%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment123978026 SOC 001 Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:48:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cc%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment123978026