Culture Shock

So, in class we learned about how each culture has their own perspective to look at things as simple as hand motions, to things as complicated as rules. Playing the card games, with different rules, and not being able to talk really gave me a better idea on how most of us tend to be awfully ethnocentric. I was already judging poor Alissa when she started to play differently than how my table had played. However, it really got me thinking how judgemental we tend to get just because something is different than how we are used to- it taught me to remember every culture is different, just like Sal's example of not classifying all Latinos as "Hispanic". Then, when we spoke about different eating habits from different cultures, I remembered I can connect that to me. So, all my grandparents are from Poland and to them finger-food is viewed as "dirty" and "a bad manner"; everytime my grandparents are with us and we have BBQ's or pizza, they always ask for a knife and fork. It's so strange to us just because here, we are used to picking up a pizza and biting into it. Yet, when you ask my grandparents to do that, they think that it's equivilant to chewing with your mouth open. That reminded me of the fishbowl metaphor- we are used to what we see everyday, and when something new is placed in our enviornment or around us, we often tend to judge ourselves due to culture shock or because of our ethnocentrism. A time where I had culture shock is finding out that in Paris, it's perfectly normal for men to pee outside, in public urinals...not public restrooms, but urinals that are placed at random in the city. I'm not even sure who thought of that, but obviously it's something normal the men in Paris do. Here in the US; i'm sure you'd get a fine.

Categories and Generalizations

In class we discussed the importance or the disadvantage of generalizations and categorizing people into "groups" however, I noticed a trend in class today. I realized that nearly everything we have dealt with in this unit had to do with this final article. Looking back to the episode of freaks and geeks we learned why types of stereotypes came with each categorized group (the freaks & the geeks) and how people applied their knowledge of those groups to situations, for example students know the "freaks" are supposed to be tough, rebellious, and mean so the "geeks" already don't see a chance in any geek wining a fight with a freak. Why? We learned that in the article today where Charton explains that we apply relevant knowledge that we learned in the past, to situations we encounter and that is because of generalization. Thus, because we generalize certain stereotypes, we use it to our advantage- staying away from the freaks. Then when we did the "booted off the boat" activity and we applied our previous knowledge of categories: elders, smarties, the "useful" and the "non-useful" and that was the determinants of who stayed and who got booted off. Obviously before that I never put that much thought into things, I kind of assumed we just do it because it's "what's expected" of us, but I'd never think people put thought into doing experiments and writings on it- I thought it was just a natural part of how our minds work. It was proved to me that it is a large part of Sociology because in the movie A Bronx Tale, we saw the many categories and generalizations that came with the categories "C" was placed in. For example, when he started to hang around with Sonny, the big Mafia tough guy; people began to fear him- like the guy who owed him money. The reason that happens is because we tend to categorize people into stereotypes and while doing so we generalize about those groups. Mafia guys (Sonny and the crew) are people who were not trusted and feared. "C's" friends were categorized as trouble makers who seeked revenge and were generalized as racists.
I can relate this to myself because when you're at the lunch room the tables become categories, for example we see all the asians together and we just assume they're all the "smart ones who do homework during their break time" or we see someone sitting alone, and we generalize that they have no friends. So, obviously it's a natural way of thinking, but we never think if our generalizations are even correct. Perhaps it's just because we're more comfortable sitting with certain people who share commonalities with us, because Charton did express that often times our generalizations are incorrect.

Identity Molecule: What Makes Us Up?

The activity that we did this week incorporated us classifying ourselves into groups, and what groups truly make up who we are. We sat in a circle and started to see who had common groups with us, and I was shocked to see how many similarities I have with the class. Obviously, I knew we all classified ourselves as a part of the "SHS" group, however when people listed a "friend group" and "family group" and starred them as important it was great to see all of the class standing up with me. What really interested me was to see the different people that make up the society (around our area) that we live in. There were students from Iran Lithuania and India, and others who had their religion, such as Christianity, that was important to them because usually in our school everyone is classified as a "snobby rich Jewish student" when this activity proved the diversity of not only our school but our society. Sure, some groups are more popular in our society, such as sport players and workers, but in the end we have things that differentiate us from one another. Activities such as these, allow us to better connect with our community and to see that people we may not even be friends with has our morals, same lifestyles, or same personalities. This allows us to take the time to get to know people, rather than judge them from what we hear or think we "know". Similar to Sociological Mindfulness, often times we tend to judge from what we see on the outside, but never take the time to see what's on the inside. We become too caught up in our own lives, and as a community we break away from others because we hear of certain stereotypes or rumors we may not agree with. Seeing we share common beliefs or personalities as others is a beneficial things and also teachers us to become more open individuals. It taught me to become more open rather then being too quick to judge. :]

Abandon Ship

In class we did an activity called abandon ship, based on a true circumstance. Through out the activity we either volunteered or were chosen to take the role of a character and classmates had to fight for their chance to stay alive. I couldn't really imagine how those people must have felt years ago when this took place, having to either live or die because a boat can't hold everyone is a tough and awfully sad situation. I was one of the observers while classmates had to decide who should stay and who should leave and although I didn't help decide I still think it was rather unfortunate that who survived was based on others selfishness. For example, they got rid of all elders and ones with health conditions (epilepsy and obesity) because they felt that these people would danger the others chances of survival; however, anyone with ship knowledge, education, and families got the privilege to live. Yes, having a family would absolutely give you a reason for survival and that may have been a less selfish choice, this represents how our last week we spoke of sociological mindfulness in class and how what matters is how we influence something-- being educated in a specific major you're interested in really comes in handy when peoples' lives are at risk. For example, the Nobel prize winner for physics and ship operators were kept so they can help save the lives of others on the raft, regardless if they took up two spots, they helped save our classmates in the raft. This can be connected to everyday life, specifically when there are partner quizzes in classes. Haven't people ever noticed that when you can choose your partner often times people go for the "more intelligent" classmates so that they can receive a good grade rather than pairing up with their friends? We're all guilty of doing that, myself included and we do these things in order to receive better grades. By that we influence our younger siblings, perhaps motivate people to work harder, but we really do it for better reactions from teachers and parents. however, in the end it does motivate us as individuals to get better grades in the process and it does tend to make us more responsible, by studying the next time.