Recently, in an attempt to establish some basis of communication with
someone who teaches Sociology, I got him very upset. How? I poked fun
at his "the science of sociology" comment he'd made. I said that it was
true that "the scientific method" was a necessity to sociology, but that
sociology itself wasn't a science.
It really burned him. You see he believes in it enough to really want to
teach it. My studies in it proved to me that sociology is wistful
thinking on a grand scale, picking apart people's thoughts and
civilization to find out "everything" when it was of no consequence --
because, unlike science where given the same parameters and the same
experiment you get the same result, you couldn't even guarantee that
anything in sociology could give duplicate results ... either in
individuals or groups or societies.
Before you quit reading, I've just given you some key concepts:
communication
belief structures
proof
If you can define those things flawlessly, you're well on the way
to becoming dictator of the world.
Now I'll throw out a few scary concepts.
Scientists still don't know how the brain works, let alone how thinking
works. Studies have shown that the brighter, more intelligent, more
creative individuals of the world are the ones most likely to suffer
from schizophrenia and major depression -- studies of brain structure
and brain function *have* produced predictable results which can be
duplicated with other individuals. Sleep deprivation is hardest on the
brain, and thus the mind; the body can live just fine without sleep.
Regardless of the circumstances around them, people will hold individual
pictures of what the "ideal world" would be; read 1984, Farenheit 451,
and some world histories if you want to be scared. Identical (not
mirrored) twins raised together and exposed to all the same things, at
all the same stages in life, will have different beliefs and different
goals and different ways of reacting to things; equally scary, in some
ways, is that those twins raised apart and not even knowing of each
other would have so much in common in likes, dislikes, career choices,
spouses, pets, hobbies, that it would seem impossible under the
circumstances.
Final terrifying thoughts:
There never was and never will be a society in which everyone feels they
belong. Rich or poor, fat or famine thin, male or female, religious
fanatic or atheistic hermit, guy next door or weirdo down the street,
each will like something about his/her world, and each will be capable
of hating something/everything about that same world. And every
society, good or bad, will have potential leaders and potential sheep
who will follow those leaders anywhere and do anything.
Where does that leave us? With the same abilities and weaknesses as
everyone else in some areas ... with the ability to choose a path, the
ability to find others of like mind, the ability to plan and follow
through, the ability to fail, and be hurt, and be human. And that's the
only thing that will keep us going -- each of us, as individuals, doing
our best to remember what a human being is and can be, and working to
keep ourselves the type of human being we'd like others to be.
There will always be conflict, always be disagreements, a long as two
people and two human brain cells still exist. It's what the cause of
the conflict is, and how we learn to resolve it, that will -- hopefully
-- keep us human.
-- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
