Sociology

The social world works in patterned ways. Without patterns there couldnt be an order in our society, but most of the people dont know they exists and how they rule our lives. We do the same things every day, we behave most of the time in the usual way but we often dont realize that. Besides, we give more importance to how we appear rather than to how we are. Because its all about the image. This is a pattern as well.

This essay tries to find out how people can learn to be so sociologically mindful to see all the patterns and  to manage them in order to improve their life and society in general.

Patterns make sense in the social world
All human activity is subject to habitualization (Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 1966). Society is ruled by patterns, by schemes. But the question put by Michael Schwalbe is can man perceive all the patterns that rule society now And also, can man manage them in order to improve society If we knew, by instance, all the patterns that lead to a certain crime, we should be able to remove them and to prevent future crimes. The author wrote If we want to change the world, we must be aware of the patterns that make the world what it is (Schwalbe, 1997, p. 125). People are not always aware of them even if they represent the scheme of their lives.

A  new idea can change or create a pattern in the social world. It should be such a great idea to almost shock peoples life. Schwalbe wrote about the Plate tectonics that shaped our planet and specifically our continents it was obvious but for long time most scientists took it as a coincidence or a freak of nature.

Until fifteen year ago, talking about the chance to call someone with an handy phone or chatting with a friend using a personal computer could be seen as a futuristic achievement, something that we could only dream of. A dream, indeed.

Internet and the technological progress in general made the difference in less than two decades. They changed the way people communicate with each other. They changed peoples life. Internet is the new pattern.

If we look back in the past, we saw new ideas or better new cultural and social movements that changed or create new patterns. In the mid sixties we saw the rising of the womens emancipation. The way men and society in general behaved towards women started to change. Today many women work, they have brilliant carriers and compete with men on many fields. This was something unbelievable till the late fifties.

We might  say, at this stage, that in order to see the patterns most people need great change, need to be shocked. Then they learn how to get rid of the patterns which led them to that specific (and wrong) behaviour and act better.

The last economic crisis is another brilliant example which shows how financial managers and governments are now (hopefully) trying to change their behaviour when it comes to public economy.
Schwalbe wonders if jobs can change mans personality or is the way around. It suggests that maybe jobs shape people more than people shape jobs. How could it be And can we assert this for any kind of job Of course no. If the pattern is to make money, to be competitive, to be the best, then Swalbes supposition is right. In this case the pattern is the status symbol that people want to achieve and maintain.

But there are exceptions. There are cases in which people change or choose the job they end up in according to their personality, not to the pattern. Some examples the Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd was a bureaucrat, Barack Obama was community organiser and best selling author John Grisham started out as a lawyer.

In conclusion, we can say that patterns rule society and people should be sociologically mindful to see and manage all of them. But, eventually, the human being is always unpredictable.

Cause, contingency and patterns

Can a trip on metro change a womans life According to Peter Howitt movie, Sliding doors (1998) it can. The woman catches the metro earlier than usual, gets home earlier than usual and finds her boyfriend sleeping with another woman. She breaks up with him, finds a new man and a new beautiful life. Or she misses the metro, gets home later and finds his boyfriend all alone. He keeps cheating on her but she never finds out. So, is life really so cruelly simple An old saying tells that the devils is in the details and maybe its true one single, little meaningless detail can change the stream of our life. According to this, we have no control on our life.

 But Schwalbe has another opinion. Probably is all a matter of luck and patterns. For the author, the swirling stream of time and events, for all the surprises it might produce, is not random but patterned, as we can see if we are sociologically mindful (p. 161). In few words, we should be able to see the patterns that lead us to do one choice rather then another, even if its casual. But when we cant explain the circumstances that cause certain situations because their conjunction might seem to be a fluke, and because many of them are beyond our control, it makes that we would invoke luck to explain what we cant otherwise account for (p. 165).

So its just a matter of luck if your parents changed job and alter the stream of your life. You lost most of your friends because you changed city every year but, for instance, you wouldnt have become a doctor if you hadnt study in that particular university, meeting the right people at the right time, even if your best friends were living far away from you and you grew up alone.

Life is, first of all, a matter of choices. When you are young, parents choose for you and influence your life. Once adult, is up to you. And as a parent you will influence your sons life.

Schwalbe wonders if its true that is the art that chooses the artists and not the other way around. And what are the social conditions that enable people to have these artistic skills

Some people can find natural to do a particular job or hobby and they become fond of it. The reasons could be dozens. Because what they studied, because of the education they received from their family, because they share the same passion with some friends and so they find simple to turn it in a hobby or, better, in a job. Because of the luck, also.

But more interesting is to know why other people will be never chosen by any form of activity. Because of the lack of skills Of passion Or because, even if they are talented, they never met the right people who can appreciate their skills or that form of activity in which they could do their best. Its just a matter of time. Sooner or later the activity will find them. But the search should be mutual.

It s all about the image

Every day we wake up and we start the day thinking about how we can act, how we will act and what will be peoples reactions. Once we put our step out of our house, we start the show. Because life is a stage, a theatre. Its all about the image we give to the people we meet in our life. We spend most of the time building the perfect image. As Schwelbe says, people use all the signs they can find in social life (e.g., skills, money, clothing) in order to create impressions and creditable selves and try to use these signs in the most impressive way (p. 171).

We can say the same with interaction. We base our relationships on appearances. We use images to judge people, even if we know how risky it is, even if we know that most of the time we will change our mind about them.

If some writer would like to write a biography about your life, you will be probably more worried to build an impressive image of yourself  telling everything in a positive and remarkable way, rather than saying just the truth about your life, with pro and cons. Because you want people to read the best of you.

In our society the image is everything. And it influences also the media, the general information. Editors choose to publish articles about a particular issue and avoid other maybe more important topics. And the answer is always the same. They can tell you the issue is not as important as the other one. And you will find out that the other one is somehow related to the advertising company who is paying the newspapers to put its ads on it. Because profit is profit.

And when it comes to scandals, the more pictures of victims you put, the more copies you sell. Gossip sells more than anything else. Gossip is the world of images par excellence, is the world common people dream of and about what they build up their own image.

Young people usually show they drink a particular brand of beer or wear that brand of coat so they tell society how cool they are. Theres nothing cool in wearing something that can be purchased by millions of people (Schwalbe, p. 187), but the reason why they behave in this manner is because they need to show some kind of image of themselves and to prove they belong to that group of people (it doesnt matter how big it is). The sense of belonging to a very cool group, that smokes a certain brand of cigarettes, drives expensive cars or wears fancy clothes is very appealing to them.

Image is the new pattern and has nothing to do with personalities its the measure by which people judge, treat and define each other.